squareamp

Better late than never. Here’s what is on the slate for the show, starting Tuesday:

• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers - Wii
• Final Fantasy IV: The After Years - WiiWare (Which comes out Monday, BTW)
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord - Wiiware
• Final Fantasy XIII - XB360, PS3
• Front Mission Evolved - XB360, PS3, PC
• Nier - XB360, PS3
• Supreme Commander II - XB360, PC
• Order of War - PC
• Dissidia Final Fantasy - PSP
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days - DS

Just a quite blurb that Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is now released in Japan.  It’s only a matter of months now before the localization effort gives us a Europe/North America release.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days follows the story of the Kingdom Hearts II mysterious blonde haired kid Roxas from his creation in Kingdom Hearts to his merging with Sora in Kingdom Hearts II.  I hope you have played Kingdom Hearts II already and I didn’t just give that away.

Let me introduce you to the new Square Enix game Nier.

Square Enix presents.. Nier

Described as being “like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden”, the game features a protagonist searching the world for a cure to his daughter’s illness.

The scan, and news, of the game comes courtesy of website PlayStation LifeStyle.

Update:  Since making this post, it looks like an official Square Enix announcement has come forward and Kotaku has the details.

According to official Square Enix word, the game is “set in a crumbling world plagued by disease and dark, unrecognizable creatures.” Players will control the titular NIER, as he searches for a cure for his daughter armed with a “mysterious book.”

Who is Cavia?  They are responsible for a number of Square Enix titles already, including the Drakengard series (Drag-on Dragoon) and the Dragon Quest VIII-prequel that followed the Yangus character earlier on in his life.

Last week, Gameplayer dished some scoop that Square Enix would unveil three previously unknown titles at E3 next week.  Now they are following up to tease that one of the titles is none other than the developed-in-house MMORPG follow-up to Final Fantasy XI with the code name of ‘Rapture’.

The tease also states that the MMORPG will be unveiled as a Sony PS3 exclusive (as well as PC) much the way Final Fantasy XI was when launched for the PlayStation 2 all those years ago.

Literally nothing is known about ‘Rapture’ currently other than the fact it is being developed by the FFXI team, whether it’s even branded as a ‘Final Fantasy’ MMO is to be seen.

Nomura + Dengeki developer interview = Kingdom Hearts Scoop

Courtesy of Heartstation (super well-designed site, I might add) - comes word that the most recent issue of Dengeki Wii/DS contains a mega Kingdom Hearts blowout that also includes a developer interview with Tetsuya Nomura

So the big news?

“Once all three currently announced Kingdom Hearts titles are complete, maybe Sora’s turn will come.”

Heartstation has a ton of scans too, so it’s worth clicking the link and checking them out.

I had totally forgotten about this game - Blood of Bahamut - something Square Enix announced last year with a mysterious teaser image and it ended up being a in-development Nintendo DS game.

Square plans to release this on August 9, 2009 in Japan, with presumed development for the U.S./Europe after that (hopefully).  Watching the trailer, it appears the game is a Revenant-Wings-meets-Shadow-of-the-Colossus type gameplay with you crawling on giants and trying to defeat/calm them.

There is still speculation that this game is a follow-up/successor to Bahamut Lagoon from the SNES era, but nothing seen or announced has confirmed that yet.

Check it out:

embedded by Embedded Video

Gametrailers Direkt

I have updated my to-do list in a new post over on my Joshua blog.  I’m making the list with feedback and suggestions coming from you guys, so provide any feedback if you see I’m missing something.

Three things I want to note for you all.

1. The forums are now live.  Check them out, you can also get there by clicking the link in upper right hand corner.  Very fresh, I’m still working out the kinks in the default theme.
2. This site now has a mobile phone ready version.  Go to http://squareamp.com in your iPhone (or any mobile phone) and you’ll see just how awesome it looks.
3. Look at the background of this site.  Now refresh.  Now refresh again.   There are ten total, and more coming from other games.  These were made courtesy of Alex, who if you recall I made a posting about his tribute site yesterday.  If you haven’t had a chance to go visit his website yet, check out my post from yesterday.

And that’s it.  I need to get some sleep.  I hope you like the progress at which things are moving here, Zephy and I have an idea for a games/content too that I’ll be looking into over the coming week.

Square Enix must hear it when a fan complains about how boring they’ve become as a company, because I stumbled on this nearly five minutes after my original post: