Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning Goes Chibi in Itadaki Street

The first FFXIII crossover is... for cell phones.

Square Enix's sorta-kinda-like-Monopoly board game franchise Itadaki Street had the honor of being the first game to pair the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises as characters from the two franchises appeared in 2004's Itadaki Street Special for the PlayStation 2. Later, the series paired the Dragon Quest and Mario franchises for 2007's Itadaki Street DS.

Now here's another reason gamers will want to check out the series:

That's Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning in cute "chibi" form. Lightning will be appearing as a character in the next version of Itadaki Street, which is coming soon for iMode and EZweb mobile platforms.

The FFXIII hero is standing next to Final Fantasy VII's Cloud, Tifa and Yufie. Yes, Itadaki Street seems to have free reign on Square Enix's most prized characters.

Itadaki Street is a board game originally created by Dragon Quest designer Yuji Horii for the Famicom. Similar to Monopoly, the game has a real estate theme, with players moving around a board, purchasing property, and collecting rent as other players pass over their spaces. The series has since released for Super Famicom, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, DS and PSP.

The new mobile version will arrive this Summer. iMode users can look forward to an early demo.

More details on the game will presumably be forthcoming at the newly opened official site.