Caves of Narshe: News from Europe

Square Enix News Tidbits: Here Comes Everybody

Fri, 21 May 2010 17:12:45 GMT

After another brief dry spell in good Square Enix news, we're back with the Friday Tidbits again. I feel pretty confident that we're only a couple weeks away from a new blast of delicious news, though, as E3 is nearly upon us; the official conference starts on June 14, which is problematic given that this is also the first full week of the World Cup. Jerks. In this issue, we have news about how Squenix is a very healthy company, new info about the Western release of Birth By Sleep, some screenshots from the Final Fantasy XIV alpha release, a Squenix world record, some news not news about Final Fantasy Versus XIII (which still exists!), and a few other scattered release dates.

First off, if you might have been worried about Square Enix staying afloat with the mixed reviews of their in-house games, well, don't be. At the rate they're going, they'll have money to produce Final Fantasies up through XCVI, at least. Their top five games of their last fiscal year all sold over a million copies each for their year ending in April 2010, with three of them selling over three million apiece worldwide. That's not a low number of games, kids, and only one of them was not a Squenix IP.

Birth By Sleep, the newest Kingdom Hearts game is still coming, and now it's dated. It's coming September 7 (September 10 in Europe), and it is going to pack some high profile voice work, including Leonard Nimoy and Mark Hamill. If those two names don't pique your interest, how about James Woods? At the very least, that should appeal to hardcore Family Guy fans, right? If you're a KH fan without a PSP, Sony's even going to give you a $200 silver PSP bundle with the game, a nice big Memory Stick, and an unnamed movie. And it's not a PSP Go, so there's nothing to lose!

Everyone who got into the Final Fantasy XIV alpha is under a non-disclosure agreement. That means you're probably not going to get much info unless you know someone who really, really trusts you - however, Square Enix themselves released some screenshots this week. Might not be the most interesting information to come out about the game, but it's what you're going to get probably until at least E3.

Finally, you might have heard that our buddy Yoichi Wada stick his foot into it a bit this week, saying that the PlayStation 3-exclusive Final Fantasy Versus XIII might be on the table for a multiplatform release. Of course, since then, there's been some (probably Sony-suggested) spin that the initial statement doesn't necessarily mean anything at all. Since there's no release date for the game yet, it's hard to say right now one way or another. I doubt anything will come from it at E3, but Tokyo Game Show is a possibility.

Wrapping up, enjoy a couple more release dates. Siliconera has some release info you might have missed: the Japanese megahit Dragon Quest IX will be in North America on July 11th, with DLC to follow; The Four Heroes of Light, meanwhile, has been rated in Australia which means an English-language release is pending, and will almost certainly be popping up in Europe and North America sooner rather than later.

Source: Kotaku, SiliconEra, AndriaSang

It's Happening Again - Mark XIII

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:58:09 GMT

It's happening Again.

OK guys, it's time for a long run. Partly because, as you may have noticed, Final Fantasy XIII is being released in but a few weeks. 18 days, in fact. Are you ready with your pre-order from AmaCoN? Let's start with the non-XIII related stuff first. Starting from the start.

As we know, Final Fantasy I and II are being released for the XIIIth time, the platform in this case being the iPhone. There's still no release date, other than a "available soon", however, there is a "Gameplay Video" of the two. They do indeed seem to be based on the PSP version, at least graphically, but we don't know whether it will include all of the bonus dungeons present. My guess? Probably.
Nothing on III-VI, but despite the wishes of a certain someone, it seems that fans of Final Fantasy VII are still confused about the response to a possible remake on the PS3. Well, let me spell things out clearly for everyone. Some day, it may happen. Some day, there may be work done on a remake. It will, however, be from the ground up, a project that will take a long time, especially with the capabilities of the PS3.

