DKS3713 : Did the hype just pay off ? I think it might have...

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Famitsu has conducted an interview with Nomura about the upcoming DKΣ3713 private event, and managed to get a few new details:

- DKΣ3713 is a private show so for the general public that wants to see and play the games, TGS in October will feature more new information.

- The event will be at the same format as previous S-E events, with closed theatre as well as playable booths outside.

- Birth by Sleep will be playable for the first time at the event.

- Despite the news that Square Enix was going to scale back from Mobile development, it appears that Kingdom Hearts: Coded, 3rd Birthday and Agito XIII will still be going ahead.

- Agito XIII seems to be facing serious development issues at the moment. There is a huge worldview and historical timeline.

- The director of Agito XIII is doing the outline of the entire story synopsis himself now, development is still in early stages.

- Versus XIII is on hold until FFXIII is done, because the entire Versus team is helping to finish Final Fantasy XIII at the moment. It is number one priority.

- While the planners and programmers are all working on Final Fantasy XIII, the Versus project is getting the designers to work on a lot of image illustrations and conceptual visuals. The story for Versus is also pretty much complete.

- Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is being tuned and balanced, but it is not quite as polished as Dissidia yet. They'll be taking feedback from the playable demo.

- Birth by Sleep is not anywhere close to a final build, but Nomura wants to let people get a chance to try it out first.

- Advent Children Complete might finally be close to getting a release date.

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Square Enix has rubbished suggestions that Final Fantasy Versus XIII is on hold.

"Reports that development for Final Fantasy Versus XIII is on hold are false," the publisher said in a statement passed on to Eurogamer.

"The truth of the situation is that when free, some staff from the Versus team have been helping with the XIII team on development of Final Fantasy XIII. Development for both titles is continuing as originally scheduled."

That rather significantly contradicts translations of game director Tetsuya Nomura's comments in a Famitsu article, where he reportedly used the words "on hold" and said "the entire Versus team is helping to finish Final Fantasy XIII".

Along with Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII, Versus makes up a three-game "compilation" of titles marking the next, and next-generation, step forward in the famous Square RPG series.

Not much is really known about it other than what's been seen in trailers, but Nomura has previously evoked Kingdom Hearts when searching for comparisons. Speaking to Eurogamer last May, Nomura said it would "examine the humanity of the characters in this game" and distinguish itself from the FF games' traditional fantasy worlds.

"In Versus I'm trying to propose new vision of how a Final Fantasy game can be. The game's going to be more human than the science-fiction caricature we so often see. It will focus around current world events - in that sense it's darker," he explained at the time.

It's also still happily in development, or so Square Enix says, despite the inevitable bias towards getting FF XIII - a banner game for both its publisher and platform holder Sony - out of the door as quickly as possible. Hopefully we'll hear more about its progress at E3.

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STAR OCEAN: THE LAST HOPE is the long-awaited continuation of the celebrated science fiction and fantasy RPG series. Slated for release on Xbox 360 in 2009 and published by Square Enix,

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exclusively for Nintendo DS, CHRONO TRIGGER is a true classic

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The title is scheduled to release exclusively on Xbox 360 in September 2008.