The latest announced character in Final Fantasy XIII is named Oerba Yun Fang. She's a tattooed, spear-wielding, dragon-summoning, coldly alluring woman with a vaguely Australian accent.

Oerba Yun Fang actually showed up in a Final Fantasy XIII trailer from the Tokyo Game Show, though no one knew her name or her true role in the plot. All we knew was that she's a l'Cie who, unlike other divinely cursed l'Cie characters, works with the government faction that's trying to stomp them out.

Earlier this month, magazine spreads revealed her name and the fact that she summons a weird new version of Final Fantasy staple dragon Bahamut. Though some still speculate about her motivations, she's a fully playable member of the party.

She brings the game's cast to six characters, the minimum for a modern Final Fantasy, with the Japanese release of the game only two months away. And, for the clincher, she's in the newly released line of Final Fantasy XIII soda potions and collectible figurines.

The "Oerba" part of Yun Fang's name suggests that she's from the same tribal background as a previously introduced party member, the much girlier Oerba Dia Vanille.

DRAGON QUEST WARS
Nintendo DS | Available Now | Official Site
Dragon Quest Wars is a Nintendo DSiWare grid-based strategy game featuring all of your favorite, quirky Dragon Quest monsters. Choose from several modes and maps, assemble your own unique squad and get ready for battle in pure Dragon Quest fashion!

KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 Days
Nintendo DS | Available Now | Official Site
Follow Roxas through his days in Organization XIII as he searches for purpose in the life he was never meant to have. Will he find it in the Keyblade he wields? Or is the real key the fourteenth member of the Organization who slowly changes his life? Dive into the heart of the most sought-after secrets in the Kingdom Hearts storyline.

Cross Treasures
Square Enix was busy this past week. For one thing, the company announced a Nintendo DS action-RPG called Cross Treasures. It's a co-production involving V Jump, a monthly Shueisha anthology that keeps young Japanese readers supplied with the latest Yu-Gi-Oh! series, Dragon Quest spin-offs, and other juvenile manga. Cross Treasures has a similarly cute look courtesy of manga artist Shin'ya Suzuki, and it features squat adventurers tearing through colorful fantasy worlds. Those worlds figure notably into multiplayer mode, since you can design your own settings and draw in up to three other online players.

It's New Frontier
Always in the habit of making cell-phone games that may never come to America, Square Enix also launched It's New Frontier. The mobile-based game has you establish a medieval-fantasy colony by foraging for magical supplies and basic necessities. Townspeople are at your command, and each of them uses a specific magical ability. It's New Frontier resembles Harvest Moon by way of the Square RPG house, and the character designs should look quite familiar to anyone who played Final Fantasy Tactics (or any other Final Fantasy game where summoners wear pointy headbands). We probably won't see this on Western phones, but there's always the chance that, as with Parasite Eve: The 3rd Birthday, Square Enix will port it to another system.

Dissida: Final Fantasy Univeral Tuning
Also in Square Enix's future is Dissidia: Final Fantasy Universal Tuning, the Japanese version of the slightly enhanced English-language Dissidia that we'll be playing in North America this week. There's also word of the company releasing Thexder Neo on the PlayStation Network in Japan. Thexder Neo is an old Game Arts mecha shooter that hit numerous PCs and consoles in the 1980s, though Thexder Neo's nature is unknown at this writing.

This message has nothing to do with gaming or anime. This is a personal message about my sister.

On April 8,2009 we found out she has DSRCT (desmoplastic small round cell tumor).

It's a type of sarcoma cancer, for more info click here. Taylor is only 17 years old as of January 31st, 2009.

Please if can take time out of your day, take time to visit Taylor's Caring Bridge and sign her guestbook. She'd really appreciate it and she reads them every time she gets online, the link is found at the end of this post. My mom is always updating the page with news about Taylor, more pictures, etc.

