News

Square Enix announced Saturday that it would be offering original Final Fantasy soundtracks for download via iTunes.

Soundtracks for all eleven numbered Final Fantasy games, from I to XI, are represented, as well as a few other series-related albums, such as a live recording of the 2002 FF-themed concert put on by the Tokyo Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. This marks the first time any of these albums have been available in the United States.

A complete listing of Final Fantasy soundtracks now available on iTunes can be found at Square Enix's Official Website.

Square Enix released a new design for its company website at www.square-enix.com on Friday, April 15.

The new site combines all of Square Enix's previous sites (for North America, Europe, and Japan) into a single domain name, and incorporates a sleek new flash design to improve continuity among each language's section of the site.

Square Enix, on its Official Grandia III Page, has announced a tentative Japanese release date for the game in Summer 2005.

The site features short descriptions of the game's plot, world, and characters. The story centers around Yuuki, a 16-year-old boy who dreams of building a plane and flying away from his island home, and Alfina, a 16-year-old priestess searching for her missing brother.

Grandia III will be the first title in the series to be published by Square Enix. Previous Grandia titles were published by Enix alone before the company's merger with Squaresoft in 2003. However, all Grandia games to date have been created by the same developer, a company named Game Arts.

Front Mission Mobile joined Square Enix's line of cellphone games for the Japanese NTT Docomo service on March 7. Front Mission is the third major Square Enix console series to be ported to Docomo's cellphone platform, following last year's releases of Dragon Quest i and Final Fantasy titles.

Much like Final Fantasy VII: Before Crisis, the new Front Mission game has been designed such that Square Enix may periodically release future installments of the game, which are to be downloaded from their website with compatible phones. Access to the game and its new installments requires a monthly premium of about US $5, added directly to the user's phone bill.

Screenshots of the first installment, "Front Mission 2089," may be found at the game's official website.

Do you live in Illinois? If so, come Feb 19th, you may be able to go to the Final Fantasy Symphony Concert, featuring music by the ever-popular Nobuo Uematsu. (Source:RPGamer.com)

"The two-hour program will be produced by Uematsu, and conducted by Grammy award winning Arnie Roth, who is the music director and principal conductor of the Chicagoland Pops. Scenes and scores from the games will be seen on massive screens.

Other tour locations or which scores from the games have not been confirmed at this time."

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I think this is very exciting. There's a link on this page that gives details about purchasing tickets.

Although it's mentioned in RPGamer's news report that he may come back in the future, for the moment, Nobuo Uematsu is unfortunately leaving Square Enix.

The reason for his leaving is for greener pastures, although at the time it is not clear which pastures he feels are greener, and why. It is mentioned, however, that he has quite a busy schedule, especially with his band The Black Mages.

After working with Square Enix for 20 years, Uematsu noted that his most memorable composition is Eyes on Me, the main theme from FFVIII, and that his favourite game compositions were from FFVI, FFVII and FFVIII.

EDIT: Sometime after my posting this, RPGamer ammended their news post to say that this is a RUMOUR. So while it's possible, as of now, this piece of news has not been completely verified.

EDIT #2: It has now been confirmed that the above is true. Uematsu will be joining a company called "Smile Please" in November, and does not wish to call his leaving quitting, as that term is too extreme.

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I was a little taken aback when I saw this piece of news, though the man has put in 20 years already with Squeenix. He did do the music for FFXII, so we'll have that at least.