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Final Fantasy


hogso

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The FF games are a strange one for me. I feel like I'm a fan and I really want to love them, but I haven't really completed one since FF7.

FF1-3 I nailed on Wonderswan (yes, I owned a Wonderswan). The iconic FF4, I missed out on and regret it. FF5, I nabbed via emulator and sank a lot of hours into, but eventually got bored and never completed it. FF6: completed, liked. FF7: What more needs to be said? I agree with all the superlatives for that one.

Beyond that it's an ambiguous relationship. With FF8, I came to the party late after struggling to find a PC version. Once I played it, I enjoyed it right up until the point I completely lost interest and gave up. FF9, I borrowed my friend's slimline PS1 solely for the purposes of playing it, but he demanded it back just as I got to the endgame - I honestly can't even remember if by then I was enjoying it or not. For FF10, as I said in the 'proudest gaming achievements' thread, I sank maybe over 100 hours into it with the aid of another friend and 100%'ed the shit out of it - but I didn't enjoy that grind and I'm not even sure if I liked the main story.

FF11 = MMO = didn't touch it. FF12 & FF13: I don't own a PS3 and even if I did I'm not sure if I like the art direction.

So I suppose FF7 remains the series' last true hit for me. It really was a lasting classic in my memory though. Incidentally, when I was in Japan I managed to catch a live orchestral performance of music from the FF series, with a Q&A from Nobuo Uematsu and also I believe the first live performance of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8NGDsnv34M, which had enormous nostalgia value.

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  • 2 weeks later...
The producer of Final Fantasy XIII-2 has hinted the next full sequel in the Final Fantasy franchise could be an action role-player in the vein of BioWare's Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

'I think the nature of the franchise is to present something new each time,' said Yoshinori Kitase in an interview with Edge. 'In the global market we see many players moving away from games that used turn-based systems toward what you might term an action RPG.'

'That's a trend, and you ignore things like that at your peril,' he hinted.

The next game in the series is Final Fantasy XIII-2, only the second direct sequel in the franchise's history. Once it's released on February 3 though the future of the series is unclear, with massively multiplayer online game Final Fantasy XIV having proven a disaster.

Even Square Enix boss Yoichi Wada admitted that, 'the Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged' by the game. XIV has basically been restarted from scratch and still shows no sign of its promised PlayStation 3 release.

What Kitase seems to be talking about then is Final Fantasy XV, which would presumably be the first mainline game released for the next generation consoles.

Until XIII-2 is out the door Square Enix are unlikely to even acknowledge the game is underway, but it does seem as if the next title will be radically different:

'FFXIII and FFXIII-2's battle systems have those elements of speed and action that are the key words for us, though that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to stick to the same route in our next game,' said Kitase. 'That's something only time can tell.'

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There are far worse directions the franchise could go than being an Bioware-esque rip off. A major change would be nice to see in the next one

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I played the beta of the PC version (since the PS3 version got canned for the time being) for ff14 last summer, absolutely horrid horrid game. Didn't help that they build the ui with a console in mind (and then left it hideously broken for PC-mouse users) - the thing bombed, the developers got fired, several official apologies got issued and they're lining up a complete overhaul of the game and re-release shortly.

Thing is - I enjoyed FF11 (despite the need to basically play with a ton of notes on the side detailing numerous things, like which spells to cast for big explosions, what buffs each food items gave and which direction to sit in while crafting.) - but 14 just took all the stupid design decisions and cranked the stupidity up to 11 (like breaking mages down into various classes, but instead of sticking with red/black/white/blue from 11, they gave them incomprehensible names so you'd have no idea what kind of character you'd be playing).

Can't say I'd have higher hopes for the re-release either mind - but I'll probably do some research and see what's up with it.

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Square Enix talks Final Fantasy VII remake

A remake of Final Fantasy VII would is likely to deviate significantly from the original according to Square Enix's top producer, as rumours of a new next generation role-player emerges in Japan.

Any potential remake of classic role-playing game Final Fantasy VII would be very different to the original claims Square Enix producer Yoshinori Kitase, as the company once again stops short of announcing plans for a modernised version.

'If I may speak as a game creator, if we were to produce a remake of VII, for example, I would be really tempted to delete things and add new elements, new systems or whatever because if we were to make exactly the same thing now, it'd be like a repeat,' said Kitase in a new interview with The Official Xbox Magazine.

'It'd be an issue of repetition and not as much fun to make such a game. So I'd be really interested in rearranging games or reshaping games into something slightly different even though it's supposed to be the same game,'

'If we did that, the fans might be disappointed or [say] 'this is not what I was expecting' so in that sense maybe some might say that it's better to let memory be memory,' he admitted. 'When we play the games we made years ago, sometimes we think 'oh, that is not really cool' or 'that probably should have been a bit better than that' and that sort of thing.'

