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Final Fantasy XI update introduces more missions, a new zone, and more
Final Fantasy XI, despite being over a decade old, is receiving a rather substantial update today that will introduce a plethora of new content for players to enjoy, including new missions, quests, monsters, synthesis recipes, and even a new zone. Adventurers of Vana'diel will be able to put their skills to the test by participating in new Seekers of Adoulin missions and exploring the new zone of Outer Ra'Kaznar. Players who prefer to go it alone are also in for a treat, as the update also adds a selection of new alter egos to the Trust Initiative, providing a wider array of summonable NPCs with whom to adventure. In addition, Geomancers and Rune Fencers will now be able to undertake a series of quests that reward "relic-equivalent" equipment for those classes, and those already in possession of relic equipment can now reforge said relics to different item levels. On top of the new content, the update also brings a number of adjustments to existing game systems, including some rebalancing for the Puppetmaster, Dancer, and Rune Fencer classes and -- notably -- a major reduction in the amount of experience players lose upon death. That's only a small taste of the various additions and adjustments the latest update brings, but if you want every last detail, the full change log is available on the official FFXI forums at the link below.
Bravely Default launch trailer wallows in RPG nostalgia
If your expectations for a Square Enix roleplaying game are largely based on a childhood spent riding Chocobos, in turn-based combat or summoning Bahamut, the new Japanese launch trailer for Bravely Default: Flying Fairy should be right up your alley.
Ian Livingstone resigns as 'life president' of Square Enix
Square Enix "life president" Ian Livingstone has abandoned his post, citing a desire to "focus more time on the important projects he is working on outside of Square Enix." Square Enix acquired Eidos in 2009 and promoted Livingstone to "life president." At the time the new title seemed unprecedented. We polled academics from both Harvard and Wharton's business schools, and none were able to recall such a position, nor offer any commentary on Square Enix's move. Now that he's left Square Enix, Livingstone hopes to turn his attention toward charity efforts. His near-term plans include "setting up The Livingstone Foundation to open Free Schools and Academies" as well as continuing efforts to push UK authorities toward making computer science an element of basic education. Livingstone will also continue working as part of the games industry, both as an entrepreneur and an advisor for mobile and social games.
Remembering my favorite RPG: Valkyrie Profile
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. Around here, we have a bit of a tradition: If the resident JRPG columnist opts to move on, they finish their tenure by writing about their favorite role-playing game. Since this will be my last column with Joystiq, it's time to discuss how much I love Valkyrie Profile. Valkyrie Profile has pretty much everything I'm looking for in an RPG. It has solid customization; visual flair; a strong story; great music; and a large cast. But what really takes it above and beyond for me is that little added twist; that certain je ne sais quoi that really makes it something special.
Former president of Square Enix calls corporate merger a disaster
Corporate mergers always create hard feelings. Combining two separate groups of people into a single culture is naturally going to generate some feelings that the companies were better off apart. That's certainly the case for Hisashi Suzuki, the former president of Square Enix who recently called the merger of the two companies a "complete failure" via Twitter, claiming that the company has absolutely no vision for the future. It's undeniable that the studio has seen some titles with poor reception in recent years, with Final Fantasy XIV's launch proving a major misstep for the company at the time (and being the most relevant to the MMO industry). At the same time, Suzuki left the company seven years ago, and the company is in the process of completely revamping Final Fantasy XIV following the mistakes of launch. Whether or not Suzuki is correct or simply a bit bitter after the fact falls to personal interpretation.
My year long quest to defeat Grandia 2's (almost) final boss
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. Once upon a time, it took me a solid year to beat what I thought was the final boss of Grandia II.Now, before you start making fun of me, I want to point out that even one GameFAQs guide refers to Valmar's Core as "very extreemly (sic) absurdly abnormally ridiciously (sic) giganticly (sic) impossibly hard!!!" This was also right around 2000, and online help was a little harder to find at that time. I was more or less on my own.With that in mind, think about all the things that can make a final role-playing game boss difficult. In my experience, those elements include high speed, a wide variety of attacks that target the entire party, multiple body parts, and healing spells. Valmar's Core includes all of those elements and more, meaning that your only hope of killing the thing is removing its ability to heal itself before blitzing it. There's simply no way to last long enough to take out all three of its heads and its core before it wipes out your party.In many ways, it's the perfect final challenge for the JRPG in which the main wrinkle is that the protagonists and villains share one time bar in a race to see who acts first. The three heads and the core act independently of one another, which strains the ability to interrupt the icons with an attack before they reach the point where they can attack -- the main mechanic -- to the absolute limit. One mistake, and Valmar's Core will show no mercy.
