News

Remember when Square Enix assimilated Eidos into the collective last year and announced that they'd be publishing and making the cutscenes for the new Deus Ex game? Well, now we have some more information. Deus Ex: Human Revolution has been trademarked in the EU and US, and Deus Ex Human Revolution has been trademarked in US only. We know that this is a prequel to the series, so maybe we'll discover what Aquinas meant when he spoke of the mythical city on the hills. Soon, there will be old men, running the world.

Alas, in recent times, several gaming companies have gone bankrupt. Although, most of these weren't spending decades on one game that they kept recreating on the next newest engine. Eidos, as mentioned already, became part of Square Enix, a company which, despite everything, is kicking serious financial ass. Between the two, releasing Batman: Arkham Asylum, Final Fantasy XIII and Dragon Quest IX, we can say with some certainty that they'll still be kicking for a while yet. And by the way, would a failing company get an opportunity at sponsoring the NBA All-Star event, though? No? Well, there you go. And that's exactly what Square-Enix are getting, with Final Fantasy XIII. A strange choice of sponsor, but it actually makes me want to watch it. I think that's the point.

Speaking of Final Fantasy XIII, Square-Enix said last August that their plans for DLC in the game were "unclear", but the box case for the US Xbox 360 version claims to include such content. Is this confirmation of such content? As of yet, like the image, it's still unclear. And, to crush my hopes and dreams, the Final Fantasy XIII PS3 is not being released on the western shores. The only console bundle to be released with Final Fantasy XIII is a branded (not just the faceplate!) Xbox 360, with a 250GB hard drive, 2 controllers, and special magical avatar items. I think Josh knows what that means.

Finally, the third dimension. Square-Enix are getting into it. They've made a 3D trailer for Final Fantasy XIII, which is showing in Japanese theaters along with Avatar. But this doesn't mean they'll be making games in 3D....yet. They will, but they don't know how. Who does? Nobody. Don't get your hopes up for a while.

Source: Kotaku, Siliconera

This just in: there is still no Final Fantasy VII remake on the books. Let's please move on. Of course, it remains Square Enix' own fault that these rumors persist and that fanfolk continue to press the issue, but, please. Let's start a Facebook group or something to tell them it's okay to not remake this game.

Proselytizing aside for the time being, we'll move on to the week's Final Fantasy XIII news. For one, you may have forgotten that at one time, it was going to be a PlayStation 2 release. I'm guessing that were that the case, it probably wouldn't have been on the original Xbox, but one could theorize! Anyway, the point of this now is that Yoshinori Kitase explains that the gear switching from PS2 to PlayStation 3 cost the team a year and a half of the game's epic development window. As an aside to that, he also explained why they decided to rile up half the fanbase by including Leona Lewis. Finally, this week we got confirmation that the Xbox 360 version would in fact be coming on three discs, which might not be fantastic, but it's still better than it could have been.

Quiet on the non Final Fantasy XIII front this week, with just a couple small things to note. First, Final Fantasy VIII is out on the PlayStation Network in the United Kingdom and European Union now. While I don't really share Kotaku writer Plunkett's fervor for it, if you haven't played it yet, it's probably worth doing at least once. And, finally for this week, if you remember footbigmike's tidbits last week, you'll know about the release of the Nintendo DS remake of Dragon Quest VI. That game sold like a wildfire burns - out of the first million or so copies shipped, ninety percent are already in the hands of gamers. And people wonder why they keep doing remakes?

Source: 1up, VG247, Kotaku

Dragon Quest VI, the 1995 SNES RPG, was released in Japan yesterday on the Nintendo DS. Accompanying it is an excellent trailer filled with cosplay goodness. Does that make me want to buy the game? Probably not. What MIGHT make me interested is the Dragon Quest restaurant Josh mentioned a few weeks ago. It opened yesterday. Will it succeed? No idea.

Final Fantasy news has some more substance, fortunately. We're given a look at Final Fantasy XIII's PAL Collector's Edition. For £60, European consumers will receive, in addition to the game, a hardback FFXIII artbook, collector's cards and a "sample" CD of the game's soundtrack. Now, I'm all for collector's editions, and I understand why there's a sample instead of the full thing with this edition, but I'd still like to see a full edition that comes with the game, full soundtrack, artwork and a nice box to keep it all in. And hey, maybe give a pass for the beta of Final Fantasy XIV? That'd be pricier, obviously, but I'd seriously consider it.