'But on the other hand, those slightly negative features and bits, for some of the really enthusiastic fans of these titles, that gives the game extra flavour or personality or whatever. So maybe they would rather we didn't do anything about it and we just leave it in as it is. It's very difficult to decide what we should we keep in and what we should take out.'

He's obviously thought about the remake then, but whether Square Enix are interested in fronting the money for such an enormous project remains to be seen.

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Wouldnt matter to me if it was a shot for shot HD remake, or a completely different take on the story with completely overhauled game play, I'd still buy it

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  • 1 month later...

Really enjoyed the FFXIII-2 demo. They've clearly taken alot of the FFXIII criticism into account, and re-introduced elements like towns (kind of), interactive NPCs (more so than just walking past them and they speak), shops, and Moogles. A Moogle that transforms into a giant bow and can control space & time no less. It does speak though, not so sure about that. Should just stick to kupo tbh. The battle system is more or less the same, as is the 'leveling up', which is fine as I thought both of those were good in the previous game. The inclusion of 'collecting' monsters you defeat, levelling them up, and having them fight with you is interesting. Sounds a bit pokemon-esque on that description, but it doesn't come across like that in the game.

They've also introducing a curious system for starting battles - it's a step backwards to random battles, but not quite all the way. Enemies will appear out of thin air (most of the time), and then you run at them (or away presumably, although I didn't do that myself) to start the battle. If you start the battle quick enough after they initially appear you get a pre-emptive strike.

It's a pretty good demo with retrospect to past FF demos. As I recall, the FFX demo was basically running down a road, having a few battles, and seeing a cutscene. The demo for VIII was lousy too. This goes quite some distance in showing off all the new stuff, and the improved stuff aswell, plus the new characters and a sizable chunk of the story from the first portion of the game. Well worth a look if you didn't like FFXIII I'd say - and definately worth a go if you did. It's on PSN now, don't know if it's a timed exclusive or whatevz.

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They've clearly taken alot of the FFXIII criticism into account, and re-introduced elements like towns (kind of), interactive NPCs (more so than just walking past them and they speak), shops, and Moogles.

Have they re-introduced actual gameplay then? :)

Once I'm done with Skyrim, I might dust off FF7 for old time's sake. I've been putting off a re-run as I told myself I couldn't be arsed to spend 60+ hours on one game again; Skyrim has re-evaluated my thinking on such things. Plus, I never did beat Emerald or Ruby Weapon.

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They've clearly taken alot of the FFXIII criticism into account, and re-introduced elements like towns (kind of), interactive NPCs (more so than just walking past them and they speak), shops, and Moogles.

Have they re-introduced actual gameplay then? :)

Oh yes; if you press O you can JUMP! Anytime you like!!

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  • 3 weeks later...
They've clearly taken alot of the FFXIII criticism into account, and re-introduced elements like towns (kind of), interactive NPCs (more so than just walking past them and they speak), shops, and Moogles.

Have they re-introduced actual gameplay then? :)

Once I'm done with Skyrim, I might dust off FF7 for old time's sake. I've been putting off a re-run as I told myself I couldn't be arsed to spend 60+ hours on one game again; Skyrim has re-evaluated my thinking on such things. Plus, I never did beat Emerald or Ruby Weapon.

Started FF7 this weekend. Great game. Can't wait to fail miserably at creating a Gold Chocobo and get ace materia. Avalanche **** rule.

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They've clearly taken alot of the FFXIII criticism into account, and re-introduced elements like towns (kind of), interactive NPCs (more so than just walking past them and they speak), shops, and Moogles.

Have they re-introduced actual gameplay then? :)

Once I'm done with Skyrim, I might dust off FF7 for old time's sake. I've been putting off a re-run as I told myself I couldn't be arsed to spend 60+ hours on one game again; Skyrim has re-evaluated my thinking on such things. Plus, I never did beat Emerald or Ruby Weapon.

Started FF7 this weekend. Great game. Can't wait to fail miserably at creating a Gold Chocobo and get ace materia. Avalanche **** rule.

Oooh I've got 4 "days off" in March when the Mrs takes little one to see a friend in Scotland..... I've now found what I will be doing that week!!!

:D

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the classics are/were on sale on psn at the weekend £3.99 each

As a hardened FF fanboy, I would advise against buying them off the EU PSN, and get them off of the US PSN instead. They were meant to be played in 60hz, not 50hz :detect:

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Anyone preordered this with game.net and had a dispatch notification?

Usually they send you a game the day before a release so was expecting it thursday havent had any notification yet though

They'll more than likely be shipping them out on Wednesday (which usually means it landing on Thursday).

I quite fancy grabbing the hard cover guide for FFXIII-2 too but I'm at work and the damn thing probably won't fit through the letterbox at home.

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