As announced at the Final Fantasy XIII event in Tokyo, a Final Fantasy XIII “Elixir” will be released onto the masses in Japan for human consumption.

The canned beverage with sixteen different designs will be released on December 8, while the elixir with one of six mini figures will street date on December 22. Just in time for the holidays!

Elixir [Gigazine via alafitsa]

Professional resume snoop superannuation has uncovered some concept art and CV listings for a game code-named “Fortress”, which is the Final Fantasy XII action game spinoff GRIN Stockholm had been working on from the time development on Bionic Commando wound up to the time they were shut down.

Say what you will about GRIN’s track record of late, this would have been a blast to get a better look at.

[superannuation]

So what better way to celebrate the season of weddings than with a quick look at some of the best wedding dresses shown off in video games? A lot of video game characters we know and love have walked down the aisle over the years. Ken got married at the end of Street Fighter II, the entire plot of Dragon Quest V centres around a bride and it looks like Aya’s getting down to marital business in the upcoming Parasite Eve: The 3rd Birthday.

But when it comes to that most important of wedding props — the dress — only a few video game characters and even fewer gamers really get it right. Here are a few fashionable examples:

Princess Peach, Super Paper Mario
Peach almost exchanged vows with Bowser at the beginning of the game, but even though the arranged marriage goes bust before the I dos, Peach is rocking that puff sleeved gown with the opera gloves. Observe how the pink ribbon on the bouquet accents the gem in her crown, too. Classy.

Meryl Silverburgh, Metal Gear Solid 4
The cool thing about Meryl’s dress is the story behind it. I fangirl’d out over speaking with Hideo Kojima at the Game Developers Conferences this year to tell him how much I liked her dress. He replied through his translator that the animators didn’t really know what a Western-style wedding dress looked like, so they had an assistant go out and rent a dress to model for the animators. Good thing the assistant picked a sleeveless number — Meryl is way too ripped to pull off bell sleeves. And kudos on the tiara, but could we loose the gun?

Princess Ashe, Final Fantasy XII
With it’s ruffled train and extreme gold accessory count, this is a gown fit for a princess. Sadly, though, the veil doesn’t quite fit the dress. The length and tiered lace fringe work well, but the giant blue feathers on top and golden cheerios that seemed to be hot glued to the cap scream “I let my little sister decorate this.”

Princess Ashe, Final Fantasy XII
Here’s a veil-less breakdown.

Aidra the Katamari Bride, Real Life
Never mind the nerd factor, look at the detail on that dress in the vines and flower pattern. It’s delicate, pretty and perfectly coordinated to her headgear. Plus the dress can double as a prom gown thanks to the modest cut and straight fall, if the bride should choose to let her potential future daughter wear it.

There are probably more weddings and even more gowns in more games than I’ve played. Leave a comment if you spot any. And before you start in on me about the default gown in The Sims 2, I’m not a fan; the Sims don’t know how to accessorize.

There’s a key difference! Unlike licensed fare, which are forced to stick to the plot and characters of the film, these games simply take a motivational cue from an existing movie and run with it. Whether that be in terms of visual design, themes, the relationship between characters, it doesn’t matter; these are just some of the games inspired by a summer blockbuster, and they wear that inspiration proudly on their sleeves.

Any others people can think of they’d like to share?

Independence Day / Star Fox 64

While the Star Fox series has tipped its hat to many science fiction staples over the years, none are as blatant as Star Fox 64’s stage on Katina.

From the enemy fighters to the landscape to the protection of a prominent building from a large, saucer-shaped mothership, it doesn’t just borrow from ID4, it lifts entire segments. Some people say even the music is modelled on Independence Day’s score.

Just a shame there’s no animal version of a wasted Randy Quaid up there.
Saving Private Ryan / Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

In 1998, moviegoers were shocked by what is still widely regarded as the most graphic, confronting sequence ever seen in a war movie. Through a use of shaky-cam and special effects, Steven Spielberg depicts the Omaha Beach landings on June 6, 1944 with an unnerving sense of intimacy, bullets whizzing past your head in surround sound, bodies exploding all over the screen.

Then, in 2002, gamers got their chance to actually take part in the sequence. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault followed the events of the film’s introduction almost to the letter, from a disastrous beach landing to a deadly crawl up the beach to the storming of the German fortifications.

