Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children made it's appearance at the Party, with a lengthy new trailer. Which featured allot of new footage, that included Kadaj with the WCP, Sephiroth Vs. Cloud and fight scenes with Cloud against Loz and Yazoo.

A new scene of Kadaj showed him jumping of a building, just after screaming "Mother!", and trying to catch a small box that is falling towards the ground.

The footage of the battle between Tifa and Loz showed how he gains the upper hand. He uses a special ability that lets him move extremely fast, in a blue flash of light.

More is shown of Loz, this time along with Yazoo, fighting against Cloud with some amazing teamwork. In the bike chase, Yazoo shoots at Cloud's head, which causes his goggles to explode and Cloud to bleed from his head.

Next in the forest, Cloud appears to be in a losing fight against Loz and Yazoo. They use powerful attacks, that complement each other, at one point Loz throws Yazoo at Cloud, who can't fully dodge the speed of the attack.

Finishing the trailer off, was the battle between Cloud and Sephiroth, with them both fighting it out in-between rubble.

The final scene is of Denzel and Marlene in a house, holding hands and looking out of a window. With Denzel saying "...Cloud's coming back, right?"

You can read the entire script of the trailer in this news link:
Link: http://www.ffextreme.com/item-311.html  

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 A slide show demo of Code Age Brawls was running on a mobile phone at the Party. No specific system details were disclosed, although it was confirmed that the game will be an online mobile game.

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 A playable demo was on show, for players to have a chance to play this action role playing game. Players got to play as mutants named, Gene, Finona and Gerald, while trying out the game's battle system, along side computer-controlled party members. Enemies that had to be fought were human beings that failed to successfully mutate, which are called Codeds. Once the mission in the demo was completed, players were rewarded with "code points", which in the game will be used to buy character power-up accessories.

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 The playable demo that was available, let players try out the single-player mode of the game. The area that was there to play in, was the city that has been seen many times through screens/trailers before. While exploring around that city players got to control Vincent while fighting off some of the Deep Ground Soldiers. The game play in the demo allowed players to use some melee and magic with Vincent, as well as the third-person-shooter type of game play. There was also a special ability, that when triggered, turned Vincent into a wolf-like creature, which gives Vincent another set moves to make good use of.

A brand new trailer for DoC was put on show. In this trailer there was plenty of new characters to appear in the game, most of which are from FF VII & AC. The trailer reveals that the Deep Ground Soldiers are actually out looking for Vincent.

At one stage, Yuffie can be seen(in her Advent Children costume), she says to Vincent, "I found you lying like a dead corpse in Nibelheim's Shinra manor", who is lying on a bed.

Reeve (the controller of Cait Sith and now the leader of the WRO) is next in the trailer, getting hit by some gunfire. Two others from Final Fantasy VII made their appearance too, Barret and Cid. Further on, Vincent is seen talking to talking to the crystal-like remains(tombstone?) of Lucrecia, (former Shinra scientist and birthmother of Sephiroth).

Lastly a new female character to appear in DoC is shown. 

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 A playable demo of this MMO Action RPG, on the PC, was not available at the Party. Instead a new trailer was put on show. The trailer featured an impressive piece of footage, where a heroine was seen fighting against enemies with some of her team mates, which seemed quite similar to a console role-playing game. There was also some brief footage of updated in-game screens, although none really giving any specific details.

Any plans for an English release for Fantasy Earth have yet to be disclosed.

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  The (now famous) FF VII Technical Demo was first shown at the E3 show in May this year. It was again put on show at the Square Enix Party. The demo recreates the full intro to the original Final Fantasy VII PSone game, in very impressive PlayStation 3 graphics. The Square Enix president made it clear that the trailer was just a technical demonstration and was not for a game in development. There have been a few hints though about a possible FF VII remake, one of which was said at the Party itself by Square Enix representatives.

This was their initial response when questioned about the tech demo: 

"The demo was created to show just how power of the PlayStation 3 technology. As a result, it is a tech demo only and is not intended to indicate that a PS3 remake of FFVII is presently under active development at the company." 

Although when pressed further, they said this: 

"provided fan reaction continues to be feverishly positive over the demo and the very notion of a FFVII remake, it's certainly something that Square Enix would bear in mind when planning future projects." 

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 Square made a couple of rather big announcements about the game at the Party. The release date for Japan was announced as the 16th of March, and also that the theme song will be sung by Angela Aki, and is titled "Kiss Me Good-bye".

People who attended the Party, got the treat of listening to Aki perform the song, which she sang in english (the language it will be in for both Japanese and English versions of the game), while playing the piano.  

"When I heard her voice, I knew she was the one," said Uematsu.