Final Fantasy has had many spinoffs and sequels and sub-serieseses. Tactics (and, I guess, Ivalice), VII Collection, Crystal Chronicles, etc. The first has always been popular, what with re-releases and the Advance series. The second...well, does much need to be said? The Crystal Chronicles series, however, is one that has been declining since it's start. The Gamecube title in 2004 was largely successful, and with sequels on the Wii and Nintendo DS, Square-Enix has been frequently pursuing the series. However, it would seem that sales figures for the most recent game, Crystal Bearers, fall far shy of the sales of the original. Will the series keep going forward, or will Square quit while they're...less behind?

Remember all that talk of a Final Fantasy VII remake? You know, for like, the last 8 years? Once again, the rumours and talks have quietened thanks to Tetsuya Nomura, who does not believe one is in the works. He did, however, mention that the characters might make cameos in other games in the series. Hopefully more than just a reference, a la Final Fantasy IX. What's interesting is what Hironobu Sakaguchi is now working on. A new RPG for the Nintendo Wii entitled "The Last Story". The logo design is very Final Fantasy-esque, and, hey, so is the name. What do we know of it so far? About thiiiiis much. Good song. It's somewhat reminiscent of Final Fantasy X's orchestral version of Suteki Da Ne, if you ask me - which you totally did. And that's a good thing for the musical side.

Keep your eyes out for another news post tomorrow with lots of information regarding another upcoming Square-Enix title. That is, providing Mass Effect 2 doesn't distract me from it. In the meantime, go check out your shiny new awards! Maybe!

Source: Kotaku, Final Fantasy Union

The answer is: yes, but only if you are really reaching. This week, you can find some updates to last week's Square Enix news, as well as yet another release for the oldest games in the Final Fantasy series. Beyond that, we've got some Square Enix business and employment news, a bit more Final Fantasy XIII hype, and even some potentially M-rated weirdness. And now we roll on, with our heads held high.

As reported last week, Birth by Sleep was the top selling game in Japan for the first time. Now, this week, it's the second time around. It's still beating New Super Mario Bros. Wii in week-to-week sales, but by a vastly smaller margin than before, largely because now it's the game's week two, not launch week. Given the install base for PSPs versus Wiis, I don't imagine this trend will continue all that much further before something, whether it's NSMB or some other newer release, will knock Kingdom Hearts off the top rung.

In case you haven't had enough of Final Fantasy I and II yet (note that you can play Final Fantasy I on no fewer than five American systems already), you will soon be able to take them with you on your iPhone or iPod Touch, you trendy fool, you. (Yes, I have both, but I don't use them for games. Also, it's well-known that I'm a massive hypocrite.) Not very many details yet, but it seems like the games will be based more or less on the PSP releases, but with a redesigned interface due to the necessity of using touch to navigate the games.

Squenix announced this week that they're looking to take on some debt. While the company has billions of yen in liquid assets already, but they also owe billions in debt, too (though not as much as they have on hand). When they sell their bond issues worth ¥35 billion, the additional cash can help to pay off the original debt, or it could also be used to go on another game-company-gobbling purchasing spree, or some of both. In another part of the company, composer Masashi Hamauzu has left the sound team of Square Enix. He composed music for a variety of games produced by the company, notably a couple releases in the SaGa family, Final Fantasy X, and most recently Final Fantasy XIII.

And, hey, have some promised weirdness. Apparently one of Vanille's models within Final Fantasy XIII is nude. Not entirely surprising, given that this is common practice as the modelers can then be able to more closely map clothing and equipment to the base model; allegedly, though, Vanille's model in this case includes detail in her upper half that isn't often seen in such things. Let's just leave it at that, shall we? And no link, you'll just have to go looking on your own (which, of course, I know you're already doing, and that will no doubt tide you over until the next tidbits).

Source: Kotaku, Square Enix DLG (on Facebook), Square Enix Music

Various news surfaced last year of a new Final Fantasy, codenamed Final Fantasy Fortress. Speculation was in the air and I did my usual act of hoping it was a follow-up to Final Fantasy XII with absolutely no conviction. Well sirs and madames, it turns out that hoping for something with enough effort does indeed bear some reward. A tech demo of project Fortress, leaked on YouTube and now removed by Square Enix for breach of a 2009 copyright violation, reveals that the sequel was being created by Sweden's Grin development house and to be published on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 by Square Enix. See it here. The original source of the video maintains that this project has been moved to a different studio amid a concern for 'quality issues', which, supposed, in turn lead to Grin's demise. If true, here's hoping that it's in with Deus Ex 3 and Thief 4 at Eidos Montreal. Let's just spare a thought for old Grin. They worked six or so months on this and literally had the rug pulled from under their feet by Square Enix, who removed the project from their hands and subsequently forced them to close.

