Final Fantasy

When Can We Play Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn?

We’re just a few short weeks away from the grand re-launch of Final Fantasy XIV on August 27, but some folks are going to get to play even earlier than that. Break out your Lalafell swimsuit calendars as we mark down the final beta, early start, and welcome back campaigns for FFXIV. First up, new…

The Big Final Fantasy Question

Is Final Fantasy dead? Should we stop getting excited about the series? Is it time to abandon all hope? A great deal has been written about the decline of Square Enix’s titanic RPG franchise, and it’s hard to find a Final Fantasy fan who doesn’t have strong opinions about how the influential series has evolved…

What’s Your Favorite Video Game Boss Music?

The journey’s at an end. A final challenge awaits. Time for a guitar solo. It’s also time to list our favorite boss music. I’ve been wanting to ask this one for a while, and since getting inspired by a few other lists I saw floating around, I thought I’d make one of my own. I…

The fan-made Final Fantasy VII Web Series is “the subject of an intellectual property dispute,” according to its Kickstarter page. There’s also a link to a takedown notice, sent by Square Enix, in which they request the removal of the Kickstarter page as the project “is in infringement of [their] copyrights.”

For Some Reason, Lightning Returns Has Boob Jiggling

One of the best things about Final Fantasy heroines is that, generally speaking, they’ve tended to be strong females and haven’t really relied on fan service. Until now, that is. At a recent Q&A session with Lighting Returns: Final Fantasy XIII‘s developers, the following question was asked: “Is it true that Lightning went from a…

One Fan’s Quest To Remake Final Fantasy VII… In 2D

Forget the HD remake: what Final Fantasy VII really needs is a 2D remake. Just ask Lucas Brown, an Australian web developer who is building his very own two-dimensional slice of Square’s classic role-playing game, one sprite at a time. Although he doesn’t plan to re-create every scene in FFVII, Brown says he’s remade the…

Final Fantasy IV‘s Most Touching Moment, Re-Created With Beads

On first glance, this photo just looks like a printed image or something. Not too impressive. Then you realize it’s made entirely out of beads, and you’re like, “Holy crap.” Created by the folks at VGPerlers, who craft all sorts of works like this and sell them online, this bead-by-bead recreation of Palom and Porom’s…

This Unofficial Final Fantasy VII Web Series Sure Is Ballsy

You may remember the mock-up trailer that circulated last fall, promising an unofficial Final Fantasy VII fan film. At the time, director Gionata Medeot told me he wasn’t worried about Square Enix’s lawyers stepping in and trying to take it down. Well, today the team launched a Kickstarter to raise $400,000 for the project, which…

Yep, I’m Still Excited For Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

There’s a little voice inside my head. “Jason!” it sometimes screams at me. “Why are you excited for Lightning Returns? You disliked the first two! Square Enix is exploiting a character that nobody really cares about! You’re just going to be disappointed!” Well, voice, I don’t care what you say. This game looks cool. New…

This Final Fantasy Abbreviation Might Surprise You

Everybody knows that the “proper” abbreviation for Final Fantasy is “FF”, right? Nope! Recently, a website managed by the Japan Game Users Association asked over 300 Japanese gamers from teenage to 40-something about how they abbreviate Final Fantasy. Over 70 percent (70.7 percent to be exact) shorten Final Fantasy to “FF”. However, 17 percent said…

Look! Yuna came to visit me!

I love love love love Final Fantasy X. Like, seriously love it. So this is pretty much perfect and I need it.

Final Fantasy Composer Helping Out On Beautiful iPad Adventure

It’s been a long time since we heard from the gorgeous Oceanhorn, an iPad game that’s inspired by everything from Wind Waker to Seiken Densetsu. Long enough to make me worried about the project’s future. Which is silly, because the team were just saving themselves for a very pleasant, and unexpected surprise. The guys behind…

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Has Some Rockin’ Violin

Pretty CGI? Check. Awesome music? Check. No idea what’s going on? Check. Yep, this is Final Fantasy I’m digging what I’ve seen so far from the third FFXIII game, and this new trailer is pretty neat too. For more on Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (which is out this February for PS3 and Xbox 360),…

Final Fantasy XV: Everything We Know

The 15th Final Fantasy doesn’t have a release date yet, nor does it even have a release year, but there’s still plenty of information floating around about the next entry in Square Enix’s titanic flagship series. What used to be called Final Fantasy Versus XIII has been in development for over seven years now, and…

Final Fantasy XIV Isn’t Coming To Xbox Because Of A Silly Policy

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, the much-improved reincarnation of Square Enix’s online role-playing game, will be out on August 27 for PC and PS3, then later in the future for PS4. No Xbox 360. No Xbox One. Allow Naoki Yoshida to explain why. Speaking with RPGSite, the new director of FFXIV pointed a finger…

How To Make Final Fantasy VII Look Like An HD Remaster

If you’re playing the re-release of Final Fantasy VII on Steam, I have a friendly reminder for you: you can mod the game, just like the original PC release. Like we wrote last year, fans have been modding the PC version of FFVII for a long while—so much so that you could experience something like…

See What A Difference HD Makes For Final Fantasy X

Along with the news that every preorder of the Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster will be upgraded to the Limited Edition with a 24-page art book for a case, Square Enix also released a comparison video that demonstrates how much we probably could have done without this remaster. Smoothing out the jaggies is lovely and…

100 Things You Might Not Know About Final Fantasy VII

In honor of Final Fantasy VII‘s recent Steam re-release, here’s a video by YouTuber NEroNeRoNerON exploring some trivia from Square’s classic RPG. Some of these factoids are a little silly—yes, if you park the airship on an island, fly a gold chocobo across the water, and then release the chocobo, you’ll lose access to your…

Final Fantasy VII is out on Steam, so I thought this might be a good opportunity to point readers to “The Final Fantasy VII Letters,” a series Leigh Alexander and I wrote back in 2011. She was a FFVII veteran and I’d never played, and together we went on a journey that changed us forever.…

13 Minutes Of Gameplay From Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

No Random Encounters today—sorry!—but here, have 13 minutes of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII gameplay from the Japan Expo in France this week. For more on Lightning Returns, check out my hands-on impressions from E3 last month.