News

It's that time again, where the Music division over at Square Enix (or whoever the heck runs these things) sends out an announcement of a number of new live performances for the "Distant Worlds" and "A New World" concert series. Since our last update, I did in fact manage to grab tickets to the Boston show, but that's old news now. Check out instead the new ones for a show near you!

The first new show is an interesting one that I don't think they've ever done before: there will be a show during E3 in Los Angeles this year, June 17th at 8pm local time, and Hitoshi Sakimoto will be in attendance as well as conductor Arnie Roth and vocalist Susan Calloway. It's at the Nokia Theater, which apparently has a 2,200-seat capacity for concerts; if they open that all up, that's going to be one big show. Presale tickets go on sale today, and general purchases kick in on Monday.

In July, the series moves to Seattle for two shows at Benaroya Hall, the home of the Seattle Symphony. Those shows are on July 10th and 11th at 8pm, and tickets are already on sale. No guests have been announced for those shows save Arnie Roth, but there's still plenty of time.

Further down the road, August 1 sees the tour arrive in Pittsburgh, with the Mendelssohn Choir appearing. Tickets for that show go on sale this Monday, March 9. Even later, Rochester, New York gets their first ever Distant Worlds show on October 29th.

For those who like the smaller chamber orchestra format of A New World, there are some new shows in new locales for that series as well. In April, at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, there will be a show open to all ticketholders for the con on April 17th. On May 15th, the show will come to Milwaukee for the first time - this show promises a world premiere score, and the debut of arranger Eric Roth as conductor. The last new show announced is a return to the Anime Central con in Chicago; the tour stopped at the same event last year, and will return on May 17th for a show open to all con-goers with a badge for that day.

Last note on this topic is that there is a third Distant Worlds album out now! It's a thirteen-track album with music from seven different games and some tracks that span multiple games. It's available in both CD and downloadable forms, and is available from AmaCoN now.

Source: Distant Worlds, A New World, Distant Worlds III on AmaCoN

I just got an email from Squenix discussing their offerings at PAX East this year. The company does have a sizable footprint on the show floor, as well as the panels mentioned in our last podcast and more, but today's email detailed some new information regarding activities and events coming this weekend.

With Type-0 coming out in just a couple weeks, it makes sense that it will be playable now, and so it shall be. Folks who play the game on the show floor will also get a poster splitting between Ace and Noctis; the poster is similar or even identical to the ones that you might have seen in your local game store.

Additionally, the Final Fantasy XIV panel on Saturday will be livestreamed. Feel free to look through the crowd for yours truly. This panel, as a reminder, will be an overview of the upcoming Heavensward expansion and might talk further about the future of the MMO as well.

There's also going to be a Life Is Strange panel on Friday afternoon. If you've tried this game, you might be interested to know that the panel will discuss not just the development of the game, but also will release some new details about the second chapter in the episodic game. Unfortunately, this one I won't be able to make.

Finally, for Tomb Raider and cosplay fans, there's a chance to get a limited edition Rise of the Tomb Raider poster on the show floor. A cosplayer by the name of Jenn Croft, who has portrayed Lara Croft for a decade and a half, will be at the con and folks who get themselves all selfied up with her will get a chance at the poster. Square Enix will also be hosting a cosplay meetup Saturday afternoon; unfortunately, it looks like they're doing it at the exact same time as the Final Fantasy XV panel, so I will have to figure something out.

In case it's not clear from the rest of this post, I am still planning on being there for Saturday, March 7. I'll be spending a lot of time on the show floor, so if you or anyone you know will also be in attendance, reach out to me on the CoN Facebook or Twitter to find out where I can be found.

Late last year, we noted that a leak on an online store made it appear that the high-definition remasters of the Final Fantasy X series might make it to PS4. Not only has this week proven that to be true, the games are coming to the West, and they're coming quite soon, May 12 to be exact. (For Europe and Australia, the date is the 15th.)

This new release will allow transfer of savegames from the previous releases on PS3 and PS Vita; additionally, it will contain all the features of the previous HD releases plus the additional option to switch from the remastered soundtracks back to the original PS2 versions. Preorders of the limited edition in North America, via the official store and "selected retailers," will also include a 2015 calendar with Amano illustrations from the X games. Preorders in Europe will receive a steelbook copy of Amano art.

The price is currently listed at 49.99 for the US and Eurozone, and 39.99 in the UK.

Source: Square Enix Official Store (NA), IGN

Mevius Final Fantasy, a mobile title we were first introduced to last December, has been given a lot more detail in the last Famitsu. As we noted in that news post, quite a few important folks are involved in the title, and their ambition can be seen on the game's official website: "we're crafting a full-scale, high-quality RPG world the likes of which has never been seen on smartphones and tablets." The protagonist, we are told, will wake up in an unfamiliar world, guided by "Voice," a voice/being of type unknown. The game will once again feature a riff on the job system; Ranger and Black Mage jobs have already been shown. That said, combat will involve active touch-screen use. Did I mention it's looking gorgeous? It is not yet confirmed whether Mevius will be available in western markets or for Android.

We've also got some fresh information out of Bravely Second. Bravely Second will have a bonus activity/area/game/thing like the Norende Village of Bravely Default. You may remember learning in school (or, um, one of our earlier newsposts on Bravely Second) that everyone on the moon speaks English. That's where the character Magnolia is from, and that's where you'll be going, in the bonus activity, to fight off "Demon Kings." This involves utilizing Busterships (battleships) for added bombardment. I'm not making any of this up, people.

