"Finalized" drafts of Chapters 1-7 have also just been released to a group of individuals for the project's first "beta read." Most of these individuals are self-proclaimed readers and not current fans of the game, though at least one is an old fan. Through this effort, printed forms of these chapters have been distributed with special note pages so that the readers can jot down their thoughts and reactions as they read through the text. Following this process, which is slated to end by August 11, all notes will be gathered and used to make any final changes (if necessary) to these chapters before sending them as part of the SE package.
Following up on the last site update, our friend Miqe has also submitted a fully colored portrait of Jonas. As previously mentioned, portraits of Fritz, Elaine, Mary, and Pierre (not previously mentioned) are all on the drawing board. Stay tuned for those in updates to come!
Finally, some speculation has begun about Square's sudden trademark of the name "Echoes of Time." Is this simply a subtitle for the upcoming Nintendo DS release, does this point to a possible new game in the series, or is it completely unrelated? Only time will tell, but tell us your thoughts in the forum. (See the article here.)
