A lot of you out there may be very excited about Square Enix's upcoming event this August 2 and 3 in hopes of seeing more stuff related to Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but don' get your hopes way up high because you might get disappointed. The game's development has been placed on hold to allow team members to concentrate on higher priorities. More details about that and the rest of Square Enix's projects after the jump.

Has Final Fantasy Agito XIII - the mobile component of Square Enix's Fabula Nova Crystallis compilation - been canned? A recent statement given by Square Enix big boss Yoichi Wada has people wondering about the mobile game's future. More in the full article.

   

After the Nomura interviews for Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days and Birth by Sleep comes the Famitsu interview for Kingdom Hearts: Coded (by Square Enix for the mobile platform) to round up the cast of interviews for the new Kingdom Hearts titles.

The screenshots above show that Coded isn't anything to scoff at with its high-quality graphics. Sora in Coded is just a digital copy of Sora from the first Kingdom Hearts game, which explains why he's wearing his KH 1 clothes despite the fact that the events in the mobile phone KH take place after Kingdom Hearts 2.

As for the battle system, Square Enix character designer Tetsuya Nomura said that the button layout has been revamped to make controlling Sora easier when using mobile phones. A new mode, debugging mode, has also been added to get rid of the bugs that corrupt the world in Coded. Of course, being a mobile game, there will be a feature that enables mobile gamers to jump into the Coded world of another player to help get rid of the bugs.

Nomura also mentioned some interesting Kingdom Hearts: Coded tidbits, so make sure to check out the translated transcript of the entire interview!

Check out the complete transcript in the Read link!

Feeling excited by the slew of Kingdom Hearts titles for the handhelds? No? Well, we do. Character designer Tetsuya Nomura for Square Enix was interviewed by Japanese game magazine Gemaga, and he revealed some tidbits about Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, and Kingdom Hearts: Coded.

Nomura said that the control scheme of the previous two Kingdom Hearts games for the PlayStation 2 will be retained, so we'll be likely to see real-time menu surfing while beating up the baddies. As difficult as it may sound, its actually a breeze to do after some practice.

As for Birth by Sleep, Nomura said that there will be three scenarios, and players can choose which scenario to do first. There's no scenario which is more important that the others, so players can even stop in the middle of the first scenario to do another one, said Nomura.

The main theme of all three scenarios will be to answer the question "Ven, who are you?", referring to the young boy who looks like Roxas.

Kingdom Hearts for the PSP will use an evolved version of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories' card battle system, as well as a mysterious "character growth system" that Nomura didn't discuss in detail at this point.

Moving on to Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days (he revealed that it's pronounced as "Three Five Eight Days over Two"), Nomura revealed that due to Roxa's slightly detached attitude, the Disney character treatment will be slightly different in 358/2 Days.

How about the controls? Nomura revealed that they will use the stylus minimally, as they want to retain the control scheme of previous Kingdom Hearts games, with the same interface as the PlayStation 2 Kingdom Hearts titles. Instead, it will be used for an in-game chat system, but he did not clarify if it will be through the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, or through a local-based wireless connection.

Multiplayer in 358/2 Days looks fun, as players will be able to choose from any of the members of Organization XIII (that's 13 playable characters!), and will have plenty of missions like defeating enemies or retrieving items.

As for Kingdom Hearts: Coded for the mobile phones, it is unique in such a way that it takes place after Kingdom Hearts 2, and not a prequel like the other two games. The gameplay has not been touched upon by Nomura, but screenshots revealed that it will have the same interface as the first two Kingdom Hearts games for the PS2. 

Whew! That's definitely so much info. We sure can't wait for Kingdom Hearts, so you can expect us to sniff out more updates for you. Til then, stay tuned!

We finally get some details about Final Fantasy XIII after Square Enix revealed that the game will remain exclusive to the PlayStation console. After that, the only detail that's been revealed (said in passing no less) is that the game is finally running on actual PlayStation 3 hardware. The latest details come from the Japanese video game magazine Famitsu.

Since the text is in its Japanese and we're a little short on vocabulary, we had to rely on Maiki's translations on a Livejournal post. It looks like the city featured in the FFXIII's trailer is called Cocoon, and the towns and plains in were inspired from fair Italy.

The new FFXIII girl will also be different from the previous girls of the Final Fantasy series. Two new characters were also revealed in the trailer but they could still be changed. Even the main character's design may change by the final release.

Tetsuya Nomura says the latest trailer of Final Fantasy Versus XIII (from TGS) is the closest to his vision of the game yet. Final Fantasy Agito XIII also "looks pretty tame" compared to FFXIII and FFXIII Versus but there will be a bigger revelation to be out next year. If you want to take a look at the actual scan, you may click on the image above.

Game and character designer Tetsuya Nomura recently had a talk with Japanese video game magazine Dengeki PlayStation and discussed what's keeping him from creating Final Fantasy Versus XIII. There have been rumors going around that Versus is going to be Nomura's last FF title.

Nomura said that he is currently working on a mobile game called Monotone and he prefers to focus on one project at a time. He even added that while Monotone isn't as big as the Final Fantasy series, every project deserves the same amount of work and dedication.

When it comes to Versus XIII, Nomura shared that it's not just about finding time. He assured fans that he isn't forgetting about the title and another reason he's not so keen to work on the game yet is because of the PlayStation 3's rather high specifications.

What he wants first is "to utilize all the technology the PS3 contains and produce the game that he envisioned." Final Fantasy Versus XIII is one-third of the Fabula Nova Crystallis FF XIII compilation from Square Enix.

It's been a while since we heard anything about video game series Kingdom Hearts. But don't worry, the series' director Tetsuya Nomura has something special planned for fans as revealed by the latest issue of Famitsu.

First and foremost, the next title in the franchise isn't going to be Kingdom Hearts III. Nomura explained that it will be a side story of some sorts, something similar to an anecdote that fits well with the KH universe he created.

The game director and character designer added that he's thinking of making this title "slightly different" from the series and alter the game's system.

Furthermore, Nomura maintained that the series main character Sora will still fill a big role in the new game but there's the desire to develop the storyline of other characters. He explained,

I did nothing but talk about "Birth by Sleep". Also, I want to explain what Mickey did in the World of Darkness, and also how he got his keyblade. I have a feeling that I want to work on developing Roxas the most. It is interesting to create in one year, the birth of him, and then next, the disappearance of him.

Aside from the above mentioned information, Tetsuya Nomura shared just one more detail: the next Kingdom Hearts title could appear on the PlayStation Portable (PSP), DS, and mobile phones.

 

Very little is known about about Square Enix's mobile version of their Final Fantasy XIII project. Yes, we know about XIII and Versus XIII, but we don't have much about the third part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis arc, the mobile game Final Fantasy Agito XII.

What we do know though, is that even if the mobile game appears to be a long ways off, the timing for the project seems to be just about right. IGN recently reported that Square Enix's Tetsuya Nomura has commented in an interview with Japan's monthly Ge-maga magazine, that they won't be able to do the game on current generation phones - meaning 3G phones in Japan – and they're considering doing it for 4G sets.

Given that development is only at the point where the game's huge huge plot has been completed, the wait for 4G seems apt - especially since 4G sets are yet to be announced. Unlike Before Crisis, which was distributed in parts, IGN claims that Square Enix plans to release Agito XIII in full right from the beginning.

We'll update you folks on this hot mobile game as soon as more info is available.