Famitsu, in a recent interview with the Director of Squeenix’s sequel to the lackluster Final Fantasy 13, revealed some details that may change cautious intruige into proper anticipation.

In an article translated by andriasang, Toriyama gave us more information to coincide with the promise of DLC and Chocobo Racing. One that will be a plus to those on the 360 is that pre-rendered cutscenes are more or less gone, now made in real time, so the game fits on one disc, rather than three. The  Crystarium growth chart from the first game comes back to, but will not limit your growth, so you can grind to your hearts content without any drawback from the start.

The biggest thing I can see that makes my brain do a happy face is the fact that not only can you change your party leader during battle, if they die, the battle continues. A potential question mark is over the inclusion of Quick Time Events, however it is reported there will be little to no penalty for failing them with only a subtle bonus if they are completed.

The sequel will see the light of day on January 31, 2012 in North America and February 3, 2012 in Europe.

Sorry.  There’s not an amazing introduction concert this time around.

Instead, Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be following around the mythology surrounding the deities in the Final Fantasy XIII universe [mostly surrounding the Etro deity, which controls the human heart].  Moreover, the story will pickup from the storybook that came with the Xbox360 version and expand upon events both past and present in the Final Fantasy XIII universe.  We are told that the world would be “expanded”.  Whether this was meant as a literal “ZOMG we can get out of the straight line we walk from point 1 to game end” or if was speaking figuratively in terms of depth of plot.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 has been called [by team leaders] as a more dark and mysterious entry into the Final Fantasy universe.

The male opposite of Lighting is still unconfirmed, but it is rumored to be Cid Raines [unconfirmed by all senses of the word].

The  battle system was very briefly discussed.  Developers state that it was be remarkably similar to the original game, but slightly altered and evolved to better represent the atmosphere.

Difficulty modes were discussed, but not confirmed.

Famitus will snag more info later this week.  Check back later for more details.

Source:  Andriangsang

Want to know some details about Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim?  Well, here’s some info that was snagged from the recent Dutch Power Unlimited Magazine dump.

Check everything out after the jump!

Great news for Infamous fans!  The latest issue of the Playstation : The Official Magazine came with a full 10 page spread of Infamous 2 goodies, and I’m frankly excited about a lot of them.

• Gaming Rating of T
• 6 currently identified areas of play [no details on if they are fully explorable or not] : Plantations, St. Ignatius Cathedral, Fort Philip, St. Charles Cemetery, Ville Cochon, and Ascension Parish
• The prod weapon on Cole’ back is known as “The Amp”.
• The new rival antagonist group Cole will be facing [you saw these in the E3 demo] are known as “The Corrupted”
• Infamous save files will transfer and affect gameplay to a certain degree.
• The game’s karma system makes a comeback, with a late game decision that will cause two TOTALLY different roads of play, unlike the previous title’s barely affected storyline.
• Blast shards will be making a comback, and Blast Cores [parts of the device that gave Cole his original powers] will be taking the place of Dead Drops.

Release date is still to be announced during 2011.

Source:  IGN

Until now, we’ve been pretty much in the dark about White Knight Chronicles for the PSP. However, Famitsu has now given us a lot of brand new details in their 4 page article of the game. They list the full title as White Knight Chronicles episode:portable Dogma Wars. You can check out some more details after the jump.

Today we got a bunch of info on the upcoming game, Kid Icarus: Uprising. The details came from an article of Nintendo Power, Nintendo’s long running magazine. You can check out all the new info after the jump.

It’s almost here folks,  June 11th-18 starting at 6pm cst , our week long Mario marathon for ACT Today (Autism Care and Treatment).
We will be playing nearly 40 Mario titles live here on our website, www.TheSpeedGamers.com
The gameplay will be streamed with video commentary as well as chatroom so that viewers can interact with us and  each other.

Here’s video of a local news report on us to help give better insight on what exactly we do:

Donkey Kong champ Steve Wiebe will be participating in the marathon. As soon as we get appearance times, we will post them here.

Fangamer is once again supporting our cause with their upcoming shirt design “Pipe Vault”. During our Mother marathon for Susan G Komen, $1,800 was raised through their “Smaaaash” shirts.

Want to know what games will be played and when? We’ve made a detailed schedule that the viewers can follow. We will have to stick to our schedule closely.  If a game is not finished at the time it’s scheduled to end, we will  move on to whatever is scheduled. However, each night from Midnight-6am cst is “catchup time”. We will use this time to catch up on any games we did not finish and if we are all caught up you will see games like Mario Kart, Mario Party,Smash Brothers and other party games.

V.2 of the Mario Marathon schedule after the break! Minor changes are subject to change.

Details regarding the 72 hour Metroid Marathon that starts on March 12th at 6 pm cst:
We, TheSpeedGamers, are based in the DFW Texas area and play video games to raise money for different causes. We have been a group for nearly two years now and have raised approximately $125,000 for various causes.
Our events typically last 72 hours continuously in which we broadcast ourselves over the internet playing video game franchise’s to their completion while also providing video commentary. There is a chat room that accompanies the video game feed so that the viewers can interact with the players and other viewers. Everything can be viewed on TheSpeedGamers.com.

During the Metroid marathon we will be raising money for Halton Autistic Family Support Group .
Donations will be gathered using a chip in widget; debit, credit cards and paypal can be used to donate.

Game list and order:

• Metroid (NES VC) Oscar
• Metroid Zero Mission (GBA) Daniel
• Metroid Prime 1: Tim
• Metroid Prime Hunters (DS): Phil
• Metroid Prime 2(Blind Run): Britt, Heath, Rob
• Metroid Prime 3 : Baltes
• Metroid 2 (GB): Tim
• Super Metroid: Cameron
• Metroid Fusion (GBA): Daniel

Additional info:
Our goal will be $15,000. The chipin widget will go up Tuesday March. 9th. So far as prizes we have several Metroid Metal Cd’s to give away to viewers. More prizes will be announced as we get closer to the marathon.