News

In the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that caused horrendous damage and loss of life in Japan not yet a week ago, there have been a number of game companies who, even with their own ability to work and earn money curtailed, have picked up the mantle to donate funds to the relief effort. Level-5, Konami, Capcom, Nintendo, Namco Bandai, this list goes on and on, and as of today it now includes Square Enix, who are throwing 100 million yen of their own into the effort (for the rest of us, that means a little over 1.25 million American dollars, or just over 900,000 Euros).

Have you been wanting to donate money to the cause of rescuing Japan from the aftereffects of this quake? I know Japan has a special place in many of our hearts as video gamers, so I can't blame you for it. If so, maybe you should take a look at Siliconera, who are hosting a raffle with a Cecil Harvey Dissidia figure and some other assorted swag, with all proceeds from the raffle going to the Red Cross for disaster relief in Japan. Alternatively, you can also visit Google's donation page and donate directly.

Source: andriasang, Siliconera, Google

It was just a couple weeks ago that we found out about Final Fantasy III for iOS devices. Well, okay, the CoN News Team missed it entirely, but member Aeris-Logan did not. For those who have missed it, the Final Fantasy III release for Apple hardware will be a port of the Nintendo DS version, altered obviously to allow the use of a single touch screen without control pad.

Things have been moving fast since then, though; not only is the game going to drop in March (and March is over one-third over already!), it's going to get a simultaneous worldwide release on iTunes in eight languages. In addition to the obvious Japanese and English, players who read French, Italian, German, Spanish, or two variants of Chinese will get a localized version as well - that's significant effort going into this release.

The final release date hasn't been announced, and iTunes does things on its own schedule anyway. Pricing isn't out yet either, but other similar Squenix games on the service sit at $8.99 in the United States, even older games. Expect that price or your local equivalent.

Source: Siliconera

Dissidia 012: Duodecim is set to be released quite soon; March 3 in Japan, March 22 in North America, and March 25 in Europe. In recognition, Squenix is holding a launch event - and it will be streamed on the internet. I hope you speak Japanese, though, because it will be in Japanese and the site it's being streamed on is NicoNico Live - a Japanese video site. You'll need to make an account on NNL if you want to watch it, so, again, I hope you speak Japanese.

The event is to release information about the game, show how the competitions will work, and star some "special guests". Whether or not they'll be announcing new characters or just giving information on ones they've already announced remains to be seen.

Actually, I've never played Dissidia. To me, Final Fantasy is an RPG series, not a fighting game series, and I don't do fighting games too much. But I know a lot of people like it, and it is always exciting when anything new that's Final Fantasy-related is released.

Source: Final Fantasy Union

It would be more convenient for everyone if they would just add all their dates at once, don't you think? The Distant Worlds team left some gaps in the 2011 schedule when we last heard from them, but it's now time to start filling a few in.

First up is the first time that Distant Worlds will hit the five boroughs of New York City: 1 and 2 April 2011. Uematsu will attend, as will FFXIV vocalist Susan Calloway for these Friday and Saturday night shows. It appears that these shows will be the first Distant Worlds shows to play Final Fantasy XIII and XIV music in North America.

Between New York and Chicago, Atlanta is getting two shows too, on 6 and 7 May. There's no further information as yet as to who might attend those shows as a celebrity guest, but since they're not saying, that doesn't look good. Still, if you're in the South, it's probably a much easier concert to see than New York!

And, if you just can't get to any of these shows, you're not alone. But on April 1, you'll be able to get a live performance DVD on AmaCoN for both North America and Europe. They're not up for preorder yet, but we'll provide the links just as soon as we have them!

Source: Distant Worlds

A cool week for Square Enix News Tidbits, by and large, but two upcoming PSP games from long-running Squenix franchises got North American release dates this week.

For those who haven't been turned off by the series' lack of desire to maintain a consistent game genre or play style, The 3rd Birthday got a release date as well as a lead voice actress for fan favorite Aya Brea. The game will be available to North American players on 29 March 2011 (which just happens to be this humble author's birthday, so hint, hint); if you pick the game up, you'll hear Aya voiced by Yvonne Strahovski. You might well recognize her name from her work both as a voice actress in Mass Effect 2, as Miranda, as well as her leading role in NBC's "Chuck." If you'd like to get your preorder in for this game via AmaCoN, look no further.

Another game getting a release date this week is the PSP remake of Final Fantasy IV. This one will be dropping on 19 April 2011; if you haven't seen the news, you can note that this remake will be a rollup of Final Fantasy IV with previously-Wii-only The After Years. We know that the game will get a bit of visual polish and new CG, and will probably look a bit like previous Final Fantasy remakes on the handheld, but other than that we're not quite sure which Final Fantasy IV we're getting, exactly. Picking up the game? Let us know, and do it from AmaCoN.

This is shaping up to be a massive year for Squenix on the PSP. Beyond these two games, don't forget that owners of the now-first-generation Sony handheld will be getting Tactics Ogre and the Dissidia sequel, all before the end of Spring. Keeping up will be painful.

Source: IGN, Kotaku

That's right folks; Nomura has confirmed that Versus will not be making an appearance in 2011. Wait, why does everyone seem so unsurprised?

According to information he shared with a Japanese magazine, however, the wait should be worthwhile. The team is apparently intent on focusing primarily on quality, and that they intend to take the time necessary to fulfill this goal. You know, unlike FFXIV. In addition to the brief information from Nomura, the trailer mentioned in our news post last week is now available for everyone to watch (via the Gametrailers link at the bottom).

Based on comments from Nomura, the player will have access to a large number of vehicles in the game: airships, cars, chocobos and military vehicles / war machines. The team is also striving to achieve a high level of environment detail- there will be a day/night cycle on the world map, and environment events will carry out seamlessly while playing. This last bit, designed to be a fully real-time event system, is apparently what's holding the team up. You can see examples of this in the trailer, as certain events are triggered by Noctis' movement and then carried out in real time.

Battle appears to often have many enemies. The player can alternate control in battle between three characters. Nomura added that the three characters seen in previous trailers accompanying Noctis will all be playable, but that there will be several additional playable characters as well. Each of these characters will have their own unique weapon types and magic arsenals, though Noctis will be able to use any weapons or magic.

A few plot-related elements have been revealed as well. First of all, the woman in the evening gown is Stella, a heroine. The woman at the end of the trailer, however, is a completely different woman -a dragon warrior, Nomura clarified- and an enemy at that.

Much more interesting is the man speaking from the throne. This is Noctis' father, and at one point in his dialogue he says, "You cannot be king." This is not directed at Noctis, however. It is also worth noting that the father-king is featured in the later scene in the forest, where the camera appears to be from the perspective of a child. This suggests that the father-son relationship will be relatively important- remind anyone of FFX? A scene towards the very end of the trailer seems to foreshadow the fate of the father. The events concerning the father are clearly very much intertwined with the political turmoil that appears to be central to the plot of the game.

The next time we'll hear from Versus XIII, according to Nomura, won't be until E3, so we'll just have to keep waiting. He did say that the wait won't be entirely uneventful, though: apparently FFXIII-2, the confirmation of which was covered in this news post, will be due out sometime this year.

Source: IGN, Gametrailers