News

If you've been wondering what the fellows over at Square Enix have been up to lately (other than the super-exciting stickers and mangas mentioned in the previous news post), you are not alone. As a result, I decided to have a look around at the company's current works in progress and give updates accordingly.

Mindjack, which you may better recognize by the title "that one game kinda trying to be like Inception," is set for a release on January 18 for both PS3 and Xbox 360. Will Mindjack follow in the footsteps of recent bombs Nier, Front Mission Evolved and The Last Remnant? I suppose it doesn't hurt to hope against likelihood.

In slightly more promising news, there is a new Deus Ex: Human Revolution gameplay trailer out (link below). The clip is rather exciting and displays several interesting gameplay features. The newest entry in the Deus Ex series is also expected to make a landing for PS3 and Xbox 360 in early 2011. To hear a bit more about the nature of the game and the multitude of choices it presents players with, check out this fairly recent interview.

There is also news coming from the rather depressing world of Final Fantasy XIV. It looks like the game has been fully ported over to the PS3, and the developers insist that they are working to make this version play as smoothly as possible (unlike last time). When the PS3 version is finally released, it will be accompanied by a PC-version upgrade as well. In addition, PS3 players will be put on the same servers as those playing from PC. This seems slightly problematic given the large time advantage, but developers assure us that there will be features added in order to even out the playing field a bit.

While there isn't really anything new to say about Final Fantasy Versus XIII, IGN has put together an article summarizing what we know about the upcoming title that would be good to read if you haven't been keeping up to date with the information as it's been coming out. Basically, we have one modern kingdom still protected by the ancient crystals of the past: "an isolated nation protected by an ancient line of kings. A modern civilization alive with the Crystal's songs of swords and sorcery." This nation is ruled by the game's main character, and it is surrounded by several crystal-less nations (one of which is ruled by the woman in the white dress seen in several of the trailers).

Remember Final Fantasy Agito XIII? I definitely forgot about it. A quick checkup, though, showed that I am entirely forgiven for having forgotten: there really isn't much information about it at all. It turns out that the game will be released for PSP as well as cellular devices(totally didn't know that). The plot appears to feature crystals (surprise) and a big bad empire (surprise). There's something about royal crests, chocobos and real-time battles in there as well.

All in all, with these new releases and the Fabula Nova Crystalis news conference on the horizon, the first quarter of 2011 should be an eventful one for Square Enix.

Source: Mindjack Site, Deus Ex: Human Revolution trailer, IGN

We all love a good incentive to pre-order a game, don't we? Making-of DVDs, Beta Test Passes, Dog Tags, Figurines of the Characters, and so on. It's with that sort of mentality in mind that Square Enix have generously elected to give Gamestop and Amazon.com customers pre-ordering Kingdom Hearts Re: coded the lovely incentive of... A stick!

Oh, sorry, I misread that, Stickers. Yes, stickers. Perhaps you can put them on your DS or something. If you're a sucker for stickers, you canalways use AmaCoN for your pre-ordering needs in both the US and the UK stores for those of us in the relevant catchment areas with a desire for a pre-ordered Kingdom Hearts game. It should be noted that the bonus stickers may not apply to the UK pre-orders, but just in case you're still interested the link is there.

In a semi-related fashion that nicely leads onto a following item, there's some other Kingdom Hearts related news. Aya Brea, star of the Parasite Eve games and the upcoming PSP title The 3rd Birthday, has popped up as a Kingdom Hearts Mobile Avatar. Quite adorable when she's not knee deep in entrails it seems.

And speaking of knee-deep in entrails and Parasite Eve, a tie-in Manga is to debut next month in Square Enix's Monthly Shounen GanGan magazine. And yes, I have no idea what that means. I do know these things are generally in black and white so those of a nervous/psychotic disposition will be pleased/dismayed to learn there may not be much detail to the entrails.

Moving onwards and stretching a metaphor out just to link the stories up, as you all probably know, Final Fantasy XIV hasn't been having a good time lately, and has been having some problems that can be politely described as stomach trouble, or more accurately described as being a laughing stock with largely negative reviews. The higher-ups and designers at Squenix have been surprisingly candid on admitting that the game is not quite up to scratch, and have pledged to fix it. To that end, they have announced their plans to do so. Various overhauls and tweaks to the game are on the table, and it seems Square-Enix hope this tactic will help reduce and repair the damage the bad press has caused before the Playstation 3 launch next year.