In the meantime, there's a remake on the DS. Totally. Confirmed.*

Skipping three more games to XI, there were rumours floating about the intersphere that their MOMGRP would be coming to a close this year. This, not unlike some baked goods, is a lie. Why is this a lie? I shall tell you why. Number one: FFXI is still the most popular PROMMG in Japan, and Square-Enix like this because they have an ego. Number two: That's terror. Number three: Hmm, what's that reason that many fans of Final Fantasy never played XI?... Oh, that's right, the monthly subscription fee. Yep, the prime reason they won't, or can't shut down FFXI (for now, anyway), is because they literally can't afford to. Well, I'm sure the avid players have no problem with that.

Passing over x/0 games now, to the Last Story. Hironobu Sakaguchi's new game has sparked interested in at least one Final Fantasy community, but what of his fellow Final Fantasy developers? Their paraphrased response was: "Why contain it?.........................It's cool!" Apparently seeing a release in Japan this year, Western players can probably expect it in 2011, provided there are no delays, that is. It's still early days.

*footbigmike closes last tab on non-FFXIII news, and opens up his folder of XIII links.

Late last week, Square-Enix released some comparison screenshots for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of Final Fantasy XIII. The observant few of us in the audience may have noticed some peculiarities with the screenshots. You COULD say that they're exactly the same. Indeed, you could, and a few days later, so could Square-Enix. Turns out that they were, in fact, not real. Well, they ARE screenshots, but not the ones you were looking for. They were located a couple of days further on, and released to everyone. Now, I'm no expert at comparing between PS3 and Eggbox, but what we have here is pretty....pretty.

In more and yet just as uncertain Final Fantasy XIII news, one of the next games in the Fabula Nova Crystalis Project (In English: Final Fantasy XIII Compilation), Versus XIII, is still a long way from release. Originally planned for an unveiling at this year's E3... well, yeah, it's not happening. And don't even ask about Agito. Meanwhile, Tetsuya Nomura is sticking to his goal of getting out one Kingdom Hearts game per year. Are they all good titles? You tell me. (Seriously.)

Last week, I pointed out the use of the DLC icon on the back of the Xbox 360 version's game case. It's lying. Not only is there not and DLC planned, but despite all the content cuts that were announced pre-release, which many people presumed would become, Square-Enix see Final Fantasy XIII as a full game, and no cut content will make it into DLC. Now, this doesn't mean that there will be no DLC in the future, some day it may happen. Some- wait, d�j� vu. Square-Enix also responded to some.... unfavourable Western reviews of Final Fantasy XIII - a somewhat bitter response, some would say. It definitely sparked a response in one forum of certain interest. Are they right? Well, once more of us play the game, we can retort with more strength.

Other than Final Fantasy XIII itself, how else can Square-Enix make money out of the game? Why, figurines and bundles, of course. Sets of Squenix characters from Final Fantasy XIII, Kingdom Hearts, and even Chrono Trigger, have been figurine-ized. Are they awesome? Hell yeah. Are they for sale? Not a clue. They were found at the Square-Enix booth at the Toy Fair, so it's possible. As for the bundles, Europe are getting two! One, pretty much the same as the US version mentioned last week, and two, an Elite with FFXIII. No engravings, no insignias. Just a plain old eggbox elite. Not my pick, but hey, if it's cheaper, maybe. Not that we know if it is, yet.

Finally, a few publicity related items. Del_S's favourite singer, Leona Lewis, has been featured in an advertisement for Final Fantasy XIII. According to her, the game is good. She's in two separate ads for the game. In one, she's playing the Eggbox version, and in the other, the PS3 version. Again, no huge discernable difference, but then againk, it is filmed from the TV screen, and not a direct feed. (Leona Lewis Let's Play Final Fantasy XIII?) And as for the NBA Allstars sponsor, Square-Enix ran an ad for Final Fantasy XIII, though there did not seem to be any allusion to a PS3 copy. Interesting.

And that's it. It's time for this writer to wait for a few hours until Beta 4 of Goldeneye: Source comes out. Wanna play with us? Come to chat.

Source: Square Enix News, Kotaku

Square Enix News Tidbits: Beating the Horse

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 15:29:23 GMT

This just in: there is still no Final Fantasy VII remake on the books. Let's please move on. Of course, it remains Square Enix' own fault that these rumors persist and that fanfolk continue to press the issue, but, please. Let's start a Facebook group or something to tell them it's okay to not remake this game.

