The official Japanese SE Website has been updated with 2 news shirts. The FFVII-Themed Shirt showing a top view of Midgar, and the Advent Children-Themed Shirt showing the city of Edge with the angel statue.

In addition to this, images of the Crisis Core Play Arts & Dissidia Trading Arts figures have made their way online. The Play Arts figure of Aerith is shown in her white Crisis Core attire, with 4 different hands and a flower basket. No release date is yet shown for the Crisis Core set. The Figure Arts Set of Dissidia’s heros include Warrior of light, Cloud Strife, Squall Leonhart, Zidane Tribal, & Tidus. This set is set to be available early Feb.

Source: FF7AC Reunion

Some more informaiton has been released on the mysterious Cloud Message from yesterday. We will be including an update when we have a more throrugh translation of the information. There may be a second volume to be released soon.

The Cloud Vol 1 was apparently released on 12/14/2007 featuring news and content on the following titles:

• Crisis Core
• Advent Children
• FF XIII
• FF XIII Versus
• FF XIII Agito
• Dissidia
• Monotone
• The 3rd Birthday
• KH Birth by Sleep
• KH 358/2 Days
• KH coded
• すばらしきこのせかい.

Along with the articles and content in Volume 1, there’s a special DVD included featuring the following trailers:

• FF XIII [Special Trailer]
• FF XIII Versus [Special Trailer]
• Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episode [SQUARE ENIX Party2007用 Trailer]
• Dirge of Cerberus [JUMP FESTA 2006用 Trailer]
• Before Crisis [SQUARE ENIX Party2007用 Trailer]
• Crisis Core [TVCM]
• Advent Children [Official Trailer]
• Advent Children Complete [TOKYO GAME SHOW2006用 Trailer]
• Monotone [SQUARE ENIX Party2007用 Trailer]
• すばらしきこのせかい [店頭用 Trailer]

Source: http://cloud.dengeki.com/index.html

http://ff7ac.hotcafe.to/ reports of a page-filling advertisement in PS Blitz magazine. Inasfar as we can see the page (there’s only a quick picture available at this time – check back for updates on that btw), it’s a close-up of Cloud as he appears in Advent Children with the text “Cloud”, “Message” right below that, and “Coming Soon” following it. The original article, at least according to Google Translate, makes comments on “Vol. 1″, “Sequel” and DVD, but the translation’s as cryptic as the original Japanese.

Cloud Message photo from PS Blitz magazine

The original article says:

【CLOUD：今週発売の電撃PSに「CLOUD message」なる謎の広告】
今週末発売の電撃PSに「CLOUD message」なるクラウドがアップになった画像の謎の広告が掲載されているようです。「CLOUD Vol.1」の続編でしょうか？またDVD等で映像特典があるのかもしれませんね。期待したいところです。 （情報：ゲハ速）（11：48） 

[関連] 週末の電撃PSより、「CLOUD message」謎の広告

and Google Translate cooks up the following translation of that:

[CLOUD: PS blitz this week to launch "CLOUD message" ads - is a mystery 
PS blitz this weekend to launch "CLOUD message" to come up was the cloud of mystery of the image ads that are posted. "CLOUD Vol.1" the sequel? DVD and video in addition there may be benefits. It is hope. (Information: GEHA speed) (11:48) 

[Related] PS from the weekend blitz, “CLOUD message” mystery ad

We’ll have it properly translated by one of our translaters when they get online and can work on it. It’s quite possible that this is a preliminary advertisement for Advent Children Complete, a revised and tweaked version of the Advent Children movie, but that is mostly speculation.

Edit @ Oct 23: Member Hitoshura informed us of an uploaded scan of the image, which adds the info ”Ascii-Media Works Pub.”, a publisher that earlier published a Cloud artbook of sorts according to some of our members. There’s a good chance that this is an advertisement for a volume 2 of such an art book now.

Cloud Message ad (scan)

In our earlier post, we posted some low-quality pictures of an Advent Children Complete promotional handout from the Tokyo Game Show 2009. http://ff7ac.hotcafe.to/ posted some high-quality scans of those handouts for your viewing pleasure. We’ve taken the liberty to make some cutouts as well, but since it’s printed material the quality isn’t picture-perfect – buy the movie when it’s out for that.