The video appears much more like a western RPG, with a main character who looks like he'd be more at home swinging a giant axe at Chris Redfield in Resident Evil 5. Many childhood fantasies of watching Barret race the chocobo at the Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy VII are also realised when we see the man riding through a forest, reminding us that this is a Final Fantasy. We also see a large-scale battle still reminiscent of Helm's Deep in Lord of the Rings, reminding us that this is a western fantasy game. There is no HUD of any sort, but it appears to show that his sword and bow attacks are at the press of a button rather than preset instructions. It's shaky, it's stubby, it's unfinished, it's nasty, it is a tech demo after all, but it's absolutely compelling. There are also some screenshots and concept art available here from different parts of the game if you're interested, mostly landscapes.

Source: Voodoo Extreme, Break, Kotaku (yay)

Last week was another pretty quiet one, so I've lumped everything into another two week span. Plus, last Friday I was working madly on some other CoN development that I'll roll out eventually. Every tidbits, I start with the excuses. It's fun.

Let's kick it off with the best reason ever to go to Japan: a Dragon Quest-themed bar in Tokyo, opening next week. I would love to see if they have Slime-themed adult beverages. Please tell me there will be Slime-themed adult beverages. Perhaps a Green Slimetini.

From a different perspective in Square Enix corporate life, it's recently come to light that Yoichi Wada isn't pleased with the Japanese game retail industry and its xenophobia. Of course, some level of xenophobia in Japan is hardly anything new, so why should Square Enix care? Well, it's because now they're in charge of publishing games like Modern Warfare 2 in Japan. Now it all makes sense.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that Kingdom Hearts is massive in Japan, speaking of the gaming motherland. It's Disney! It's Square Enix! The buying queue will be massive! And, it was for Birth by Sleep; the newest edition of the Kingdom Hearts series, for PSP, came out last week in Japan and promptly sold almost half a million discs, blowing every other game out of the water in terms of that week's sales. Will it have lifetime sales better than the game it replaced at the top of the charts, New Super Mario Bros. Wii? Probably not, but it's still pretty impressive.

So, with all that non-Final Fantasy stuff out of the way, I'm sure you guys who aren't already miserable from thinking about Final Fantasy XIII want to hear more, right? Bam: here it is. First, here's the first new trailer with the Leona Lewis track and English voice acting, first linked to us by BlitzSage in the delicious knot of rage that is our thread discussing Leona Lewis' involvement in the Western game. Still want more after that? Well, Square Enix this week (for some reason) put some PlayStation 3s and Xbox 360s on a bus in California and drove it around so players could get an early look at parts of the North American game. No word yet when or if the content on the bus will be distributed over Xbox Live or PlayStation Home for other users, but the bus tour ends tomorrow. 1up says the game seems to run just as nicely on the lowly 360 as it does the PS3, though this isn't exactly a side-by-side comparison. Honestly, though, did anyone think that Square Enix would botch the cross-platform nature of this game? It's been a lightning rod (yay puns!) ever since it was announced, and the experience on 360 is simply something that Squenix can't afford to screw up. Also, according to Kotaku by way of Japanese Final Fantasy site FF Reunion, Final Fantasy XIII could have been a lot longer. They cut so much out, in fact, that the scraps on the floor could have been reassembled to create another full game, according to art director Isamu Kamikokuryou. I've wondered aloud already: maybe that's how they plan on creating the seemingly-off-the-radar FFXIII Versus, eh?

If you're still up for this game, though, don't forget that it comes out in about seven and a half weeks. And we know this is true, because now we know it's gone Gold - for those not familiar with shipping software, that's just the industry term for "the game is done, yo." This even includes the lip-syncing as seen in the aforementioned trailer, which, as you no doubt all know, has sometimes been a bit wonky for Square Enix games. So, whether you're still excited or not, this is still looking like a big deal, and it's getting ever closer. Enjoy, whatever your perspective.

Source: Kotaku, GamePro, 1up