Proselytizing aside for the time being, we'll move on to the week's Final Fantasy XIII news. For one, you may have forgotten that at one time, it was going to be a PlayStation 2 release. I'm guessing that were that the case, it probably wouldn't have been on the original Xbox, but one could theorize! Anyway, the point of this now is that Yoshinori Kitase explains that the gear switching from PS2 to PlayStation 3 cost the team a year and a half of the game's epic development window. As an aside to that, he also explained why they decided to rile up half the fanbase by including Leona Lewis. Finally, this week we got confirmation that the Xbox 360 version would in fact be coming on three discs, which might not be fantastic, but it's still better than it could have been.

Quiet on the non Final Fantasy XIII front this week, with just a couple small things to note. First, Final Fantasy VIII is out on the PlayStation Network in the United Kingdom and European Union now. While I don't really share Kotaku writer Plunkett's fervor for it, if you haven't played it yet, it's probably worth doing at least once. And, finally for this week, if you remember footbigmike's tidbits last week, you'll know about the release of the Nintendo DS remake of Dragon Quest VI. That game sold like a wildfire burns - out of the first million or so copies shipped, ninety percent are already in the hands of gamers. And people wonder why they keep doing remakes?

Source: 1up, VG247, Kotaku

Square Enix News Tidbits and Green Slimetinis

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:12:39 GMT

Last week was another pretty quiet one, so I've lumped everything into another two week span. Plus, last Friday I was working madly on some other CoN development that I'll roll out eventually. Every tidbits, I start with the excuses. It's fun.

Let's kick it off with the best reason ever to go to Japan: a Dragon Quest-themed bar in Tokyo, opening next week. I would love to see if they have Slime-themed adult beverages. Please tell me there will be Slime-themed adult beverages. Perhaps a Green Slimetini.

From a different perspective in Square Enix corporate life, it's recently come to light that Yoichi Wada isn't pleased with the Japanese game retail industry and its xenophobia. Of course, some level of xenophobia in Japan is hardly anything new, so why should Square Enix care? Well, it's because now they're in charge of publishing games like Modern Warfare 2 in Japan. Now it all makes sense.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that Kingdom Hearts is massive in Japan, speaking of the gaming motherland. It's Disney! It's Square Enix! The buying queue will be massive! And, it was for Birth by Sleep; the newest edition of the Kingdom Hearts series, for PSP, came out last week in Japan and promptly sold almost half a million discs, blowing every other game out of the water in terms of that week's sales. Will it have lifetime sales better than the game it replaced at the top of the charts, New Super Mario Bros. Wii? Probably not, but it's still pretty impressive.

So, with all that non-Final Fantasy stuff out of the way, I'm sure you guys who aren't already miserable from thinking about Final Fantasy XIII want to hear more, right? Bam: here it is. First, here's the first new trailer with the Leona Lewis track and English voice acting, first linked to us by BlitzSage in the delicious knot of rage that is our thread discussing Leona Lewis' involvement in the Western game. Still want more after that? Well, Square Enix this week (for some reason) put some PlayStation 3s and Xbox 360s on a bus in California and drove it around so players could get an early look at parts of the North American game. No word yet when or if the content on the bus will be distributed over Xbox Live or PlayStation Home for other users, but the bus tour ends tomorrow. 1up says the game seems to run just as nicely on the lowly 360 as it does the PS3, though this isn't exactly a side-by-side comparison. Honestly, though, did anyone think that Square Enix would botch the cross-platform nature of this game? It's been a lightning rod (yay puns!) ever since it was announced, and the experience on 360 is simply something that Squenix can't afford to screw up. Also, according to Kotaku by way of Japanese Final Fantasy site FF Reunion, Final Fantasy XIII could have been a lot longer. They cut so much out, in fact, that the scraps on the floor could have been reassembled to create another full game, according to art director Isamu Kamikokuryou. I've wondered aloud already: maybe that's how they plan on creating the seemingly-off-the-radar FFXIII Versus, eh?

