Fans of Square Enix and their Final Fantasy line of games are in for a treat. The company revealed in the latest issue of Shonen Jump magazine that it's developing a new installment in its Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series of games. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time is a game that will release on the DS and Wii on January 29th. Also, it will allow DS gamers and Wii gamers to play together online. How neat is that?

Nothing in the way of exact functionality is explained, other than the prospect of transferring your Mii from the Wii version of the game to the DS title (and the previously mentioned co-op). We'll provide more information as it's made available.

Courtesy of RockstarWatch, the November issue of Nintendo Power has been scanned and uploaded online. In case you missed it last week, it's the issue with all of the details and first screens for GTA: Chinatown Wars. With all four of the pages scanned, it's a wealth of information on the upcoming game that you likely won't want to miss out on. So head on over here to check out the scans.

[Thanks, Josh!]

We already showed you a snippet of the Shonen Jump scans for Tales of Hearts, but Gamekyo recently added more, this time showing off some enticing (albeit tiny) screens.

Like some of you, we're trying not to put our hearts into Tales of Hearts, just because we don't want them broken if the game doesn't get localized. Normally we're localization optimists, but after Namco Bandai decided to work on the Wii's Tales of Symphonia as well as the 360's Tales of Vesperia, but not the DS's Tales of Innocence, we've been a little bitter. We won't even mention our still stinging wounds over Tales of the Tempest, even if it wasn't too well recieved -- except that we just did. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: if any system deserves catering to niche audiences, it's the DS.

Rant aside, enjoy the lovely screens! We'll just be out back, crying softly to ourselves.

When we first saw screens for Fire Emblem DS, we weren't too worried. They may not have been the prettiest screens on the block, per say, but there was plenty of time for Intelligent Systems to fix things up. But now that the game is set to release in, oh, six weeks, uneasiness has started to settle in.

The new Nintendo Dream scans of Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken, for example, are more like a nightmare. While we've seen many of these images before, Nintendo Dream shows some comparisons with the original Famicom game that Fire Emblem DS is based on.

Yet, just because it looks better than a NES game doesn't mean it looks nice. Check out the image above -- those battle animation sprites? Many words come to mind, but "ugly" is the predominant theme. We're not sure if Intelligent Systems realizes that Nintendo's hardware has improved since the GBA days.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. The backgrounds are definitely an improvement over what we've seen before, and we like the more serious tone of the artwork. Not even all the sprites look terrible (the armored knights look fine, for one, since you can't see their facial features). But really, Marth? They couldn't have done a better job with the game's protagonist?

We have complete faith in Intelligent Systems when it comes to delivering a great gameplay experience, though, so we'll swallow whatever distaste we have for the sprites and buy the game when it comes out here, probably on day one (whenever that may be).

A pair of new scans for Valkyrie Profile have surfaced on the net. Coming from Japanese mag V-Jump, the scans are chock full of goodies from the game. We've got a look at some of the title's characters, which you can see above in the cropped image, as well as some very nice in-game screenshots. It's pretty much become par for the course. Now let's just hope we actually have a chance of getting the game outside of Japan.

Media Vision (best known for the RPG series Wild Arms) are hard at work creating a new RPG for the DS, at this stage titled RIZ-ZOAWD. Yeah, what? It's a perfectly cromulent title.

The awesome name is expected to be changed in localization (assuming North America doesn't miss out), but for now you can check out the Famitsu scan showing off a few gameplay screens. A friendly-looking scarecrow can be seen, along wth a girl wearing a blue dress and red slippers ... hmmm, this sounds strangely familiar. If you have strange recollections from The Wizard of Oz, you're not alone. The more Hawking-like readers will also notice that RIZ-ZOAWD is an anagram for WIZARD-OZ.

RIZ-ZOAWD will be controlled entirely with the stylus using a track ball (that is, moving a ball to move a character). The game will be released come winter in Japan, but all that cold weather can't be good for Dorothy's complexion.

The latest issue of CoroCoro Comics has some more information to lay down on the foundation already built by the mag. Aside from knowing that the game exists, as well as its Japanese release date, there's just not much we have to go on. Until now, that is.

