Tag Archives: final fantasy

The Cosplayers of New York Comic-Con

It’s time to take a break from the videos and look at the other attractions that populated Comic Con. No, it wasn’t all the free schwag we got (though we’ll be making an article about that later). It’s the cosplayers, and boy were there many. With the Jacob Javits Center packed to the brim with comic fans, animation and anime fans, and gamers (and nary a jock in sight), you were bound to bump into a cosplayer or two (or, say, seven). As many of you know, cosplay is serious business, and these people were ready to display the best of what they had. We have over 70 pictures, and you can view them all after the break! Continue reading →

Sakaguchi: “It Will Come Out”

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This is in regards to his latest game The Last Story. IGN user “topsekret” posted a thread on the message boards talking about him having a backstage pass to the Distant Worlds concert in UCLA. Upon the shows conclusion, he met up with Nobuo Uematsu and Hironobu Sakaguchi, the composer and producer (respectively) of Final Fantasy and The Last Story. In his second paragraph, topsekret explains how he may have gotten the supposed answer we’ve been waiting to hear.

“During the signing I told Sakaguchi that I was really looking forward to The Last Story, but that unfortunately, it hasn’t yet been announced for a release in America. Sakaguchi hesitated for a second as if thinking to himself and turned to Uematsu and they said a few things in Japanese (I did hear him say “Last Story”). He then turned back to me and said ‘it will come out.'”

Normally, I would discredit something like this since this is coming from a message board. But then again, how do you think Operation Rainfall started? Still, take this news with a grain of salt. Even topsekret thought that Sakaguchi probably misunderstood him. But we shall see.

Art of the Week: Feature 6 – blackorb00

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For this week’s feature, we’re going to take a break from talking about fighting games (sort of) to show you some Final Fantasy art. This week’s feature is blackorb00. With his gallery residing in deviantART, his main focus is on Final Fantasy fanart. Looking art his style, he designs characters with very detailed and intricate lines and shapes. The coloring creates a great contrast in the dark mood of some of his artwork. One work of his that really stands out is his his interpretation of Chaos. Now some of you are probably wondering what that image up there of Ihudulka from Evil Zone (yes, that Evil Zone) has to do with Final Fantasy. Well, the work up there netted him a victory in the Fighting Game Villians contest held by deviantART group Fighting Games Elite (the same group where I found vancamelot and Dave Wilkins). So if you like seeing some awesome art and love beating the hell out of your rivals, check out the galleries there. Contest are also held regularly there too for any artists out there reading.

Hit the jump for a sample of blackorb00’s work. And do check out his deviantART gallery.

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Square Enix To Be Called Square…Just Square [Update]

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Update: According to Dualshockers (via N4G), Square Enix has shot down rumors of rebranding, stating that both the Square Enix name and brand will remain as is. I’ll keep the original article up for your amusement.

Remember that epic merger that occurred at the turn of the millennium, where two of the largest rivals came together to become one Voltron of a conglomerate? If you say Nintendo and SEGA, give yourself a pat on the back ’cause that’s the wrong one. I’m of course talking about Squaresoft (Final Fantasy) and Enix (Dragon Quest) becoming Square Enix. Lots of things have happened since the merger, namely the departure of Squaresoft from EA, and the acquisition of Taito and Eidos, Well, since Square has more subsidiaries under its belt, having the name “Square Enix” is making less of an impact. And being called Square-Enix-Taito-Eidos is out of the question. So, according to a recent article by GotGame, Square Enix will be changing its name to Square in what may be an attempt to create a central family name, like Rockstar and all the other Rockstar branches. To some, this may bring back memories of old Square from the NES and SNES days. But this today’s Square is different from yesterday’s Square. We shall see if Square regains any of that old time quality with this re-branding.

Square Enix to Drop Enix [GotGame]

Operation Rainfall: “Go Buy Final Fantasy”

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This is part of the second campaign they have prepared in trying to convince Nintendo to bring over Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora’s Tower. As mentioned almost two weeks ago, Operation Rainfall was going to ready another mailing campaign in which they’ll send letters to Nintendo again the day Xenoblade is released in Europe. Since then, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said that they’ll “be watching very closely what happens in Europe… Certainly if there are business opportunities and positive consumer uptake from some of those titles, that will be great data for us to consider as we look at what to do with these titles.” It somewhat falls in line with what Operation Rainfall wanted to do in their second phase in regards to increasing awareness of Xenoblade in Europe to make it a success.

