News

Updates for some prior news posts this week, primarily. Commence! Birth by Sleep, as discussed last week, now has a Japanese release date: 9 January 2010. KH Insider reports that it's going to cost over $65 in JappoDollars (6,090 Yen); let me remind you that this is sixty-five dollars… for a PlayStation Portable game. Doesn't that seem a bit nutty? One hopes the price comes down a bit as it comes to the West. In Final Fantasy XIII news, Kotaku brings us yet more screenshots this week; they come from some pretty poor photos taken of the latest Famitsu magazine, so don't get your hopes up too much. Oh well, more media coming in for the next flagship release from Square Enix can't be a terrible thing. Finally, if you're into the Final Fantasy branded libations that have been released in the past, you might be interested to see the product mockups for Final Fantasy XIII Elixir. There appear to be two different designs planned. The first has sixteen different designs featuring character renders that you probably have seen in one form or another, with Snow, Lightning and Serah being featured on multiple can designs; the other has a boxed package with a more landscapey scene printed on the can and one of six mini-figures included in the box as well. If you want to import the drinks, more power to you—they should be available on 8 December and 22 December, respectively.

Source: KH Insider, Kotaku

We're most certainly in the lull this week, as the folks who produce the news (Square Enix Japan, of course) seem to be in full swing trying to get Final Fantasy XIII out the door. So, another short update this week, with some news tidbits for Birth by Sleep and Thirteen.

I don't know about you guys, but I'd kind of forgotten about Birth by Sleep, the next Kingdom Hearts game (now that 358/2 Days is out). If you've forgotten, too, Birth by Sleep is a prequel to the original Kingdom Hearts, and is meant to be released soon after the first of the year in Japan. The tidbits for this week include a new mode within the game, called "Command Mode." This mode appears to be some sort of board-game based take on a license board system, earning buffing items by outplaying an opponent on the game board. The concept, as it's understood for now, seems unique in the Square Enix collection and probably a good fit for the Kingdom Hearts series, I suppose. Also in Birth by Sleep, it's been discovered in Famitsu that one of the characters has a master/trainer by the name of "Master Eraqsu." In English, this is an anigram for "Square," of course, and it seems to be the same in Japan. Given the look of the character, as well, it appears that this character is an homage to the original Master of Square, Mistwalker's Hironobu Sakaguchi.

The lone bit of Final Fantasy XIII news this week is the naming of another new character. Surely you've seen the trailer by now, either the Japanese, the Japanese with fansub, or the English; now you can know that the girl with the sports-bra-and-blue-dress outfit and large, skull-like tattoo is named Oerba Yun Fang, and she can summon forth Bahamut.

Finally, have I mentioned lately CoN's Facebook page? Become a fan now, if you haven't; I try to use it to talk a little more about stuff going on at the site and leave the news posting for bigger announcements about CoN these days.

Source: Kotaku, Kingdom Hearts Insider

A slightly abbreviated tidbits today, both because the good news is a bit thin this week and also because I'm not working today. Funny that I have more time to post the news when I'm at my office, right?

Let's start with the news that is my favorite for the week but has the least overall impact on the gaming world: the original Final Fantasy is now available for the Nintendo Virtual Console. For 500 points, you can play the true original version, with all of its (by today's standards, anyway) slow gameplay and clunky mechanics intact. Will users have any use for this release beyond nostalgia, with revised ports already available for no fewer than three platforms in North America? Probably not, but feel free to prove me wrong here, Wii owners. We... do have Wii owners who read the site, right?

Next up is a followup to last week's tidbits with the subbed Final Fantasy XIII trailer. This week you can get the real deal - an authentic English voice-acted trailer straight from Square Enix. Since the rest of the trailer is the same as you've no doubt seen by now, what do you think of the English dub? As usual for voice acting in Squenix games, it seems to be pretty polarizing—I personally didn't really expect too much, but it does seem like the syncing from voice to character action is a little worse in this video than I would have expected.

Finally, Square Enix released some early monster renders for Final Fantasy XIV this week. This is a nice small news item, and from what I hear several of these renders are pretty much just updates of existing designs from Final Fantasy XI, but they're pretty cool nonetheless. I am a particular fan of the crazy zebra-dragon-velociraptor hybrid and the cactuar's pimp strut. And that marlboro? That thing is legitimately terrifying.

Oh, and just to see if anyone actually reads these posts, I want to point out that you need to start taking quizzes during October if you want to be qualified to win the prize at the New Year. You have to have at least ten quizzes in your name by then to qualify, and if you miss the ones that are open right now, there's no way to catch up!


