News

For a brief period yesterday / this morning (depending on where you're reading this from), Square Enix's official French store website prematurely listed a version of the HD remastered Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 combo for PS4. This hasn't been officially announced yet - hence the "likely" in this story's title - but the fact that it showed up on an official company webpage makes it seem a pretty safe bet. That and, of course, the fact that it isn't a particularly surprising move.

In the meantime, I'll just go back to pining for a FFX-3 (cue my topic on the audio drama "Will" included with the HD re-release.)

Source: IGN

Warning: these snippets are very snippety. Also, they do not include a FFVII remake.

In a recent interview, Kingdom Hearts 3 co-director Tai Yasue said that Marvel and Star Wars are available for use in the game. Everything in the Disney stable is on the table, Yasue says, and that the team is having a hard time deciding what to and what not to include. It's really busting my brain to imagine Darth Vader in KH, but we've already seen Disney's liberal employment of their franchises in the pursuit of cash-money, so perhaps it isn't so crazy as it sounds.

This next news is already a week old, but worth throwing in: a new trailer has been released for Final Fantasy Type-0, which will be released in March of 2015. It's safe to say that Square Enix is entering the pre-release build-up phase with this one. Hajime Tabata, the game's director and recently-appointed director has expressed the desire to make them into a series in their own right ('Type-1,' 'Type-2,' and 'Type-3' have all been trademarked for several years now), so there's a fair bit hinging on the upcoming title - aside from the oft-alluded-to financial pressure on Square Enix. Perhaps to encourage early purchases, this trailer says for the first time that the afore-promised FFXV demos will be included with Type-0 "while supplies last."

Finally, Square Enix has done a soft-release of a new, free-to-play, mobile PvP strategy RPG, Heavenstrike Rivals. As part of its soft-release, the title isn't available at all in the US; it is available on iOS in Canada, however, and I *think* on Android in the UK. At any rate: not available in US, currently exists in English, and will eventually be available for both mobile platforms. The art style is quite pleasant (check the third link below) and it boasts "over 230 units." Early reviews seem mixed, many agreeing that the game doesn't seem finished yet - no surprises there! - but seem to be positive enough that it's worth keeping an eye on. For our members in territories / with the appropriate platforms, see if you can check it out and let us hear your thoughts!

Source: Kotaku, Siliconera, Google Store

Though it's already a bit late in the day, we want to let you all know that Square Enix has hit the cyber Monday thing pretty hard, and a whole lot of stuff on their online store is on sale! This includes a lot of hard copies as well as digital downloads.

A few of the titles included are Deus Ex: Human Revolution, FFXV: A Realm Reborn, FFX/FFX-2 HD (also the collector's edition), FFVII, FFVIII, Thief, Tomb Raider, Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, Dissidia, FFXIII, FFXIII-2, and more. Happy pickings!

Source: Square Enix Online Store

Well, that's pretty much the gist of it, I guess. It's not an unknown phenomenon for game franchises to have periodicals in their names, produced by their publishers; apparently Persona has already gotten the same treatment.

The first all-Final Fantasy, all-the-time magazine will be out sometime in December in Japan and will be dated as "Winter 2014," implying that it will be a quarterly magazine if published on a schedule; it's possible that it will instead be a "whenever we feel like it" sort of thing from Squenix as well.

The real question is, will these magazines have any news that isn't covered by Famitsu or its brethren well in advance? The first issue purports to have info on Type-0 HD, G-Bike, and the new mobile games, so we shall see.

Source: Siliconera

As is their way, the Distant Worlds team releases a massive burst of concert information about once a quarter. Now is that time. It makes for a long news post. Now is that time as well!

Our last post talked about the upcoming shows in Toronto and New Jersey - I didn't realize until now, though, that the first of the New Jersey set of shows will actually be the centennial show for the traveling performance. That might make those tickets a bit more precious.

The new announcement for Distant Worlds this time around is to fill the gap between the New Jersey shows and the previously-announced pair of St. Louis concerts. I'm excited about this one because it's April 24 in Boston, the current (approximate) headquarters of CoN. Tickets go on sale on December 3, and I'm really hoping to snag some.

Also from our last post, we noted that A New World, the chamber music series, was wrapping up its season in Europe. What was then the final show for 2014 is still next week in Paris. But now, they've booked a new date for December 12 in Houston at Rice University. They'll also start 2015 with two February shows in St. Paul, Minnesota and one at the University of Michigan. It seems like it's potentially easier to arrange the chamber style of A New World than it is a full orchestra like Distant Worlds, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more dates showing up in our next update.

Good luck to those going for tickets! Don't take mine.

Source: Distant Worlds, A New World

There's been a surprising amount of console and PC news from Square Enix as of late, from PC re-releases of games to new platforms and release windows for newer games. You might have even thought that the previous deluge of mobile games was going to slow down a bit, but if so, today's news proves you naive!

At a minimum for next calendar year, there will be two Final Fantasy-branded games, as well as what looks to be a helper app, available for iOS and Android. All three titles will be free to play with a microtransaction layer, though it remains to be seen what portions will be behind a paywall.

Crystal of Time looks to be the more traditional-style Final Fantasy game at the moment, with what appears to be a modified ATB battle setup that looks like it has a gesture-based wheel to select commands, which could be quite cool. As you might surmise from the name, time travel plays a major role. The art style is different from what we've seen recently for Square Enix' mobile games, but looks good to me so far.

Brave Exvius is a different take, a combination between Squenix and a Japanese mobile game developer called Alim. There appears to be less information about this game, but based on the early screenshots, my concern is that it might be a bit like a gussied-up All the Bravest, given the large number of party members, the presence of classic Final Fantasy protagonists fighting at once, and the vertical orientation of the gameplay. Hopefully future information will allay those fears.

The helper app looks to be a portal from which people can keep tabs on Squenix' new products and marketing events, as well as a storefront with digital content available for download. One special feature already announced is a Triple Triad game, though there's no indication if this is an in-app purchase, has online components, or anything beyond the name.

While the titles only appear in Japanese at the moment, the mobile strategy for Squenix clearly defines worldwide releases in multiple languages on similar timelines whenever possible. We can assume that Western releases will also be in 2015.

Source: Kotaku