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Sorry we're a bit late on this one - Squenix released about a week ago a trailer for their first outing on the NGC, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

For those who haven't been following this game, FF:CC is another offshoot game that carries the Final Fantasy name, similar to Mystic Quest or Tactics. This one looks to play more like the recent Zelda games, though. The game is classed as an "Action RPG", and, for the first time, true multiplayer will be included.

I believe the video weighs in at about 14.5 MB, and is in Quicktime format. Enjoy!

Watching the video, for me, actually built a little interest in this game that I didn't have before. It's surely a striking game visually, but that shouldn't surprise anyone. If the music in-game is as strong as what Squenix put in the trailer, CC will certainly have a soundtrack worth possessing, too.

According to a recent Square Enix financial discussion,  they plan to release 11 Million units of software in the second half of this fiscal year,  amoung those is Final Fantasy XII.

This puts the release range anywhere from October 1st , 2003 to March 31st, 2004.

Source : Square Insider
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I'm personally looking forward to this, not that I know much about at the moment. though.

Still it's Final Fantasy and that's something I look forward to.

Square Enix has sent E-mails notify those who were selected out of the application pool for the Playstation 2 beta test of Final Fantasy XI.  In addition to the game itself, Squenix is also sending participants the Playstation 2 hard drive that is required for FFXI (which has not been released in North America yet).  Whether or not the hard drive needs to be sent back is currently unknown.

Do not fret though if you applied to beta test the PC version of FFXI and did not hear anything.  Squenix says on their website those selected for that test will be notified shortly.  Who knows hoe long shortly is, but it will probably be a month or so.

Source: Square Enix

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I am waiting to found about the PC version myself.  It is cool to hear the PS2 testers are getting a hard drive though.

Square Enix has announced more games for their Electronic Entertainment Expo line-up. Most titles have already been confirmed for release in America.

The list of announced games and their perspective release dates are below:

Final Fantasy XI (PlayStation 2 and PC) - TBA 2003
Final Fantasy X-2, (PlayStation 2) - November 2003
UNLIMITED SaGa, (PlayStation 2) - June 2003
Star Ocean: Till The End of Time (PlayStation 2) - Spring 2004
Drakengard (Drag-on Dragoon), (PlayStation 2) - Spring 2004
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (GameCube) - TBA 2003
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Game Boy Advance) - TBA 2003
Sword of Mana (Shinyaku Seiken Densetsu), (GameBoy Advance) - TBA 2003

Source: RPGFan.com

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Hm. I can't wait for Sword of Mana, which if you didn't know is the remake of Final Fantasy Adventure, and Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. Both are gonna be so goood!

I'll assume X-2 is also being looked forward to by alot of people, any others anyone is waiting for?

It may be in Japanese, and the game it's from still way out of reach from our Canadian and American hands (further out of the reach for you folks in the UK and beyond) but here it is. The Intro Movie for FFX-2, courtesy of www.rpgamer.com

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ffx-2/ffx-2mov.html

That link will also take you to a few other tasty bits of footage.

For the intro itself, I liked it well enough. It first opens up into an arena that I was sure was going to be blitzball. Instead, we get Yuna, first in her summoner's outfit. She changes classes, into her pop singer costume. While she sings a song in Japanese that is catchy, but sounds like the same sentence over and over, Rikku and FFX newbie Paine cause mischief in the audience. An interesting, colourful intro (though Rikku's braids still look very very fake, even in FMV) leaving the viewer with lots of questions (one of which may be "Why??" for those of you still against FFX-2 on principle).

To almost coincide with the opening of their North American website, Square Enix has opened up a public online application for those who are interested in beta testing Final Fantasy XI,  their upcoming (already released in Japan) online RPG.

There are applications for both the Playstation 2 and the PC versions of the game. Listed below are the requirements for each that one has to meet if he or she is even going to apply:

For the PS2 version
-PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system (duh)
-Network Adaptor (for PlayStation 2)
-Internet connection (56k or greater)

For the PC version
Pentium® III 800Mhz
-Windows® 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP
-DirectX® 8.1 (included)
-32MB Direct3D compatible AGP video card
-128MB RAM
-CD-ROM drive
-5GB of free hard drive space
-Internet connection (56k or greater)

You also have to be older than thirteen years of age and be a resident of either the United States or Canada.  Keep in mind that most people will not be selected.  There are no numbers on the amount that Square Enix even plans to chose

Source: Square Enix
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I put in an application to beta test the PC version.  I probably won't get chosen, but it will be interesting to see how many beta testers they do actually select.  The application for the PC version was easy enough (it only took about 5 minutes) so I assume the application for the PS2 version would be more simple than that.  It would be neat if someone from the CoN was selected to beta test either version.

The only negative part of applying (that I can see) is that I'm probably going to get a bit more spam E-mail because of it (The privacy policy is lacking.  They even say they will probably give out your E-mail address).  That isn't entirely too bad though because I used a yahoo E-mail address when filling out the application.  Also, since it is restricted to US and Canada residents, some of you forum members are not going to be even able to apply.