"According to a reliable source at SCEJ, Square-Enix has something big planned for The Last Remnant's release. Or rather, they have two "something bigs" planned. First up: they will be including a 22-minute playable demo of Final Fantasy XIII with the PS3 version of The Last Remnant. This demo lets us play through a section of FFXIII that doesn't occur until a good 20 hours into the game, which leads us to believe the developers are progressing nicely. Heck, they might even be ahead of schedul..."

"GamePro readers have spoken: the most eagerly anticipated PS3 title this year is none other than Metal Gear Solid 4.

The news might be unsurprising to some, given the amount of hype and anticipation surrounding this upcoming system seller, but what is slightly surprising is just how much of a win MSG4 achieved over other highly anticipated PS3 IP in GamePro's most recent readership poll.

The Hideo Kojima title pulled in 57.7% of the vote, a full 46.4% higher than second place finisher (..."

"To take this argument through to its natural conclusion: if Square Enix is the messiah of RPGs and they’re betting on PS3, then Sony’s machine should ultimately be considered the console of choice for the genre’s fans.

Now there is only one thing left to do: see Final Fantasy XIII in action."

The game was announced during the final E3 2006, and is one of the Playstation 3's biggest third party exlusive titles. Still with an unknown release date (speculated to be 2009), Final Fantasy XIII is certainly looking better and better with every new piece of information, and fortunately, we've just been given two more scans.
Here are just some of the points made in the article:

• Alot of the old FF teams staffs are returning to this project, including those that worked on VII, X and XII...

"This month's edition of Official Playstation Magazine has a small follow-up to the interview they had last issue with the director of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core; Hajime Tabata. Quite a lot of the questions actually revolved around the Final Fantasy VII franchise though, rather than Crisis Core itself.

It is worth noting that when asked again about the possibility of a Final Fantasy VII remake, he said:

"The possiblity for a remake may become greater if, for instance, the schedules o..."

"BlankChocobo has scanned in her copy of Famitsu PS3 which contains 27 pages on Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII. In case you're confused, the previous Famitsu scans were from Famitsu Weekly and these ones are from Famitsu's Playstation 3 specific magazine. There aren't any new images but many are displayed without text over the top of them."

"What games will be at GDC 2008? The infamous Surfer Girl says three of the above titles will be there, along with four more “definites”. We can confirm seven others.

In a response to a poster who asks what games will be at GDC this year, Surfer Girl says “YES” to seven games. These games are MotorStorm 2, Alan Wake, Too Human, InFamous, LittleBigPlanet, Killzone 2 and Gears of War 2.

There are three other games that might possibly make it to the event: SOCOM PS3, Metal Gear Solid 4, and..."

"Joystiq go on to say that Nomura has also promised a demo for the Playstation Network "a while before the games release", which is also false. Again, Nomura isn't even mentioned in the article and the Playstation Network isn't mentioned once. There might well be a demo on the Playstation Network at some point, but this article certainly does not confirm it for this year."

"Here comes Square-Enix announcing a 2008 release date for FF13. No date, just the year, which is plenty enough for us eager FF fans. But how much truth is really behind this, because I don't want to have my heart broken or tears run down my face. According to Joystiq Mr. Testuya Nomura, character designer for FFXIII says that "the long wait for the Fabula Nova Crystallis collection will be over soon enough. Not only does he swear by the game's 2008 release date, he teases at a playable demo f..."

"This week's Shonen Jump Magazine features some rather exciting images. These images show off several of the new characters in Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as well as the new summons in Final Fantasy XIII such as Carbuncle and Ifrit."

"Wired's annual Vaporware Awards went up yesterday, and because this is the Internet quite a few of the slots went to videogames. But we're not nearly done yet.

We have some slightly different rules for this list. The game in question didn't have to ever have an official 2007 release date attached to it, just as long as the hype coming from the publisher vastly outweighed the substance."

"Final Fantasy XIII



Final Fantasy Versus XIII

"

To mark the release of the Cloud Art-book in Japan, Dengeki Online have released a new website, which contains not just some extracts of the magazine itself, but also confirms the existence of the long awaited trailers from TGS that have been shown behind closed doors (note that none of the trailers show any of the new characters, they are simply the uncut version of previous trailers).