And it’s not just the opening that models itself on Saving Private Ryan; there are subsequent levels in the game that also reference locations visited in the film. Then again, with Spielberg having helped write the events of the game, that shouldn’t have been a great surprise.
Star Wars / Final Fantasy XII

Now this one, this one doesn’t seem as obvious. Final Fantasy XII – a Square Enix RPG – being heavily influenced by Star Wars? But it’s true.

While art director Hideo Minaba says of the game “I’ll just say that I’m a fan. I wouldn’t say that [Star Wars] an influence”, we don’t believe him for a second. The game is about a young blonde boy who yearns to take to the skies and escape the grip of a totalitarian empire on his desert home. He’s accompanied by a shifty, though good-hearted pirate. Who in turn is accompanied by a stoic, furry friend. There’s also an old-warrior-cum-mentor for the boy, a bounty hunter after the pirate, and even some Jawas.

Come on, Minaba. Fess up. It’s OK! Everyone loves Star Wars.
Aliens / Everything

Aliens was released in 1986. And almost every single game that involves men fighting in space has taken something from it. Halo borrows from its aesthetic (Pelican dropships and assault rifles). Halo also borrows from its cast (Sgt. Johnson). Countless games have named their protagonists “Space Marines”. The xenomorphs – and their face huggers – are another gaming staple. And sentry guns? Yeah, they’re from Aliens as well.

It’s shocking the influence this movie has had on an entire medium. As 2K’s Stephen Alexander told Totilo the other day, it’s so embedded in the imaginations of designers and artists that often people reference it without even realising it. Its legacy, whether artistically or in terms of its plot or gadgets, has been copied by so many games over the years that those staples – the marines, the weapons, the aliens – are now seen as part of gaming’s mythology, not that of Aliens.

Square Enix sinks to the very depths of casual gaming with the launch of Dive II Hunt: Sorbet’s Great Adventure, a java-based game on the company’s MySpace page.

The game follows the adventures of adorable Sorbet, the brother of prolific Final Fantasy XII Moogle Montblanc, as he embarks on a quest to catch a whole mess of fish. Accept missions to dive under the ocean to collect fish and earn gil to upgrade your equipment, but watch out for that pesky air meter. Get caught without air too deep and you’ll wind up in bed for several days, and with only 30 game days to become the Hunter Dive Master, you’ll need all the time you have. It’s a nifty little game, actually, with leaderboards to show you how much you suck at fishing with a Moogle.

MySpace is a rather odd place for a Square Enix game to show up, but Dive II Hunt makes it almost worth digging up your login information and having to deal with that bastard Tom.

Dive II Hunt [MySpace via 1UP]

Ray Huling argues that the next crop of Final Fantasy games will be, like theYamato, obsolete by the time they hit the ground. Impressive in their size, yet obsolete at the time of their completion. Huling says that the games have become such giant enterprises, it’s sapping the fun out of the whole production (does that mean ‘obsolete’ or simply ‘not fun anymore’?):

… the optional elements that demand so much effort to achieve on the DS represent only a bite-size version of the gaming Gargantua Final Fantasy has become. Mini-games, bestiaries, accessories, rare monsters, rare weapons – Christ! The humongousness of it all defies belief, defies completion. Sure, people have achieved all that can be achieved in a game like Final Fantasy XII – one of its FAQs, not even the largest, is spread across more than 770 pages. But people built the actual Battleship Yamato, too, which now lies in two pieces on the floor of the ocean off Okinawa.

Just as has happened with the main plot, the sidequests of Final Fantasy have become ends in themselves, separated from any notion of the fun they were supposed to provide. Final Fantasy has the most compelling profile of any videogame. It bristles with guns – but what can actually be done with all of that firepower?

I suspect there are many that would disagree, and while I didn’t like FFXII for a variety of reasons, I just turned it off and hoped the next iteration would strike my fancy (and if not, oh well — there are plenty of other fish in the gaming sea). I’ll agree that plenty of aspects of the games are ridiculous, but that’s hardly confined to the Final Fantasy series. Is the game formula ‘obsolete,’ or just tired (or is Huling just tired of it?)? And what does obsolescence (of a non-technological variety) really mean in the context of RPGs or games more broadly?

The Battleship Final Fantasy [The Escapist]