News

Final Fantasy XIV has become the big news, now that it's in a closed beta. I hear that the servers aren't up very often, though, so if you're not in the beta you're probably not missing much yet. (Source: none, the beta players are under NDA.) Squenix has been releasing a bit of information about the game, though, and it seems that if you want to run it at full power, you're going to need a reasonably recent PC. In short, the company is recommending that you have Windows 7 running on an Intel Core i7 with four-plus gigs of RAM, and a screen resolution of 1280x720. I assume this is the recommendation to get a full sixty frames per second, though, as it seems a pretty robust recommendation. One would hope it's still plenty playable on a lower specced machine. Squenix also announced this week the eighteen player classes of XIV, split into four groups. Many are certainly not instantly recognizable, though a great many classic types seem to be represented, such as different mages, a knight-style class, an archer/ranger, and so on. There also appears to be a class who is standing near a sewing machine? I hope I'm just not up to speed on MMO classes and seamstress/tailor is not a class.

Also this week, Square Enix announced a remake of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together for the PSP. I know a great many folks consider this Tactics Ogre to be at the very least on par with Final Fantasy Tactics, and this new PSP version will be getting new graphics and a new arrangement of the score, new characters, and new game mechanics added to the original game. There's no release date yet for Japan, which means there isn't one yet for the West, but I think the odds of us getting the shaft on this game are exceptionally low. And I'm excited - tactical RPGs on handhelds are a great idea, particularly, I think, if they're from the FFT/TO/Disgaea series.

Finally for this week, Squenix has announced a new Final Fantasy Legends property for mobile phones in Japan. This one is called "Final Fantasy Legends: Warrior of Light and Darkness," and it looks much like an updated 8-bit Final Fantasy, much in the same way of the Game Boy Advance Final Fantasy "Souls" game, but with an episodic release much like Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. What makes this more interesting is that unlike every other game branded with the "Legend" moniker, this game is not a SaGa game at all, but instead a brand-new property, marketed as a Final Fantasy branded game even in Japan. Of course, it may never make it over here, but The After Years did after starting out as a mobile platform game, so you never know.

Source: Final Fantasy XIV Official Site, Kotaku, SiliconEra

I know I've mentioned the upcoming Distant Worlds concerts several times now, and this update doesn't have much brand new information. However, the summer tour is about to kick off, and Nobuo Uematsu has just been confirmed to attend the following shows:

• July 15 and 16, Los Angeles (both nights will have a different setlist, too)
• July 22, San Diego
• July 24, Houston
• November 27, Toronto

On top of that, on Monday, July 19, there is now a CD release party for the new FFDW CD, in Culver City, California at Royal/T. If you're in LA, though, note that you still need tickets to get into the release party. See the link below for more info.

Source: Distant Worlds

Bioware late last week kicked off the first round of user testing for the upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. I'm not sure how many of you saw the game on demo at E3, but I will say that even for me, one who is utterly ambivalent toward MMO play, the game looked pretty great.

That said, this counts as newsworthy for a couple reasons. First, of course, is the fact that it's an MMO by the same company who did Knights of the Old Republic, which is probably one of the top two or three games in the Star Wars Universe. Second is that now that early testing has begun, the game's one step closer to being available. Sure, it won't ever knock off WoW, because, what really could? But this game has the potential to be huge if it's successful in combining MMO players with Star Wars fans en masse.

If you're not in this first wave of testing, but want to have a shot at the next one, there's still time. However, you must be 18 and, if the status of the first wave continues into the second, you must be in North America. Tests later will go global, though Bioware hasn't yet said which phase or when will be open to those outside of North America.


Source: Star Wars: The Old Republic

Dragon Quest IX is the big story this week, as it's finally about to make its North American debut this weekend. Squenix and Nintendo have set up a bit of an event in New York City to commemorate the launch; if you're near Manhattan tomorrow, 10 July, you can swing to the World of Nintendo store in midtown (which sadly, I never got to visit when I was living there - it looked awesome from the outside). Yuji Horii, creator of the DQ franchise, will be there, and apparently there will be some Dragon Quest-themed treats for eating too. And you can buy the game a day early! No word on whether you can drink Slimes, though.

My call, though, is that if you really wanted the game that badly you probably preordered it anyway.

In other game news, developer Obsidian says they want a crack at the Chrono Trigger franchise. Obsidian are best known for sequels to original games, one of which they're working on for Squenix already (Dungeon Siege 3). Would they ever get the keys to the castle that is Chrono Trigger? Yeah, pretty much no chance if you ask me. Perhaps they should just start on a sequel and see how far they get.

