Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy XIV‘s Director Talks Housing Shortage, PS4 Cross-Play, And Much More

Naoki Yoshida has become an icon to Final Fantasy XIV fans. When he logs into the game, his character gets mobbed. One of the reasons for his popularity is his willingness to get candid about all of the issues his game faces. Last week at E3 in Los Angeles, I spoke to Yoshida about some…

Final Fantasy XIV Director Plays Final Fantasy XIV, Gets Mobbed By Fans

Yesterday at E3 in Los Angeles, I went to Square Enix’s booth for an interview with Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida and found him in the middle of a session of his own game. As it turns out, he had been chatting with fans during his interview breaks. And getting mobbed. As his team…

Square Enix’s E3 Presentation Was A Joke

Expectations were high for the first E3 presser from Square Enix in three years. The publisher has a lot of exciting upcoming projects that we haven’t heard much about, including Final Fantasy VII Remake, The Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Naturally, Square Enix showed absolutely none of them. “That’s it?” was the resounding reaction…

Everything Square Enix Showed At E3 2018

It’s the third day of E3 press conferences, and Square Enix just showed up with… well, with a pretty disappointing show. The Japanese publisher had a couple of game announcements, some videos about games we already know about, and a pair of slightly longer looks at Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Just Cause 4.…

Final Fantasy IV Randomizer Mod Turns The Game Into An Open-World RPG

What would happen if you started off Final Fantasy IV with the airship? And if every boss and item in the game were made completely random? It’d turn into one big, sprawling treasure hunt, that’s what would happen. Final Fantasy IV Free Enterprise, a ROM hack that launched earlier this year, transforms the seminal Super…

Final Fantasy VII’s Cosmo Canyon Sequence Is A Meditation On Family, Sacrifice, And Existence Itself

My favorite Final Fantasy game is VII. But it’d been over a decade since I last played FFVII and I wondered how it would hold up. I downloaded the PS4 version and played through the entire game again. This time, Square gave players endless limit breaks, the option to avoid random battles, and the ability…

If Avengers: Infinity War Was A Retro Final Fantasy Game

It wasn’t! But if Infinity War had been, it might have looked something like this. The Avengers’ official Japanese account tweeted out this short FF-style recreation, with Thanos making a fitting—and seemingly unbeatable—last boss. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond.…

I Love Unfinished and Broken Games

I’ve been playing a lot of incomplete and glitchy games lately, from Radical Heights to Far Cry 2. Their messy imperfections often annoy players looking for sleek and polished experiences where everything runs smoothly but I find unfinished textures and falling out of bounds is strangely beautiful. When Final Fantasy XV’s demo Episode Duscae released…

Final Fantasy XV Is Never, Ever Going To End

Today at PAX East, Square Enix released this image (via ResetEra), proving definitively and thoroughly that Final Fantasy XV will never end thanks to downloadable content that’s currently planned through mid-2019. First up is Episode Ardyn, then Episode Aranea, then Episode Luna, then Episode Noctis, then Episode Bahamut, then Episode That Guy Who Looks Like…

Poll: The Most Beloved Japanese Games According To People From Around The World

The most recent issue of Weekly Famitsu polled 6,678 non-Japanese people, asking their opinions about Japanese video games. Which twenty did they say they liked most? Let’s find out! Here is the breakdown by age: Under 9 years old: 2 people In their teens: 717 people In their 20s: 4,429 people In their 30s: 1,378…

Square Enix is ending service for mobile game King’s Knight: Wrath of the Dark Dragon this June. “We would like to express our sincerest apologies for ending the service but we hope you have enjoyed your time with the game,” the company said via Twitter

The Game Franchises That Will Exist 100 Years Into The Future

Video games are still a relatively young medium. Many of the most iconic characters weren’t created that long ago. But what about a century from now? Which ones will remain? A thread on 2ch, Japan’s most popular bulletin board, covered those same questions. The answers probably won’t be a surprise, but here are some, but…

Final Fantasy XIV‘s New Eureka Area Is A Tedious Grind

The 4.25 patch for Final Fantasy XIV dropped today, adding theFFIII-inspired Forbidden Land of Eureka area to the game. It’s a magical island where players can group together and kill large numbers of creatures for very little reward until they fall asleep at the keyboard. Announced back in 2016 with the Stormblood expansion and delayed…

Square Enix Is Hiring “Core Members” For Final Fantasy VII Remake 

Wondering how development for Final Fantasy VII Remake is going? Good, I hope! While we wait to hear how things are progressing, know that Square Enix is hiring for the remake. A Japanese job listing put out a call for “core member” (コアメンバー) recruits, looking for those with game planner experience and especially those with…

A Peek Inside Final Fantasy‘s Ultimania Art Book, Now In English

In 2012, Square Enix Japan published a trio of Final Fantasy 25th Memorial Ultimania books collecting art, developer commentary and background information on the first 14 numbered Final Fantasy games. Now Dark Horse is publishing the books in English, with the first 336 page volume arriving in July. We got samples. Wanna see? Square Enix…

Behold, Square Enix’s Idol Fantasy The boy band smartphone sim is headed to iOS and Android this summer in Japan. It features character designs from Tetsuya Nomura, among others. No word yet about an international release.

Final Fantasy XV Is Great In First Person, Unless You’re Fighting

Final Fantasy XV’s Royal Edition update introduces a new first-person mode to the game, allowing players to witness the world of Eos from Noctis’ point of view. Just don’t try fighting with it turned on unless you’ve got a strong stomach. Pressing down the L3 and R3 buttons on the controller (or the N key…

Final Fantasy XV PC Handles Ultrawide Resolution Like A Champ

Some games don’t play well with ultrawide monitors, requiring mods or third-party programs to fill in the extra space properly. Final Fantasy XV PC’s ultrawide support is nearly perfect. As Jason Schreier reported yesterday, the PC version of Final Fantasy XV is looking good and playing good for both of us so far, but as…

Final Fantasy XV Sure Looks (And Runs) Great On PC

Final Fantasy XV looks good on consoles, but on PC, it feels like the game that we were meant to play two years ago. The PC version of Square Enix’s boy band extravaganza launched today, and from some initial testing (with me on a GTX 1080 and Fahey on a Radeon Vega RX 64), it’s…

Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition Adds A Big New Scene To The Final Act

Final Fantasy XV may be one of the strangest video games ever created, in large part because the developers have spent the past year and a half updating, changing, and adding new features to the game. And as of tomorrow, there’ll be a whole new story in the final act. We already knew that the…