We've waited long enough, but it's time to cast away those doubts. It's now official: Square Enix is bringing the Final Fantasy IV remake on the Nintendo DS to Europe with all the new features and voice acting intact. Find details at the full article.

No, this is not a joke. Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 has been revealed, and Atlus wasn't shy of sharing details pertaining to the surgeon drama sequel for the Nintendo DS. Meanwhile, Square Enix unleashed screenshots of Final Fantasy IV's remake in English which pretty much confirm a western release. Hit that jump for more details!

We're just as surprised as you are. The Nintendo DS may have been the prime platform to release the sequel - if ever they were to make one - to Final Fantasy IV, but a recent discovery over the Internet has swept that possibility aside. While a sequel was officially confirmed, it was not to arrive on Nintendo's handheld.

Details follow in the full story.

In light of the Final Fantasy series' 20th anniversary, the enhanced remake of Final Fantasy IV for the Nintendo DS is nearing completion and is scheduled for release in Japan by December 20. Published by Matrix Software, the same team responsible for Final Fantasy III, fans of the popular franchise are in for a treat with news about the games' numerous new features. For more details about these features, read on after the jump.

Well, it's confirmed. If any of you guys have a convenient ticket going to Japan, now would be a good time to book it so you can catch the Jump Festa 2008 event. That's where Square Enix will be previewing the closed door trailer of its upcoming Final Fantasy Fabula Nova Crystallis games, as well as its other highly anticipated titles for next year.

For more information, read more it in the full article!

Final Fantasy IV's revival on the Nintendo DS is just around the corner for gamers in Japan, but for everyone else, we have to make do with these teasers that show some of the classic RPG's main characters. Cecil, Kain, and Rosa are back in full bite-size 3D glory with voices on Nintendo's handheld. Want to see tidbits of them in action? Head over to the full article.

Years before Aeris kicked the bucket in Final Fantasy VII, tragedy was already an intrinsic part of the Final Fantasy series. In particular, regular storyline characters in Final Fantasy IV have a tendency to suddenly drop out of the story with a sudden case of respiratory failure. Enter Matrix Software's solution with their new skill system for its Final Fantasy IV remake on the Nintendo DS.

If you're familiar with the remake of the game when it came out on the Game Boy Advance, you'll notice that they came up with the idea of letting players swap their characters who "died" in the end. However, the developers at Matrix Software found this rather unrealistic and broke the flow in the original story.

As a solution to this, they fashioned the new Decant Ability system. When a character "dies", they entrust their powers, such as Edward's song ability, into an item that can be used to give another character a skill. While, it's unsure whether this skill swapping system is interchangeable with other characters or what happens to the item during the later part of the game is still a mystery.

Asides from the improved graphics and added cutscenes, that isn't the only thing Matrix Software will be adding to the game. To spice things up, they decided to change some of the boss patterns as well, to give old players something to look forward to despite having finished the game a dozen times already on previous platforms. All in all, as remakes go, Final Fantasy IV is something old players and new can look forward to when they finally release the game this December in Japan.

 

For those of us already drooling at the concept of a bigger, better Final Fantasy IV with its DS remake, here's another bit of information that should get you chomping at the bit with even more anticipation: the voice cast of Square Enix's Final Fantasy IV, as revealed by an update on the game's developer blog. Take a gander and see if you recognize them from your favorite anime, in the list we've provided below:

• Cecil: Shizuma Hidoshima
• Rosa: Yuko Kaida
• Kain: Koichi Yamadera
• Gilbert: Ryo Horikawa
• Rydia: Noriko Shitaya
• Palom & Porom: Rie Kugimiya
• Yan: Tesshou Genda
• Edge: Hiroya Ishimaru
• Cid: Ichiro Nagai
• Fusoya: Banjou Ginga
• Tellah: Gorou Naya
• Golbez: Takeshi Kaga

It's to note that the developer admitted that the original scenario of Final Fantasy IV was made with this cast in mind - which means that we're going to be hearing the characters as they were imagined (at least in the Japanese version). Here's to an option in the English version that lets us hear the Japanese voice cast - it'd be awesome to hear Takeshi Kaga, the host of Iron Chef, to speak as the antagonist Golbez.

Updates as we get them, and you can check out the full translation of the blog update via the read link below.

 

While we all knew that Square Enix was going to cram a lot of new content into the DS remake of Final Fantasy IV, it never occurred to us that it would have something as major as an entirely new character.

Players, meet Pochka, the latest addition to your party in the DS remake of the game. We don't know much about him (or her) yet, only that he (or she) looks absolutely adorable and out-of-place in the middle of a party of tall warriors and mages.

While it's certainly interesting that Square Enix is going ahead with its plans to include as much of the omitted material as they could into the remake, we can only wonder how this would impact the game's storyline. Why, it could even mean that the ending of Final Fantasy IV could be changed entirely - which makes it a completely different game from the one we've already completed.

A very interesting update on Final Fantasy IV DS indeed. More updates as we get them.

Nostalgia factor aside, Square Enix and them Final Fantasy remakes on the Nintendo DS never seem to fail. After Final Fantasy III on the handheld captured the original video game's essence, upcoming Final Fantasy IV shows much promise in making Dark Knight Cecil's adventure much more epic. We've found a gameplay video of Final Fantasy IV that makes the point clearer.

Hiroyuki Ito's Active Time Battle (ATB) system which revolutionized the series, first appeared in FFIV and it's back in full 3D glory. Rydia, Cain, Rosa, and Cid make up the rest of the party as they move around the overworld map and engage in random encounters. Characters and monsters look as detailed as the Nintendo DS hardware can dish out, while the world they inhabit look similar to FFIII.

We know you can't wait to see it in action, so here's the embed: