Square Enix Pre Party Announcements

[Blitzballer]

There was a lot of news yesterday coming out from Square Enix before their Party over the next two days about new games and remakes as well. Without repeating what weve already reported here is some news regarding SE's announcements;

Star Ocean 4 is in development at Tri Ace for 'next gen systems'. Both Star Ocean and Star Ocean: The Second Story are to be remade for the PSP- with new FMVs and character designs among the additions. Star Ocean: First Depature and Star Ocean: Second Evolution are what they will be known as.

A new Chocobo Dungeon game is in the works to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the series. Chocobo's Dungeon: Toki-Wasure no Meikyuu is a follow up to for the Chocobo Tales game released for the DS. Toki-Wasure no Meikyuu shares some elements from the DS game, such as the starting hometown and a familiar cast of characters, but then quickly establishes that this is a dungeon-based action game.

Final Fantasy XII: International Zodiac Job System was announced too, though this seems to be only a Japan release scheduled for August 2007 and will come with a bonus DVD. Its based on the NA version of the game which features the English voice acting and not Japanese voice overs, but still has all japanese menu text:

"There's a new [to Japan] 16:9 widescreen mode and the Zodiac Job System now enables players to create characters that adhere more closely to classic Final Fantasy job systems, like White Mage, Red Mage and Black Mage" commented producer and director Hiroyuki Ito.

Source:
Games Are Fun

[Luna Lovegood]

I can't wait for the remakes of the Star Ocean games, as I never got a chance to play the first two, so in themselves they'll be worth me buying a PSP.
And the news of a fourth Star Ocean game sweetens the deal a hell of a lot more. I loved SO3, and hope this one is more of the same.

And the Zodiac job system version of FFXII sounds interesting, but if it's only gonna be released in Japan, then I'm going to be a very disappointed little boy

[icygate777]

I loved SO3 I wonder how SO4 is going to be...

[Words of Ivory]

That was a pretty heavy conference, no doubt about that.

And some decent announcments too. The Last Remnants looks like it could turn out to be something truly special if they handle it with care and don't let it fall into convential gaming stereotypes too much.

I'm also interested to see what they do with Star Ocean 4. Here's hoping it bears more similarity to the second game than the third though...