By: Lesley Smith

Standing outside Square Enix's UK offices is a surreal experience. Slap bang in the middle of London, a stone's throw from the river and a massive roundabout, only the plain sign betrays that inside a normal building is the offices of the publisher responsible for so many great franchises. And my reason for standing there? To mark the European release of Final Fantasy III on the DS and the German and French versions of Final Fantasy XI, Square Enix arranged a press event and interview opportunities with Tanaka Hiromichi-san.

Strolling onto their floor, the first thing which greets you in the lobby is a life-size statue of one of Final Fantasy XII's fearsome Archadian Judges in full armor. PR maestro Alex Huhtala had explained their UK headquarters was just your run-of-the-mill office but, to be fair, normal offices don't have giant armor-wearing Judges! The rest of the floor is just as colorful, walls are decorated with framed Japanese adverts, there are huge replica boxes and standees for Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest and, of course, various installments of Final Fantasy.

Moments later I was guided into a large meeting room, dominated by a projector looping footage of Final Fantasy XI and two PCs running the different versions of the game. I grabbed a quick drink and had a go, I have a little knowledge of French and a lot of German from high school and both come in handy. As I played, I started chatting to one of the localisation folk who explained a little about the process.

As lunch rolled in and Square Enix employees began appearing out of the woodwork. it was time to mingle. As well as representatives from various websites and magazines, there was the editorial team from Official Nintendo Magazine, half of Square Enix's own PR department, Tanaka-san himself and his translator Saori-san.

I did find time to play on Final Fantasy III. Like many gamers I've played the original via emulators but the DS version boasts souped up graphics, a truly stunning opening FMV and the use of the touch screen is intuitive and very easy to use. I'm not the world's biggest RPG fan (I prefer games with a beginning, middle and end, rather that ones which require dozens of hours levelling up) but I was impressed. The random battles was a little annoying the I can't wait to get my hands on the final code.

Although I didn't get as much time to play the game as I'd have liked. Final Fantasy III certainly looks to be an excellent port. The touch screen lets you direct characters with a finger or stylus. It did take me a few minutes to figure out exactly how to navigate Luneth through a dungeon but the learning curve is about two minutes. Double tapping will trigger attacks on enemies or open chests and while there is a menu screen, the controls now revolve around the DS Lite's revolutionary feature. The characters are rendered in 3-D with 2-D environments that are much more graphically intensive. Okay the game would never pass on a TV screen but that's not the point; it's ideally suited to the DS and has lots of interesting WiFi options, so I'm told. I got to play from a ROM cart so I don't think all the features, bar the English translation itself were present.

Finally it was time to meet The Man himself. Together with Adam Riley of the Nintendo website Cubed, we headed into an adjacent room to be introduced to Tanaka-san. I normally get nervous when I'm interviewing and this was the second time I'd gotten to grill a founding member of the Final Fantasy franchise. It's still quite a nerve-racking experience and my eyes kept wandering to the DS Lite on the table which was looping the gorgeous Final Fantasy III FMV.

Tanaka-san even had the first Limited Edition Final Fantasy III DS Lite with him. A great photo op was had and Alex made sure to hand me a black gift bag filled with goodies including seven limited edition Final Fantasy III figures (three of which aren't being released in Europe) and a Final Fantasy XI USB drive. Swag just makes press events that much sweeter. While the event was a lot more relaxed and low key than others I've been to (and, frankly, I prefer them like that), it was an excellent day and well worth the four hour train trip down to London Town.

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