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FFIV DS to remove spoony bard?! [update 1]
[Update 1: Our bad. It appears that, in fact, three-fourths of the original game script was actually left out of the SNES title, and much of it will be added in for the new DS re-release. Still, the probability of a script rewrite is extremely high, so our terrifying supposition remains.]Unacceptable, we decry! News from yon Square Enix headquarters, which is releasing approximately a dozen Final Fantasy-branded games in the next twelve months, reports that over three-fourths of Final Fantasy IV's script will be completely redone for the upcoming DS re-release. This is generally good news, as Square Enix's early efforts hardly utilized the kind of localization teams they employ today, but this particular instance is blasphemy.The term "spoony bard" has become a cultural mainstay for today's youth. Why, when's the last time you could even leave the house without hearing it spoken thrice in direct succession? The removal of this phrase, we feel, would be extremely detrimental to the development of future generations. Square Enix, we implore thee, leave this paragon of digital literature be.[Thanks, zshadow!]
DS Daily: One more time
Nostalgia is a big factor for veteran gamers. As we long wistfully for the days of yore, full of Opera Houses and Triple Techs, companies scheme to use this wonderful emotion for profit. Square-Enix is a particularly egregious offender, but damned if we're not willing to buy that game we loved just one more time.Final Fantasy III is a bit of an exception, since the title was never truly released in regions outside of Japan before last year. But how willing are you, as gamers, to buy rehashes of the very same game? We got the entire Final Fantasy Advance series (I, II, IV, V, and VI) and now Square-Enix wants to release a graphically overhauled version of FFIV ... again? With the inclusion of Final Fantasy Chronicles on the Playstation, this will be the fourth release of the same freaking game.Do you need extra features or updated graphics to re-buy a game, or do you refuse on principal? As we know is that as long as we keep buying them, Square-Enix will keep remaking them. Pah.
Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates screenshot love
And it's all for you, dear reader. Resident blogger Alisha has officially declared today, April 25th, "Super JRPG Screenshot Day," in commemoration of not only these great screens but also these, from an equally desirable title.The vote is pretty much unanimous that Final Fantasy III is the best-looking DS title to date, but it looks like Square-Enix whipped their programmers into making their games even prettier. Which means those men have whip marks everywhere. The problem with the original Crystal Chronicles was the amazingly intense hardware requirement, but if the new multiplayer cooperative system is easy to use, we might have yet another Squeenix bajillion-seller on our hands.
Square Enix hasn't sipped the Virtual Console Kool-Aid
It seems that Square Enix isn't quite convinced about the whole Virtual Console thing. In an interview with Nintendo Dream magazine, Square's Shinji Hashimoto was dubious about the prospects for Final Fantasy games on the Virtual Console, stating that the Japanese audience (which is, of course, the audience that matters) needs physical media for their games. And like the responsible, friendly, consumer-oriented company that Square Enix is, they are happy to provide physical copies of Final Fantasy games. Over, and over, and over, and over again. Of course they don't want to sell a $5 copy of NES FF1 when they've got the PSP remake coming out.We aren't that upset, since they've already released the best game in their library (in Japan and Europe, at least). Go ahead and argue with us. You know Actraiser is way better than Final Fantasy.[Via Game|Life]
DS Fanboy Favorites: Jason's top five
All this week, the DS Fanboy staff is letting you in on a few of their favorite titles. Each day, a different member of the staff will present their personal top five DS games along with a snapshot of their gaming paraphernalia and habits, in an effort to provide our readers with a little more information on the tastes and personalities of our writers.It's odd; in the past two years, I've played my DS more than any other system, console or otherwise. However, I very rarely play outside of the comfort of my own room. Sure, I have the ten minute bus ride to campus everyday, and an hour break between classes, but the bus ride is relaxing and the hour I spend on campus, playing chess with some friends. It's really a testament to the quality of the library on the DS, that it would stand against the heavy-hitting consoles without the added advantage of portability.I'm a bit of a Renaissance gamer, playing titles far and wide. Sure, I've grown tired of the World War II shooters, but if a game is innovative and/or well-crafted, I'll give it a shot. I also like bunnies and salsa dancing and figure skating; I'm so macho.
Rumor: FFXIII chapter coming to the DS?
Final Fantasy XIII will be an odd beast, containing a primary entry (currently an exclusive for the PS3) and several spin-off titles, a la Final Fantasy VII; the collection as a whole will be entitled Fabula Nova Crystallis. However, only two spin-offs had been announced: Final Fantasy XIII Versus, also for the PS3, and Final Fantasy XIII Agito, available for mobile phones. These were apparently the only planned titles until the above (beside?) picture surfaced, clearly showing at least three more unknown entries in the series.Square-Enix knows how unbelievably profitable the DS is, and recently released review scores of FFXII: Revenant Wings will ensure solid sales in Japan. Personally, we find it hard to believe that one of these titles won't be coming to the DS, and heck, who knows ... there might even be a Wii title in there too.
