Compilation of Final Fantasy VII news from the TGS
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Sep 26, 2004Warning: Use of undefined constant Story - assumed 'Story' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /mnt/web203/e0/91/54654191/htdocs/news/news.php on line 78 Warning: Use of undefined constant Story - assumed 'Story' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /mnt/web203/e0/91/54654191/htdocs/news/news.php on line 79 The Tokyo Game Show started last Friday in Tokyo, Japan, and Square Enix has been widely presented. Like so many times before, Square Enix opened the game show with a press conference, where the big names behind the games had their chance to tell about the future of the company and their upcoming releases. Read a wrap-up of the press conference at GameInformer.
Here are bits of new information concerning Square Enix’s upcoming Final Fantasy releases.
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A little while ago, Square Enix introduced their latest addition to the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series – Dirge of Cerberus, which is to take place a year after Advent Children. The main character of the game will be Vincent Valentine, the lone gunman from the original game. Square Enix summarises the game’s storyline as follows (no spoilers):
"DIRGE of CERBERUS begins with the sudden appearance of a mysterious group raiding local towns. They are known as the Deep Ground Soldiers (DG Soldiers), a band of warriors driven to hide underground because of the disastrous Meteor. Our hero, Vincent Valentine, is somehow connected with these events, yet in what way remains unclear. And when the world is veiled in darkness, it is his revolver that will ring out the dirge ... But Vincent won't be alone -- he'll be joined by other characters from FINAL FANTASY VII." -Gamespot
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New video footage of the new game was shown during the company’s conference; a brief two seconds showing the game in action, accompanied by a collection of CG renders. The game’s genre is still a mystery, but judging by the brief video footage showing Vincent with the camera behind him shooting enemies, it looks like a third person shooter game akin to Devil May Cry. Another clip showed the game in first-person mode, with what seemed like a sniper in action. However, as said earlier, nothing is officially confirmed yet.
Take a look at the collection of the released screenshots over at IGN.
Download the trailer shown at TGS, or look at screenshots taken from the trailer at SquareNet.
A viewer can see that the graphics look sharp and up to date. It looks like quite a few bits of the game are done already, but there is still no release date set; not even a vague one.
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Before Crisis was released the day TGS started, on the 24th of September, after being beta tested for nearly a month. The game is made only for the NTT DoCoMo's FOMA i900 handsets, and will never be released on any other platform or console. According to AllRPG.com, the title will only be released in Japan, and importing it would be impossible even if one got their hands on the correct mobile, because the game is made to work only inside NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode mobile data service. But Square Enix also say that they haven’t yet given up the hope of bringing mobile games available overseas, so maybe there is a little hope for those who still would like to try the game out.
Some new details of the game itself are out as well. The game uses network streaming, which allows the company to easily update the story frequently. As for the game’s multiplayer capabilities, the game will be using a lobby system to form parties between the players instead of being an MMORPG, like some rumours have falsely stated before.
Read Gamespot’s hands-on preview.
An animated TV commercial of the game was shown in TGS. The commercial has been on the air in Japan for sometime now, and shows the happenings of the game in sleek anime animation.
Download the commercial and view screenshots at SquareNet.
It appears that Before Crisis is not the only Final Fantasy game on the mobile platform, because another game – Final Fantasy II, was also announced in TGS. This is most likely a remake of the old game, but no further information of that one is available yet.
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What is probably the most anticipated title of the Compilation of Final Fantasy series is, of course, the much awaited straight-to-DVD release FFVII: Advent Children; a direct sequel to the old blockbuster game released on the PSOne. The game recently debuted on the silver screen during the Venice International Film Festival, where a 25-minute long presentation was well received by the audience.
"Director of the festival Marco Muller called Advent Children ‘one of the few movies to demonstrate the impressive talent of its young creators’, praising its ‘cutting-edge cinematic innovations.’"-Gamespot
A new trailer was shown at TGS, which apparently is a shorter version of the longer presentation given at the festival. Scenes from the same parts shown in the long presentations were compiled together as the new trailer, so it is all new material instead of showing the old ones we have already seen.
Download the trailer shown at TGS from Eyes on Advent Children (45MB). Square Enix seems having been trying to stop the distribution of the fan-recorded videos in the past, so if that won’t work, the video is also downloadable from FF7-2.com (41MB) or from SquareNet (40MB).
View screenshots of the trailer at SquareNet here and here.
The full 25-minute version of the Venice Film Festival presentation was also available for a few enthusiastic fans to view, but it is very unlikely that this one will find its way on the Internet, because the whole situation was strictly monitored and one could only view it with the appropriate headsets. The queues for that part of the show were apparently extremely long, so only a small portion of the ones wanting to see it actually did.
New FFVII: Advent Children action figures were also presented on the game show. Those shown include Cloud (with his motorcycle), Sephiroth, Tifa and Vincent. View pictures of the action figures and images from the booths from here.
Here is a list of the voice actors of Advent Children, according to FF7ac.net:
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Ayumi Ito as Tifa Lockheart
Tsuduruhara Miyuu as Marlene
Kyosuke Ikeda as Denzel
Tomoyuki Morikawa as Sephiroth
Shoutarou Morikubo as Kadaj
Yuuji Kishi as Yazoo
Kenji Nomura as Loz
Tooru Ookawa as Rufus
Keiji Fujiwara as Reno
Taiten Kusunoki as Rude
Square is holding onto the release date of "sometime 2004", even if no official date has been set in stone yet. Advent Children will be released for DVD and PSP.
Square Enix considers Compilation of Final Fantasy VII to be the company’s first steps toward what it termed at this year’s E3 to be "polymorphic content". The strategy is defined as "providing well-known properties on several platforms, allowing exposure of the products to as wide an audience as possible."
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Itadaki Street was also presented on the game show with a brand new trailer. Itadaki Street was announced a few weeks ago, and is a board game featuring familiar characters from both Square and Enix’s old titles. From the Final Fantasy series chocobos, Gilgamesh, Cloud. Tifa and the girls of FFX-2 are so far present.
Itadaki Street Special is a popular and long-running Enix board game dating back to the original Famicom. This new addition to the series is the first time where characters from the both companies, Square and Enix, appear in a single game.
Download the special trailer from Final Fantasy Hybrid (18MB)
View screenshots at Gamespot
The Tokyo Game Show isn’t over yet, and new information from Final Fantasy XII is yet to be seen, though a new trailer was announced to be shown during the exhibition. Stay tuned for more news!
Written by alhana
Proofread by Pulsar
Pictures from IGN, FF7AC Reunion, Gamespot and SquareNet.
Sources:
AdventChildren.net
AllRPG
FF7ac.net
Final Fantasy Hybrid
Final Fantasy Warpzone
Final Gaming
Gamespot
IGN
SquareNet
Related links:
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children official website
Final Fantasy VII: Before Crisis official website
Itadaki Street official website
FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus at FF7dc.net, not an official website but a good source of information.
Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus discussion thread
Final Fanttasy VII Advent Children FAQ
Final Fanttasy VII Advent Children discussion thread