Final Fantasy XIV server merges reassessed; merges to take place in March
Only four days ago, Square-Enix announced that it would be reevaluating the previously announced Final Fantasy XIV server merges based on player feedback. Well, it looks like the reassessment is complete, and the server merge details have been solidified. In a post on FFXIV's Lodestone website, the studio announced that server merges will be taking place next month on Tuesday, March 27th. The stated reason for the server merge is "to improve the player experience during the period up to the launch of FFXIV version 2.0." The studio goes on to add that "new worlds may be added in the future, for example after the relaunch or when player numbers increase." Beginning on March 1st, players will be able to use the site's world transfer application page in order to declare their destination servers. It's worth noting that the early bird gets the worm, and by worm we mean server of choice, due to the fact that once a world reaches its population cap, it will (obviously) no longer be available as a destination. To get the full details on the upcoming server transfers, just click on through the link below to the official Lodestone announcement.
Remembering an underappreciated JRPG trilogy
This is a column by Jason Schreier dedicated to the analysis (and occasional mocking) of his favorite genre, the Japanese role-playing game. Whether it's because they're too antiquated or just too niche, he believes JRPGs don't get enough attention in the gaming industry today. It's time to change that. As gamers, we spend a lot of time playing God. Whether it's building worlds in Minecraft or destroying them in Skyrim, we're always looking for ways to manipulate forces that are normally beyond our control. Some games even allow us to play God in less subtle ways. Simulation games like Ubisoft's From Dust and 2K's Civilization series allow us to steer the course of history and directly guide the fates of entire populations. These deity simulators are all well and good, but what if you want a more personal holy adventure? What if instead of playing as a god, you want to work for one? Or destroy one? Well then, you need to check out the Soul Blazer trilogy.
FFXIII-2 first week sales roughly a third of FFXIII's first week sales
Final Fantasy XIII-2, the latest sequel-sequel from the androgyny JRPG veterans at Square Enix, has closed its first week of sales in the land of the rising sun, with somewhat mixed results. The PS3 version of the title has sold 524,000 units according to Andriasang's translation of Media Create's extremely Japanese sales data, making it the number 1 selling title for the period. This is in stark contrast to the 360 version of the game, which entered the charts at number 48 with a comparatively minuscule 10,000 units sold. Having the number 1 game in Japan is definitely nothing to be ashamed of, but the accomplishment seems somewhat less impressive when compared to Final Fantasy XIII's combined first-week sales of 1,502,000 copies, nearly three times XIII-2's combined 525,000. Media Create attributes the drop in sales to a drop in interest among Japanese female gamers: 22.2 percent of women surveyed were interested in XIII-2, down nearly ten points from XIII's 31.3 percent Japanese female interest rate. It's also possible that the interest decline among Japanese women was negligible at best, considering that the game was the best selling release in the country.
Digital Storm's slim Enix desktop takes Sandy Bridge to 4.7GHz
Overclocked, custom-built PCs are nothing new, and neither is 4.7GHz from the factory. But Digital Storm has managed to take one of Intel's newest Sandy Bridge chips to that height, and it's doing so in a case that's far sleeker than most of the towers out there. The all-new Enix relies on a Micro-ATX system board, vertical heat dissipation and a mobo that's rotating 90 degrees -- a move that's being made in order to "take advantage of heat's natural tendency to rise." Consumers can order one starting today, with the $1,132 base unit boasting a Core i3-2100, 4GB of DDR3-1600 memory, NVIDIA's 1GB GeForce GT 220, a 1TB hard drive and a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. The high-end model tops out at just north of two large, with each model offering a hot-swap bay and a pair of USB 3.0 ports. Eye candy is below, and the source link shouldn't be ventured to unless you're fairly immune to impulse buys. %Gallery-114981%
Super Punch-Out!! and rare Ogre Battle rated by ESRB
That copy of Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen you stashed under the mattress to partly fund your early retirement just got a whole lot less valuable. The ESRB has rated the rare Enix RPG for a Virtual Console release, along with another, more widely known SNES gem: Super Punch-Out!!. Is Nintendo planning to release the classic pugilist title alongside its modern Wii equivalent, as it did in the case of Super Metroid and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption? Perhaps!Those aren't the only surprises in the latest ESRB ratings: Lonpos, a launch title for the Japanese WiiWare service no less, has also been classified. As it's been a while, here's a reminder of what it looks like:%Gallery-19077%
Dragon Quest IX coming March 2009 in Japan
After almost two years of waiting, Square Enix has dated Dragon Quest IX. Sort of. Staying true to its previous promise of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009, the company plans to launch the game in Japan sometime next March (Protip: If you don't know Japanese, just keep an eye out for 2009?). No international release has been set, but we're willing to bet the game will see a US release before the impending 2012 apocalypse. Square Enix is hosting a 90-minute Dragon Quest session each day at this month's Tokyo Game Show. [Via Siliconera]
Here comes the Heavenly Bride, all dressed in a DQV promotional trailer
Though Dragon Quest IV hasn't even washed up onto U.S. shores yet (look for it in September), Japan is gearing up for Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride's release on July 17th with a new trailer. We can't complain too much about the wait, however, as publisher Square Enix has already announced that it will be bringing its DQV and DQVI (both originally released for the Super Famicom) remakes to the states eventually, having kept the two games in Japan for over 15 years. Comparatively speaking, a one- or two-year wait for DQV DS isn't that long! %Gallery-12146% [Via NeoGAF]
Promotional Consideration: Dragon Quest IV commercials were weird
With the Dragon Quest IV DS remake announced for the US and Europe this week, we thought it'd be good a time to dig up Enix's commercials for the original Famicom game's release in Japan. They're completely different from the retro ads used last November when the DS remake shipped.As with Squaresoft's chocobo commercials for Final Fantasy IV on the Super Famicom (launching a little over a year after Dragon Quest IV), these ads were just plain odd! They show hardly any in-game video, relying on logos and recognizable theme music instead. Gather your party and meet us in the fifth chapter, past the post break, for the commercials.
