According to Jeux-France, the newest Game Informer magazine issue should have news about Square Enix's new game The Last Remnant that will be coming out on PlayStation 3 and/or Xbox 360. Instead of coming out in Japan first (or being announced in a Japanese magazine first) it will release simultaneously in America and Japan. With the Unreal Engine 3 technology within his reach, Hiroshi Takai will direct the new RPG with help from Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy: Spirits Within's Kouzi Kobayashi.

The two main characters are Rush Sykes and The Conqueror, although Rush is the only playable character, and the gameplay revolves around Remnants:

“of one era the magic fragments spent, entered in contact with the human beings thousand years ago” which destabilize the world from their immense capacity, these Remnants can take the shape of vehicles, weapons and even of the creatures. The adventure begins on a called insulated island Eulam on which Rush and its Irina sister live peacefully. But Irina is unfortunately kidnapped by a mysterious organization, and Rush is found in the middle of a war related to these invaluable Remnants if coveted.

The Conqueror is the guy with the red clothes in the pictures, and his goal is to find the greatest number of Remnants. However, it seems like Remnants and their length through a certain timeline is important, so I'm gonna predict he's either the last Remnant from the future looking for the first, or he's actually Rush Sykes from the future. Combat consists mostly of magic battles and large numbers of enemies, and four races are available to join up with: "Mitra (of human), Yama (of the watery creatures), Qsiti (of small lizards humanoïdes), Sovanni (of the cat-like beings with four arms)."

Square Enix has definitely set up a unique looking Intellectual Property, but I'm not convinced it will be much fun at all. Check out the interfaces in the scans below, the morale bar could be fun to push around with different battle tactics, but everything else looks pretty simple and repetitive so far. Maybe Square Enix is trying to create a White Knight Story styled game of their own, we'll have to wait for this weekend's Square Enix party for more details on characters, combat, and story.

This weekend is the Square Enix party we've been waiting months for, and Squeenix is revealing little pieces of their puzzle a few days early. Final Fantasy Dissidia is now officially being planned, which is no surprise to us, but it's now known that it will be for the PSP. As usual, Tetsuya Nomura will be the lead character designer, and the only listed descriptions of what to expect are "Fantasy is endless" and "Fantasy has no limited form" as well as the genre being labeled "Dramatic Progressive Action." "Dissidia" in Latin means "to disagree" so Tetsuya should have lots of freedom in his designs, characters we've always seen in one shape with one set of feelings might be stretched to new extremes.

Ever since Final Fantasy X where the one summon was the enemy's dead mother, I always wanted a Final Fantasy game where you collect summons, and then go around reviving them back to life, so they turn into a dead relative who can join your party and tell you where to find the next family member set of summons. I think a reverse process to that aspect of RPG gameplay would make things more interesting. To tide you over for the next week, keep checking this fancy flash animation teaser site for future updates.

The newest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine has some interesting stories in its rumor section, check this out PS3 gamers:

"The biggest is that Team Ninja apparently have an exclusive new Dead or Alive game in the works for the Sony console. Also interesting is that Capcom is apparently remaking the original Mega Man with new graphics for download on PSN. And for RPG fans, Nippon Ichi is working on a new Disgaea for PS3 and Square Enix has a new Kingdom Hearts coming -- though it won't be Kingdom Hearts 3 (that will be coming later)."

If all the rumors turn out to be true, then that's great news for several different genres. It looks like Kingdom Hearts will be ripped to pieces as much as every installment of Final Fantasy has been recently. I remember when I heard about Final Fantasy X-2 and could barely grasp the concept of another FF game without it being FFXI. For the most part I'm glad to see them continue their stories past the scope of just one game, and if FFXIII turns out to be multiple games that are all the same story from different perspectives, then I'm all for it. I'm just afraid it's their excuse for working on ten different games at once, and giving us only 1/10th of the content and story we expect in each installment. These are all just rumors though, so only time will tell.

