Square Enix continues its anniversary fest with a celebratory event planned for the tenth birthday of Final Fantasy XI. The event, dubbed Vanafest 2012 by this teaser website Square Enix launched, will be held over June 23 and June 24.

As the map shows, the event will likely be held somewhere around Tokyo, though an exact location has not yet been revealed. Sadly that leaves most of us out of the loop.

In other news, the Square Enix tactical MMORPG Wakfu has closed its open beta testing phase and scheduled a release date - February 29.

Wakfu, developed by Ankama Games, will be free to play, but an optional $6/month subscription can be paid to unlock premium content.

As a teaser, Square Enix released a trailer showing off the "Eniripsa" class, just one of fourteen different classes to choose from. The video can be viewed below. ...

Square Enix has just released Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for the iPad system, giving the world another opportunity to buy this fantastic game.

Picking up a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for the iPad will set you back $18.00/£11.50/€13.50, a small price to pay for those of you who don't have a PSP.

Final Fantasy Tactics was originally released on the PSX in NTSC regions, which means many of us may have missed out on a chance to play. With the release of The War of the Lions port on PSP in 2007, fans of Final Fantasy in PAL regions were finally been able to enjoy this masterpiece. Now, the iPad version gives gamers even more options when it comes to purchasing this classic.

Final Fantasy Tactics was also Square's first foray into the world of Ivalice, a location which is now the setting for a multitude of games - including Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story - in what is known as the "Ivalice Alliance". ...

Just last week we reported on what Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, has been up to. He's got his own studio now, Mistwalker, and they've produced a handful of games that people seem to enjoy quite a bit.

The company recently had its first Wii release, The Last Story, and it's been getting rave reviews in Japan! The game is set to release in Europe and Australia this week, leaving North American gamers all kinds of envious and sulky. Until today! California-based company XSEED Games has announced that they will be bringing the game to North America sometime this summer!

In addition to creating the Final Fantasy series, Hironobu Sakaguchi worked on such favorites as Chrono Trigger and Vagrant Story, and also every Final Fantasy game until X, at which point he broke out on his own and created the Mistwalker corporation. Everyone's favorite JRPG composer, Nobuo Uematsu, also composed the music for The Last Story.

At this point it's pretty likely that it doesn't even matter what the game's about, but here's the synopsis provided by XSEED ...

This week saw the release of two brand new pieces of Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC in the form of an outfit each for Serah and Noel.



With all the beaches the team visit in XIII-2, Square decided Serah was a little overdressed for the occasion and decked her out in this Beachwear outfit. That or they know their target audience all too well. I think she's been spending too much time with the Gullwings from FFX-2 personally.



This is Noel in his Spacetime Guardian outfit. I don't know if I'd be particularly impressed if a young man dressed like that showed up at my house to pick up my daughter but there we are. Also maybe it's just me, but I'm getting some Kingdom Hearts Riku vibes from the ensemble.

These babies can be yours for 240 Microsoft Points each, or else $2.99/£1.59/€1.99 each.

Following on from that, next week will see the release of Sazh: Heads or Tails?



It will star everyone's favourite XIII character Sazh in a new story questline that will run parallel to the events in XIII-2. ...

You may have heard whispers several years ago that supposedly an action genre sequel was being made for Final Fantasy XII, and in Sweden of all places, produced by a company called GRIN and to be published by SquareEnix. Well, SquareEnix wasn't happy, GRIN went bankrupt, and it was at that point that fans first started hearing about the game that never was. And that was the last we'd heard of the game--codenamed Fortress--until January 2010, when a tech demo was leaked, and then again at E3 2011, when Motomu Toriyama supposedly whispered secretly that the game would never be released. Whether that last bit is true or not is still up for debate. Kind of. Maybe not, but some people still seem to have their fingers crossed.

Lately, though, gaming sites have been buzzing with previously unreleased media from the game, from concept art to bits of the sound track, leaving many fans either pouting over the loss or clenching with renewed hope and enthusiasm. Mostly the former.