If you're still up for this game, though, don't forget that it comes out in about seven and a half weeks. And we know this is true, because now we know it's gone Gold - for those not familiar with shipping software, that's just the industry term for "the game is done, yo." This even includes the lip-syncing as seen in the aforementioned trailer, which, as you no doubt all know, has sometimes been a bit wonky for Square Enix games. So, whether you're still excited or not, this is still looking like a big deal, and it's getting ever closer. Enjoy, whatever your perspective.

Source: Kotaku, GamePro, 1up

Final Pre-Final Fantasy XIII News Tidbits

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:01:38 GMT

I'm a few hours later than usual in the Square Enix news tidbits this Friday; I got a bit distracted with designing some new elements for your beloved (?) Caves of Narshe. It's okay, though, because the news is a bit short this week. I'll just shoot through it on my way to my next meeting!

Final Fantasy XIII is under a week away now in Japan (ignore what I said last week, my math skills failed!). With that, one can assume that the news about the game will soon start to die down; for now, though, let's talk about Famitsu (spoilers in the link, be warned!). The Final Fantasy XIII cynics will be pleased to note that Famitsu did not give the game a perfect score; it scored only a mere thirty-nine. However, some would argue that Famitsu's scoring isn't what it used to be—four games this year have already gotten the perfect forty (Bayonetta, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Monster Hunter 3, and Dragon Quest IX). The only Final Fantasy game to ever score a forty, by the way, was Final Fantasy XII.

Yoshitaka Amano is still a Final Fantasy fan, though, Famitsu notwithstanding; the artist responsible for concept art for more than half the games in the main series has now contributed new art with his interpretation of the characters of Final Fantasy XIII. Beyond the game's logo, this is Amano's only involvement with the game; the characters are exactly what you would expect, with broad features, very pale skin (not you, Sazh), and a very sketchy nature.

Finally, there's a new commercial out in Japan for Thirteen. There's some new footage, not yet seen anywhere, in this ad; I'm not sure that I can recognize it myself after the torrents of Final Fantasy XIII promo media in the last few months, but the sources swear it's there. Maybe you can watch it and then tell me.

Finally, for those of you out there who still think a career in the gaming industry is all you could ever want from life, Square Enix is hiring. There's one job in Los Angeles for a job that's way too senior for anyone who's likely to read CoN; otherwise, plan on a trip to London to be a localization tester. You'll also have to speak English and one or more of the following: French, Italian, German and/or Spanish. Also, the pay seems pretty abysmal to me, but maybe that's just because I'm so rich and famous myself. I must say that I'm a bit surprised to see hiring so soon after the European division had significant layoffs. The timing seems awkward, and it begs the question as to whether more of the laid-off jobs could have been saved. Some of the folks laid off might just feel the same way.

The holidays are coming up, starting right now, in fact, if you celebrate Chanukkah. I'll be taking a couple days off myself to be with my family, so feel free to send me tidbits and save me some time!

Source: Kotaku, Final Fantasy XIII-Net, Siliconera

A Variety of Distant Worlds Updates

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 20:26:07 GMT

I got in my email a few minutes ago a pretty big list of updates and news with regards to Distant Worlds, the massively successful symphonic tour of music from Final Fantasy. Not only are there new shows being announced, there's a new CD release coming next year too.

Coming up this weekend, in Chicago, there's a pretty spectacular show planned; the Chicago Pops will be playing the first public performance of music from Final Fantasy XIV, for one; not only that, Uematsu himself will be there (as he will be for "many other DWFF Premieres," apparently). Oh, and he won't just be in the audience. He'll be playing with the "Chicago Mages," which I can only assume is essentially a Black Mages-style rock band made up of local performers. This show is Saturday night, 12 December, and as of the time I received the email, there were still tickets left.

Coming up, also, will be the first South Korean show, in Seoul, coming up on 6 and 7 February; then, over the summer, the tour will go back to Stockholm, then to San Francisco, San Diego, and back to Chicago again, with more dates and cities coming soon.

Finally, FFDW will have a second CD release next year, in June, just before the Stockholm show. No word on the tracklist for the new CD, just word that it is in fact new and will be performed at all the summer shows. I'll be sure to provide you with a nice AmaCoN link when the time comes!

