Final Fantasy XI players have a launch date for “A Moogle Kupo d’Etat – Evil in Small Doses” to look forward to. Square Enix has announced this second add-on scenario for FFXI will be available for pre-purchase for $9.99 via the PlayOnline Viewer July 5th. This new content is for any characters that have reached level 10 on their main job.

“It all started with an innocent drop of rainwater and a rickety, ramshackle Mog House desperately in need of repair.

Little did anyone suspect that this would be the beginning of a harrowing nightmare unheard of in the annals of moogle-kind”

The first of Masato Kato’s trio of add-ons, “A Crystalline Prophecy – Ode of Life Bestowing,” is already available. “A Shantotto Ascension – The Legend Torn, Her Empire Born” will round out the series. “A Moogle Kupo d’Etat – Evil in Small Doses” requires the first FFXI expansion, RISE OF THE ZILART.

The Sony press conference for E3 2009 is set to prepare gamers for the return of a juggernaut. Sony’s had a tough year for its PS3 console, but things are looking up. This is Sony’s year to make the most expensive console on the market profitable. With God of War III, Heavy Rain, Batman Arkham Asylum, Modern Warfare 2 and MAG on the horizon, this year’s E3 press conference promises to give gamers a reason to pick up a PS3. I’ll be blogging live as Sony wows gamers with 364 new PS3, PSP and PS2 titles. Check out the running commentary after the break.

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Nintendo is rolling out its E3 2009 line at noon today. Yes videogames have come up in the world of entertainment, dominating movie and music. Nintendo promises a new leap forward in game control and several new Mario adventures to go with. The Nintendo team is adding more hard core game s to it’s line-up including some developed in house. Keep up with all latest here.
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Today’s Wii-kly update welcomes Final Fantasy IV: The After Years to the WiiWare line-up. This successor to the popular FFIV JRPG brings multiplayer episodic action to fans of the the Square Enix series. In the first installment Rydia’s Tale, Prince Ceodore, son of The Paladin Cecil and the white mage Rosa takes up the torch to save the Kingdom of Baron and thwart the new threat to the Blue Planet.

School is winding down and gamers are gearing up for the summer season. Start a single player campaign or adventure with up to three friends as you unravel Rydia’s Tale, the first of eight episodes of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. Catch all the details after the break.
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Square Enix has a lot to celebrate with two big Final Fantasy events hitting this month. On May 16th Final Fantasy XI will reach its 7th year running. Players can get in on the festivities with the Annual Adventurer Appreciation Campaign and the Mog Tablet Quest. These events kicked off May 12 at 1am and run through May 25th. All the details are included after the break.

The Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete English trailer is also ready for viewing. How do you make a great thing even better? Upgrade it for Blu-ray and Hi-def, and add in never before seen footage. Check it out.

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Square Enix announced yesterday through a press release that The Last Remnant will be heading to the PC sometime during the Spring of 2009. The RPG will be released in North America and across all PAL territories and includes features not available on the original Xbox 360 version that was released back in November.

Square Enix did not elaborate on whether these extra features are the downloadable content that was released via Xbox Live starting on December 1 or not, so we will just have to wait until they reveal a bit more information about it. Therefore, if PC version of The Last Remnant interests you, be sure to check back with us as information becomes available.

Confirmed concerts for the U.S. and the rest of the globe have been announced for Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. The first concert of 2009 will take place at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 11 with a special VIP meet and greet featuring Nobuo Uematsu where a limited number will be able to meet Nobuo and Maestro Arnie Roth.

More post concert meet and greet tickets have been made available, but are only available by phone, so call today and do not miss out on a chance to hang out after the concert. Other venues include Seattle with the Seattle Symphony for two shows only on July 10 and 11 at 8:00pm. Tickets will also be on sale soon May 16 with the Baltimore Symphony in Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, and July 17 and 18 with the Grammy award winning San Francisco Symphony.

To find out more about upcoming dates in the U.S. or your area of the world, visit the official Distant Worlds website.

Square Enix and Tri-Ace have announced that their classic style RPG, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, will be heading exclusively to the Xbox 360 on March 3, 2009. This latest title in the Star Ocean series will now feature 4 party members, and be more team-oriented and will also feature more of a sci-fi emphasis than past titles, with the ability to control your own ship. The ship is quite large, and will be able to land on at least 5 planets or other space-based destinations. The game will also take place a few centuries before the original Star Ocean which had gamers trying to solve a mystery on the remote planet Roak.

This time around, the hero Edge Maverick and his female counter part Reimi Saionji are thrust into adventure as humans look for a new planet after destroying the Earth during World War III. Using the same real-time battle system as the previous Star Ocean games, the latest installment will include a Rush gauge which will allow gamers to use certain abilities to attack or to make a preemptive strike against their enemies. The Rush gauge status will be unique for each character and a new Sight in/Sight out feature will allow players to target any enemy open to being targeted within their line of sight– this will help out loads when you are in the throws of battle.

Once again, fans of the Star Ocean series or just RPGs in general can look forward to playing the game come March 3. Hopefully, it the long wait will pay off for them.

Looks like Dragon Quest X will be heading to the Wii according to a recent press conference in Japan (Reuters). Unfortunately, nothing else was mentioned, no screens were shown, no trailer teased the attendees, and no release date was forthcoming.

However, Square Enix also announced during the press conference that Dragon Quest IX would be heading to the Nintendo DS on March 28, 2009. Other than that, there is not much else to report on the subject, but just knowing that a new Dragon Quest (Dragon Quest Swords does not count) will be coming to a current gen console is enough to get fans excited, hopefully.

The 1UP team sat down for a test run of Final Fantasy XI: Wings of the Goddess updates, Swarm and Moblin Maze Mongers. While they got in some quality game time they also got to fire off questions at the Square-Enix FFXI development team on the three upcoming mini-expansions: A Crystalline Prophecy, A Moogle Kupo d’Etat, and A Shantotto Ascension.

Here’s the 1UP video podcast:

You can find a full transcript of the 1UP Square-Enix FFXI interview on 1UP.