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Maestro Arnie Roth, the music director for the "Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds" concert series, has announced dates and locations for performances of the show for roughly the first half of 2009. However, you're still out of luck if you're not in or near one of only four American destinations on this tour.

In April, those who are just thawing out in Minneapolis and Grand Rapids, Michigan each get a show; about four weeks later, there's a single performance in Baltimore. After that, the show swings across the Pacific to Singapore for a pair of shows, and then it's back to the American West Coast in July for two shows in Seattle and another pair in San Francisco. Of course, more dates may be added as time wears on, but I wouldn't count on seeing too many; only two shows were played in the States in the whole of 2008.

The setlist for these concerts appears to be pretty static, though of course it is subject to change in terms of both sequence and overall setlist. Some highlights, however, include full orchestral arrangements of the Final Fantasy Main Theme, Final Fantasy IV's "Theme of Love," portions of Final Fantasy VI's Opera score, and Final Fantasy X's "To Zanarkand."

To find out more about the schedule, setlist, or to buy tickets if you're in the area of one of the shows (prices appear to range from about $30.00 to $100.00 a seat, depending on which city you look), visit the official Distant Worlds site.

The title says it all. Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii recently revealed that the tenth entry in the popular Dragon Quest series will be on the Wii. There is no background storyline information available, nor do we know anything about the game's visuals, basic gameplay mechanics, or motion controls. There is also no word on connectivity between the DS's Dragon Quest IX and Dragon Quest X.

Horii also confirmed Dragon Quest IX's release date, which is March 28th in Japan.

Source: Joystiq

Final Fantasy XIII may remain a far off dream, but the distant echoes of series spin-off Crystal Chronicles are quickly approaching. "Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time" has been given an official release date of January 29 in Japan, and is expected to hit the North American market sometime this Spring.

Like the rest of the Crystal Chronicles series, the gameplay of Echoes will heavily rely on action-RPG aspects and puzzles, rather than the traditional turn-based combat of the main Final Fantasy series. Echoes will be available on both the Wii and the Nintendo DS, and the game will take advantage of the two systems' interconnectivity to allow online multiplayer. Additionally, Nintendo seems to have realized that we're tired of letting those dozens of Miis we made on launch day languish without a purpose in life; players of the Wii version will be able to import their favorite Miis into the game.

Source: GameSpot

I've never been a fan of the Crystal Chronicles series, but even I'm tempted by this. The short blurb about the story in the above link sounds like it could be interesting... as long as we don't find out that the heroine is sick because she ate dragon grass not once, but twice. Stupid princesses who eat dragon grass two--count 'em, TWO--times deserve what they get. Really, the Crystal Chronicles line always seemed to me like a kiddie version of the (occasionally) more mature main series storylines. These saccharine tales of precocious fourteen-year-olds aren't quite as cute now that I'm not fourteen, yanno?

After more than two years of vagueness, Square-Enix finally drops a bomb on Dragon Quest fans - Japan will be getting the much-awaited DS game on March of 2009. Very little is known about the title thus far other than there are customizable characters and it will take advantage of the DS's wireless capabilities, but since it's a Dragon Quest game it will probably sell like funnel cakes once it eventually comes out.

Source: Kotaku

Tecmo, the Japanese publisher of video games such as Ninja Gaiden, Tecmo Bowl, and Fatal Frame, has not had a very good year. After releasing XBox 360 action title Ninja Gaiden 2, game designer Tomonobu Itakagi and several other employees sued the company for unpaid overtime work relating to Ninja Gaiden 2. Other headaches included disappointing sales for Fatal Frame IV and the resignation of several top company officials.

But here comes Square-Enix to the rescue! According to Kotaku, Square-Enix is planning a friendly takeover of Tecmo in a similar manner to which happened to Taito in 2005. If the takeover is successful, Tecmo would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Square-Enix, and if the wage issue is resolved, Tecmo's successful Team Ninja studio (Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive) would be making games for the big S-E.

Source: Kotaku

Also: wtf? Kingdom Hearts Gaiden?

After too much waiting for a game that doesn't require any real localization at all, Amazon.co.uk now has a release date for Final Fantasy IV DS; it's September 5, 2008. Of course, that's coming up in just over three weeks, which really makes sense given that there wasn't any real localization necessary. As usual, AmaCoN tries hard to get all preorders to you on the actual release date of the game, so you won't have to wait: order now.

The other new release dates for the day are for the new Harvest Moon games, for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii, subtitled "Island of Happiness" and "Tree of Tranquility" respectively. While the Harvest Moon series has always been a bit niche, even for a series that has been going on for over a decade, I know there are quite a few fans who might be looking to pick these games up; if you're one of them, you can preorder now for a DS release on August 26 and a Wii release on September 16. Not only that, Amazon preorders for these games pack in farm animal plushies as bonuses. So, uh, get your farm... animals?