It's September! That means
things start happening.
Squeenix has scheduled a Dragon Quest press conference for Monday, September 5. The event will include an unveiling of a new game with video footage. Squeenix
didn't specify that the new game was
Dragon Quest X, but they must know that is what the public is expecting. Still, while it seems likely that Squeenix is holding a press conference to preempt the inevitably leak of the Wii
Dragon Quest X trailer (see below), it could be anything else related to the series' 25th anniversary: a PSP remake of DQVII, an iPhone remake of DQI & II, &c.
Nintendo has a "new product" press event on the 13th. It's going to be live-streamed, and when they announced the event to their investors their stock shot up 10%. Nintendo doesn't do TGS, so this event is really their last chance to stage a big announcement before the PS Vita comes out, and expectations are high: many think that Nintendo and Capcom are going to announce
Monster Hunter Tri G exclusively for the 3DS, which would be quite a coup. Notably, Nintendo uses the word for "new product" in describing the announcement, rather than the word they typically use for "new title," so new hardware (like a 3DS XL) isn't out of the question either.
Dragon Quest Anniversary Collection comes out on the 15th. This is notable because the disc will include
the world's first glimpse a trailer of
Dragon Quest X, which is the last big game on the original Wii.
Tokyo Game Show 2011 also starts on the 15th. TGS is one of the "big three" game shows. Expect
lots of PS Vita announcements, given the way handheld gaming currently rules Japan.
Level-5 Vision is October 15th. I'm a big Level-5 fan, they're basically the Pixar of games and Level-5 Vision is where they announce all their new titles for the coming year and beyond. Interestingly, this year's Vision press event is accompanied by a two-day open-to-the-public expo called Level-5 World. This would suggest that many of the titles they've announced in years past are finally nearing release, and are ready to be played by the public.
Finally,
Jump Festa 2012 is going to be held in December, rather than in January like years previous.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 also comes out (in Japan) in December, and since director Tetsuya Nomura has said that Squeenix has kept him from releasing info on
Final Fantasy Versus XIII until
FF XIII-2 comes out, it is widely expected that Jump Festa 2012 is going to be
FF Versus XIII's coming out party, just as Jump Festa 2011 was for
FF Type-0.
As with
Type-0, I'm expecting a title change for
Final Fantasy Versus XIII. If this is all horribly confusing, here's a refresher: Square Enix originally envisioned the
Final Fantasy XIII project as encompassing multiple games. Rather than only making a traditional console RPG, they wanted to see what a "real" FF would be like if it was on a handheld, or if it was a console action-RPG. So they announced three different FFXIIIs:
Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Agito XIII (the handheld game) and
Final Fantasy Versus XIII (the action-RPG). These games would all take place in the same "universe," but wouldn't otherwise be related to each other any more than each numbered installment of FF is related to the next.
This naming scheme broke down, however, when Squeenix decided to make a direct sequel,
Final Fantasy XIII-2, that shares
Final Fantasy XIII's characters and gameplay. Rather than merely being a sort of umbrella brand, the "XIII" would now suggest that these games would all be sequels to each other, that
Final Fantasy Agito XIII would share characters with
FF XIII and
FF XIII-2. This isn't true, so (simultaneous with the
FF XIII-2 announcement) they renamed
Agito XIII to
Final Fantasy Type-0. (This also makes it much easier for Squeenix to continue making handheld FFs under the Type-# banner; you can think of Type-0 as essentially splitting the series numbering in two, console and handheld.)
As part of the media blackout regarding
FF Versus XIII, they've remained mum on whether we can expect a renaming for
Versus, which has long been the most anticipated of the bunch (due to superstar Tetsuya Nomura's involvement). Nomura lurves his thirteens, but I think a rebranding is likely. They could simply drop the "XIII," but given the game's high budget (and Squeenix's financial woes), it's also possible that they'll simply call it
Final Fantasy XV. This would be ironic, considering the point of the project to begin with was to create a full-fledged FF game without being held to the expectations of a traditional numbered release.
By the way, the "Versus" isn't because it's a fighting game (because it's not). They're using the Latin meaning of the term, because Nomura lurves Latin; think "Final Fantasy Reversed" or "Final Fantasy Negative 13" and you're on the right track.
2012 is also both the 25th anniversary of the
Final Fantasy series and the tenth anniversary of the
Kingdom Hearts series, and anniversary-release-related announcements at either TGS or Jump Festa seem like a given.
Anyway, this thread is for all the exciting news from these events, this month and beyond. Japan's still a major creative force in game design, so I'm looking forward to see what they'll have for us to play in the months and years to come.
