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Square-Enix News
Final Fantasy Concerts Remaining in 2023
I've been remiss for quite a while at keeping everyone up on Distant Worlds (and A New World) dates. However, for the former, the Final Fantasy 35th Anniversary Program has continued apace, and there are eleven future dates coming up across the US, Canada, and Brazil:
Source: Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds, A New World: Intimate Music from Final Fantasy
- Los Angeles, August 13, 2023
- Cleveland, Ohio, September 9
- São Paulo, September 28
- Rio de Janeiro, October 1
- Austin, Texas, November 10
- Montreal, December 3
- Seattle, January 20, 2024
- Charlotte, North Carolina, February 3
- Washington, DC, March 2
- Hartford, Connecticut, March 23
- San Francisco, May 31 and June 1
- Boston, September 29
- Cincinnati, October 1
- San Diego, December 8
Source: Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds, A New World: Intimate Music from Final Fantasy
Posted in: Square-Enix News
Square-Enix Announces Next Expansion for Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
The North American Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest began today, and as expected, producer and director Naoki Yoshida's keynote featured the announcement of the next expansion planned for the game:Dawntrail.
The theme of the expansion is "Summer Vacation", as the Warrior of Light and friends travel to what's been known previously as "The New World":Tural, an area located in the Far West. The premise for the Warrior of Light traveling there is an invitation to a contest that will help decide the next ruler of its hub city, Tuliyollal. The Scions will be pitted against each other during the contest--just who will be on the Warrior of Light's side?
Other revelations included:
There was one other huge announcement: the game is making its way to the Xbox Series X|S. Open beta will be in spring of 2024, before Dawntrail is released.
Here's the teaser trailer for your enjoyment:
Source:Final Fantasy XIV Official YouTube Channel,USA Today,Game Informer
The theme of the expansion is "Summer Vacation", as the Warrior of Light and friends travel to what's been known previously as "The New World":Tural, an area located in the Far West. The premise for the Warrior of Light traveling there is an invitation to a contest that will help decide the next ruler of its hub city, Tuliyollal. The Scions will be pitted against each other during the contest--just who will be on the Warrior of Light's side?
Other revelations included:
- Urqopacha, a mountainous region home to "peoples both exceedingly large and unusually small in nature."
- Yak Tel, a forest region accessible by dirigible.
- The Pelupelu, an allied tribe.
- A level cap increase to 100.
- Two new jobs, both DPS: one melee and one magical ranged caster.
- A "whiteboard" feature which will let players plan raid strategies.
- More details on the previously announced graphical update.
- A cross-over event withFall Guys, including new content to the Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy XIV.
- The expansion of the free trial to now include the entirety ofStormblood.
There was one other huge announcement: the game is making its way to the Xbox Series X|S. Open beta will be in spring of 2024, before Dawntrail is released.
Here's the teaser trailer for your enjoyment:
Source:Final Fantasy XIV Official YouTube Channel,USA Today,Game Informer
Posted in: Square-Enix News
Super Mario RPG Remake Announced for Switch
Rumors had been bouncing around for the last couple days that a remaster or remake of the classic Squaresoft/Nintendo collaboration for SNES would appear at today's Direct, and so it was.The original game released in 1996 and the original was packaged up for Virtual Console on Wii and Wii U, but never for Switch, and perhaps now we know why. The game's been redone with a very nice new engine, even with the slightly-squished look of the original isometric visuals intact.
The new version of the game will release on November 17, 2023. Digital preorders are available now; I assume there will be a physical release of the game as well, but those details are not yet available.
Source: Nintendo of America YouTube
The new version of the game will release on November 17, 2023. Digital preorders are available now; I assume there will be a physical release of the game as well, but those details are not yet available.
Source: Nintendo of America YouTube
Posted in: Square-Enix News
Not Much Rebirthed in the Playstation Showcase
Sony's Playstation Showcase ended a little bit ago, and while there were a lot of very grabby games involved (go do some Googling for Sword of the Sea, Neva, and the Metal Gear Solid and Spider-Man news if you've got a Playstation 5), the only thing that got rebirthed was the Marathon IP from Bungie.
If you were looking for Square Enix in the hour-long presentation, your options were a bit limited; we can start with the announcement of a new team-based 4v4 shooter called "Foamstars," which appears to be made up primarily of OG Fortnite and Splatoon vibes. It's a third-person shooter where the core mechanic is shooting foam everywhere, whether to build, transport, or hunt. The world and characters look fun and shiny, but my gut call is that this might struggle to find an audience.The only other presence for Squenix in this event was for Final Fantasy XVI. It was an interesting change of pace from other recent info from the game (that I've failed to cover here), as it seemed to have a lot of focus on the world around the main characters and the motivations for the plot, versus the very combat-heavy videos we've seen over the last few months. In my opinion, it gives some much-needed texture to the world that they've shown us so far and is pretty helpful with the game coming in a month. But yes, not a thing about the Final Fantasy VII world. I guess nothing more to see for that game until later - hopefully not all the way until Tokyo Games Show, which is at the end of September?
