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Final Fantasy Dissidia actually had some footage released recently, ahead of it's projected December 2008 Japanese release date. Dissidia is described as an action-based fighting game with RPG elements and featuring two characters from each of the first 10 games, a protagonist and a villain. Overall, though, it's likely to be the FF answer to Super Smash Bros. in that it features a number of characters from different universes fighting each other, and there might even be a plot this year.

What is known, is that the character list has a number of confirmed cast members. Not every game has both characters revealed yet, the bad guys being wheeled out for some games, but in those cases it's pretty blatant who the "Other" one will be, and in one case, the other one is a bit puzzling really. It's probably a safe bet to assume that on top of these 20 there may be secret characters as well, but don't count on it. And without further ado, here are the ones you can count on seeing.

From Final Fantasy: Warrior of Light and Garland
The Warrior of Light and Garland, though both fighters, have some differences. The former uses swordplay and shield, a possible balance between offensive and defensive play, whilst Garland has a sword that can become a battle axe, for an ever changing but from the look of it offence-heavy fighting style. The arena where they fight appears to be the Chaos Shrine, location of the final boss battle of Final Fantasy.

From Final Fantasy II: Firion and Emperor Mateus Palamecia
Firion's fighting style seems to revolve around versatility, able to change weapons mid-battle. He has access to swords, spears and bows amongst other weapons, a veritable walking armoury. Mateus meanwhile appears to use magical attacks predominately, and is able to transform into the Emperor of Hell. Their battleground seems to be Pandaemonium, capital of Hell and twinned with Cardiff.

From Final Fantasy III: Onion Knight and Cloud of Darkness
The Onion Knight is apparently able to change jobs mid-battle, with Sage and Ninja confirmed so far. Others are likely, but only those are confirmed. The Cloud of Darkness meanwhile is, in case you didn't know, actually a woman giving Ultimecia a run for her money in the "ridiculously revealing costume" stakes. Her appearance has altered to have pale instead of orange or green skin, but she can apparently transform into the green-skinned variation seen in FF3 DS. The fight between the two occurs in FF3's World of Darkness.

From Final Fantasy IV: Golbez
Confirmed in a trailer at Square Enix's DKΣ3713 event (The name referenced the games displayed and also is a fun game to guess exaclty which games it in fact had at it! Don't google, that's cheating.), nothing has been revealed about Golbez except his presence but it's likely he'll fight Cecil.

From Final Fantasy V: ExDeath
Like Golbez, nothing confirmed and revealed only in the trailer at DKΣ3713. Likely to fight Bartz.

From Final Fantasy VI: Kefka
Kefka's confirmation in the game came at, you guessed it, DKΣ3713, and tells us the same as it told us about Golbez and ExDeath, except that Kefka apparently hints at his opponent being female. It's probably safe to bet it's not Relm or a post-op Locke.

From Final Fantasy VII: Sephiroth
No one should be surprised at this one. His opponent hasn't been announced but really, who was it the other seventy times they put him in a sequel or spin-off?

From Final Fantasy VIII: Squall and Ultimecia
Gunblade-wielding social recluse mercenary Squall fights with his Gunblade of course, and can use his Renzokuken attack as well as transform his weapon into the Lionheart. Ultimecia meanwhile uses swords and axes made from magic, as well as time manipulation and possibly even summoning and junctioning. Their battle occurs in Ultimecia's castle.

From Final Fantasy IX: Zidane and Kuja
The rules are simple. Two Monkey Enter, One Monkey Leave. The Genome brothers face off in Memoria, and apparently both use their Trance forms in combat.

From Final Fantasy X: Tidus and Jecht
Yeah, you read that right, Jecht. Not Seymour. Tidus fights his dad with his overdrives, whilst Jecht can transform into the Final Aeon, which might actually explain this somewhat bizarre pairing. The creators have stated they seek to use this as a "What-if" scenario as well as expand the interaction between the two characters.

From Star Wars: Nobody
And hooray for that.

Sources: Official Site
IGN videos and information on the game

Two games previously announced as being released only for mobile phones, Final Fantasy Agito XIII and The Third Birthday ("Parasite Eve 3"), are receiving PSP ports as early as 2009. Square-Enix disclosed this information at a private expo to media and select fans currently taking place,

Very few details are available on Agito XIII, but it is said to be an RPG with online elements and a cast of at least twelve characters. The promotional posters for Agito show a silver-haired character (no word on gender) holding a deck of cards. The Third Birthday is a spinoff of the cult favorite Parasite Eve series, starring Aya Brea several years after the events of Parasite Eve 2, dealing with an outbreak of monsters called The Twisted.

There is no official announcement for a release of either of these games outside of Japan, but here's one PSP-owning Parasite Eve fan keeping his fingers crossed.

