Yesterday afternoon in Japan, Square Enix held a brief press conference, shortly after the final episode of Before Crisis was made available for download.

The primary focus, however, was Before Crisis. Several staff members apparantly spoke about the success of the game, and briefly discussed how they went about designing the game on a monthly basis. The director also mentioned that he wished they had spent more time designing Azul, after it was decided that he would be featured in Dirge of Cerberus.

However, before the conferance ended, the Before Crisis team premiered an interesting piece of news, which nobody expected. Due to the popularity of Before Crisis, they announced a follow up title to Before Crisis, which will once again be for the mobile platform.

The tentative title of the next game in the Compilation is “Era Clash -Final Fantasy VII-”, and development is already underway. The game is being developed for the latest generation of iMode phones, such as the p902i, which are capable of displaying detailed 3D graphics.

The game will feature 3D graphics, using an engine similair to the recent Code Age: Brawls, which unfortunately means that it likely won’t be seen stateside for quite some time.

Many of these details are not confirmed a, Its like BC, the game will be a prequel, starting more than 14 years before FFVII. The title specifically reflects that the game takes place before the ‘era’ in which most of the Compilation is set.

In Era Clash, the player will take the role of a recent SOLDIER recruit, as the Shinra Company prepares to go to war with the world. Throughout Shinra’s campaign, you will be able to meet and fight alongside legends like Zack and Sephiroth, as well as learn more about the pasts of characters such as Restrictor, Weiss, and even Johnny.

The premise of the game is very similair to Before Crisis, in that you select one of several pre-made characters which have different gameplay styles, weapons, personalities, and stories, and then play through various episodes which will be released on a monthly basis.

They mentioned having greater varieties in weapons and materia, and that characters will now be able to learn special attacks by leveling up, in the form of Limit Breaks, though how they will be implemented is not yet known.

More details, as well as a full-length trailer, are planned for E3. It was also hinted that this and Crisis Core may not be the only big announcements concerning FFVII for E3.

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Is Square-Enix playing a April Fools joke?