It's time to meet the family. V-Jump Magazine's latest edition features some scans for Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3). What is interesting, however, is the introduction of a new character going by the name of Serah Farron. Who is she? Someone definitely important enough.

As promised, Square Enix names yet another character in Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3), and this info comes through Japanese gaming mag, V-Jump. With the short Sephiroth-silver hair (yes, it's a new color, Sephiroth-silver), the newly-named character is somewhat reminiscent of Loz from Advent Children. His name? You'll have to read on to find out.

Talk about "adding some volume" to the stringy cast of Final Fantasy XIII. The latest issue of V-Jump reveals a new character to join Lightning, Snow, and Vanille's party: Sazh Kalzroy. And for once, we can finally recognize a Square Enix character as being most definitely male! (Oh my, a non-androgynous SE character - has hell frozen over?) Check out the full article for the scan introducing this odd-ball character!

This week's issue of V-Jump also has their very own coverage on Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, Xbox 360). Just like what we saw earlier this week on Famitsu, it's got Pigtailed Girl's real name (next to Snow Villiers, she's the second FF13 character to have her full name spelled out: Oerba Dia Vanille) and some screens of the battle system. While some of the screens look recycled from other scans and trailers, one of the scans shows a bit more of the in-game battles. I'd say "FF12-ADB-redux," but of course, it's more than that. Supposedly.

Scans from the recent issue of V-Jump magazine have surfaced, showing Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, Xbox 360), FF Versus XIII, and FF Agito XIII. Some of the Fabula Nova Crystallis screens and artwork seem to be a recycled batch from the previous media (screens, trailers, scans, etc.). In fact, V-Jump's coverage looks strangely similar to Shonen Jump's scans from last week. Nevertheless, we'll take what we can get - heh, another excuse to see the topless renders of the Versus characters.

A picture's worth a thousand words. Xboxygen just posted these scans they picked up from the V-jump magazine, and it covers more art for the upcoming RPG title Blue Dragon. Okay, so we can't exactly read Japanese, but Yardarm51 over at  Xbox360fanboy.com was quick to point out how these scans worked.

From left to right, the scans are meant to provide a basic game overview, and the first scan with plenty of Toriyama-san's artwork covers the world where the game takes place, the second page covering some of the supporting characters we'll be seeing, and the third page covers the various bits of tech we can expect in-game.

The last page, while lacking in pretty pictures, provides for interesting news: it says that this issue V-Jump has an enclosed DVD with extra unreleased game info. Enjoy your viewing, and let us know if you can get your hands on this DVD.

Blue Dragon, Phoenix, Killer Bat, Saber Tiger. For an RPG that features kids as the protagonist, their shadows sure sound scary. They better be, since Shu and his young friends have to contend with monsters, bosses, and all sorts of nasty, hungry, murderous abominations. If that sounds like fun to you, keep reading!

Jeux-France was able to find scans of Shonen Jump and V-Jump's coverage of Blue Dragon, which not only mentioned the pre-orders that were rapidly eaten up by eager Xbox 360 gamers, but also includes some pictures of the shadows of Shu's friends, all of which seem to be as powerful as the titular Blue Dragon shadow Shu embodies.

Whereas Shu carries inside him the Blue Dragon, his friend Jiro holds the Minotaur shadow. Kluke, who appears to be Shu's love interest, acquires the Phoenix shadow. There's also Marumaro and Zora, who hold the Saber Tiger and Killer Bat shadows, respectively. It seems they've got the whole range of mythical creatures under their command, so fights should be interesting.

One thing you'll notice from the scans is that, while the character's shadows are a lot larger than the characters themselves, the kids are still facing bosses that are easily twice as large as their shadowy counterparts. It's amazing how these kids aren't the least bit freaked out that they're facing epic bosses. Methinks they have very good psychiatrists in their world.

In any case, enjoy the scans of Mistwalker's fun RPG, and pay special attention to the shot of Shu and Marumaro poking a small pink enemy. Hilarious!

 

More scans after the jump!