News

Check it out, fellas. Square Enix released the official North American boxart for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, due out in the States on September 11th, 2003.

View the Boxart Here

Source: Square Enix

Looks kinda plain, IMO. Just like the game itself. Eh.

The folks over at Quiter are reporting, through an anonymous source, that Square Enix is currently planning to create an online installment of their Front Mission series.

Square Enix Japan recently registered the name "Front Mission History," and on top of that, Square Enix USA recently acquired the rights to develop a "computer game strategy / video game strategy through a global communication network."

As you can see, this new game is all BUT confirmed at this point. Remember, this is unconfirmed news, so take it for what you will, folks.

Source: OPGaming.com

This is soooooo awesome. All signs point to this being true, and dammit, I need a strategy fix after completely mastering Advance Wars 2. The Front Mission series was always interesting to me because it was one part Strategy RPG (which is always cool) and one part sci-fi (also cool). The customization options in the previous games were also top-notch, and online titles are known for heavy customization.

It's abbreviation MADNESS, I tell you. MADNESS.

Nintendo is putting some major backing into the return of Square to their consoles after a nearly ten-year absence. According to the Japanese game magazine V-Jump, by way of Magic Box, Nintendo of Japan intends to release a limited-edition NGC set with a "Crystal White" 'Cube and controller, a GBA Player, memory card, and, of course, FF:CC.

No word yet on whether this will come to US shores - in fact, it's still not official in that country with the red dot flag, but GAF has a picture of the set.

As far as I'm concerned, who really cares about the special color of the console? Unless they're also planning on selling that pack at a significant discount from what you could buy the individual pieces for, then there's no point in doing it. We'll see if it goes forward, though.

Looks like Squenix released some of the very first character renders for Crystal Chronicles yesterday. The renders, apparently by a Toshiyuki Itahama, all look more than just a little bit creepy. Kinda like some sort of demonic-looking dolls I would have been scared of as a kid, or last week. The center male and female remind me a bit of Zidane and Garnet, too.

The quality of these renders is on par with anything recent the company has done on PS2, but how will the in-game graphics match up on the two competing systems?

The tidbits about this game keep trickling in, but nothing seems to be concrete enough to form a real pre-launch opinion, in my mind. We really need to start seeing some more detail soon, especially with the Japanese launch looming.

Maybe abound is an exaggeration, but Square finally has release dates set for the North American versions of Final Fantasy X-2 and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.  GameCube and PS2 owners should be happy to hear that each gets a game on the same day:  November 8th.

Squenix will be handling the publishing of FFX-2 while Nintendo will be handling Crystal Chronicles.

Source: OPGaming

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November is about five months away.  Hopefully the games will actually be released then.  I might purchase FFX-2 during winter break after the Fall semester.

Squenix has announced that first Final Fantasy game for Nintendo's GameCube has been delayed again.  The game was scheduled to be release in Japan on July 18th.  Now it will not be released there until August 8th.  

There is no word on any North American or European release dates,  but one can only assume that they will be pushed back as well.  For more info on Final Fantasy Chronicles, see R51's news update from yesterday and earlier new updates here at your Caves of Narshe.


Source: Games_Are_Fun

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Not really much of a delay in my eyes. What is it, 3 week?  That's nothing.  Many games go through much longer delays than that and if it does improve the game they could increase the delay and it still be fine by me.