Source: Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds Official Site

Square Enix News Tidbits, No Hiatus

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 12:41:39 GMT

Massive amount of Square Enix news tidbits this week, since I took a couple unplanned weeks off, there. Sorry about that, I know that all of you out there are dying to not comment on these posts.

As usual, most of the small news items you might have missed have to do with Final Fantasy XIII. You know, it's coming out in Japan next week and all. With regard specifically to the Japanese version, you might have missed the reveal of this game's Cid, with the surname of Raines. He's meant to be a general in one of the military factions in the plot; however, as is usual, he doesn't seem to have much traditional military look to him. You'll see him somewhere along the line in a game that is fifty-plus hours long, according to director Motumu Toriyama. And, as you may have noticed along the way, the official box art for the US and European versions of FFXIII was first published this week, too. To me, personally, it seems a bit too minimalist, but if you still had any doubts about seeing it for the Xbox 360, well, rest assured that this is not a fake.

With all that real game-type news out of the way, check out some of the goofy hype machine that's still working in support of the new flagship release. If you're in Japan, you can get the chance to smell like Lightning (the character, obviously, not the meteorological event). It's peachy! It's rosey! It's musky! It's over eighty bucks! Probably tough to import, too, as it's no doubt a flammable liquid. Over here, though, your goodies are a little less pricey and a little more useless. Thanks to all the people who tweeted about Final Fantasy XIII on Xbox (you're welcome - ugh), anyone who registers for it on Xbox.com will get, sometime this month, a free baby Chocobo for their Xbox Live avatar. Certainly cheaper than the pets you can buy; I'm sure it will go well with my University of Illinois hoodie just fine, though.

Now, let's move on, shall we? Despite the fact that Squenix is laying off again, in Europe, there are still new releases in other series coming soon. An unofficial Twitter announcment implies that Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep will in fact make it out of Japan, notwithstanding any rumbles to the contrary. Not only that, you'll also get to interact with Zack of the Final Fantasy VII universe. Does that get a fangirl squee out of anyone? Yeah, didn't really think so. Finally, on the Enix side of the house, note that a western release of Dragon Quest IX has just gotten a little closer to reality, now that the game's name has been trademarked in several languages for the European Union. Leave a slot in your DS for 2010 for a cooperative, customizable JRPG, it seems.

Again, apologies for missing a couple weeks. It probably will happen again pretty soon, given the holidays coming up, so if you feel like filling my shoes, go for it!

Source: Kotaku, SiliconEra, Go Nintendo

Square Enix News Tidbits, 6 November

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 19:22:04 GMT

First news tidbits for November; possibly also the start of the AmaCoN Holiday Rush™? Seriously, get all your friends and family to buy stuff from AmaCoN this holiday. It usually makes up about 30% of our revenue for the year.

Anyway, here are some Square Enix News Tidbits for you. With the launch of Final Fantasy XIII in Japan getting ever closer, Square Enix have announced the release date of the official soundtrack. There will be, kind of typically, two versions—a four disc standard and five disc limited edition, with the differences being packaging, an extra disc with parts or all of Episode Zero and of course availability. Both sets will be available on 27 January in Japan, and with only about $14 difference in cost, I predict that there will be a rush for the more special-er version.

For those who don't care about the Japanese accouterments, though, you can note that Yoichi Wada thinks that "progress is good" on the Western front, and that he thinks it's possible to see a launch either in Europe, North America, or both before the end of April 2010. That seems like marketing talk, and I would expect to be waiting a bit longer than that, personally. AmaCoN still has it for 20 June 2010, for instance.

On the business front, it seems that the layoffs previously reported are now mainly done, with a grand total of ten percent cut globally. Perhaps not surprisingly, revenues for the last half-year were also up by almost exactly a third; of course, our readers who know a bit about business also know that revenues are almost never the same as profits.