Some scans of the latest issue (via The Tanooki) have released online, giving us a clearer picture of what's going down in this latest title. For one, the title will star two completely new trainers, as well as re-clothe Lucas and Dawn. There will also be a new area of the map unlocked, which is being labeled as "Torn World" right now.

Also of note, a certain Pokémon movie monster available to folks in Japan will be transferable to Platinum, also allowing you to capture Regirock, Regice, and Registeel in-game. To check out the rest of the scans, head on over.

All of you Pokemaniacs out there, unbridled excitement was undoubtedly yours when the rumor broke out that a new Pokemon title is on the way. Seeing as how the franchise enjoys incredible amounts of success with each new release, it would be foolish to think that a new Pokemon game is not going to be headed to the DS.

Then, we all got our eyes on a blurry scan from CoroCoro Comic. And, the world changed. But, we're glad to report, some good soul managed to snag a better version of the scan and uploaded it for all to see. So, knock it off with the squinting and check out the clear view of Pokemon Platinum.

[Via Go Nintendo]

"Ohhhhhh-a-ohh-a-ohh, mysterious girl, I wanna get close to you."

We don't usually kick off the week with a spot of Peter Andre, but the Australian warbler's hit seemed mildly appropriate today, seeing as Ace Attorney spin-off Gyakuten Kenji (Turnabout Prosecutor) has a mysterious girl of its own. The shadowy figure to the right appeared on the most recent cover of Nintendo Dream alongside Miles Edgeworth and Detective Gumshoe, and has immediately set tongues wagging in the Ace Attorney fan community.

Cruelly, the magazine remains tight-lipped about who or what she is, revealing only her age (seventeen), and that she is a "major character." Could she be an assistant to Edgeworth, as Maya was to Phoenix? That seems most likely to us. We'll tell you who we most of us would like her to be, however: Edgeworth's love interest. The collective howl from the lawyer's legion of female admirers would be deafening (yet amusing).

Turnabout past the break for some snippets of scans.

Read: Nintendo Dream scans (scroll halfway down)
Read: Direct-feed screenshots from scans

Let's face it -- most of us didn't care much about Soma Bringer until we saw a plethora of awesome videos for the game last week. Now that Nintendo and Monolith Soft have gotten our attention, though, we can't get enough of it. Because of this, we were excited to see more Soma Bringer scans leaked around the internets.

With a scan explosion to match last week's video explosion, these magazine pages show tons of art and screens for the game. They're definitely worth a look by anyone anticipating this title or hoping for localization.

Check after the break for eight more of them.

For those of you who're as excited for Team Ninja's upcoming DS entry in the Ninja Gaiden series, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, as we are, feast your eyes on some fresh scans from Famitsu. It looks like the focus here is on stylus controls and how players will execute everything through the touch screen, from the mundane regular attack to the destructive special attack.

Head past the break for the second scan.

Under the developmental wing of Monolith Soft, Soma Bringer is a title we don't know that much about. Sure, we've seen lots of pretty screens (which you can see in our gallery below) and know the title will be an action RPG, allowing the player to string various combos together. The player will also be able to command a three-person party.

Well, we know a little about the game. But, what we want to know about is the rich story, what with it being an RPG and all. Unless we can read Japanese magazine scans (see: we can't), we'll just have to settle for looking at screens and our imagination for now.

Head past the break for the other scan.

While much of what is available at JeuxFrance is already available in our gallery below, they do have something new to bring to the table regarding Infinite Frontier Super Robot Wars OG Saga (original ... gangsta?). You see, one of the main characters from the popular RPG franchise Xenosaga has made her way into Monolith Soft's game. It's none other than KOS-MOS.

As a person who only played some of the first Xenosaga, this blogger doesn't know what kind of signature attacks or abilities to expect in the new game from KOS-MOS, but understands full well the power of cross-promotion. Whatever helps them push units, right? Well, we know some of you out there enjoyed the incredibly long Xenosaga games, so if that's you, tell us what you think and head past the break for the Famitsu scans.

Fans of spin-off game Pokémon Ranger will be happy to hear a sequel is in the works. A couple of scans made their way over to NeoGAF and, as they say, the rest is history. Not being one to pick up the original title, this blogger doesn't know how to feel about a sequel. So, tell us what you think?

Did you like the first game? What did you enjoy about it? What did you dislike about it?