And finally, speaking of tactics, Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together, recently released for PSP in Japan, has downloadable content in the form of new scenarios planned. The three planned scenarios add new stories into the game once certain conditions have been met, and though no release dates are confirmed in North America or Europe as yet, those interested in the game will be pleased to learn that Square-Enix is embracing the concept of DLC for more than just fixing mistakes in already released content.







Source: Kotaku, AndriaSang

Mario Sports Mix, a Nintendo game set to come out for the Wii next year, will feature several characters familiar to the Final Fantasy universe.

The game, which includes basketball, volleyball, dodgeball and hockey, is being produced by Square Enix. As a result of this, Cactuar, Moogle, Ninja, White Mage and Black Mage will all appear as playable characters in the game. The Dragon Quest copyright is also included, it's likely that there'll also be a character from that game in the mix.

I suddenly want more than anything to see Cactuar spike a volleyball.

Source: IGN, Mario Sports Mix

Square Enix has recently taken the elements of the Final Fantasy series and applied them to a new Facebook game: Knights of the Crystals.

This game has the player completing quests to earn action points, leveling up along the way. Players can earn money from these quests as well, which can be spent on purchasing equipment. The game also features a class system, complete with magic and special moves, and boss battles, where you can gather your friends and/or NPC friend-alternatives to take on your typical boss. There's also an option to fight against other humans. Yay social interaction!

The company has released a second Facebook game as well, called Chocobo Crystal Tower. This application appears to be considerably more light-hearted than the first one, consisting of breeding and training chocobos for battle.

I usually avoid Facebook applications as a general principle (simply because I end up wasting enough time on the internet the way it is), but I'm sure that one or both of these will receive a bit of attention from a half-awake DP during a weeknight/early morning in the near future.

Source: Kotaku

The verdict is out, and it doesn't look good for FFXIV. IGN.com gave the game a weak 5.5 out of 10. A quick look at GameStats.com places most other reviews in the same general area: FFXIV received a 4.2 from Gametrailers.com, a D+ from 1UP.com and a depressing 4.0 from Gamespot.com.

Most of the game's failings are attributed (unsurprisingly, given the responses in our own thread devoted to this topic) to the title's gameplay, which spoils what is otherwise called a "well-realized world". The IGN review praised the game's graphics, music, expansive world and class systems, yet concluded that the interface and performance issues that plagued the game entirely spoiled these strong points.

For those here who have been muddling in FFXIV, Square Enix has also recently announced that it would extend the free trial period from 30 days to 60 days, almost certainly in response to the overwhelmingly mediocre reviews.

In addition to this, it appears that the company is busy trying to tweak their latest release, adding a patch to the market system. Given the sour reviews, I would expect many more of these in the near future. Given the nature of the complaints against FFXIV, I think that Square Enix should be able to fix many of the game's failings. At the very least, I would expect a considerably stronger version of the game to be found in the PS3 release, which is still a ways into the future.

Source: IGN, IGN, GameStats

Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy just keeps trucking along; since the last news about DW, the music production has released a bunch of new dates - however, first to the upcoming dates that were already public:

The next dates in the concert series are 6 and 7 November, 2010, in Tokyo. The shows are sold out, but there's a limited number of held-back seats being sold via lottery. If you want to make a quick trip to Tokyo, anyone worldwide is eligible to put their name in the hat.

After that comes the Toronto show, on 27 November. That's the weekend of American Thanksgiving, so a holiday trip might make this show accessible to Ontario and some Americans too. Uematsu has been confirmed to attend this show, as well, which makes the thought of going all the sweeter.

Then, it's time to start planning 2011. Are you Australian or English? Annoyed that you haven't had a Distant Worlds concert in your country? Worry no more. Sydney's getting two shows, 15 and 16 April of 2011. Tickets go on sale tomorrow, even. After that, London's getting a single show on 5 November 2011; given that it's still thirteen months away, tickets won't be on sale there for quite a while. In between, Chicago's getting another pair of shows, a matinee and evening performance on 26 June 2011. The current plan is for Uematsu to appear at all of these shows, too.

That's all for now in terms of tour dates; however, with the huge gaps in 2011, expect to see more quite soon.

Source: Distant Worlds