Source: Square Enix NA YouTube
If you were looking for Square Enix in the hour-long presentation, your options were a bit limited; we can start with the announcement of a new team-based 4v4 shooter called "Foamstars," which appears to be made up primarily of OG Fortnite and Splatoon vibes. It's a third-person shooter where the core mechanic is shooting foam everywhere, whether to build, transport, or hunt. The world and characters look fun and shiny, but my gut call is that this might struggle to find an audience.The only other presence for Squenix in this event was for Final Fantasy XVI. It was an interesting change of pace from other recent info from the game (that I've failed to cover here), as it seemed to have a lot of focus on the world around the main characters and the motivations for the plot, versus the very combat-heavy videos we've seen over the last few months. In my opinion, it gives some much-needed texture to the world that they've shown us so far and is pretty helpful with the game coming in a month. But yes, not a thing about the Final Fantasy VII world. I guess nothing more to see for that game until later - hopefully not all the way until Tokyo Games Show, which is at the end of September?
Source: Square Enix NA YouTube
Posted in: Square-Enix News
New Dump of Final Fantasy XVI Visuals and Info
An embargo on media previews of Final Fantasy XVI was lifted today, leading to a deluge of new info about the game coming this summer. Gematsu, for their part, released a number of new videos from their time playing the game, over forty minutes' worth split over five distinct videos on YouTube. They are mostly centered around the same portion of the game, it would appear, to avoid being too spoilery, but those who want to know absolutely nothing about the game should probably avoid watching too terribly much. I'm not including videos in this post for that reason, too.
Without going too terribly much into those spoilers myself, I can say that the videos show off a lot of combat in various modes, including solo and party combat in both normal encounters, boss encounters, and an Eikon battle. The boss-level encounters showed off a number of quick-time events within battle, certainly more than I expected. Personally, I felt vibes of both Final Fantasy XIII and XV in the combat sequences.
There are some pieces that show where the devs are working towards that M-rating with the ESRB, as well; I caught a bit more bloody violence than we're used to in a Final Fantasy game during the Eikon battle, and I'm pretty sure I caught an f-bomb in one of the boss battles, though I admit I watched the videos at 1.5x speed due to a general lack of time this morning.
Gematsu also published a transcript of a roundtable with the executive team for Final Fantasy XVI, conducted earlier in February in conjunction with RPG Fan and Den of Geek. The interview touches a lot on bringing the "constant" elements of a Final Fantasy game into this new version that steps further into the action genre than any Final Fantasy before it. The entire interview is quite long and covers a number of other topics, too, including the design of boss and Eikon battles to mash-up genres and some questions about how the game looks pretty grimdark overall so far.
The media tour continues, too - Square Enix announced today that there will be another panel discussion about XVI at PAX East at the end of March (there will be a panel for XIV there, too). Final Fantasy XVI is still scheduled for a June 2023 release.
Source: Gematsu, Square Enix on Facebook
Without going too terribly much into those spoilers myself, I can say that the videos show off a lot of combat in various modes, including solo and party combat in both normal encounters, boss encounters, and an Eikon battle. The boss-level encounters showed off a number of quick-time events within battle, certainly more than I expected. Personally, I felt vibes of both Final Fantasy XIII and XV in the combat sequences.
There are some pieces that show where the devs are working towards that M-rating with the ESRB, as well; I caught a bit more bloody violence than we're used to in a Final Fantasy game during the Eikon battle, and I'm pretty sure I caught an f-bomb in one of the boss battles, though I admit I watched the videos at 1.5x speed due to a general lack of time this morning.
Gematsu also published a transcript of a roundtable with the executive team for Final Fantasy XVI, conducted earlier in February in conjunction with RPG Fan and Den of Geek. The interview touches a lot on bringing the "constant" elements of a Final Fantasy game into this new version that steps further into the action genre than any Final Fantasy before it. The entire interview is quite long and covers a number of other topics, too, including the design of boss and Eikon battles to mash-up genres and some questions about how the game looks pretty grimdark overall so far.
The media tour continues, too - Square Enix announced today that there will be another panel discussion about XVI at PAX East at the end of March (there will be a panel for XIV there, too). Final Fantasy XVI is still scheduled for a June 2023 release.
Source: Gematsu, Square Enix on Facebook
Posted in: Square-Enix News
New Final Fantasy Piano Concert Series in March
I did a quick search of the site to see if we'd covered this yet, and I haven't seen anyone mention it. It looks like this series started in Europe and Asia and I missed hearing about it then, but now there are 22 dates for this new Piano Concert series already announced for the Western Hemisphere:
Tickets for all shows are already on sale; here's a trailer for the concert series that the promoter published recently as well.
Source: Crystalline Resonance Site
- San Francisco, March 3
- Los Angeles, March 4
- Las Vegas, March 5
- Phoenix, March 6
- Dallas, March 8
- Houston, March 9
- Miami, March 11
- Tampa, March 12
- Atlanta, March 13
- Washington, D.C., March 14
- Philadelphia, March 15
- New York, March 17
- Boston, March 18
- Montreal, March 19
- Toronto, March 20
- Detroit, March 21
- Chicago, March 22
- Cincinatti, March 24
- Kansas City, March 25
- Minneapolis, March 26
- Denver, March 27
- Sao Paulo, Brazil, March 30/31
Tickets for all shows are already on sale; here's a trailer for the concert series that the promoter published recently as well.
Source: Crystalline Resonance Site
Posted in: Square-Enix News
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Caves of Narshe Version 6
©1997–2024 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.
©1997–2024 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.