While Square Enix diligently works on the four player DS game, we wait patiently hoping that they'll finish Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates by the end of the year. Siliconera found the new pictures of their progress below, although the images are a bit small. More importantly, Square Enix also decided to update the four main character races with the following new skills:

• Selkies have a bow and they can use it to hit far away switches.
• Yukes are still the best spell casters and they can use their fire magic to light up lamps and open new paths.
• Clavats have a spinning sword attack that can hit a group of enemies when they are surrounded.
• Lilties carry an alchemy pot with them that makes magicite when players stir the pot with the touch screen. Whoever picks up the magicite is granted the power to cast new spells.

So, which will you play as? No, Mog of War is not an option, although it should be.

There's been a rumor going around that Final Fantasy XIII is no longer a PS3 exclusive. It's a rumor we're used to hearing by now, but this time people have been speculating that Square Enix will instead make new FFXIII games for other consoles and handhelds. I took the time to track down some new overseas info, and here's what I found from an Australian PlayStation magazine. FFXIII's director Motomu Toriyama said this:

"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. In Latin, Fabula Nova Crystallis means "New Crystal Story" and we're using that as a base for the project, but there are many characters and legends that are branching off from this main story and universe. It's a huge project."

You can read the whole interview from the scans below(I think there's a few new pictures too), but this is what it covers. All the FFXIII games take place in the same universe, although they're not directly related. The story in Fabula Nova Crystallis comes from the clashing factions that inhabit planets Cocoon and Pulse, and the lead character is Lightning, the girl we've seen so much of. Gameplay stems from a high speed Active Timer Battle that slows down opponents when overclocked. Magic will be included in FFXIII just like we've always experienced, and combat breaks into four choices: attack, shoot (Lightning's gunblade), defend, and V Strike (effects her overclock limit strike). This is stuff we already know, and I'm guessing that since they've also mentioned that each gun will have it's own camera controls and gameplay mechanics, that it's safe to assume "shoot" attacks will vary greatly depending on which weapon you have equipped.  Or, each character will only have one main weapon, and the variety of other characters will bring the differing shooting controls - Motomu made it clear that other main characters have been deliberately kept secret so far, and will be revealed in a certain order.

Other things Motomu Toriyama touched on were online play and mini-games. They're still considering online PS3 functions, but aren't positive if they'll include them or not. And they've got pretty much the same feeling towards mini-games, saying that if they have them, they'll just turn them into whole separate games. In other words, make you pay more for what you already expect from them.

In other Final Fantasy XIII related news, Shinji Hashimoto from Square Enix has that Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers "will exploit the Wii controller fully," as well as mentioned that the entire Final Fantasy XIII series (isn't it fucked up when you have to call ONE game a series nowadays?) will take place over TEN years. The only other way to interpet "the world of Final Fantasy XIII will be spread out over 10 years" is to hope (and I do hope) that it actually means each of the three, five, or ten million FFXIII games actually skip ahead a year or two in the FFXIII timeline, to tell a much longer story than we're used to playing through(which is pretty damn long to begin with). That, or Square Enix just wants to take all of our money for as long as they can before they have to figure out what Final Fantasy XIV will be about.

And the last FFXIII update of the day, is that Square Enix trademarked "Dissidia" in North America. The FFXIII games have already claimed "Versus" "Agito" and "Haeresis" as subtitles, and since Dissidia means "to disagree" in Latin, it's a good bet that it's the name for one of the newly confirmed FFXIII games. If there's any more FFXIII news today, I think I'll shoot myself.

Students of the Strange certainly found some strange news, yet another interview with Tetsuya Nomura has revealed even more information about Square Enix's future plans. Nomura has been quite the source of information since he's the lead character designer for Square's games, and in this game's case, lead game director as well. When asked about Kingdom Hearts III and that secret video we saw a few days ago, mainly where the heck Disney was and who were the new people that made Mickey Mouse jealous? Here's what Nomura had to say:

“They are people who have some relation to the new series,” said the producer. “However the next title won’t just be Kingdom Hearts III. If it were III, we wouldn’t call it a new series.”

Will Sora and Riku make an appearance? “I can’t say.” Details on the new title?. “First, it’s not Kingdom Hearts III. Of course, because we’re calling it a ‘new’ series, it won’t be KHIII. Also, it’s a series, so it probably won’t be just one title.” So clearly Kingdom Hearts III will be on every console and handheld in one way or another.

