Square Enix announced Final Fantasy Legends: Warriors of Light and Dark for mobile platforms last week. New details have since surfaced, courtesy of Famitsu.

Legends' background story begins long ago with the world at war. The fighting comes to an end thanks to the efforts of the Avalon Empire. The peaceful world heads to a new era of development.

Things get a bit more abstract as the story turns to two groups of youth. One is from a small, peaceful country. The other is from the harsh lands of the north, and board an air ship on a mission of some form. When these people meet, crystals release a great brightness the likes of which has never been seen. The brightness spreads throughout the world. There is a silence, "and then the world heads to light and darkness."

Famitsu introduces four characters:

Sol

A lively boy from the small country of Rukus. He's childhood friends with Dianna. He dreams of becoming a soldier of the Avalon Empire and flying aboard an air ship.

Dianna

A young girl with a winning spirit, also from Rukus. She's childhood friends with Sol, although she's so reliable and level-headed that she treats Sol like a kid. She's awaiting the return of her older brother Aigis.

Aigis

A Rukus warrior, Dianna's older brother, and Sol's teacher. He's headed out on an expedition as the hero of Rukus.

Grave

Childhood friend of Sol and Dianna. He's kind and always looks after his two friends, although he and Sol compete with their sword skills.

Look how small they are!

Perhaps hinting at how the game proper begins, screenshots in the magazine show Sol and a party visiting a shrine in order to investigate some strange changes to a crystal. There, they meet the prophet Erugo.

Top: Sol and crew at a shrine. Sol comments that there doesn't seem to be anything odd about the crystal. Bottom: Someone asks Sol if he's heard that in the past people used flying dragons in place of airships.

Similar to Final Fantasy IV The After, Square Enix is splitting Legends into multiple scenarios. A new scenario will be added very month. You'll be able to select which scenarios you want to play.

Each scenario puts the spotlight on a single job. Clear the scenario, and you'll gain access to that job. Famitsu also hints that clearing one scenario will bring about changes to other scenarios.

Outside of this, the magazine does not provide gameplay or combat details. The focus of Legends seems to be on delivering a classic-style Final Fantasy experience, with job changes, a story centered on the battle between light and dark over crystals, and 2D sprite visuals. The game will also have traditional FF series monsters.

It looks like you can have five characters in your party. The battle screen shows all the characters introduced here along the Erugo from the shrine. The menu shows fight, charge and item commands.

This original Final Fantasy game comes our way from the group that created The After. Players outside of Japan will recognize The After as a WiiWare game, but it was originally released for cell phones. The mobile version saw total downloads of over 4 million (with individual chapters counted as individual downloads).

The full staff list of Legends reads like this:

• Producer: Takashi Tokita
• Director: Toshio Akiyama
• Character Design: Akira Oguro
• 2D Dot Design: Kazuko Shibuya
• Music: Naoshi Mizuta
• Development: Matrix
• Image Illustration: Yoshitaka Amano

Tokita shared some comments with Famitsu. The staff is aiming to make an RPG that crosses the scale one expects of a cell phone game, said Tokita. The game's download chapters will switch off between Sol and his "party of light" and another group, a "party of darkness." Additional party members will appear in each scenario.

Similar to The After, iMode will get first access to Legends, with the free prologue set to be distributed in September. An EZweb version will follow later in the year. Following the prologue, subsequent chapters will sell for between ¥315 and ¥525.