Final Opera browser showdown with the PS3
So we're pretty happy with the Wii browser, and apparently you guys are too. Still, it's not a PC, and there are sites out there with whom our Opera browser doesn't play happily. It only features Flash 7.0, after all, and Java is a no-go. Still, can it handle some of the most popular sites out there? Games Digest takes the Wii browser on a spin through fifteen of the most popular sites in today's intertubes, and compares its performance with the PS3's built-in browser. We won't spoil the outcome.We're actually quite surprised at the Wii's performance at Last.fm, essentially radio over the internet. If you've got a killer sound system hooked up to your TV, you can set the jams on high and rock out. Just like we do. Check out which sites are Wii-friendly, and which not! You might be surprised.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 screens march forward
Famitsu has updated us with some brand-new screens for the highly-anticipated Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2: The Sealed Grimore. These new images confirm that the map system of old has been updated with what looks like smaller maps for each individual region, held together by one large over-map of Ivalice. Sure, there are other games with the label of Final Fantasy coming to the DS, but out of them all, aren't you most excited about this one? If not, why?We've gone ahead and put the images past the post break for your viewing convenience.
Here come two new VC challengers from Capcom
Two superb Capcom fighting games are headed to the Virtual Console. Final Fight and the inevitable Street Fighter II Turbo Hyper Fighting have been spotted on the ESRB's list of rated Wii games. The SNES version of Final Fight lacks co-op play and Guy, but has plenty of "Oh! My car" to satisfy us. Street Fighter II Turbo is just like Street Fighter II, but sped-up, with more moves, more characters, and some bizarre changes made to the color scheme. We aren't sure why we're explaining this, because everyone in the world has played enough Street Fighter II to know the different versions.Oh, also new on the list was Tecmo's Mighty Bomb Jack. As obscure game advocates, we feel like we should be most excited about this one, but ... yeah, Final Fight is really, really awesome.[Via Siliconera]
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: new fun-size screens
The name (Final Fantasy Crystal Chroncles: Ring of Fates) may be long, but the characters are all lil'. The party of adventurers looks like it's composed entirely of three-year-olds. Maybe it's a modern interpretation of the kind of character art found in the NES Final Fantasy games, but whatever the reason, we definitely appreciate toddling in our world-ending crises.Like the Gamecube version, you'll have to have friends nearby to play in multiplayer. However, unlike the Gamecube, pretty much everyone has a DS these days. Check out some screens after the break-- you'll want to e-pinch the characters' little virtual cheeks.
FFXII gets the preview treatment
Over at 1UP, they got their hands on a few Japanese magazines containing info on the highly-anticipated (by us, anyway) Final Fantasy XII spin-off title Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. In checking out their preview, we noticed that there is a lot of new information on the game. As such, we're doing the gentlemanly thing and presenting it to you, fine reader, in the most entertaining way possible: with our minds. Why yes, dear reader, in fact right now you are staring at a blank computer screen, it is us who have projected the image of this website into your mind and, might we say, it's awfully cold and vacant up here.Jokes about your intelligence aside, some of the newly-acquired facts on the title include: The game will feature over 50 different summons, with each varying in rank (three total ranks) The third rank summon may only be used once in each map A section of the airship will be used to house in-game achievements, taking the form of monuments The Salamander summon has been changed from a lizard to a wild boar [Thanks, Ibrahim!]
Lowenstein's 'final' interview: Game reviews influence industry
Doug Lowenstein, former president of the Electronic Software Association, left the industry and gave one "final" interview to GameDaily clarifying some former statements and the future of the industry. The four-page interview was conducted at the D.I.C.E. summit in January, apparently the transcription took over a month.Lowenstein says he was a bit harsh on the gaming press in his final D.I.C.E. speech, but he thinks game reviews are on the right path, "I don't think there's any other critical entity in entertainment in either music or film or television that has the power of the game press to affect the direction of its industry. Look at how many movies get crappy reviews that are top hits at the box office and how many get great critical acclaim and are commercial flops. And I don't read a lot of movie reviews anymore because they're so self important and I don't even understand what the hell their saying. So I don't want game criticism to start looking like that, because you start taking yourself too seriously and start trying to find meaning in things that isn't ever intended to be there; God no, let's not go there."Lowenstein leaves behind the legacy of the ESA, including the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the creation of E3, an anti-piracy program and all the advocacy he did on behalf of the gaming industry on the federal, state and local level.
