Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings

411mania talks about this week's game releases. Highlights include Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Cursed Mountain, and Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.

A group of teenagers from Texas called The Speed Gamers are attempting to complete the entire Final Fantasy series in only a week, while taking donations for ACT Today, an organization to help support families affected by Autism. (From their front page) TheSpeedGamers have been streaming video game marathons for over a year to raise money for various charities. In total they have raised over $32,000 dollars and played 11 marathons. TheSpeedGamers are based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, but have members from around the world.

Square Enix recently posted its financial standings ending March 31, 2008, and suffice to say, the relationship with Nintendo must be amiable at worst.

Kotaku writes: Square Enix honcho Yoichi Wada (above, left) is worried. Western game companies are doing really well! Meaning that competition is getting harder. Yet, Wada hopes to capitalise on the Western market, aiming to increase the ratio of overseas sales from its current 50 percent to 80 percent in the next three years. According to the exec: We face competition not only from Japanese videogame companies but from game companies worldwide. We also see some new players from outside the videogame industry coming in... Economies of scale and breadth of scope is getting important. It may be a business alliance or it may be us taking a stake in others, but we need to go beyond traditional Square Enix. That business alliance sounds nice and all. But, how about stop calling everything Final Fantasy? Or make things other than RPGs? Or if you are going to make RPGs, why not make the games people have been asking for for the past decade?

IGN writes: Just before Christmas last year, Square Enix took a bunch of journalists to Japan, ready to see some of the games it plans to release in the west this year: The World Ends With You; Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings; Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates; Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker; and Dragon Quest Swords.

Square Union reports that Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings has finally been released in Europe for the Nintendo DS.

A new website has been launched ahead of the release of Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. Located at ff12revenantwings.co.uk, the website allows gamers to learn more about the ongoing adventures of Vaan, Penelo, Balthier and Fran ¿ as well as allowing access to exclusive content downloads.

Square Enix has today announced details of its schedule for the fresh end of 2008, with Final Fantasy I and II on the PSP and Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings on the DS both being given firm street dates. Details of the release dates for other UK-bound Square Enix titles are somewhat more vague, with DS titles Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates and The World Ends With You due as the leaves begin to sprout, while we can expect Odin Sphere on PS2 and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker on DS sometime before said leaves turn brown.

Square Enix today announced a firm release date for Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings in the UK. The game will be with us on February 15th 2008.

This week's top rental charts from U.S. game rental company GameFly, representing the most requested games for the week ending December 3rd, highlight both to-be-released and already released games in a unique demand-specific chart. This week's top five all-platform requests show little movement once again, after last week saw the list barely ruffled. Assassin's Creed still takes the top spot for a third week with Mass Effect in second for its second week in a row. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which spent the last two weeks at number four, slips a bit to the fourth spot to make room for Kane and Lynch: Dead Men to move up one spot into the fourth spot, but that's the only movement -- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune stays at number five, where it entered last week.