Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Square-Enix really has the right idea these days. After years of effective exclusivity with Nintendo, they jumped ship to PlayStation and Windows. Then they went PS2 exclusively, until finally a couple of titles appeared on Nintendo platforms again last generation. Now, it’s obvious that they see where the money is for them: everywhere. At Square-Enix Party 2007 (which I did not attend) a surprising number of games were shown, including lots of Final Fantasy. While branching off the Final Fantasy universe is nothing new (The Mana series is actually a spinoff from back in the GameBoy days, not a separate franchise) it’s really come to surprising proportions now.

Case in point: Dissidia Final Fantasy. And all we have to look at is this very cool logo that appears to depict summons Shiva and Ifrit, and platform: PSP. That’s all. And this is just a screenshot from the website.

IGN refers to this as a “Final Fantasy All-Stars” game, and claim that the trailer they were shown featured Cecil and Kain from Final Fantasy IV, someone named Kuja from Final Fantasy XI (which I’ve never played) and of course Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. Apparently this is a fighting game featuring the stars of the Final Fantasy games, fighting in locations from the various games. Actually, not a bad idea. Let’s try not to think about how the sage Tellah would really fare against someone with godlike abilities like Sephiroth. Don’t mistake my feelings for Sephiroth. I actually went through all of Final Fantasy VII and stopped playing completely immediately before the final battle, just because I was bored with the idea of interacting with Sephiroth again. I’ll try not to tell that to those I know who’ve had multiple AIM screen names involving the word “Sephiroth.”

It will be interesting to see if even this and the remake of Final Fantasy Origins on PSP can keep the platform from continuing to fade away. I predict that Dragon Quest IX for DS will make everything else on every other platform irrelevant, at least in Japan, for several months on either side of its release. Developers would be smart to keep all their titles a safe distance from that release.

Source: Dissidia Final Fantasy official site, and IGN.