A Week of Snowy RPG Goodness

This week sure was busy in both the RPG lounge and over at my place, so I’ll wrap up everything, simple and clean, and as I’m having several exams over the course of this month, you might see these kind of posts again, and again, although I’m sure to keep you updated  48/7 on Twitter, so be prepared. Lift-off!

1: Final Fantasy Agito XIII explained in 140 characters.

Well, not exactly 140, as Tabata shared more than one tweet with interesting information on this upcoming, and to his belief revolutionary, RPG. He promises players to have patience, as new information will be revealed next year, most-likely starting at the Fabula Nova Crystallis conference: 

Because pretty much nothing has been revealed about Agito, players are probably unable to get a grasp on the game and are thus unable to look forward to it. However, we’ll be releasing information next year, and all members of the team are putting their all into development, thinking that it will end up being widely anticipated. We’re making it into a game that will exceed everyone’s expectations.

He furthermore reveals several concepts that will play a big role in the story. These concepts include the following:

Collision of Four Fantasies (4 main regions: Rubrum, Anaze, Kogai and Milites)

Killing Match between Magic And Weapons

The Ordinary and Unordinary

He also encourages people to play his other PSP project, The Third Birthday, as the game shows what his team is able to do on PlayStation Portable.

Make sure to check our good friends over at ff-xiii.net, as they have a very up-to-date content pages for both Versus XIII and Agito XIII, and scratching your head over Mons Kakotu, Isuka, On Tigris and Tenebrae will sure give you a head start when Square starts to release new FNC footage next year.

 

2:  GameLoft announced iPad/iPhone JRPG

GameLoft, known for its many, usually high quality mobile games announced an exciting new RPG for the iPhone and iPad. Eternal Legacy is said to be a tribute to the JRPG genre and seems like a worthy rival for Square Enix’s Chaos Rings. No word on a release date or further details, although the one minute preview looks interesting enough to keep us waiting

Want some more movies? Check out the Japanese Valkyria Chronicles 3 opening or a new gameplay trailer of White Knight Chronicles: Dogma Wars!

3: Buy One, Get Four Times Hearts

She’s probably busy working on FF Versus XIII at the moments but Yoko Shimomura still makes some time to treat her fans. Square Enix yesterday announced that they will be combining the soundtracks of both Kingdom Hearts BbS (+ Final Mix), Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts Re:coded in one big, spicy soundtrack. Almost all of the music is composed by Yoko Shimomura (some tracks have been composed by Tsuyoshi Sekito/Takeharu Ishimoto) so fans (that’s, me included) certainly have something to look forward to.

This three disc soundtrack will be available in Japanese stores on February 2 for ¥3,800, roughly $45/€35. With a little bit of luck, this soundtrack also hits iTunes for fans overseas, similar to many of Square Enix’s other recent soundtracks.

4: Square Enix shares Jump Festa line-up, no Versus hidden in the dark

Square Enix opened their annual Jump Festa site earlier this week, revealing a line-up that’s disappointing, yet expected, for Fabula Nova Crystallis fans. Jump Festa is an annual Japanese event specifically targeted at Anime/Manga, although at past events, Square Enix showed off several times who’s boss with some exciting new footage of their games. Jump Festa will be held on the 18th/19th of this month. We’ll shorten it to “Jump” for convenience if we have to use the name in future posts.

Last year (seems like yesterday to me) there was no mention of other Fabula Nova Crystallis titles except FFXIII, but surprisingly enough Square showed some footage of both Versus and Agito behind closed doors. With a special conference specifically targeted at Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII some weeks after the Jump, it seems highly unlikely that the same will happen this year.

Nevertheless Square Enix will show the following games at Jump: The 3rd Birthday, SaGa 3, Kingdom Hearts BbS Final Mix, Dissidia Duodecim 012, DQM Joker 2 and DQM Wanted, as well as their Square Enix Music and Store booths showcasing the latest products, play-arts and soundtracks.

5: Final Fantasy Becomes a Trading Card Game

Yes, I’m sure Final Fantasy VIII fans shuffled their decks several times when they first heard this news, and although it doesn’t exactly look like Tetra Master or Triple Triad, it’s nevertheless an exciting move of Square Enix. Square Enix promises a strong gameplay component using characters and summons/enemies(?) from the Final Fantasy games. So far, Sephiroth, Cloud and Zidane have been confirmed, although you might notice some other characters in the silhouette artwork found on the official site of the trading card game.

Will this become the new rage in Japan, after Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards? If Square Enix carves out some great gameplay, some stunning artwork an regularly adds new cards to the deck, I’m sure it will.

6: Final Fantasy XIII Nominated for Best RPG of 2010

The Spike VideoGame Awards have nominated Final Fantasy XIII, alongside with Fable III, Mass Effect 2 and Fallout: New Vegas as Best RPG of 2010. Spike TV airs the awards live on December 11th, alongside with some big video game announcements. Spike TV certainly knows a lot about their nominees, they know, for one, that Final Fantasy XIII features a female lead character, great, although Lightning looks a lot like Ashe in that picture. Make sure to go to Spike TV.com and take a look at the nominees yourself.

7: We can’t get enough of Final Fantasy

Square Enix already made numerous remakes of the (S)NES Final Fantasy games, and apparently fans (again, including me) want more. In a recent survey of Goo Ranking, about 1075 people where surveyed on what PlayStation title they would love to see remade, on PlayStation 3.  Not surprisingly, Square Enix dominates this list with 6 of their games at the top. You can view the full list below:

Which games do you want to see a remake of? I’d personally love to walk through Phantom Forest using my Nunchuk and WiiMote ^_^

• 1. Final Fantasy VIII (Square)
• 2. Final Fantasy VII (Square)
• 3. Final Fantasy IX (Square)
• 4. Xenogears (Square)
• 5. Valkyrie Profile (Enix)
• 6. Paraiste Eve (Square)
• 7. Ghost in the Shell (Sony)
• 8. Bakusou Dekotora Densetsu (Human)
• 9. Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (Namco)
• 10. Dino Crisis (Capcom)
• 11. King’s Field (From Software)
• 12. Segare Ijiri (Square)
• 13. Legend of Dragoon (Sony)
• 14. Front Mission Alternative (Square)
• 15. Vagrant Story (Square)
• 16. Tobal No.1 (Square)
• 16. Kowloon’s Gate (Artdink)
• 16. Bushido Blade (Square)
• 16. Ehrgeiz (Square)
• 16. Pepsiman (Kid)

 

That’s it for this week, thanks for reading, hopefully I teached you something new. Keep yourself warm, have some fun Snowfights (^ ^;) and follow us on Twitter for the latest RPG news!