Slashdot Mirror

Square Enix has launched an official website for Final Fantasy XIII. At the moment, it contains screenshots, game music, and brief character bios written in Japanese. Square also launched a site for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, though it doesn't have any content on it yet. A fan site has translated new details about the game from Weekly Famitsu, including information on the battle system. "Players select the 'Action' (the five buttons near the bottom left of the screen) they would like to use, which is then moved to the Command Stock slots (three slots above the Action buttons) to be executed in turn. Some 'Action' buttons seem to have several layers behind them, which means you'll have more than five actions to choose from. Each of the 'Actions' has a number attached to them; this is the 'Cost' or the number of slots that particular 'Action' will take in the Command Stock. For example, you can have three Fire commands in the list since its 'Cost' is only 1, but you can only use Firaga, which costs 3, if you have three empty slots in the Command Stock."

Square Enix has launched an official website for Final Fantasy XIII. At the moment, it contains screenshots, game music, and brief character bios written in Japanese. Square also launched a site for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, though it doesn't have any content on it yet. A fan site has translated new details about the game from Weekly Famitsu, including information on the battle system. "Players select the 'Action' (the five buttons near the bottom left of the screen) they would like to use, which is then moved to the Command Stock slots (three slots above the Action buttons) to be executed in turn. Some 'Action' buttons seem to have several layers behind them, which means you'll have more than five actions to choose from. Each of the 'Actions' has a number attached to them; this is the 'Cost' or the number of slots that particular 'Action' will take in the Command Stock. For example, you can have three Fire commands in the list since its 'Cost' is only 1, but you can only use Firaga, which costs 3, if you have three empty slots in the Command Stock."

FF7:AC Movie writes "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children has been leaked on the Internet early this morning by a pirate group from Hong Kong known as BiEN (which incidentally means good in French). The Square-Enix film was due to release in Japan on September 14th 2005 after numerous delays. As for the North American release date, it has been pushed back to a cloudy end of November."

EvilAvatar has a heads up about a new trailer on the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children site. (Trailer 3) It is quite impressive, and features glimpses of all the major characters from the game, more hints as to what the plot will revolve around, and a few moments from the game's plot as well. Japanese language only.

Daemon writes "Square Enix officially announced the fourth installment of Final Fantasy VII based media. The film Advent Children, the games Before Crisis, Dirge of Cerberus and now Crisis Core. This new RPG will for the Sony PSP and has been scheduled for release in 2006."

Wingchild writes "I noticed that the trailers for the new Final Fantasy 7 movie are online at Square-Enix (Squeenix?)'s website, an event as yet unmentioned on Slashdot. Available elsewhere are trailer screenshots and plotline theory. The release will be straight to DVD (Square might still be smarting after the unspectacular performance of The Spirits Within), but it'll still be neat to see what Squeenix is capable of on the ever-moving CG front." S!: The AdventChildren.net fansite also has details of an interview with Tetsuya Nomura, pointing out "the movie [or a new trailer] will be shown in some form at this year's E3", and noting that the past rumor that "the movie will be playable on the PS2 only" has not yet been quashed, although it hasn't been confirmed either.

Thanks to The Magic Box for their chart showing the top-selling videogames in Japan during 2003. Square Enix's Final Fantasy X-2 for PS2 tops the chart, selling a little less than 2 million copies, despite Japanese consumer discontent with the title, and Nintendo's Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire for GBA places second, with almost 1.5 million copies sold in 2003, and nearly 5 million in total. A surprise hit in third place is the PlayStation 2 action title Dynasty Warriors 4 from Koei, and further down the chart, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for GameCube can only manage a disappointing 26th place, with 310,000 copies sold, and an Xbox title of any kind is, sadly, nowhere to be seen in the Top 30.

Thanks to The Magic Box for new screenshots and details of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, as the PlayStation 2 "action shooter", developed by Drag-on Dragoon creators Cavia in conjunction with Production I.G., the makers of the original Ghost In The Shell anime movie and the new GITS: Stand Alone Complex TV show, gets an official Japanese site and brief ASX trailer video. This third-person shooter, unrelated in gameplay to an earlier Ghost In The Shell title for PlayStation 1, has you battling against "illicit arms trades, and... terrorists", and will debut in Japan in March 2004, with a U.S. release as yet unconfirmed.

asphyxiation_query writes "I've been looking at the relative length of videogames (in terms of overall gameplay, how long the game stretches out from start to completion) based on region. Can Slashdot Games readers discern any obvious regional patterns or variations in this information? For example, are games from Korea typically longer than Japanese? How do European and North American titles stack up in this respect?" Or is content similarly long if part of the same genre, regardless of country of origin?

poshul the hyper puppy writes "Is Square Enix planning on doing a follow up to its best-selling game of all time? Nearing press time at this year's Tokyo Game Show 2003 - it appears a scan from the upcoming V-Jump magazine has given away Square's surprise by revealing Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Leaked by Japanese site Quiter the details say it takes two years after the original, should be released on some form of DVD media (looks like this could this be a movie, not a game?), and involves our legendary hero Cloud. So either bust out Babelfish to read the details directly at Quiter or get the news from SquareAMP: Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children." Update: 09/25 18:54 GMT by S : IGN PS2 are pretty sure that this is a direct-to-DVD CG movie, as the poster suggested above, not a videogame.

Daetrin writes "GamesAreFun.com is reporting that Namco's Tales of Symphonia RPG for GameCube sold 200,000 copies in its first day of release in Japan. It also reports that Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles for GameCube has sold over 350,000 units since its Japanese release last month. Perhaps the influx of RPGs will help revitalize the low GameCube hardware sales in Japan?" IGN Cube has hands-on impressions of Tales Of Symphonia, and GamesAreFun also mention the "73,000 pre-orders in Japan" for GC farming RPG Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, which comes complete with a plush cow if you pre-order Stateside.

Sodakar writes "Square Enix announced today that they will be releasing the latest game in their popular Dragon Quest series in Japan on September 19th, for 6,980 yen (around $50). Not only are you required to swing a sword controller at the screen in order to defeat the enemy, the game doesn't require a console - the sword plugs directly into the TV via A/V cables. Here's some photos of the system, and the official news page. I'll be looking forward to a news blurb about some kid stabbing his TV."

Sodakar writes "Square Enix announced today that they will be releasing the latest game in their popular Dragon Quest series in Japan on September 19th, for 6,980 yen (around $50). Not only are you required to swing a sword controller at the screen in order to defeat the enemy, the game doesn't require a console - the sword plugs directly into the TV via A/V cables. Here's some photos of the system, and the official news page. I'll be looking forward to a news blurb about some kid stabbing his TV."

Thanks to the Gaming-Age messageboard conglomerate for pointing out a new investor relations press conference (Japanese text only) held today in Japan by SquareEnix. They announced that Final Fantasy XII is intended to ship within the fiscal year in Japan - still no screenshots or details, though. Kingdom Hearts 2 is still having its license negotiated, so won't be out soon. But 9 titles should ship in the US from SquareEnix this fiscal year, including Final Fantasy X-2, which has already sold almost 2 million copies in Japan, and a mystery, solitary Playstation 1 title (another Final Fantasy remake?) The company also gave sales figures for their online title, Final Fantasy XI, which has sold 340,000 copies, and currently has 250,000 subscribers, even ahead of its Western release.