"Those who make it to the Square Enix booth, usually the largest booth amongst game publishers, can look forward to the following:

Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road (arcade): Game will be playable at 100 yen per play. No limited edition cards are planned. A tournament will be held for elementary school kids on the 22nd and kid/parent pairs on the 23rd.

Dragon Quest IV (NDS): Special data to be distributed to those with DS systems and a copy of the game. Make sure you've advanced to the 5..."

"Square-Enix's Jump Festa 2008 site has now officially been launched. The official site detailing what will be attending Jump Festa will open on December 3rd.

Jump Festa runs for 3 days, but free admission to the event starts on 22nd December and ends on 23rd November. Rumor also has it that the trailers of Fabula Nova Crystallis (Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII) which were shown at the Tokyo Game Show in September will be revealed to the public a..."

"Dengeki has interviewed Tetsuya Nomura on the future of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy XIII and he's revealed some more information on the development of the games.

Nomura says that with the help of the disc space on Blu-Ray and the Hard drive in each PS3, The evolution of Final Fantasy XII to XIII will be as big as the evolution of Final Fantasy VI to VII. He also says that Final Fantasy XIII will probably be the first game to use the full specifications of the Playstation 3. Another..."

"We now have the EGM Scans from this months issue. There isn't much new but a short summary of each TGS trailer which we've read before.


Pieces from the scan:

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core: This long-awaited PSP prequel might actually redeem the hitherto underwhelming "Compilation of FFVII".

Final Fantasy XIII: We spied a third potential party member - a scantily clad brunette with pigtails.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII: Here, the vibe isn't sci-fi/fantasy, but rather a slick mashup ...

"

"1. (1 / 1) Dragon Quest IX NDS Square Enix
2. (2 / 2) Final Fantasy XIII PS3 Square Enix
3. (3 / 3) Biohazard 5 PS3 Capcom
4. (4 / 4) Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 Konami
5. (6 / 6) Monster Hunter 3 Wii Capcom
6. (5 / 5) Super Smash Bros. Brawl Wii Nintendo
7. (7 / 7) Dragon Quest VI NDS Square Enix
8. (8 /10) Dragon Quest IV NDS Square Enix
9. (12/ 9) Lost Odyssey Xbox 360 Microsoft
10. (11/14) Final Fantasy IV NDS Square Enix
11. (9 / 8) Shin Sangoku Musou 5 PS3 Koei
12. (14/20) Dragon..."

"Final Fantasy XIII
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Availability: This item will be released on November 30, 2008. Pre-order now! See details. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-..."

"During my foray to the Square Enix Closed Mega Theater presentation, I saw the Final Fantasy XIII trailer and at the end the words "For PS3 Only" flashed on to the screen. At first I thought maybe the wording was due to translation but it also seemed like it could have been a definitive. PS3 ONLY! The same phrase was also present at the end of the Final Fantasy XIII Versus trailer. So there you are, according to the trailers Final Fantasy XIII is a confirmed PS3 ONLY title."

Here's 5 seconds of the new Final Fantasy XIII trailer. Hopefully we wont have to wait too long for the full version.

Three Screenshots have managed to find their way out of the Tokyo Game Show 2007, and the three screenshots are for one of the most awaited games for the PS3: Final Fantasy XIII. Take a look at them below.

You must be thinking... "What does the title mean". Well that's pretty simple, what I mean to say is, will Final Fantasy XIII be the game that rejuvinates the RPG genre and hits it big for the PS3 platform? Final Fantasy VII was the first game on the original Playstation platform, and it (very quickly) became one of the fastest (and most) selling titles on the Playstation's.

Can Square-Enix recreate that with Final Fantasy XIII? With such improved visuals, more disc space for the SE to use...

Albeit, in Japanese, the official site for Square-Enix's Tokyo Game Show has gone live today, and although there isn't much information present on the site, you can be certain that information relating to the Fabula Nova Crystallis (FFXIII) will be added to the site very soon.

"According to the company’s press materials, the former currently sits at just 13% completion, a far lower percentage than expected considering the title has been displayed multiple times in video form. The development of Versus, currently at 1.5%, is lagging behind so badly that we question just how much work has actually been completed on the project.

There have been numerous rumors suggesting that Square Enix is planning on displaying a brand new trailer of either (or each) of the projec..."