Source: Nintendo, Kotaku, GameTrailers

Not many tidbits to be had currently, now that the Tokyo Game Show has ended, so we won't strain you terribly this week. First, note that Square Enix has set a target of six million copies sold of Final Fantasy XIII in order to consider the game a success. In Japan. Apparently, Final Fantasy XII only managed to sell that many copies globally, and Dragon Quest IX has shipped only about four million in Japan—good numbers, but not quite to the scope of this new number. Note that this goal doesn't appear to include Versus, either, only the core game.

Why is this contradictory? Well, while the company aims for blockbuster numbers, they're also laying off a bunch of folks in Japanoville. The rumor is that between two and three hundred folks will be out of work soon; however, this has yet to be verified and it also could be people under the Square Enix banner who were only brought in via Squenix' recent spate of acquisitions and mergers. In any event, it's interesting that they plan to sell massive amounts of their next flagship game but yet are cutting back inside their own offices.

Finally in terms of Square, a kind soul has subbed the Tokyo Game Show trailer for Final Fantasy XIII. As you might expect, the translation isn't the best English you're ever going to see, but if you're in the strong majority here at CoN who does not have a conversational command of the Japanese language, it's probably all you're gonna get until the game's localized and out in the West next year.

I also note that the next set of quizzes are now up. If you haven't taken any quizzes yet, why not? There is still a prize to be won! And maybe a surprise after you take one, hm?

Source: Kotaku, GameTrailers

Yoshinori Yamagishi is a 20-year veteran of Enix and Square-Enix and a major collaborator with the development studio Tri-Ace - Yamagishi has been a producer on every Tri-Ace game since the first Star Ocean. It's safe to say that he is one of the major architects of the Star Ocean series, although he is not one of the three "ace" designers that inspired the company's name upon its founding. And as soon as the PS3 director's cut or "International" version of Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope is released, Mr. Yamagishi is going to distance himself from the series.

Star Ocean was originally conceived as a trilogy of games. Star Ocean: The Last Hope represented a new, different direction for the series. After the release of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time for the PS2, Tri-Ace began to branch out and create games not named Star Ocean or Valkyrie Profile, with the development of Radiata Stories and Infinite Undiscovery in 2005 and 2008, respectively. Tri-Ace is also currently working on an RPG called Resonance of Fate. According to his recent interview with a Japanese gaming site, Mr. Yamagishi wants to work on new Tri-Ace intellectual property like those three instead of more Star Ocean sequels.

Source: RPGFan

The Tokyo Game Show provided us with plenty of news to roll up into a ball for this Friday's tidbits; unsurprisingly, it's heavily weighted towards the new games dropping in the very near future. Sony announced a special Final Fantasy XIII bundle for PlayStation 3; it appears to be a creamy white with a screen print of Lightning on the top in a rosy shade that fades to white. Of course, this is only going to happen in Japan, so if you're one of those nutter Otakus and really need this kit, better get in line with your favorite importer now.

Squenix also brought a new trailer for Final Fantasy XIV to TGS this year. It features some fairly clumsy text in English, some strikingly pretty cutscenes, and a lot of people who one would assume to be player characters milling about and doing things that player characters do. It's pretty much exactly what you would expect from a Final Fantasy trailer in Tokyo.

If you needed any further proof that Square is craving the Yenjamins, Yoichi Wada made more news this week when he noted that a new billing model, creating a revised revenue stream for game manufacturers, will be the next big gaming innovation. Sure, I guess if motion control is now on the table for all the big players, why would there be more technological or creative innovation coming up? Let's pour all of our resources into brainstorming the cash flow, eh, boys? I kid, a bit; while microtransactions and handling of digital distribution will be critical for the next decade of console gaming, it does seem a bit harsh to make that the priority, in my opinion.

Also, hot on the heels of Final Fantasy Tactics in the US, another PlayStation One-era Final Fantasy has launched for the Japanese PlayStation Network. For those of you who immediately hoped it involved a protagonist with a tail, sorry—it seems Square is going in order and giving the Japanese gamer Final Fantasy VIII first. There's been no announcement as to whether the game will eventually make it to any Western PSNs, but I would say that this release lays the groundwork for both that to happen sometime in 2010, as well as for Final Fantasy IX to follow soon after.

Finally, my favorite news tidbit of the week, detailing an unlikely partnership; Square-Enix is doing a puzzle RPG, a la Puzzle Quest. And, if you were going to do a puzzle game, and you had the resources of Square-Enix, with whom would you make this game? Yeah, that's right, PopCap. The creators of smash casual games for a decade now, most recently the tremendously successful Plants vs. Zombies, are bringing the mechanics of Bejeweled Twist to Square's Gyromancer, where they'll be connected to a good versus evil battle punctuated by spinning jewels on a board. Not only does this sound like a pretty clever idea in theory, it makes me smile because now the company I work for has something in common with the big daddy—connections with PopCap. It's almost like I have a direct line to Wada-san now, you see?

Source: Kotaku, IGN, Feed Your Console