October 5^th, 2005 (1:19pm) - Nintendo held a Nintendo DS press conference in Japan this morning and at the event Square Enix took the lid off of its developments for Nintendo’s gaming handhelds.

The highlight of Square Enix’s announcements was the unveiling of Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS. While news broke out regarding the game’s development for the DS almost a year ago, no concrete details regarding the game were revealed until today. Final Fantasy III for the DS will be a remake of the original Japanese version of the game, featuring full 3D visuals for both characters and fields. So, know pre-rendered backgrounds and things like that.

Supposedly, Square Enix has been wanting to remake Final Fantasy III for quite some time now but various issues have prevented them from fully pursuing the project, including a system’s life span running out or the lack of staff members being rounded up for the project.

Producing the DS remake is Hiromichi Tanaka, who’s known for his work on Final Fantasy XI, and returning from the original game’s development team are Kazuhiko Aoki and Koichi Ishii, who will supervise the game’s development and make sure that it holds onto the magic that made the original game so entertaining during its time. However, new members will have a part in the game’s development, and most likely for the better. Final Fantasy XI’s Ryosuke Aiba will be working on this DS project as art director and FFXII’s character designer, Akihiko Yoshida, will also be working on the project as character designer.

In addition to this Final Fantasy III unveiling, Square Enix revealed that other game projects are in development for the DS, including a DS version of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and other already announced projects such as Dragon Quest Monsters and Children of Mana. Unfortunately, not much was revealed about these projects and the company plans to reveal the DS version of Crystal Chronicles at a later time, possibly alongside the previously announced Nintendo Revolution version of the game.

With Final Fantasy IV recently announced for the GBA and scheduled to see a release this year, many readers began to speculate that Square Enix and Nintendo have more FF games scheduled to be ported to the GBA... and they were right. Square Enix revealed that along with Final Fantasy IV, they plan to port updated versions of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI to the GBA following the release of Final Fantasy IV this winter.

If all of this isn’t enough for you then you may be pleased to hear that Square Enix is also developing a Super Mario-themed 3D basket ball title for the Nintendo DS entitled Mario Basket 3 on 3.

Mario Basket 3 on 3 promises to bring the zany action we expect from the Mario Sports games to the DS, with characters from the Mushroom Kingdom, including Mario, Wario and Bowser make an experience. From the images we’ve seen of the game, this Mario Basketball game will feature vibrant 3D visuals that are already some of the very best we’ve seen on the DS to date. The game promises to use the touch-screen in innovative ways, perhaps for special moves, and gamers will even be able to turn other characters into coins

Interestingly, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada revealed that the company approached Nintendo about developing a Mario-themed basketball videogame for the Nintendo DS. They belived that some interesting gameplay could be delivered using the touch-screen and stylus.

Nintendo will be publishing the game sometime in 2006.