"Not really news as such ... more of pondering and speculation. But those always make for interesting posts, don't they? IGN hit up Motomu Toriyama, the man behind Final Fantasy X-2 for a rather interesting interview concerning the localized version of Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings for the DS.

Most of the interview is just what you'd expect. Increased difficulty, extra content blah blah ... if you're interested, you can read the full interview at the link above. Me? I'm more interested i..."

"In two separate chats I asked Jeff Bell, Corporate Vice President of Global Marketing, and Peter Moore the head of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment division if they could have one third party Japanese franchise on the Xbox 360 which would they pick. Mr. Bell immediately responded with Final Fantasy. Mr. Moore let out an optimistic roar for Mario and I mentioned that since it’s Nintendo's that is probably not going to happen. After Mario, Mr. Moore picked Final Fantasy. Mr. Moore said he ..."

"The latest edition of Game Informer magazine finally hit the stands. It contains quiet a lot of juicy new information. They have an exclusive first look at an upcoming game called "Prototype" which is due out on the PS3/360 next year. Details will be published soon.

According Game Informer magazine, a $399 40gig PS3 system is on the way, but it will have no backwards compatibility. They actually expected to hear the announcement at E3 on it. So they may have just heard different rumblings ..."

"E3 was smaller and somewhat less important this year. That's not to say publishers didn't come out in spades to show their latest lineups of games. There were a few distinct absentees, all big games that we would have loved to see. Some are obvious and some are speculation, but having these games shown this week would have made our trip down to Santa Monica a little more meaningful."

"Who's ready to form an angry mob? Today, Square-Enix America released their E3 2007 line up including many of their leading titles. However Final Fantasy XIII, Versus or any other mention of the Fabula Nova Crystallis compilation are left out. Hopes of a new FFXIII trailer seem to be out the window.

This news was brought up a few days ago by a 1up.com podcast but without, what looked like any proof. It seems they were right. However, Final Fantasy XIII was never listed on their lineup befo..."

"A video game & anime pianist, going by the stage name "Piano Squall," has recently released his debut album. It's entitled "GAME" (Game & Anime Music Emotions) and it features music from various Final Fantasy games, Chrono Chross, Chrono Trigger, InuYasha, Cowboy Bebop, Super Mario World, Evangelion, Naruto, Tetris, Fullmetal Alchemist.



Since 2003, he has given concerts in sixteen different states to benefit organizations such as The National ..."

"When talking about the upcoming E3 2007 on the very popular 1UP Yours Podcast, Editor Garnett Lee and EGM Previews Editor Bryan Intihar said the unfortunate following at 1:35:25 (June 29th Podcast).

"Disappointment's always a big question, what do you think's going to be disappointing us Bryan? I mean come on, I know you have all kinds of stuff on that." -Garnett

"Well the obviously big disappointment is that, there will be no Final Fantasy XIII what so ever." -Bryan

"Right." -Garnet..."

"On the heels of news that the PS3 won’t see a Square-Enix release until 2008, Tetsuya Nomura, game and character designer who played a large role on games such as the Kingdom Hearts series as well as a number of other successful Square-Enix titles and now working on the Final Fantasy XIII line, has expressed his fondness of the PS3’s capabilities. In a recent interview with Dengeki Playstation Magazine, Nomura stated (as translated by qj.net) “It's not just about how pretty the graphics are b..."

"Widely popular video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly takes one step back and gives readers the big picture of Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII so far in their August issue. No new information and it's unclear where their quotes are from, but nonetheless EGM does some speculating of it's own in these new scans featuring all 3 Fabula Nova Crystallis titles."

"Square Enix have come out and made a statement on Final Fantasy XIII. Shinji Hashimoto spoke to Japanese gaming magazine Nikkei BP and said that they were developing FF Crystal Chronicles for the Wii, but “as for FF on the Xbox 360, it’s currently a completely blank page.”

Given the console situation in Square Enix’s main market of Japan, this wasn’t totally unexpected, but it should put a stop to the usual rumour-mongering. It’s worth noting that he didn’t totally rule it out for some poi..."

"The latest issue of EGM has a section on the Fabula Nova Crystallis compilation celebrating Final Fantasy's 20th Anniversary. They have sections for both FFXIII and Versus and a summary of what we know so far. Although nothing new is included in the scans, it's a good read for someone who hasn't been following the compilation so far.