Source: Kotaku
Also: Vampire pumpkins and watermelons

In a surprise announcement, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada confirmed during Microsoft's E3 press conference today that Final Fantasy XIII is to be released on the Xbox 360, contrary to previous expectation that the title would be released exclusively for PlayStation 3. Wada spoke of his belief that this would broaden the game's availability to North American and European players, though neither he nor Microsoft's press release made any mention of a Japanese 360 release, leading to widespread speculation that the game may remain PS3-exclusive in that territory — news which no doubt has all six Japanese Xbox owners up in arms.

A Square-Enix press conference followed, during which producer Yoshinori Kitase and executive Shinji Hashimoto discussed further details:

• There may be differences between the versions due to the capacity difference between Blu-Ray and DVD. However, the current plan is to keep the content identical. One might speculate, therefore, that the 360 version may come on multiple DVDs.
• 360-specific development is set to begin following completion of the Japanese PS3 version, along with English translation.
• This is a relatively recent decision, largely based on the 360's wide installation base outside Japan. This seems to fit with the notion that the 360 version may not hit Japan.
• Uncategorised additional appendage FFXIII:VS will not be multiplatform. (Presumably just like FFXIII itself wasn't. Just saying.)

No release date has yet been announced, but Microsoft's press release indicates that the game will be available to 360 owners "at launch" in NA and the EU, which is presumably a quirky, press-release sort of way of saying it'll be out the same day for both consoles.

It's a good thing nobody bought an expensive, launch-era PS3 just for the promise of a Final Fantasy exclusive. Nobody did that, right?

Sauces:
Microsoft Press Release
Gamespot Story
Kotaku Liveblog (whatever that means) of the SE press conference
Tomato

...and even though we won't have all the details until E3, here's a preview to whet your appetite.

Let's get the big one out of the way: Final Fantasy XIII. Yes, they're still making it. ... That's about it. Anyone who thought that was headed anyone's way this year clearly doesn't remember how long it took the previous installment to make it to market, though, and, this time, there are two games to look forward to. With FFXIII/FFVsXIII still at least a year away, maybe it's time to branch off into some of Squenix's other offerings.

For 360 and PS3 owners, the next great RPG comes in the form of The Last Remnant. Microsoft's deal with the devil means that the game will be exclusive to the 360 for a limited time, but, never fear, Sony fans will eventually get a crack at it. The game will feature a new mixture between large-scale tactics and individual battle control in a quest to save the world.

Sadly, Microsoft might manage to hold onto Infinite Undiscovery. Due in September, it stars Capell (a boy who looks like a boy!) and Aya in a (surprise!) quest to save their world.

The return of the Star Ocean series is the next big thing looming on the horizon. While is seems that The Last Hope might end up a 360 exclusive, remakes of the first two games are slated for the PSP. Star Ocean: First Departure will be available in late October of this year, and Star Ocean: Second Evolution will launch in January 2009. Both games will feature enhanced graphics and sound over the originals, which were for the Super Famicom and PlayStation, respectively.

There's plenty for DS fans to look forward to, too. Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest IV will be making their remade ways to the handheld this winter, and a full remake of Final Fantasy IV is due at the end of this month.

Lastly, if you've always wanted to play an RPG on your iPod, now's your chance--Song Summoner has arrived. The title appears to be a tactical RPG that draws on your iPod playlist to create party members...or "Tune Troopers", as the case may be. If that sounds intriguing, it's only $4.99 to satisfy your curiosity.

So we know that it's been discussed a bit already, but this is news big enough that it simply must be brought onto our front page: Chrono Trigger is coming to the Nintendo DS.

Of course, the new version is going to be somewhat different, very likely in terms of a new dungeon, since that tends to be the stock addition to all of the Square-Enix remakes coming out these days. However, I'd also expect it to contain all of the additional data tables found in the PSX version, and of course the animated cut scenes. Finally, since this is coming out for the DS, there's no reason not to expect a great deal of interactivity between top and bottom screens. Heck, they even say that in the press release.

The final big news for today is that we now have an English-titles trailer; it's nothing amazing, but it does show that the gameplay and in-game graphics won't be changing, and it does give a launch window of Winter 2008, surely meant to imply that it will be launching just before Christmas. We will have, of course, links for you to preorder the game as we get them.

Source: Square-Enix North America

The development team for Final Fantasy IV DS, beyond simply having a blog, is opening itself up for a web-based question and answer session with us, the fans, starting now. This is all being facilitated by the Square-Enix Members Blog, and you have to have an account to participate, but if you don't have one and don't feel like signing up, please feel free to ask your question right here and I'll be happy to submit it on your behalf.

They're a bit nebulous on the deadlines for submitting questions and the posting of the collection of answers, but I would imagine that all of this will be happening over the next couple weeks so that they can publish the final article no later than the North American release date of the DS game, which is still currently scheduled for July 22.

Source:
Square-Enix Members Blog