Some of you may know my sister online as Subtle.Edge, SayaBloodPlus18, or EvilAngel18.


http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/taylorhargrove

At this years E3 a big shocker was the announcement of Final Fantasy XIV Online. There is already an official website for North America, which features the new trailer shown. Here is a little tidbit on what to expect from Final Fantasy XIV Online:

Platforms: PlayStation 3, Windows
Producer: Hiromichi Tanaka (FF I, II, III, XI)
Genre: MMORPG
Director: Nobuaki Komoto (FF IX, XI)
Release Date: 2010
Art Director: Akihko Yoshida (Vagrant Story, FF XII)
Unit Price: TBA
Music: Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy Series)
Subscription Fee: TBA
ESRB Rating: Pending

Talk about this being the codename Rapture has flooded message boards and gaming communities alike, due to pictures being leaked with the Crystal Tools logo imprinted on the pictures, and the resembalance to Final Fantasy XI. We can expect to see Galkas, Humes, Elvaans, Mithras and Taru-Taru once again in this title. Hopefully more information will release in due time.

Final Fantasy XIV Onlines Official Site: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com

After announcing three Entertainment Packs this year (Rock Band Unplugged, Hannah Montana: Rock Out the Show and Assassin's Creed), Sony announced today that will bundle Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children along with a Mystic Silver PSP 3000 and a 2 gigabyte Memory Stick Pro Duo. The Package will be GameStop exclusive and will cost U$199,99, shipping on August 25th.

Source: The Lifestream.net

In an interview with Final Fantasy Union, Director Takeshi Arakawa and Producer Yoshinori Kitase reveal some of the new additions and changes for the US version. One of them being new character appearances and abilities for the playable characters.

Final Fantasy Union: You’ve mentioned there are some differences between the Japanese and Western versions; will there be any other differences?

Takeshi Arakawa: You can see new abilities for the characters, which are only available in the overseas version. Also there are some characters which don’t appear in any events in the Japanese version but they do in the western version.

FFU: So there will be a few more cameos?

Takeshi Arakawa: Yes, that’s right.

Source: Lifestream.net

Last week some of the Square-Enix staff, namely planning director Takashi Arakawa and Yoshinori Kitase (director, writer and producer) were present at a gaming event in Munich, Germany. Below is a translation (thanks to Tetsujin) regarding their writing of the scenario and possibly ideas for a sequel.

The German gaming site play3 interviewed them about the PSP game Dissidia.

- How do you make sure that no logical errors or plot holes find their way into the story and presentation of so many Final Fantasy games?

We have three measures that prevent that. First of all, a majority of the Square Enix staff already took part in the development of previous FF games. Secondly, we publish guide books in Japan that also serve us as reference archives. And thirdly, we have a couple of employees - like a young female colleague for example - who played through all of the FF games and really know all the details.

- How long does it take to play through Dissidia?

- Arakawa-san: The Japanese version has a whole 40 hours of playtime. The US/European version allows to play through the game in a mere 10 hours by having branches in the game’s story mode. Apart from that, the balancing for the duels has been slightly readjusted. You can still play through the long version of the story mode if you feel like it, though.

- How do you develop for the PSP and how do you see the future of that portable system?

- Arakawa-san: Our development teams are in constant competition with each other. Every department has their own approach and tweaks the engine that fits their game the most.

Kitase-san: A majority of the Kingdom Hearts 2 staff has worked on Dissidia. The similarity between PS2 and PSP paid off for us. What else can be done with the PSP is something we will show with Final Fantasy Agito XIII. Apart from that, we still have lots of other PSP projects in the making.

Another article didn’t reveal anything new except for one interesting bit at the end:

“According to Kitase-san, a sequel would be ‘very interesting’. Maybe it’ll include Kingdom Hearts characters then?
‘Basically, yeah, that’d be possible. Although we’d have to discuss that with Disney, of course…’ ”

Source: Lifestream.net

Soon we're about to get the FFXIII demo included in the Blu Ray release of FFVII: AC Complete. Even though it won't represent 100% of how the game will be in the final release, it sure has some surprises. That is, the release date in Japan.


The USA and European release will probably have the game somewhere around 2010, but if you are a serious addict, learn some Japanese and grab the game this winter.

Via Gamezine

Seems Square Enix didn't care much to announce this but Final Fantasy VII: International made a sudden appearance in the Japanese and Hong Kong PSN stores.

For the price of ¥1500 it offers many new features which were already in the Euro & US version of Final Fantasy VII. This includes both gameplay and story, better change between materias, arrows showing the entrances and exits and an extra cut scene.

There is still no information about an Euro/US version.

Sources: DarkZero