There hasn't been any release dates announced but EGM's predictions are a Summer 2008 release for FFXIII in Japan and a 2009 release for Versus. Thanks to Kyl..."

"-- How is the development of Versus XIII going?
Nomura: Everyone is very excited over this so I think we can make something good out of this. Part of our team has been together since the FF7 days but since we've spent such a long time working on KH, a lot of spirit is going into the development of a long-awaited FF for us.

-- What kind of FF will it turn out to be like?
Nomura: The action elements will be high in the game but instead of defeating the enemies from an audience's view, I wa..."

"A hint for an April 2008 launch? Or simply some other crazy assumptions?"

"In EDGE's Final Fantasy special this month, they have interviewed Tetsuya Nomura. It looks alot like the interview with him that we posted earlier, but at least this time we can understand it! He pretty much covers the same points, and pretty much secures the much discussed Playstation 3 exclusivity of Final Fantasy XIII, or thats how I read it anyway. He speaks a lot about how they're doing so many things they haven't be able to do before thanks to the Playstation 3, and the fact that it was..."

"The world of Final Fantasy XIII is based in a government-controlled floating fortress called 'Cocoon', which is defended by advanced technology and 'The Crystals'.
Those cast out of Cocoon are placed into the world below, called Pulse. The citizens of Pulse rebelled against this unfair treatment, and threaten to attack the government itself, which has caused much fear within Cocoon.

- - -


Cocoon: Many people have mistaken this to be an image of Cocoon.
This image is actually a imag..."

"Firstly, I found this new scan that is to be rather large, though blurry. It shows Lightning using magic to make things fly. Is this the "Gravity Bomb" magic that Square Enix have been talking about?

I also promised that I would translate some of the Agito scans. So here they are!

- Lant"

"Looking for more Final Fantasy following the Xbox 360 port of Final Fantasy XI? Then you're going to have to look to a different next generation system. A Square Enix executive has disclosed to Japan's Nikkei BP that the company currently has no plans for Final Fantasy games on the 360.

Noting that the PS3 is getting Final Fantasy XIII, the website asked Square Enix's Shinji Hashimoto if the Wii or Xbox 360 will also be getting games in the series. "For the Wii, we have FF Crystal Chronicl..."

"FABULA NOVA CRYSTALLIS:

Toriyama:"The development of the three games was started at the same time and we gathered to try and find a common platform to stand on and try to build from. But since then, we've been working completely independently of each other. Each game is evolving in its own direction and take place in separate worlds with their own main characters. There exists basically no cooperation between the different teams. I wouldn't even want to claim that we communicate with each ..."

I'm sure you all expected superb graphics and performance from this game. Well, it seems like we won't be disappointed. Take a look at some developmental video material, showcasing the level of detail of this game. It will only get better from here on.

""In fact, the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII project isn't just limited to three titles - there are many different aspects. In terms of the formats we're reaching, as well, it's not simply exclusive to the PS3 and mobile phones.""

"Gamefront.de has posted the latest Famitsu's Most Wanted charts for the dates between the 23rd to 29th of March. The list is dominated by Square Enix with Final Fantasy XIII as the most wanted title, and five other to-be-released titles chosen by Famitsu's readers.

Other Square-Enix titles that were picked by the readers are Dragon Quest IX at number 2, Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors at number 10, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings at number 16, Final Fantas..."

"Hirokazu Hamamura, The president of Enterbrain, which is the publisher of popular Japanese magazine Famitsu, gave a lecture about the current status of the console market.
He stated that unlike the Wii, the PlayStation 3 has many exclusive games that belong to famous franchises, all previously released for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. The bad thing is that most of these games don't even have a release date and that raises doubts among the fans. Once they are released, however, Hirokazu..."

"IM not a fan of FF, but thats pretty cool."

"In the story an exile from the floating kingdom of Cocoon, who has been banished to the lower world, finds herself caught up in a plot to take the sky domain down."

"It's getting late and you don't want to read, I understand. I'll shut up, just check out the high resolution pictures for yourself - there's plenty of new pictures to make it worth your while. The full one page EGM article is in the gallery below, plus write ups from two other magazines' May issues. Don't expect many FFXIII details though, most of it is just glorifying the console with technical possibilities we're all already aware of, but Shiva sure does make a good spokeswoman for the Play..."