You can browse the concept art at the Final Fantasy Wiki here.

...

Even though he's been busy lately promoting his latest game throughout Europe, Final Fantasy's papa Hironobu Sakaguchi took the time today to respond to a question from Japanese tweeter ikeda1986:


Roughly, ikeda1986 says "What's up, homie?" to which Sakagushi replies "Working on three new iOS games," which prompts ikeda1986 to say "Looking forward to it." A touching exchange indeed.

Sakaguchi resigned as executive vice president of Square in 2004, about a year after the company merged with Enix. He went on to create the Mistwalker game development corporation. You can see a list of games he's developed--often along with Final Fantasy fan favorite Nobuo Uematsu--on the corporations Wikipedia page here. Their most recent game, The Last Story (Wii), is set to release in Australia and Europe on the 23rd and 24th, respectively, and it looks fabulous.

...

A new game in the Final Fantasy series released in Japan today: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, a music and rhythm game for 3DS. It features all of our favorite characters from the series as totally cute chibis in a plot similar to Dissidia Final Fantasy, except this game is played by hitting musical notes with the 3DS stylus.


The retail version of the game includes 70 songs from the Final Fantasy series, and as of launch day Square Enix has made eight songs available for purchase via the 3DS store at a reduced price of 100¥ (regularly 150¥).

Everyone's favorite Final Fantasy songsmith Nobuo Uematsu tweeted about the game yesterday, saying that it made him tear up as he remembered his twenty years of working with these games, and that Final Fantasy fans won't want to miss it.

Unfortunately, a lot of us may have to miss it because it has not as of yet been scheduled to release outside of Japan.

[via NintendoWorldReport, AnimeNewsNetwork] ...

As soon as it was revealed that Final Fantasy XIII-2 would herald the return of chocobo racing, people got a lot more excited for the game. People love that fluff, myself included. Now, perhaps you've tried to run a few races. Maybe you've done well for yourself, maybe not. Either way you might be looking to improve, and, if that's the case, Reddit user Kheten's method seems pretty solid.

You'll be able to do this once you can get the silver chocobo out of the big projection of Cocoon in Academia 4XX. This requires Advanced Mog Throw.

Items Needed:

• 34x Potent Orb Buccaboo, Buccaboo Ace (30%)
• 46x Potent Essence Hedge Frog (15%), Mud Frog (15%), Swampmonk (20%), Caterchipillar (5%)
• 23x Potent Crystals Microchu (30%)

Monsters Needed:

• Silver Chocobo
• Pulse Gladiator (Archylte Steppe - Cloudy)
• Cactuar (Archylte Steppe - Sunny, rare)
• Microchu (Western Archylte Steppe - Rainy, Sunny)

Method:

Get your Silver Chocobo to max level.

1. Infuse the Silver Chocobo with the Pulse Gladiator at level one.

...

Just something fun to do...

1. VI is the first FF that allows the player to change who is in the party.

2. In the early drafts, Terra was suppose to be a guy around the age of 21.

3. While everyone knows VI has the largest cast, most don't ever mention it also has the largest number of Summons in the main series. 27 in the original version, and 31 in the GBA port.

4. One of VI's main writers was Kaori Tanaka--or more commonly known as Soraya Saga; she wrote the characters of the Figaro Bros. as well as Relm and a few other members of the cast. She went on to write the plots of Xenogears and part of Xenosaga.

5. VI is actually the first game to introduce a final boss with an Angel motif, Kefka's god mode having a total of six wings. Also, Heartless Angel (Fallen One in the Woosely script) makes its first appearance in this title.

6. Terra has more Official Artwork than any other FF character in the series (20+)

Anyway else have their own silly trivia to add? ...

