Square Enix

Square Enix Has Finally Realized That People Like JRPGs

Once upon a time ago, a Japanese company named Squaresoft made lots and lots of RPGs that people really really liked. Today, a Japanese company named Square Enix makes video games. One of those games, an RPG called Bravely Default, sold a lot of copies both in Japan and in the west, which has made…

Final Fantasy Turned into a Religious Experience

The Ise Grand Shrine is one of Japan’s most important Shinto Shrines. This week, as the Emperor and Empress visit, the shrine is launching a new web animation with music from Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. The tune might sound familiar. The composition closely resembles the Final Fantasy “Prelude”—if it’s not, you know, simply that…

It Takes A Special Game To Make Me This Obsessive, Bravely Default

I’m fifty-two hours into my first play-through of Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies. All four of my characters are level 99, each has all 24 of the game’s jobs mastered. I’ve not maxed-out levels and jobs in a Final Fantasy game in… ever. Recently Jason Schreier wrote about a column by BuzzFeed’s Rachel Sanders…

Final Fantasy XIV… As A Super Nintendo Game

Square Enix made this video. It’s wonderful—like their 16-bit FFXIII video—and makes me wish they’d turn this into a real game. Here’s what that boss looks like in the real Final Fantasy XIV, by the way:

Final Fantasy XIV Originally Failed Because of… Flowerpots

Well, that explains everything. As we all know, the first iteration of the second Final Fantasy MMORPG, released in 2010, pretty much sucked. Players were miffed, which prompted Square Enix to rework and re-release the game in 2013 as A Realm Reborn, to much better results. But what caused FFXIV to fail in the first…

13 Years Later, Final Fantasy X Is Still Great

I have spent ~20 hours playing the HD remake of Final Fantasy X—out today for PS3 and Vita. In short, it’s wonderful. Play it. To try to capture what my experience has been like, here are the notes I took while playing FFX on PS3, presented with no edits whatsoever: Wow this game looks great.…

Everyone Who Was Upset About Deus Ex: The Fall Can Play It On PC Now

Remember the outcry over Deus Ex: The Fall, the mobile side story to Square Enix’s hit Deus Ex: Human Revolution? The game just hit Steam, so everyone can be happy now. Yay! Well, except for console gamers, who’ll have to wait until someone turns it into a digital download for PSN or Xbox Live Arcade.…

Final Fantasy XIV’s 2.2 update is upon us. The changes are outlined in this eight-minute video, but the gist is this: new dungeons, new quests, a raid that’s supposed to be hard (the hardest the game has ever seen), and a way to swap armor stats that looks similar to Guild Wars 2’s transmutation system.…

The Final Fantasy Type-0 Fan Translation Comes Out In August

The story of Final Fantasy Type-0 is long and depressing: released for PSP in 2011, Square Enix’s role-playing game never made it outside of Japan, despite being announced at E3 in North America, and for years now, fans have been wondering whether we’ll ever get to play it in English. (Adding insult to injury: I’ve…

Things You Probably Don’t Know About Tetsuya Nomura

The first time you ever heard of him may have been from his character designs in Final Fantasy VII, but Tetsuya Nomura doesn’t consider Square Enix’s biggest hit to be his turning point in the video game industry. Nomura is currently the director for the latest installments of two of Square Enix’s major franchises –…

Tetsuya Nomura Picks The Three Best Lightning Fanart

Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy character designer Tetsuya Nomura recently judged a fanart contest at deviantART, which featured the Final Fantasy XIII series’ recurring protagonist and costume aficionado, Lightning. After looking through literally thousands of submissions, he picked three. Here they are. The press release announcing the winners also had comments from Nomura for each…

How To Make Your Face Look Like Lightning From Final Fantasy XIII

You may think that cosplaying as Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII is just about getting the hair, outfit and skinny-and-tall body frame right, but in order to nail that look down completely you’ll need to do some face work as well. Enter Emma Pickles, who has made this helpful makeup video tutorial for just that…

The Insane Just Cause 2 Multiplayer Will Soon Be Even More Insane

The ridiculous mod that allows folks to play with each other in Just Cause 2‘s map has always been wild, but now the enterprising people behind it are continuing to add features that will expand upon the madness. This 0.1.4 update, which is now in beta, will include earthquakes and wearable hats and heatseeking missiles.…

Deus Ex Facebook Page’s World Book Day Message: Don’t Read Books

One would think a series with its roots firmly planted in the seminal transhumanist science fiction of the 20th century would be a bit more respectful of the whole book-reading thing. Alas. Celebrated in the United Kingdom on the first Thursday of March, World Book Day is a yearly event organized by the United Nations…

Here’s What the New Mana Game Is About

Square Enix announced the latest Mana game yesterday with a trailer forRise of Mana. So what’s the game about? I mean, aside from a tree. The newly released trailer begins with the following narration: It was a place called “heaven” The side of light, Lasta, where the Great Tree grows, and the side of darkness,…

New Mana Game Is Coming To iOS And Android

Here’s the Japanese trailer of Rise of Mana, the newest entry in Square Enix’s Mana series. It’s a free to play action-RPG, coming to mobile devices. The iOS version will be out in the coming days in Japan, followed by an Android port sometime this year. There is currently no word on an international release.…

So What Did You Think Of Bravely Default‘s Second Half?

This post contains spoilers for Bravely Default It’s been two weeks since the wonderful 3DS RPG Bravely Default came out in America, so I think it’s fair to start talking about that horrible second half. As many of you must have realized by now, the first four chapters of Bravely Default ask you to go…

All The New Features In Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD

HD visuals, new dress-spheres, a crazy new tower dungeon in which every action is turn-based… these are the new features in the upcoming remakes of Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2, which are out on March 18 for PS3 and Vita. Really, the only thing not to be excited about here is that you…

Robocop, Titanfall, and Final Fantasy All at the Same Place

Their current publishing output may not be making folks happy. iOS releases like Final Fantasy VI may feel like some kind of bad joke. But, y’know what, the one arena where it feels like Square Enix can do no wrong is with their wonderful, wonderful toys. The collection below is the hottest stuff from Square…

Do Final Fantasy Fans Really Want More Lightning?

Square Enix believes that Lightning, the main character of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, has a lot of fans. In fact, according to FFXIII director Motomu Toriyama, Lightning is so beloved that she might start getting Square Enix Cameo Treatment. “We know that Lightning is an extremely popular character, even when compared to other Final…