Square-Enix's panel brought out some interesting things for World of Final Fantasy during the recently concluded PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) West that was held in Seattle, Washington.
A new trailer for the upcoming chibi role-playing game was dropped during the gaming festival that started last Sept. 2, Friday and ended on Sept. 5, Monday. The 45-second video showcases sneak peeks into numerous never-before-seen anime cutscenes of the game.
Square-Enix's PAX West panel included some of the game's voice — Lisa Kay Jennings, Amanda Leighton and Josh Keaton, game producer Shinji Hashimoto and video game director Hiroki Chiba, who made his directorial debut with World of Final Fantasy. Chiba previously worked on 1999's Final Fantasy VIII and 2006's Dirge of Cerberus - Final Fantasy VII.
A couple of new cutscenes with English voiceovers were also showcased during the event. One of them was centered on the protagonists' meeting with some nostalgic summons - Shiva, Ramuh and Ifrit, while the other was on Reynn's interaction with the cactuar conductor. There was also a discussion of various World of Final Fantasy game elements such as mirage evolution, shifting between chibi and giant forms, as well as how the two forms apply to stacking and mounting mirages in the turn-based battle system.
Some other wonderful pieces of news for World of Final Fantasy came from halfway across the world via a Jump magazine issue. Thanks to @aibo_ac7's scanned copy of the magazine page, we now know that Snow Villiers of Final Fantasy XIII will join the list of iconic characters that siblings Reynn and Lann and their companion Lama, which are voiced by Leighton, Keaton and Jennings, respectively, get to meet as they travel through Grymoire in hopes of regaining their memories.
Based on the scans, Snow Villiers' chibi version in World of Final Fantasy is molded after his appearance in Final Fantasy XIII where he wears a black bandana and not in later sequels - Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Daisuke Ono will continue to voice Snow Villiers in the Japanese version of World of Final Fantasy. It is, however, unknown whether Troy Baker, who previously provided the English voice over for Snow, will continue to voice the character for World of Final Fantasy English version.
"The magazine features a couple other scoops on the game, including Heart Quests — which are described as key episodes for fans of Final Fantasy," writes Nova Crystallis. "These legend character-centric side-quests can be unlocked by obtaining and using an item called Ultima Gem."
The other thing that Jump reveals is the new Water Frog mirage that can cast negative buffs on enemies and can boost the team's magic defense through a spell called "Song of Spirit."
World of Final Fantasy will be released for both the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 on Oct. 25 for North America, Oct. 27 for Japan and Oct. 28 for Europe.
