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One of the greatest joys in life is to use your inherent talents for the benefit of those less fortunate. But how could something like Final Fantasy serve the greater good? A group of players located in Texas known as the Speed Gamers recently hosted a week long non-stop gaming marathon in which they attempted to complete each and every one of the mainline Final Fantasy titles (that’s 1-10 and 12), feeding the entire saga over the Net via live stream video. While they didn’t quite succeed in accomplishing that (however, they did finish 1-3 & 5-9 and almost 4, which was a valiant effort), what they did achieve was raising over $50,000 for ACT Today, a charity for autistic children. The support for their efforts was very apparent, as the viewer load on the stream got as high as 22,000 people at one point. And we’re totally down with that.

The Speed Gamers

In case you didn’t get the memo, the Japanese like Dragon Quest. A lot. So much, in fact, that the freaking strategy guide for the game topped this week’s book sales charts with nearly 200,000 units turned. Who said print was dead?

[Source - GoNintendo]

The next edition of Square Enix’s mindblowingly popular Dragon Quest series hits retail in Japan today. The previous games were already selling like hotcakes on consoles, but now that it has come to the also mindblowingly popular Nintendo DS, one can only imagine what kind of monster sales event this is going to be.

Game developers just love their countdown sites. Today, Square Enix’s official website was updated with this new page:

Whatever could it be? We’ll find out in about 10 days, but in the meantime you can visit the teaser page by clicking the image.

The Last Remnant was originally pitched as a multiplatform title. Then it became a timed 360 exclusive. Then the PC version came out. So where’s the PS3 version? During a recent shareholder meeting, that very question was asked.

Wada responded that although it’s tough on the development side of things to say that you’ll release a game on multiple platforms but end up not doing so, Square Enix has to think about profitability. If there’s a gap in the release of multiple versions of a game, and if the first version didn’t necessarily see such great success, they have to think that there won’t be a change in performance on a new platform. - AndriaSang

So yeah, Debbie Downer Day for all you Playstation devotees. PS3 owners will also be happy to know that there’s still no plans to release Star Ocean: The Last Hope on their system either. But at least you’re still getting Final Fantasy XIII, right? Right?

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete is out now in North America, and to celebrate, here’s some treats from the director’s cut. First is the remastered version of the Advent: One Winged Angel theme (which sounds more balanced and cleaner, plus has about 45 seconds of new material), second is Omnislash Version 6, an even more awesome update from Version 5 in the original Advent Children.

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YouTube Direkt

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YouTube Direkt

So I picked up the prologue chapter for the game, which is actually turning out to be fairly lengthy.

I’ve logged about four hours, and it’s pretty darn good so far. Much of the gameplay is, as expected, ripped almost entirely from the original FFIV (read: turn-based, ATB driven combat). However, there are a couple of new wrinkles that have an impact. The first are “Bands”; co-op attacks by two or more party members. You acquire some bands automatically as the story progresses, but the vast majority are there for you to discover on your own by combining different actions from each member of the desired band. For example, combining “Attack” with Cecil and “White Magic” with Rosa will activate the “Holy Blade” attack. Most offensive bands do more damage to a particular enemy type, so it maintains an element of strategy. Another addition is the effect of moon phases, which shift after a period of time or whenever your party sleeps. Each of the four phases significantly powers up one of the four primary attributes (physical attack, white/black magic, and techs) and weakens another.

As story goes, the plot is pretty intriguing so far, if a little nonsensical occasionally. While you do control the old guard characters like Cecil and Rosa on occasion, the majority of the game is played as Ceodore, Cecil’s son. He’s a pretty solid character all around, though he tends toward the melodramtic.

One other thing worth noting is that this game gets hard in a hurry. At my point, I’m already having to level grind to keep standard mobs from slicing off nearly half of my HP every time they attack.

But anyway, I’m interested to keep exploring the story to see what surprises Square has in store. Definitely worth the download so far.

While we’re drooling over the marvels of FFXIII and FFXIV, let’s not forget that there are actually other Square Enix games on display at E3. And we have trailers for two of them: Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days (now confirmed for US release September 29) and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers. With English voicework, no less.

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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

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: