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I know you're here at the Caves of Narshe because you play RPGs, specifically Square Enix RPGs, specifically Final Fantasy games. Well, if you've not been following E3 this week, I've got news for you: there's precious little of that to be had here today. With E3 wrapped, here's what Square Enix hit heavy.

The biggest coverage to come out of the conference had everything to do with Eidos. The Tomb Raider reboot, which really did look very nice, got a lot of press (including a long-form controlled demo early in Microsoft's keynote). That game is still scheduled to come out next year, but the progress so far looked pretty impressive for a game that far out. Later in E3, the Hitman series took center stage, with a big crowd for the debut trailer. Absolution, the new title, is also due out in 2012. Deus Ex was also everywhere - a third title that a couple years ago would have been part of Eidos' booth, but fortuitously has fallen under Square Enix' umbrella due to smart corporate buyouts.

For the core RPG/Final Fantasy output of E3 2011, you really can't look much further than Final Fantasy XIII-2. We reported earlier in the week that a new, longer trailer debuted during E3, and while I admit that I haven't watched it (as I'm afraid of spoilers, since I still have yet to beat the first one!), it seems to have at least generated buzz, though of course it's not universally positive. One thing that surprised me, though, is that the game was actually playable at E3, as evidenced by these videos posted by Kotaku earlier in the week. RPGSite managed to get an interview with the director and producer of the game, as well, during the tumult of E3.

There was no news about Type-0 or the new Kingdom Hearts that I've seen come from E3, which is very disappointing. I can't speak for whether they simply had no presence at E3, or if the presence they did have was merely news old enough that it wasn't worth reporting, but there was almost certainly nothing new at all to appear. However, the official Type-0 site updated as E3 was closing, with some new screenshots and character reveals, so all is not lost there.

In other happy news emerging from E3, Square Enix announced a big, round number from the Final Fantasy series, and you have to admit it's impressive: the Final Fantasy series as a whole has now shipped over one hundred million copies worldwide. That's more than four million copies of the games every single year - maybe that's not a huge feat given the many remakes over the years, but you have to think back to the eighties and early nineties, when there just weren't that many from which to choose. The company, wisely, didn't talk about whether that includes just the core numbered series or also sideline series like Tactics, the Final Fantasy VII Compilation, or games that were called "Final Fantasy" in some regions but not others.

Even knowing that milestone, you'd be forgiven for being generally disappointed in Square Enix at E3 this year. I would have expected a stronger showing myself, if I'm perfectly honest. But, if you're unhappy with the company's performance, you're not the only one. Even at least one Square Enix executive shares concern over the company's core game franchises, going so far as to call the lack of Japanese output from the company at E3 "humiliating." Is there a way to bounce back from this? Koji Taguchi, the aforementioned executive, is clearly worried about it. Got any advice for him that doesn't start and end with "remake Final Fantasy VII?"

That does it for E3 this year, as far as CoN is concerned. Hope you enjoyed our recaps and editorials, and we'll be back with more of the same when it's time for the Tokyo Game Show in a couple months, where one hopes Squenix will be back with more gusto. If I missed anything good, make sure to respond and set me straight!

Not much to say here, but a longer trailer from the newest Final Fantasy sequel came out today during E3. Square Enix hasn't gotten much play in the big E3 media so far, so this is a bit under the radar.

If you're looking forward to the sequel, the trailer can be found at Gamespot.

This was a bit of an underwhelming E3 day, at least for me. Let's hope for the best tomorrow!

Source: Gamespot

Square Enix are preparing for E3, of course; it officially starts next Tuesday. For us, they're mainly doing it with a microsite that, as of this writing, doesn't work. If you care to find a metaphor in that for your faith in the company, well, I won't stop you. Hopefully it comes back online soon, though, as the site last year was really pretty nice, as I recall.

Square Enix are only talking about a few of the games that they'll be showing, and I haven't yet found any mention of a standalone presser that will be aired anywhere public. I don't believe they did one last year, either, so we'll have to feast on scraps that we get second-hand. For now, though, we do know of several games that will appear; of most interest to RPG fans will be Final Fantasy XIII-2 and WAKFU. However, Tomb Raider, the new Hitman, Deus Ex, Dead Island, and the new 3DS game Heroes of Ruin also headline the offering. There's no mention of Type-0 or Dream Drop Distance in the press release, but there's little doubt that they'll be in the booth in some fashion, surely, along with some other big-ticket games that escape my mind at the moment.

As for CoN, we're going to cover E3 the way we did last year, I think, as much as possible. That means that we'll be watching the big three press conferences in chat, as well as posting live thoughts about the offerings to Twitter and Facebook. After each of the big pressers, one of us will write up a kinda-bloggy recap for CoN news as well. If you want to participate, all you have to do is follow us on Twitter (@cavesofnarshe) or on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/cavesofnarshe), come to chat to make snide comments about the games you're seeing, or watch this space for the wrap-up news.

If you're on Facebook or Twitter, we'd love it if you'd reference us in your own tweets or posts about E3, or if you'd retweet or share our comments to your own network. Help us keep our following growing by making sure all seven of your friends know about us!

Source: Square Enix, Kotaku

Slowly but surely, Distant Worlds is becoming less distant to more and more Final Fantasy fans, as the tour adds more dates that cover more geographical areas in North America. Sorry, overseas fans, but no new dates for you in this update; however, as consolation, the DVDs I mentioned in my last Distant Worlds post are now available from AmaCoN US and AmaCoN UK.

A brief rundown of the new dates:

• Houston, 16 July 2011
• Vancouver, 27 July 2011 (with Uematsu)
• Baltimore, 9 and 10 September 2011 (with Uematsu)
• Los Angeles, 5 November 2011
• Kitchener, Ontario, 28 February 2012
• St. Louis, Missouri, 23 and 24 March, 2012
• Toronto, 31 March 2012 (with Uematsu)

For presale dates and all other information, hit the Distant Worlds site below.

Source: Distant Worlds

You might recall laszlow's post from a couple months back, in which we, the gamers, were invited to vote upon which games should be included in their retrospective. Time has flown, and now the results have been made public - well, people who voted got the results an hour ago, but now they're actually public.

So, how did your favorite games do? If you're thinking specifically of Square Enix games, they did pretty okay. For the PlayStation, three of the four games came from the old Squaresoft: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Einhander. Beyond that, though, not so hot; Final Fantasy lost to Zelda, Chrono Trigger also lost to Zelda, and Actraiser whiffed against the first Sim City on SNES.

I think a fair number of the results were pretty predictable, but that's probably because a lot of the games are either truly impressive, had lax competition in their categories, or both. I happily greeted the news that Bioshock and Portal both got in, personally, and was quite amused to see Minecraft topple the Starcraft II juggernaut. To form your own opinions, just hit the source link below.

Source: Smithsonian Institute

Well, what have we got today. Here's a hint: It's not a new Chrono series game. I misled you for funsies. What we DO have are several versions of Chrono Trigger being released on various platforms almost simultaneously. We've got the Playstation Network Version, which is a port of the Playstation version. This, however, will probably not be seen until next month. There's the WiiWare version, which is a port of the original SNES version. Finally, there's a shiny new version for iMode mobile phones, which is an upgraded version of the DS port. The mobile version will be split into two parts, which must be bought separately in order to get the whole game. It also features (apparently) updated visuals and a more relevant control scheme.

In Final Fantasy news, there's some interesting stuff on the Type-0 front. You know how we've had moogles since Final Fantasy V, and that's their name? Well, in Type 0, it would seem that "Moogle" is actually an acronym for a miltary position. Oh, and they're part of a group called "Cranberry Knights", too. For more details on the upcoming PSP game, check here for a summary of the story, batlle system and characters, and here for details on the missions and summons. Also more character details. Gotta love Famitsu.

And what else have Square-Enix been up to recently? Well, they've just released an app for the iPhone that teahces the English language to the user. Useful! (And sexy!) Add another notch the the iPhone tally, since their next app in production is a comic book/game hybrid, titled "Imaginary Range". This is set to be released on May 5th, for iDevices and Android. I guess the iPhone tally should be modified to include those too, huh. Finally, a little snippet of possible plagiarism. Japanese Wii RPG "Pandora's Tower" was given some box art recently, and one of the characters bears a resemblance to one of the known Final Fantasy Versus XIII characters. Comparison images within, with plenty of red pen pointing out the similarities. They do appear very similar in design, but as of yet, no comment from either developer has been made.

That's all for now, folks. You can return to playing Final Fantasy IV Complete.

Source: Andriasang, Siliconera