Excellent news, Both Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy VII:Dirge of Cerberus have UK release dates. Problem is, just about every site has them listed differently. Previously both were as ‘November 2006′ just about everywhere, but now both are all over the place.

If i shop at HMV, i can get both DoC and XII on the 24^th of November.
If i go to GAME, i can get DoC a full week earlier on 17^th, but they seem to deny all knowledge of XII, although if you feel the need, they do let you preorder the guide.
Wikipedia Cites XII as Febuary , and DoC as November (not exactly the most trusting source though)
Of course, the most reliable of sources, Square-Enix themselves, place XII as early 2007, and DoC as just ‘November’ again.

Well, it makes sense to trust square, so it looks like we wont be getting any XII action untill 2007, but a least DoC is close, even if it is still just ‘November’.

Hit the jump for more on both

Final Fantasy XII

As usual, we get the simple and clean Japanese style Box art, as oppose to (IMO) the overcrowed American releases.
As for the game itself, it returns to old style FF roots, with a huge focus once more on Airships, as well as the cliché ‘invasion by bad guys’ theme. Dont get me wrong though, this looks set to become a classic in the genre, especially since it was only the sixth game ever, and the first FF title, to recieve a perfect 40/40 from Famitsu magazine.

As for the battle system, it is known as active dimension battle (ADB), and is real-time menu based, taking place on the same map as regular exploration (FFXI style). However, unlike FFXI, you also have a team to control. this acheived by assuming control of a character, while the others are operated by AI using priortised commands dictated by you.

With the mighy Nobuo Uematsu having left Square-Enix, even though the musical score was set to be composed by him, the vast majority of it is composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto (Vagrant Story, Breath of Fire:Dragon Quarter, FF Tactics Advance). The main theme however was still provided by Nobuo, but composed by Hitoshi.

Expect a full review after release.

Final Fantasy VII:Dirge of Cerberus

As part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series, DoC occurs a year after the events of Advent Children, or three years after the original FFVII. This game explores Vincent, a rather mysterious player character from the orginal. This didnt receive well in Japan, with famitsu magazine only scoring it 28/40. This is largely down the unpopularity of the shooter genre in Japan.

I call this an shooter, but its really a third-person RPG shooter, a large detraction from anything Square-Enix has done before.
There is also first-person view available for precision shooting, and Limit Breaks are also included(!), as well as a that is a large library of weapons available. This is as about as much as i can tell about the battle system so far, but you can also expect a full review of DoC to.

As far as the soundtrack goes, the orginal pieces are composed by Masashi Hamauzu, who has worked on musical scores for Final Fantasy games in the past (Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X). There are two other songs “Redemption” and “Longing”, both of which are composed and perfermed by Gackt, a J-Rock artist (I personally think Redemption is great piece of J-Rock, check it out)

Well, i’m pre-ordering, even if i have no idea when ill get em’, what about you guys?

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