So what of Final Fantasy? Well, Operation Rainfall is telling its supporters to go and buy the original Final Fantasy on the Wii Virtual Console, which costs 500 Wii Points. This is to show Nintendo that there is still a market for JRPGs. I can see their logic in telling its supporters to buy Final Fantasy as it’s one of the most well known J-RPGs out there. However, the one main flaw I see in that is that Final Fantasy, as a franchise, is pretty popular based on brand recognition alone and is not very niche like the Rainfall titles. Plus, the first Final Fantasy has been on so many platforms already, people are bound to already have it on one of them (I have it on PS1). In a sense, Final Fantasy has that somewhat Mario-like transcendence of genre to the point that those who don’t normally play JRPGs still play Final Fantasy (either that or they have no idea that Final Fantasy is a JRPG). A better idea would’ve been to tell supporters to buy a JRPG from the Virtual console rather than a specific one. Maybe compile a list of what is considered a JRPG, like Breath of Fire II or Ys Book 1 & 2 for example, and let supporters choose. Now it may be problematic as numbers would be sporadic amongst many titles rather than it being condensed into one title, thus having those sales be attributed to regular run-of-the-mill sales. If they really needed to choose one title, Final Fantasy wasn’t the answer.

Square Enix is releasing its very own chiptune album

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Are you a fan of music from games like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger? Maybe you also like tunes from the Mana or Saga series? You know, games from back when good ol’ Squaresoft was still around. Well if you said yes, and also happen to be a fan of chiptune music, then I’ve got some good news for you!

Square Enix is releasing an album of 8-bit arrangements from many of its popular games from its Squaresoft days. The album, SQChips, comes out on September 7th for ¥1890 (about $23.50) in Japan. You can check out the website to see a list of some of the games that are going to be in the arrangement and even check out a sample of a track quite a few Mana fans should recognize. To be honest, I’m pretty excited to hear about this and can’t wait to see what they come up with. I love Squaresoft-era games and chiptune music, so in theory I should be smitten with this album. We’ll all have to wait till September though before we can really see how this will turn out. At least this might give me enough time to start playing Threads of Fate.

Via: Destructoid

The Breakdown – Dissidia Duodecim: Final Fantasy

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Marvel vs. Capcom, Super Smash Bros., King of Fighters, Fighters Megamix, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe… what that do all these games have in common? Well my friend, they’re all fighting games! Obvious. But what separates games like these from your typical ilk of fighters is that these are the crossover ones. The fighting games that pair up characters from different properties to (sometimes team up and) beat the crap out of each other in the name of pleasing the fans. So it comes as no surprise that Final Fantasy would jump into the fray of crossover fighters. They’ve done it before. But this time around, it all about the Final Fantasy characters, and it’s not your typical Left Side/Right Side kind of fighter. Two years ago, Square released Dissidia: Final Fantasy, a fighting game that was one part Virtual On, one part Kingdom Hearts. You were free to move everywhere, and you customized your character as they leveled up. In the end, it only appealed to the Final Fantasy crowd, and critics panned the game for its limited fighting system. So how does this prequel, Dissidia Duodecim fix the issues of the old? Hit the jump to read on.

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Final Fantasy Type-0 Website Up, Music Kicks Ass

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Square Enix has launched the website for Final Fantasy Type-0. To complement it, it’s got some kickass music to go along with it. Unfortunately, the other two at the bottom right are blacked out and not up yet. Bummer too, cause this music seems to indicate that some serious shit is about to go down in this game. And you know what, I believe it, what with the gratuitous amounts of blood I’ve seen in the trailers recently. Now, the thought of blood in a game is nothing new. But for a Final Fantasy game, it’s pretty rare, with one of the few instance I recount occurring in Final Fantasy VIII (how do you think Squall got that scar?). I’ve also seen blood in one of the earlier Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailers, but for some reason, it looks to have been toned down from the more recent trailers.

Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Final Fantasy Type-0 was under the name Final Fantasy Agito XIII since its debut. It was part of the universe of Fabula Nova Crystallis. Last fall, the name of this entry was changed to Type-0 after someone in the dev team (Not sure who) saw that the game deviated a bit too far from the original intent of the game (and the overarching story/world structure of FNC). Although the name change has distanced itself from the other two games in the world, it is still part of the same universe.

Final Fantasy Type-0 is slated to release on the PSP this Summer in Japan.

Dissidia 012 Duodecim Gets US Trailer

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It’s about time! I got a chance to play the Japanese demo of Dissidia 012 on a friend’s PSP. Everything seems to play the same, aside from the assist characters, which I didn’t know how to summon. Everyone from the previous game is coming back. Joining them is Kain from FFIV, Tifa from FFVII, Laguna from FFVIII, Yuna from FFIX, Yuna from FFX, Prishe from FFXI, Vaan from FFXII, and Lightning from FFXIII. Duodecim Prologus comes out on PSN onMarch 15 (same day as Okamiden ^w^). It’ll come with Aerith as an assist that can be carried over to the main game.

via Siliconera