Finally, here's one that snuck in under my radar: Square Enix and GamePot are bringing a new action MMO to the States. The game, Fantasy Earth Zero, is a free-to-play MMO with a primary focus on large PvP battles. It's been out in Japan for over three years but launched in the US in May.

Source: Kotaku, SiliconEra, Square Enix North America

Ah, Squeeeeenix.

Is there much to squee about this week? I believe there is. It does, however, depend on the user, but there's a lot of pretty cool stuff going on at the moment (though some of it may disappoint). First, the piece that is worth checking out in the near future. Square-Enix is looking for applicants to write for the Dragon Quest series. The catch being that the applicants would need to be near Shinjuku, Tokyo. There's an English summary of the application page here, which is pretty interesting. Prize* goes to whoever can create the weirdest storyline from four of those key points. But that's not the only news from Japan - after seeing the success of the Monster Hunter series for the PSP, Square-Enix started developing their own game in the same vein, entitled "Lord of Arcana", also for the PSP. If it doesn't perform as well as they hope, they'll have to rely on the next thing I have for you. And it won't disappoint.

Final Fantasy XIV, the second MMORPG in the main series, will be released this September, at one of two times, depending on your urge to play it. Your first option is to buy the Collector's Edition on September the 22nd, and get a bunch of free goodies that aren't technically free since you paid $25 extra for it. The second option is to wait another 8 days until the 30th, when the standard edition is released for $50. With either choice, you'll get one month of free play time before you have to pay the $12.99 monthly fee. I hate to use dollars to convey the prices, but that's all the information we've got on pricing so far. And hey, it's coming pretty soon. Just be thankful Square-Enix aren't trying to make it in 3D as we- oh wait a minute, there was a tech demo of that at E3. Not that that means anything, as the developers were keen to stress it was JUST a tech demo, but it shows that they, too, are heading down the road of three dimensions.

Finally, a speck of information on the elusive Final Fantasy Versus XIII. At long last, the game's story has been finished, as well as character designs. Now all they have to do, is, you know, make the game. So we're still a long way off of a release date. A loooooooooooooong way off.

*Prize not included.

Source: SiliconEra, Kotaku

With E3 dead and gone, there was a little bit of slowdown in Square Enix news. We'll be back to things trickling through until Tokyo Game Show, I'm sure, in which we'll probably get fresh deluges of news about Final Fantasy Versus XIII and XIV Online. For now, though, the trickle is on.

First news is that Xbox 360 might not get a hold of the new Online entry. The director of XIV, Hiromichi Tanaka, is saying that the game won't be on 360 because Xbox Live is too closed of a system. It appears that the "business scheme" Microsoft puts forth just doesn't do what Square Enix wants for the game, as put forth by Yoichi Wada in a separate interview. Eggboxers shouldn't give up hope, though, I don't think - it's not as if Final Fantasy XI didn't make the port eventually, and we don't know what might be in the cards for the future.

On the Versus front, the first new media since last year's TGS came out this week, with a bit of detail behind it. The screens are scans from Famitsu, and have an interesting look to them, with one in particular showing a player character outside of a somewhat "modern" gas station, with "modern" here representing something like 1950s America. The rest of the details came from Nomura, and aren't exactly groundbreaking - there are some destructible environments, and a large open world, and enemies will by and large be visible before combat but some will sneak up. Given what I see in the screenshots and the descriptions above, it actually sounds a bit like a more sandboxy Parasite Eve so far. No complaints here if that's the case.

What might be the most interesting thing of the week, at least for the Square Enix Naysayers Club, is that Wada has also said this week in Forbes magazine that all future Square Enix games will have a level of multiplayer or social networking capability. I understand, I understand - this could go really badly. It could result in all Squenix games being driven by microtransactions, as seems to be the growing trend in social gaming. It could even result in games where you have to harass your friends on Facebook in order to progress. Or, it could be something cool. Maybe it shares selected progress items or achievements to your Twitter or Facebook wall. Maybe it opens up some true multiplayer as in the beloved SNES entries from the Mana series. The only thing we do know so far is that this new business plan is meant to impact all games, up to and including the core Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts franchises.

Until next time, I'll be sharing all my gaming exploits with you until Square makes it automatic!

Source: Eurogamer, Final Fantasy XIII Net, Kotaku