I really enjoyed Final Fantasy III's remake into 3D. People didn't like it's shallow story but I think it was good enough considering how it was keeping close to the original game.

Now Final Fantasy IV DS is looking even better. Not only is the story being fleshed out with scenarios that never made it to the original but it's also adding in a set of cool side features too!

According to Asano's latest blog entry, there's going to be a set of mini games such as this maths game where you have to use all four of the given numbers to reach the answer of "10" (Countdown anyone?). Your high scores from these games will determine the Pouchika summon's stats. The Pouchika will be able to use any of the skills that the party has inherited using the Decant Ability during battles and you can even use it in wireless matches against other players.

This is much better than that Mognet Wi-Fi feature in FFIII which was completely pointless.

There will also be an Event Theatre for reviewing your favourite cutscenes and Juke Box for the music. All games with an in-depth story should have an option for reviewing the story like this!

Other features mentioned includes customisable battle menus, the option to turn voices off and skip cutscenes by pressing Start twice.

Just over a week until the game's released and no announcement of a DS bundle this time which means no queues full of enthusiastic fans. Would be great if they had some pre-order goody at least.

In the meantime, you can drop by RobotBling's blog to view more of the developer's entries translated into English if you're interested.

I'm not particularly fond of Yoshitaka Amano's boxart to be honest.