The history of Dragon Quest IV boxart
Square Enix released an image of the box for the North American release of the Dragon Quest IV remake, and it looks pretty nice! It suffers from Akira Toriyama "every character looks exactly the same" syndrome, but there's not really much that can be done about that! It's the same art as the Japanese version, with a more traditional layout, highlighting the hero.Dragon Quest IV has been sold a bunch of times over the years, on three different systems, so it's naturally had a few different box designs. We thought it might be interesting to show you the boxarts for each iteration of the game. Well, not all of them -- we've omitted stuff like the budget rereleases of the PlayStation version, because they're exactly the same art with a different border.Out of all the variations, we like the art on the Famicom release the best. It seems the most dynamic and exciting. We think we like the NES version's art the least, because there isn't any.%Gallery-23461%
Dragon Quest V: Heavenly Screens
The website for the Dragon Quest V re-remake (probably to be titled Dragon Quest V: Heavenly Bride in its probable U.S. release) has been updated with character art and a little bit of history about the game. Most importantly for English readers, it's been updated with screens -- tons of them, in one- and two-screen format. You can look at pictures of the party (tiny horse and carriage and all) walking in towns, fields, and dungeons and pretty much get the idea. Dragon Quest V appears to be cleaning up beautifully, proving that even if developer Artepiazza isn't the most adept at creating Wii RPGs (except by default), they're certainly up to the task of recreating RPGs on the DS. [Via NeoGAF]
How well do you know your Zelda grass? [update]
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/How_well_do_you_know_your_Zelda_grass'; So, you think you're a hardcore gamer? Maybe you are. But, how well do you know your grass samples?These posters, which are being sold at a Viennese store called Subotron for €12 ($19 USD) each, will really put you to the test. To help you out a bit, there are two samples from The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, while the other four are from Terranigma, Illusion of Gaia, Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana), and Seiken Densetsu 3 (Secret of Mana 2). All the games without the word "Zelda" in them were published by either Squaresoft or Enix, which is why we haven't gotten them (and might never get them) on the Virtual Console.See if you can figure out what game each sample belongs to (despite the poor resolution). Don't worry if you can't discern which is which, though -- we've posted the answers after the break.
Square wins plagiarism case against Korean music video
Imitation isn't only the sincerest form of flattery, it's also the most legally actionable. At least it is to Square Enix, which recently won a plagiarism case against South Korean music video producer Fantom to the tune of 16 million won (approx. $17,400).The case centers on the video for the song Temptation Sonata, in which live actors recreate a scene from Square Enix's animated movie, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. According to a judge for the Seoul Central District Court, the video "illegally used 80% of the storyline, setting, characters and their styles of dress and their demeanors," from the movie scene. We're not sure how the judge came to such an exact statistic, but who are we to argue with such an official sounding pronouncement?A comparison of the videos (both viewable below the break) shows much more than a passing similarity between the two, and Square was definitely within its rights taking legal action. That said, we have to wonder what Square Enix felt it had to gain from a court case. Is this video really hurting the company's ability to milk insane amounts of money out off the Final Fantasy franchise? Does seeing the video makes someone less likely to buy a copy of Advent Children? What's next, a legal case against the makers of College Saga? We just hope the negative PR associated with this case is worth the massive $17,000 pay day Square Enix made off of it.
It's a Wonderful World (outside of Japan)
var digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/nintendo/It_s_a_Wonderful_World_outside_of_Japan'; The game we've had our eye on for quite some time, Square Enix's It's a Wonderful World, is going to be releasing outside of Japan. Titled The World Ends with You, the game will supposedly be released in the spring of 2008 to North America and Europe. As you already know, it was developed by the team behind the Kingdom Hearts series of games.In case you missed our previous coverage of the game in action, it's pretty busy regarding gameplay, but in a good way. We wonder if Square will decide to release any special edition DS Lite with the game like they did in Japan?
Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon site gets updated
The Japanese website for Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon (you know, that game starring that delicious looking cute little yellow bird) has been updated, provided the internet surfer looking for more juicy content just what they desire most. No, it isn't a fabulous recipe for extra crispy, deep fried Chocobo (is it so wrong that we spend a lot of time thinking about how delicious a fictional creature is?), it's new stuff about the upcoming game.There is new screens, some art and a closer look at the different job classes on over at the site, so give it a look.%Gallery-9664%[Via Go Nintendo]