Damnit Square, when your piggy bank has dimes flying out of its utters, it's not a piggy bank, it's your damn cash cow that doesn't need to make ten new games in one year just to milk a profit. Just because you gave away half your money for the new Unreal Engine doesn't mean we want Kingdom Hearts III games that look like Killzone II. This is good news . . . for now. But expect this sales strategy to get really old in three years unless they start making new games and not just sequels that will sell regardless of their quality. I remember when Square did something really cool - they made a Chrono game. And then they made a Kingdom Hearts game. I suggest starting fresh again soon.

Of all the series in the whole game industry, the Final Fantasy games often confuse people the most. I've lost count of how many times I've heard two different people say that Final Fantasy III is their favorite, only to find out they're talking about two entirely different games. Not only does this thirty minute video summarize every Final Fantasy game released so far, it also explains how the Japanese/American release sequences work out chronologically. So if you're the gamer who timidly has to admit they've never played any Final Fantasy games every time a debate breaks out, watch this video and catch up on what you've missed in the last decade.

Those of you who have played the majority of them, which is your favorite? Final Fantasy VII is the one that usually gets the most praise, but almost all of my hardcore FF friends insist that Final Fantasy VI is the best by far. Or are you one of the few that grew obsessed with FFVIII or one of the other less praised titles in the series? Let's get into a fight over something that has nothing to do with next generation topics for a change, which games did you like the most?

More details about the Square Enix Party 2007 event have popped up on IGN, here's what you'll get to see and play if you attend the event over in Japan:

Dragon Quest Monster Joker (DS, playable)
Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wing (DS, playable)
Final Fantasy Tactics (PSP, playable)
Itadaki Street DS (DS, playable)
Dragon Quest Swords (Wii, playable)
It's a Wonderful World (DS, playable)
Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII (PSP, playable)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (DS, playable)
Final Fantasy XI (PS2, X360, Windows, playable)
Final Fantasy (PSP, video)
Final Fantasy II (PSP, video)
Dragon Quest Monster Battle Road (Arcade, video)
Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete (Blu-Ray, video)
Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, Mobile, video)
Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII (Mobile, playable)
Seiken Densetsu (Mobile, playable)
Seiken Densetsu: Friends of Mana (Mobile, playable)
Chocobo de Mobile (Mobile, playable)
Dragon Quest Monsters Mobile (Mobile, playable)
Dragon Quest Mysterious Dungeon Mobile (Mobile, playable)

Plenty of free collectibles will be given away, and they're promising that their Square Enix Goods Shop will be filled with limited edition items too. Two years ago they announced the release date of Final Fantasy XII at this event, so this year we get to look forward to a possible Final Fantasy XIII release date for the PS3 announced in May.

Square Enix has announced they're holding a party on May 12th and 13th, here's the translated details:

Square Enix released, in daily Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, a publicity page  to  announce  their  special  event  "Square Enix Party 2007" which will take place  the  12th and 13th of next May at Makuhari Messe, a few kilometers east of Tokyo, Japan. We also find the logos of all of the shutters of the Final Fantasy series in development, as well as a phrase that's intriguing enough, but leaves us dreaming; "Evolution will never stop, the series continues ... and a new Final Fantasy that no one knows will enter the scene." So, will a new Final Fantasy really be presented on the 20th anniversary of the series? Something to follow very closely.  

Damn, it's hard to keep track of all the different projects Square Enix is working on lately. Now that they've got the Unreal Engine for their games, I'd guess their new game will be another PS3 title, or will this be one they're giving to Xbox 360? I've got a feeling the next game might not be an RPG at all, but they said it's a Final Fantasy title. Is FF14 going to be unveiled already? Make some predictions and we'll take a look back here once May comes around.

After Devil May Cry 4 PS3 exclusivity was stolen from Sony, people have been asking if Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII will follow DMC4 to the Xbox 360. Kojima isn't interested in taking MGS4 multiplatform, but Square Enix doesn't look too sure yet, a Sony Computer Entertainment Europe vice president was quoted saying "Lastly, for Final Fantasy XIII, I can say to you that exclusiveness is under discussion," in a recent French interview. Doesn't confirm anything, but I never thought Square Enix would be considering it.


Makes me wonder if Capcom would have jumped ship on Dead Rising and Lost Planet if the PS3 had been out for as long as the 360. Companies are starting to get greedy.