On October, 21 I had the opportunity to visit Square-Enix at their offices in Los Angeles and got a sneak peek at Final Fantasy XIII-2. Below is my review from playing the first three hours of the game. It should go without saying that this only reflects my opinion. If you want to read a general overview of the event you can go here, and if you want to read a factual rundown of what we learned about FFXIII-2, check it out here. In general I had a great time at the event and enjoyed playing FFXIII-2. I cannot say enough how nice the Square-Enix NA staff was and how well they treated us. They were simply awesome. Even if this game turned out to be a steaming pile of crap I would still have enjoyed myself due to how friendly and professional they were to us. Fortunately it was not a steaming pile of crap.

Bear in mind that I only got to play the first three hours of the game, and my opinion will only be based on that time period. As we all know, many of the more fun features in these types of games often don't get unlocked until much later. For example, after playing Final Fantasy XIII for three hours you probably wouldn't even have met your full party ...

Oh man, Final Fantasy XIV. We all know that, despite being super pretty, stability and performance issues at launch lead to two extensions of the game's trial period, costing the company what we can assume would be oodles in subscription fees, and one can imagine how many other potential customers were put off from buying the game entirely. Maybe it's stating the obvious a little, but Square Enix's CEO, Yoichi Wada, when asked about the title today at a press conference in Tokyo, responded with "The Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged." [source]

And my heart breaks a little. I know many Americans get a little frowny at the mention the MMORPG Final Fantasy titles, not because they're bad games, but because they resent them for not being another one of the standalone games that they already love (and because most of them are already wrapped up in World of Warcraft, ugh), so to hear one of those rouge Final Fantasys may be doing damage to our beloved series is quite the bummer.

They're ...

It starts tonight. Not much else to say! Head over to the official site and you can download the client software installer before the whole thing goes live.

Square-Enix is changing things up with how they handle the different regions very soon, so make sure you pick the right region.

Update: The open beta is postponed because they came across 'critical bugs'. No new release is available right now, and the download of the installer will be suspended later today.

Source: FFXIV Official Site

via Official Twitter

...

If you haven't already gotten around to buying the latest installment in the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy 13, now might be a golden opportunity to do so! Amazon cut the prices on many of the latest FF games this week. Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time, which was released on the Wii last year, are on sale as well.

Here's a handy list on this week's cuts:

• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) $34.17, down from $49.99
• Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (DS) $24.99, down from $39.99
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Wii) $17.99, down from $29.99
• Final Fantasy XII (PS2) $13.99, down from $19.99
• Final Fantasy X (PS2) $13.99, down from $19.99
• Final Fantasy (PSP) $13.99, down from $19.99
• Final Fantasy III (DS) $14.99, down from $19.99
• Final Fantasy XI: Ultimate Collection (Xbox 360) $12.99, down from $14.99

If there's any other holes in the main series that you would like to fill, then head over to this thread in the forums. We will continue ...

---

Vintage Final Fantasy Medley by the A Cappella Men's Chorus

For those who find that they have the Final Fantasy battle music playing in their head over and over whenever they play the older games, this might not be the best video to watch! You'll be humming this original medley for hours!

All I can say is: incredible! It is impressive enough to see an original medley, but to see it performed with such spirit and fun is really amazing. I can honestly say I watched the entire 8:24 minutes of this video, I was so entertained. This video is a medley of all of the old school Final Fantasy jams that we all hold so dear to our hearts!

Best Moment: The beginning when they came marching out making those kazoo sounds! I bursted out laughing. What an introduction! I bet every Final Fantasy fan in the audience cracked a huge smile.



"Eminence Symphony Orchestra performed the piece composed by Nobuo Uematsu called 'One Winged Angel' released with the Playstation game by Squaresoft (now Square-Enix) called 'Final Fantasy VII'. The piece was performed at the Sydney Town Hall at the a concert known as A Night in Fantasia during October 2005"

This put chills down my spine. I can't imagine how amazing this sounded live. I wonder how the audience felt listening to this and if they knew this was a song composed for a video game. Absolutely incredible. I would be hard pressed to ...