Source: GamesIndustry, Kotaku

Rumors Are True: DSi LL on Its Way

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:36:29 GMT

Less than twenty-four hours since our last post, Nintendo has put rumors to rest and officially announced the DSi LL (or, if you're down with the flow, the DS ILL?). It's considerably larger than the DSi�obviously, of course, to account for the much larger screen� and will come in three new colors, a chocolate brown, wine red, and "natural" white, which in product-speak usually means some ivory tint that may or may not match the photos shown today.

Yesterday's rumor of the new screens having a larger maximum resolution has proven to be untrue, which is both a good and a bad thing. Of course, people like higher resolution, so it's sad to not have the chance at it; however, it also means that Nintendo can't possibly produce games that would be playable only on the DSi LL, as it is functionally the same machine as the DSi.

Nintendo appears to be presenting the DSi LL as a more robust personal media player than the current DSi; the theory is that applications like web browsing and media play should be easier with the larger screens. Beyond that "feature," they're sweetening the deal by including styli in two sizes, and putting three DSiWare games on the unit at the factory.

All in all, it's a big honkin' unit for a handheld, around two centimeters larger in length and width than the current DSi, and an even hundred grams heavier. If the thought of Final Fantasy IV or The World Ends With You on a screen with nearly double the real estate intrigues you, though, you can pick one up from Japan on 21 November for about $220, or in Europe sometime in Q1 2010. The North American release has not yet been announced, but it's still early here in the states and I expect that info to come out in just a few short hours, so keep an eye out here.

UPDATE: Nintendo has finally confirmed that it will arrive in North America at roughly the same time it does Europe.

Source: Kotaku

Friday Square Enix News Roundup!

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:17:57 GMT

With Gamescom underway off in the wilderness of Europe (read: Germany), it shouldn't be a big surprise that there's some Square Enix tidbits coming out. We've been following the stories all week and are rolling them up right here for those of you who might have missed them. I like these roundups, personally; you can catch up on a lot of little things without cluttering our news section with tons of little posts, you know? However, you don't care about my philosophy, so here we go into the hard data:

Final Fantasy XIII
As has been the standard for this game, things are leaking out just a bit at a time. This week brings yet more character names for this upcoming release, as well as new screenshots of HorseOdin. Both names apply to more "rivals" for Lightning; no big surprise that the protagonist of a Final Fantasy game has a lot of folks that don't like her, right? The new male rival is named "Yaag," apparently; the female is, in a surprising turn towards normalcy, apparently called "Jill." You can see Odin in the same magazine scan that shows Jill—it remains to be seen whether they'll actually call the horse form of the summon Sleipnir, or ignore that part of the mythology altogether. Thanks to Yelanates for throwing the Yaag story our way.

As a final note for thirteen, The Escapist tells us that the dev team for the 360 version is aiming to get the game to us on three DVDs. Brings back memories of the Playstation era, does it not? This information is not concrete yet, as the development is not far enough along to be considered final, but Yoshinori Kitase says that three is the goal. He also says that the way things are looking, the number of discs might be the only noticable difference between the two console versions, so that's pretty good news for those of us who don't rock the Playstation 3. Now, if only Squenix would reneg on their exclusivity deal for XIII Versus...

Final Fantasy XIV
Kotaku brings us a series of Final Fantasy XIV video clips this week, by way of GameTrailers. It's mostly demo stuff, but hey, tech demos are cool. There's a demo displaying how each race runs through a variety of facial and body expressions, an archer getting pummeled by some fairly large chickens (with some low-fidelity battle music in the background that still sounds good), and a couple other attractive but not particularly inspiring gameplay videos.

Nier
As Square Enix try again with an action-oriented genre, it appears they're going a bit more towards God of War and Dante's Inferno with "mature" content, say Kotaku. The newly-debuted-at-Gamescom character Kaine appears to have a bit of a potty mouth and a fairly-standard-for-Squenix-women risque costume. Combine somewhat-inappropriate clothing with a foul mouth, and what do you get? Well, maybe something kinda hot, but just as likely something that might look like they're trying too hard to, as put by Nier's producer, expand beyond the existing Square Enix image. We'll see in 2010 when the game drops.

Source: Kotaku, FF Insider, The Escapist