Final Fantasy

My Decision-Packed Return To Final Fantasy XV

Having recently acquired a Playstation 4 Pro, I sat down to decide what game I would play with its graphical boosts. After some consideration, I opted for Final Fantasy XV. I played it when it first came out and enjoyed it a lot. But the game’s grown since then, with DLC campaigns, expanded story sequences,…

I Feel Guilty Accepting Help In Final Fantasy XIV

It’s the holiday season, which means I’ve been unwinding with my secret favorite game of 2018, Final Fantasy XIV, and leveling up character classes. I started leveling Blacksmith in order to make a friend a holiday gift, but I found myself propelled to higher levels thanks to unprompted charity from peers. It’s made me wonder:…

Final Fantasy XIV Update 4.5 Brings The Blue Mages Next Month

Before Final Fantasy XIV players can move on to this summer’s Shadowbringers expansion, we’ve got to finish the story of last year’s Stormblood. Part one of the epic conclusion arrives on January 8 in update 4.5, A Requiem For Heroes. A week later, the Blue Mages arrive. Blue Mages, one of the most player-requested professions…

Behold, Glorious Final Fantasy Sake 

Sake maker Kokuryu produces excellent sake. The Fukui-based brewery is teaming up with Square Enix to make some more. In the mid-1970s, the brewery’s owner Masato Mizuno started aging their high-grade sake after being influenced by French wine maturation techniques. Kokuryu ages its daiginjo sake (sake with a rice polishing ratio of under 50 percent)…

Katy Perry Is In A Final Fantasy Game

Ah, it wasn’t that long ago it was a strange thing to type the words “Ariana Grande Is In A Final Fantasy Game”. And yet here we are once more, typing “Katy Perry Is In A Final Fantasy Game”. It’s the same game—mobile title Brave Exvius—and she’ll be appearing as “multiple playable characters” from December…

Composer Nobuo Uematsu has announced on his Facebook page that he will begin playing concerts in Japan next year. He still hasn’t decided when he will return to composing. It sounds like his health is improving. Good news!

Damn, It Feels Good To Be A Healer

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of violent games for work. In the last week, I’ve thrown knives and lit people on fire in Battlefield V, blasted people away with my revolver in Red Dead Online, and engaged in all sorts of wacky assassinations in Hitman 2. It’s often a lot of fun, but every…

Final Fantasy XIV‘s Next Expansion Is Shadowbringers, Coming Summer 2019

Announced today at Square Enix’s annual Final Fantasy XIV Fanfest, the popular online game’s third expansion, Shadowbringers, is coming early summer 2019. Expect an expansive story, a raised level cap and multiple new jobs—including one wielding a gunblade. And did somebody say playable Viera and Blue Mages? Now that players have freed Ala Mhigo and…

Tetsuya Nomura Says Final Fantasy VII Remake Is Progressing Well

Final Fantasy VII Remake was first announced back in 2015 with third-party studio CyberConnect2 handling development. Last year, development was moved in-house at Square Enix. Tetsuya Nomura says things are going well. Earlier this year, there was a Japanese job listing for “core members” for the remake. In a recent Famitsu interview, Nomura briefly discussed…

Matt Leone’s excellent oral history of Final Fantasy VII has been turned into a book by Read Only Memories, with some extra content and gorgeous art added to the original interviews. I just got a copy and it’s great.

This Role-Playing Game Event Logo Sure Looks Familiar

“Brave Ground” is an upcoming event for role-playing game GranBlue Fantasy. I feel like I’ve seen it before. Yes, yes I have. As My Game News Flash points out, the logo appears to resemble Final Fantasy XIV’s emblem. Fans quickly noticed the similarity.

The Death Of Final Fantasy XV DLC Memorialized In Mod 

Last week, it was announced that 75 percent of Final Fantasy XV’s upcoming downloadable content was canceled. This past spring, it was announced that there were four more DLC episodes, called Ardyn, Aranea, Luna and Noctis. Only Ardyn remains, and it’s slated for March 2019. The others have been killed off. Requiescat in pace. As…

The Final Fantasy XIII series—the original, XIII-2, and Lightning Returns—are all heading to Xbox One’s backward compatibility next week, Square Enix said at X018 today. They join the other Final Fantasy classics heading to Xbox One in 2019.

Yuna Is Coming To Dissidia Final Fantasy NT

The summoner Yuna is making her way from Final Fantasy X (and the criminally overlooked Final Fantasy X-2) to the arena brawler Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, and she’s bringing a big friend. Dissidia NT is a little bit of a complicated game, and despite putting a couple dozen hours into it I wouldn’t say that…

PlayStation Classic Plays Fine, But It’s A Bare-Bones Experience

With the PlayStation Classic’s release less than a month away, I went to PlayStation HQ this week for three hours of hands-on time with Sony’s nostalgic mini-console. It plays its selection of 32-bit classics like Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil: Director’s Cut just fine, but the features of the device are pretty much the…

75% Of Final Fantasy XV’s Remaining DLC Just Got Cancelled

Square Enix just announced in a livestream that three of the four upcoming pieces of downloadable content for Final Fantasy XV have been cancelled. The one remaining will be out next year. Back in April, we were told there’d be four more pieces of DLC coming for the 2016 game, with episodes called Ardyn, Aranea,…

An Excellent Way To Start Playing The Final Fantasy Trading Card Game

After two years of purchasing booster packs simply to admire the gorgeous artof Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Trading Card Game, I’m finally ready to play, thanks to the incredibly handy “Villains & Heroes” two-player starter set. While my main motivation for gathering Final Fantasy TCG cards is to sniff the ink and lovingly stroke the…

Final Fantasy XIV‘s Player-Run Tournaments Embrace The Fun Of Random Chance

Most players adventuring in Final Fantasy XIV worry about what new piece of loot will drop from a difficult dungeon or if they can earn enough rewards in PVP to unlock that one emote they like. But some players lean toward the more creative side, hosting massive roleplaying events. Combat in these events is mostly…

Final Fantasy VII Cosplay Is The Hero, Not The Villain Here

Natane Eklund works by day as an artist in the video game industry, but over the past year she’s also been toiling away on a gaming project of a different kind: a full 1:1 replica of Sephiroth’s Final Fantasy VII costume, complete with Jenova prop. It really is something else; you tend to see a…

Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu announced on his blog that he will be taking an indefinite hiatus from work due to illness and fatigue. “I have decided to take an extended leave of absence and give my mind and body the time they need to properly mend,” he said. “If I am to return, I…