A new playable demo version of FF XII offered two different stages to play and explore through. The first stage took place on a tropical island, with players taking control of Vaan, Basch and Penelo. As players made their way across the island many chances to try out the games battle system come up, with the fight, magic, summon, gambit, and item menu options all available. Waiting at the end of the stage was a boss, in the form of a large Tyrannosaurus rex.

The second stage took place in a traditional looking type of dungeon, with Fran, Ashe and Balthier as the party members. Players had to find a key in the dungeon, in order to reach the boss at the end of this stage. 

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 With Final Fantasy XI being planned to be playable on the XBox 360, Square had on display an XBox 360 unit, with the MMORPG being played through it, on a high definition monitor. Although the game was not made available to members of the public to play, it was occasionally played with by some of the Square Enix staff members.

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 The playable demo first put players into a lobby area, in control of a wanzer pilot. Players were able to purchase parts, equipment and customize their vehicle, before selecting a mission against computer controlled opponents. The game's basic controls were all available to use, first and third person views, attacking, guarding, dashing etc, and also some special abilities too. One of which let the players wanzer become invisible to the enemy, by using camouflage. There was also the jetpack to turn on and off, to get to those hard to reach high places.

Hooked up along side the demo, was microphone-enabled speakers, which meant that the keyboard wasn't needed for using macros.

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 This PS2 RPG title was on display in the form of a playable demo. Players got to choose from a number of different starting points for the demo, that were as save points in the game. While moving around on the adventure map, the combat system, interacting with non-player characters and objects, and exploring in vehicles, was all on offer.

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 Loads of new info on KH II was revealed at the Party. Including new members of the 13th Order, new Blue Drive Transformations for Sora, new worlds to explore, Co-op Techniques that other party members can use alongside Sora and new Final Fantasy characters to appear.

You can find out about all these in detail at the news article below:

Link: http://www.ffextreme.com/item-304.html

At what was one of the busiest booths at the event, the KH II demo let players try out four areas from the game. The four areas on offer for exploration were, Beast's Castle (from Beauty and the Beast), The Land of Dragons (from Mulan), Disney Castle, and Agrabah (from Aladdin). 

The Land of Dragons stage, has Mulan as a member of your party. The level focuses on a tough boss fight against a huge, multi-colored dragon. In The Disney Castle, Sora has to protect Queen Minnie from any enemies. Players had to keep on eye on her health bar, which was displayed on screen. Agrabah allows players to explore the city, while coming across some familiar faces. 

The new trailer on show began with some scenes from the original Kingdom Hearts, with the theme song "Hikari" (Simple and Clean in English) playing in the background. The trailer then moved along to Kingdom Hearts II, with the blond haired kid being shown with Namine. Who says to him that she is a witch that has the ability to control the memories of Sora and people connected to him, but she doesn't know why she has such abilities. 

Another scene showed a town that looked like the one seen in "Another Side, Another Story" bonus trailer in Kingdom Hearts. There, Sora was seen facing the black-cloaked men known as the Thirteenth Order. One of them, a man with six spears named Zardin, shouted, "We will gain perfect existence once we get hold of the Kingdom Hearts."

Some more Final Fantasy character could be seen in this trailer, Cloud from FF VII wearing his Advent Children outfit, Squall from FF VIII, and Seifer Fujin and Rajin also from FF VIII.

You can read the script of the trailer in this news

Link: http://www.ffextreme.com/item-310.html  

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 Over at the slime booth, a playable demo featuring two sections of this game, was available. The first section involved some puzzle solving, item carrying, and slime rescuing. The second let players roll around in a gargantuan slime-shaped war machine called the Yuusha, and go against a boss in one-on-one battle.

As well as the two demo sections, players got the chance to download a coin-collecting mini-game to their DS. In which you control a slime riding a boogie board, collecting as many coins as you can before you run out of time. 

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 Square showed off a short trailer (30 seconds long) of this title. It began with a flock of red birds flying over a forest, with text reading:

"It began long ago when the Mana goddess turned herself into a tree to look over the world,"

Then the view zoomed out from the forest, and a small area of a colossal tree could be seen, which was the tree of Mana. The tree disappeared from view, and the "World of Mana" official logo appeared. Also, Square made the announcement that their are plans to expand this new Mana title across multiple platforms and genres. A pamphlet that was available to the press included a two-page announcement of the official launch:

"Our staff are working hard to bring the world of Mana to everyone in various genres and platforms. Please look forward to the Mana series from now into the future."

The pamphlet also said that gamers expect new stories surrounding the Mana tree, which will feature, "unique characters, and environments drawn with a soft and smooth touch." 

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As you can see it is going to be a fantastic year for everyone, from hardcore gamers to light hearted Square fans, and you can keep up with all the latest developments of all these games @ Final Fantasy Extreme

Thank you for reading!

Article credited to:
Kathy, Final Fantasy Extreme News Manager