News

"Final Fantasy Forever", a compilation of all twelve games in the Final Fantasy series, will be hitting the PS3 along with Final Fantasy XIII sometime in the third quarter of 2008.

The six-disc collection will retail for $149.99 and include a 120 page art booklet with character designs and extra information about each game in the series. Each game will be released in its original form (though Americans will finally be receiving Final Fantasy X International) with no translation changes or graphics updates.

Source: GameSpot

According to an interview with SCE France CEO Georges Fornay, the upcoming PS3 game Final Fantasy XIII may be available on more than one platform. This only qualifies as hearsay at the moment, but such words coming from the mouth of an important Sony executive are worth notice. The interview was published in the Francophone newspaper "Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace" ("The Final News from Alsace").

Sony's PS3 has had it rough recently, to say the least. Without going into too much detail, it can be surmised that the young system has been recently suffering from a great deal of criticism from game developers and publishers, from gaming news media, and from the gaming public themselves while the Nintendo Wii and the Microsoft XBox 360 have been thriving in the new generation of video game consoles. Of particular note is the diminishing list of potential blockbusters for the PS3 - several extremely promising games that were originally billed as exclusive to Sony's new-gen hardware have announced releases for Microsoft's Xbox 360, among them Saints' Row, Assassin's Creed, and most recently Devil May Cry 4.

If this tidbit from France turns out to be true, then Sony will probably have yet another bevy of expectant gamers leave the PS3's bandwagon. Final Fantasy has been one of the most powerful franchises in video games since its birth, and its main-series games have been among the crown jewels in Sony's library from the past two generations. If FF XIII decides to shed its exclusivity status, then Sony is in even worse trouble than anyone may have suspected.

Source: Gamespot

A recent developer blog post by Square-Enix's Tetsuya Nomura revealed a great deal of new information regarding the Fabula Nova Crystalis project, which comprises the PS3 games Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as well as the cell phone game Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

The world of Final Fantasy XIII is called "Cocoon," and it uses crystal technology to create a highly advanced society. It is also completely surrounded by a large shell, which protects Cocoon and its inhabitants from all manner of evil residing outside of the shell, whose space is collectively called "Pulse." Cocoon's government reacts to the threat of the Pulse lurking monsters with "drastic measures," and uses the threat of exiling Cocoon citizens to Pulse as a means of controlling the people. Lightning, FF XIII's protagonist, is "chosen by the Crystal" to stop "those who would destroy the world," but Nomura (who is working on FF XIII as a character designer) was vague on any details otherwise.

Summons are going to be handled very differently in Final Fantasy XIII than in past FF games. They still serve as allies of our protagonist, but have some very unusual abilities; for example, the summon Shiva can now be transformed into a motorcycle, which Lightning can ride during battle. Somehow, this action-oriented feature is going to be implemented in a classic ATB system, but Nomura also stated that the game's developers are having "difficulties" implementing these new features.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII, an entirely separate game on its own, is supposedly set in a single kingdom within the same universe as Final Fantasy XIII and features a conflict centered over the last remaining crystal of said kingdom. The still-unnamed main character is a silver-haired swordsman who can teleport to any location where his sword is thrown. FF Versus XIII is being directed by Nomura himself and will use an action-oriented game engine based on the Kingdom Hearts series. Neither FF XIII nor FF Versus XIII has received a release date yet.

Final Fantasy Agito XIII is going to be a fully-3D cell phone game that centers on protecting another one of these crystals. That's essentially all that is known about Agito thus far, that and the fact that it doesn't have a release date either.

Source: RPGFan

Yes, you heard correctly. The ninth entry of the fabled RPG series is going to be on the Nintendo DS. Very little concrete info has been released thus far, but we know that it's going to be called Dragon Quest IX: Defenders of the Stars and it's going to be co-developed by the Dragon Quest dearm team (Yuji Horii, etc.) and Level-5, virtually the same team that brought us Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2 a year ago. Horii himself stated in the press release that this DS game is "not a gaiden or side-story, but a true part of the series."

This is great news for fans of the series, who are unfortunately accustomed to long delays in between DQ titles (there were five years between the releases of DQ VI and DQ VII, followed by four years between DQ VII and DQ VIII). It is certainly unexpected for Square-Enix to put the next iteration of such a major series on a handheld system, but it might just be a testament to the overwhelming popularity and developer support of the Nintendo DS in Japan. In any case, the tentative release date for Dragon Quest IX is "mid-2007."

source: N-sider

For several months now, Western fans of the notorious and quirky Mother/EarthBound series of RPGs have been anxiously awaiting a diffinitive answer to one very agonizing question: Will Nintendo of America finally deliver the third installment to the franchise - only recently launched in Japan this past April - to North American GameBoy Advances? As far as localization is concerned, the official word suggests we shouldn't hold our breath.

Although lacking in great detail, NoA's localization manager Nate Bihldorff, as reported in an interview by Planet GameCube, explains what could perhaps be considered the nearest thing to a true conclusion: "I'm not working on Mother 3. I don't have all the writers under me, so there may be other people in discussions going on with it, but I wouldn't look forward to it in the immediate future, no. Sorry, I know! There's a big Mother fanbase, there is." Bihldorff further advises, "At least everyone can go back and play Melee to get your Ness on."

Certainly this all comes as little surprise to those familiar with Nintendo's track record attributed to handling the Mother series; even the GBA re-release of Mother and Mother 2 (EarthBound) was denied the slightest prospect toward a domestic launch. So does this mean we'll never again see a legally distributed Mother RPG within this hemisphere? If Nintendo of America, like Nate Bihldorff, has begun to contemplate the true depth of the game's fanbase, then the chances otherwise may in fact rise to more realistic proportions.

Source: EuroGamer

Square-Enix recently revealed their new DS title: It's a Wonderful World. It's being designed by Tetsuya Nomura, the mastermind of Kingdom Hearts and the chief designer of FF XIII: Versus of the Fabula Nova Crystalis project. It's a Wonderful World is set in modern Tokyo and stars two unassuming teenagers who are forced into a game run by demons threatening to permanently erase the duo if they don't succeed in the game.

On top of that, players can use the DS's two screens to simultaneously control both characters, who both possess psychic powers. In fact, the duo must read the minds of NPCs in order to obtain hints and clues as to what to do next in their deadly game.

Right now we know that It's a Wonderful World is scheduled for a 2007 release in Japan, with no word on a North American or European release at this time. Thanks to RPGamer for the news.

source: rpgamer.com