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Well strike me down, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord will be released in Europe this Friday, with a North American release still pending. This latest Wii Ware instalment of the elusive Final Fantasy brand will be available for 1000 Wii Points, equal to £7 or $10. Further downloadable content is also on the horizon. Japanese players already have access to a selection of spells and stage packs available from 100 to 500 points. Despite the lack of a North American release date, it's likely to be soon.

My Life as a Darklord follows closely with the Final Fantasy formula of having very little to do with its predecessor of the same name. If you were hoping for a game similar to My Life as a King you may be sorely disappointed, and a bit silly. The gameplay focuses on castle defence: as the daughter of a Darklord, and arguably the sister of Zorn and Thorn, it is your job to use your evil minions and traps to keep the forces of good from reaching the top of the tower and destroying your crystal. It might be worth mentioning that you have a Tonberry lieutenant with a pink ribbon on its head to help you.

It remains to be seen whether this will be a hit or not. Castle defence is certainly a fine concept; it will never get old as long as real-time strategy is an existing genre. What will make or break the gameplay is balancing, something that castle defence modders slave over and Square Enix failed to achieve in My Life as a King. To its credit, the character and monster detail has a certain charm that hasn't been seen since Final Fantasy IX. Regardless of how successful this becomes, it's great to see Square Enix trying their luck with another genre. Maybe My Life as a... is to be a series of experimentation.

Source: Siliconera, Square Enix

One particularly ambitious San Francisco resident has taken Square Enix to court for breach of competition law, false advertising, and unjust enrichment. The class action sets forth the complaint that Square Enix are not clear about the fees and penalties in their MMORPG Final Fantasy XI. The class is none other than the 100,000 gamers on the Final Fantasy XI database. 'All persons who purchased or played the online games four years prior to the filling of this lawsuit to the present' to be precise.

Over $5,000,000, exclusive of interest or legal costs, is sought to be given back to the gamers. If they pull this one off, players will be told of their compensation either by email or on the Final Fantasy XI website. One source believes that Californian courts can be inclined to produce verdicts leaning more towards consumer protection. Don't let me get your hopes up too much.

See below for the complaints against Square Enix, taken directly from the lawsuit:

This case narrowly focuses on Defendants' deceptive advertising, unfair practices, and fraudulent concealment to conceal certain critical information about their online games. The deceptive advertising, unfair and undisclosed business practises, and concealment concern, among others:
i. Licensing of the online games software disguised as a sale;
ii. Monthly fees ("fees") to play the online games;
iii. Penalties for the late payment of the fees;
iv. Interest charges for late payment of the fees;
v. Charges while the online game account is suspended;
vi. Termination of the right to use online games for late payment of the fees;
vii. User restrictions and conditions related to the online games;
viii. Termination of game data for late payment of the fees.

What stands out the most from this complaint is the predominantly negative reception from the gaming community and press. Either they do not understand that this is a conjoined lawsuit, and the complainer merely represents the class, or that this is typical blind support of Square Enix who, ironically, are actually sitting on the opposite side of the table from all players of Final Fantasy XI. Why don't we raise the plaintiff, Esther Leong, on our shoulders and say: "yes we don't want to pay interest and penalties for late payment of gaming fees, this is a fantasy RPG not a credit card."

Source: GamePolitics, Plaintiff v. Square Enix (via GamePolitics), Law of the Game

The identity of the game in the countdown clock some of you are still hypothesising about has already been announced. Some of you just can't read, so to make it easy, i'll post it in big letters on the main page, to see if that helps.

We don't have much info yet (unless you can read Japanese), but it is not FFI or FFV, so stop with the guessing games.

Source: Kotaku
Source: 5 Days Ago

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/0706/

It's Square-Enix up to their usual shenanigans of giving us a mysterious page with a countdown clock and supposedly relevant info to the new game at hand. Sources suspect a remake of the original Final Fantasy, possibly on the Nintendo DS. This news poster is not so convinced. Unless they're introducing new music, the song that plays over the countdown page is not from any Final Fantasy so far (Unless it's from XI, in which case, nobody cares). The obvious reality? They're preparing to unveil Final Fantasy XV.

...What? You never know. Square-Enix also copyrighted "The Four Warriors of Light" (Well, the Japanese phrase, anyway), so believe what you will. It's fair to say that this is going to be Final Fantasy related, regardless of what it actually is. Only 220 hours to go.

Source: Kotaku
Source: Siliconera

At least three shops are offering unique pre-order bonuses in the States for Dissidia: Final Fantasy, which ships on 25 August in North America. Obviously, pre-order bonuses are nothing new, but the fact that there are already three announced, and you can only get them at particular retailers, is a bit more novel (and, dare I say it, moneygrubbing?).

If you're looking to get a pre-order in, here are your options: Best Buy is offering a desk calendar; GameStop has custom cover slipcases that, it appears, slide over the top of the retail case for the game; AmaCoN will ship you a CD with musical selections from the game. And, since we play favorites here, we wholeheartedly support you getting the CD.

Source: Square Enix Members Blog

For those of you wanting to see yet more pretty pictures of the pretty...prettiness of Final Fantasy XIII, you will be please to hear that thirteen new screenshots have recently been released on the net. This fitting number of screens serve to showcase more of the exteriors in which players will presumably fight monsters and the Helghast/Jin-Roh-looking soldiers seen in previous screens and clips.

The new images show off some spell effects as well as a variety of environments. What seems to be an inner city battle at night (it's at least similar to what we have seen before in many early trailers), a snowy mountainside, some barren rocky grasslands, and the obligatory lush forests and dark caves.

With these new screens, Square-Enix's dedication to making it all look very pretty continues, for as is plain to see the world of FF13 certainly looks like a nice place to go sightseeing if you don't mind the occasional angry monster or space nazi jumping out at you.

Source: Final Fantasy Insider