Thanks to member Dark & Divine for bringing our attention to these.

http://ff7ac.hotcafe.to/ posted a fresh set of scans from Famitsu magazine for Dissidia, showing (amongst others) Cosmos, Exdeath, Bartz, Ultimecia in her EX-mode, and Squall in his ‘official’ uniform. The scans were removed from ff7ac.hotcafe, but thanks to FFWorld.com we’ve gotten our hands on a copy of the scans.

According to a preliminary translation by Hitoshura (one of our members), there will only be characters from FFI to X in the game, especially the dialogue saying ”you ten are this world’s last remaining hope” to Zidane and Butz. Final Fantasy XII seems to be omitted, but an earlier interview with Dissidia’s director, Takeshi Arakawa sheds light on that issue:

[...]

• Where did the idea to make a fighting action game based on the RPG series “FF” come from?

Takeshi Arakawa: Actually, Nomura, the creative director, began thinking about this concept 7 years ago and already wanted to make a fighting game. Last year, the “FF” series celebrated its 20th anniversary and this is to commemorate that. The project itself began a little before that so the development has become somewhat more lengthly than expected.

• Had it already been decided that “FF” characters would fight at that original point?

Takeshi Arakawa: Yes, that was decided at the start. We were going to have main characters appear against their rivals, selecting 2 characters from each of the FFs that had been released at that point, i.e. I to X, and fight each other.

[...]

A big thanks to our member Dark & Divine for reporting and posting these scans!

 A new line of Kingdom Hearts Play Arts figures were unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show, and among the new figures of Riku, Sora and Mickey were new figures of Cloud and Sephiroth in their exclusive Kingdom Hearts outfits. No release date has been announced at this time.

Kingdom Hearts Play Arts: Cloud

Kingdom Hearts Play Arts: Sephiroth

Source: http://ff7ac.hotcafe.to/

The 2008 Tokyo Game Show has just begun and news regarding the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII has already been released.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete News

Square-Enix announced that the collection of short stories from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, “On the Way to a Smile” will be released in book form, after originally only being published on the official Japanese “On the Way to a Smile” website and the “Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children – Prologue” book. The stories take place in between the the two year gap of the end of Final Fantasy VII and the beginning of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, and will be the first time all the stories have been together in a single book for Japanese fans. Also included in this book release will be new stories for characters never before released, such as Yuffie, Red XIII and the Turks. A book release has been already done for Western fans with the release of the Limited Edition box set of the movie, however it is unknown if and/or when these new stories will hit Western shores. The North American exclusive story “Case of Barret” will also be included in the Japanese release.

A new Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete trailer was shown in the Square-Enix Closed Mega Theatre today revealing more of the changes and expansions of the director’s cut of the film. New scenes include a longer, more detailed look into Yazoo lurring and transporting the orphans of the slums to be taken to the Forgotten Capital and added Zack flashback screentime incorporating new scenes while Zack and Cloud were on the run from Shinra during Crisis Core. Included in the trailer was the classic truck bed scene with Cloud, Zack, and the truck driver evading pursuing soliders and the truck driver yelling at Zack over gun fire to run and move to a safer place.

Update:

Some snapshot images of the new footage have appeared online.

  Advent Children Complete images

Dissidia: Final Fantasy News

Also, Cloud Strife of FFVII and Terra Branford of FFVI have also been confirmed for Dissidia: Final Fantasy in the latest Square-Enix Closed Mega Theatre trailer, finally completing the roster of heroes and villains for the game.

Update:

There will also be a Limited Edition Dissidia PSP & a set of Potion drinks released with character images. Some character art and cinematic screenshots have also appeared online.

Limited Edition Dissidia PSP - back

• Limited Edition Dissidia PSP – front 

• Link to Potions, Art & Cinematic Images. (from Dissidia-France.com)

Update 11 October: The images seem to have been removed from Dissidia-France.com after a takedown notice from Square Enix. We didn’t get a backup of the potion images, sadly.

Sephiroth in LittleBigPlanet?

A Sephiroth version of Sackboy as well as one of Old Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4 have been made for the game LittleBigPlanet. 

LittleBigPlanet: Sephiroth and Snake

More images

Source: http://ff7ac.hotcafe.to/

The Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Play Arts figures of Zack, Cloud, and Aerith have now been scheduled for a January 2009 release in Japan. Zack’s Play Arts figure measures 220 mm,  Cloud’s is 205 mm, and Aerith measures in at 190 mm. Each figure is priced at 3990 Yen (approx. 40 dollars).

Source: http://ff7ac.hotcafe.to/