Finally, in the "um, alright" category of news, Final Fantasy XV art director Yusuke Naora presented some of the game's art and architecture for an audience at Southern Methodist University. The images - featuring skyscrapers and the city-enveloped royal palace - can be seen in the third source link below.

Source: Gematsu, Siliconera, Gematsu

Time to do a proper weekly Square Enix News Tidbits! Mostly for the same reason that we always do - because we run out of time to keep up during the week.

This week, we've got two new announcements for game releases coming West from Japan. First up is a mobile app called Final Fantasy Record Keeper that you might have noticed in the Final Fantasy magazine. Record Keeper appears to be a retelling of critical events from the Final Fantasy canon as evoked by a boy tasked with keeping the memories of those adventures alive, presumably in some sort of alternate universe. Characters from the series are rendered in SNES-era sprites and the player will control them in battle. The battles look similar to All the Bravest... so all we can do is hope that this app isn't quite so much a joke! Pre-registration for the app is available now from the official site.

The second announcement is from the Dragon Quest series. Dragon Quest Heroes for PlayStation 3 and 4 has just come out in Japan, and Squenix commemorated the release in a way by announcing it also for release in the West. DQ Heroes is a "Warriors" style game - think Hyrule or Dynasty - and is the first entry of the series on a Sony console in quite a while. Simultaneously, a load of free DLC was announced for the Japanese release, and one can safely assume that it will also make it over here. One of the DLC packs looks to include Zoma, from Dragon Quest III; I note that specifically because I always thought his giant eye-helmet was pretty creepy. At the moment, it appears that there will be no PS3 version of the game outside of Japan, merely PS4.

Finally, let's turn back to last week's biggest news, Final Fantasy XV. With the demo livestream done, the XV team has turned back to handing out small bits of news for the full game. In an interview this week, Hajime Tabata noted that the demo coming out next month will be roughly 5GB in total disk size; of course, that doesn't do much for explaining how much real content there will be, but it's worth noting that is only about a tenth of a double-layer Bluray's capacity. In the same interview, Tabata implied that there would be some shocking moments in the plot and some brutal scenes, and it's worth noting that Tabata also worked on Crisis Core, so he's probably not bluffing.

In another, separate interview, Tabata discussed some of the other differences between the demo and the full game. The equipment selections, for weapons, armor and accessories alike, will be a small subset of the full game's functionality in terms of equipping and customization. While the (famous) cars and the (heretofore unknown) trains will not be in the demo, both methods of transport will be available in the full game in different contexts. Chocobos will also appear, of course. Additionally, the new content came with a video with some new scenes, notably exploration and battle inside a claustrophobic cave. A second new video emulates the feel of a nature documentary and shows more landscapes and creatures. Tabata also noted that the team is still refining the demo and will be continuing to do so.

More random news is cropping up today, though, so we might be able to throw some more good stuff at you in the near future. Or we might get lazy. It's Friday.

Source: Final Fantasy Record Keeper, Square Enix Europe, Siliconera

Heavenstrike Rivals, a game for Android and iOS about which we posted a while back, was finally made available to everyone yesterday. Described as "a cool mix of Tactical RPG and Trading Card Game," Heavenstrike Rivals (or Leavenstrike Ribalds) is free-to-play with in-game transactions and a PvP mode. From now until March 4th, players will have double the chance of obtaining "extra rare" and "legendary" units.

Well, given that it's free to play after all, I decided to check it out for myself. Let me first say that the coolest thing about this game is the wonderful art design for the Heavenstrike Rival's many units.


(My rarest unit is apparently last year's Corn Palace Queen)

The game is very accessible. Computer opponent difficulty increases gradually, with a soft learning curve to start. Combat basics are pretty easy to pick up, and battles, while not brief, don't tend to take too long. The game's story advances a few sentences of dialogue at a time, inserted between campaign battles, but you'll be spending most of your time on a 3x7 grid.


(I'm the guy with the festive scarf)

While the Heavenstrike Rivals seems simple at a glance, there's a surprisingly large amount of tactical options available. This is in large part due to the wide range of units available, whose usefulness can vary considerably depending on which other units you have on the grid and each unit's location relative to the others. Due to the fact that the units available to you each turn are selected randomly (the card game aspect) from a team of up to 15 units, even repeated battles against the same opponent tend to feel fresh. Tides can turn quickly in battle as well: if multiple units are defeated in one turn, you have that many more mana points for summoning new units.

That isn't to say there are no kinks in the system: in the three hours I've played, I've had two half-minute freezes and one crash. The folks over at Square Enix and Mediatonic are continuing to work out bugs - as well as add content like the "daily quest" - on a regular basis.


(Alright then.)

The icing on the cake is that Heavenstrike doesn't (at least not yet) harass you about spending real-world money. I have to say, Heavenstrike has definitely hooked me. It's simple enough to sneak in a quick battle any time, but with enough complexity - I haven't even gotten into items, training, or promoting - to make a unique game experience. I recommend it for anyone - even a relative newcomer to the genre like myself - who wants a tactical mobile experience that captures Square Enix's recent (delightful) mobile art style.

Source: Square Enix Blog