DS Daily: New horizons
There have been a lot of familiar franchises on the DS, and we love them! But, and this is where a lot of the system's publicity comes from, there has also been an explosion of new genres and new experiences, as well as revivals of past trends. So, as hardcore gamers (the kind who read game blogs), has your gaming universe been expanded by the DS? Have you taken part in any completely new experiences? Played your first graphical text adventure? Minigame collection? Whatever Brain Age was?Or maybe what you discovered on the DS is something popular that you just missed out on for some reason, like Final Fantasy or Castlevania. We want to hear about your experiences! We want to know how the DS has affected your gaming tastes! We want to know how you classify Brain Age!
Details on final Opera browser
Over the past several years, our quest for information has lead us down defined roads, ones that very obviously do not lead to simply asking a company to divulge critical secrets. They are, of course, led by evil PR demons who stem the flow of knowledge in a manner than would leave many medieval theocracies rife with envy.This is why, when playNintendo simply sent an E-mail with a bunch of questions regarding the final release of the Opera browser, we expected nothing of it. Lo! Data rains down when least expected, and although many questions could not be answered, here are the highlights: The final release of the browser will be coming in late March or early April. Sweet. Though Opera will not be directly involved in the support of USB keyboards, Nintendo has not denied any possibilities. The wording seems to imply a special, Wii-branded keyboard is en route. The browser will be regularly updated by Opera. Things that wouldn't get answered: will Java be supported? Will those black bars above and below the pages be eliminated? Where's the tabbed browsing? Hmmm ....
Hot off the press: FFXII: Revenant Wings scans
A pair of pages featuring Final Fantasy XII from Famitsu magazine have been scanned and shot through the vast series of tubes that comprise the internet, eventually arriving on our digital doorstep. We now present said scans to you in an act of surrender kindness we hope will be valued. You're good people and deserve good scans. We'd include the scans past the post break, but they're fairly huge and would break the site's tables. Also, we'd translate the info, but our inability to translate Japanese script makes that impossible.Anyone want to take a stab at it?
Final Fantasy: Ring of Fates trailer
And rounding up the recent deluge of Square-Enix trailers from their annual Jump Festa event, this Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates trailer certainly impresses. There's some shiny text, and then a long, confusing sequence in which one tries to focus on five different scenes in the picture at once. Leave it to SE to try and simply overwhelm your senses ... they're rather good at that.The original Crystal Chronicles was a bit of a let-down, but this title can hopefully bring FF:CC out of the "crappy Final Fantasy spin-offs" category. Oh, and for a slightly higher quality version of the trailer, click here for the official movie from Square-Enix's website.(And did anyone check out what appeared to be a stylus-based fire spell around 1:41? Awesome.)[via Penny Arcade]
FF: CC screens show off single player and multiplayer screens
Famitsu published some screens and info via their website today. The screens (the top two are from single-player, with the bottom two providing a glimpse into the game's multiplayer) show some in-game sections of the title, but don't really reveal much. Aside from that, any online translation aid we've tried online has spit back indecipherable code. So, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place at the moment in trying to gain any further information than the game stars twins.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 confirmed for DS [update 1]
Back when the "Ivalice Alliance" was announced and a sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was unveiled, there was some confusion over which handheld system would reap the rewards. Surely, the DS is the hottest thing since the SN 1054 supernova in the Crab Nebula, but the "Advance" moniker was unsettling.Just kidding. No it wasn't. Square-Enix aren't a bunch of fools, and with the intense support they've been showing lately toward the machine of the future, this announcement was merely a formality. Hopefully, FFTA2 won't be a mess of obscure gameplay rules and can bring back what made the original Tactics so great ... Calculators.[Update 1: Wrong frackin' blog!]
Final Fantasy Tactics sequel on the way
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Final_Fantasy_Tactics_sequel_on_the_way'; In the latest issue of Japanese mag Shonen Jump, it's confirmed that some new Final Fantasy Tactics action will be gracing both Sony and Nintendo's handhelds, however, as usual, Nintendo is getting the better deal. See, the PSP is getting a remake of Final Fantasy Tactics, while the DS (or GBA, it's unconfirmed which handheld the game will appear on at this time) will be receiving a true blue sequel in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: The Sealed Black Book.Considering the recent release of Final Fantasy III, as well as Square's support of the DS with Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, not to mention the recent announcement of Dragon Quest IX being exclusive to the DS, we're banking on the game coming to the dual-screen handheld, as well. What do you guys think?[Via Joystiq]
Crystal Chronicles to be shown at Jump Festa
According to German gaming site GameFront, Square-Enix will have Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on-hand at Jump Festa, a gaming/anime/manga event held in Japan, taking place on the 16th and 17th of this month. The only information missing is just what version, or versions, of the game will be at the show. Will we see the new DS game or that installment that is Wii-bound? We'll update you as soon as we receive confirmation.[Via Go Nintendo]
