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You can almost hear Terra’s Theme in the background in artist Carlos Villa‘s excellent reinterpretation of Final Fantasy VI’s grand opening Magitek Armored troops are about to enter the remote town of Narshe. Narshe by zano [DeviantART] Dayshot is an image-based feature that runs every morning, showcasing some of the prettiest, funniest game-related screenshots and…
By Gergo Vas Published April 16, 2014 -
Kotaku East
A Square Enix mobile developer has recently talked to Famitsu (via Siliconera) about a pair of new SaGa and Mana games which will “stay true to all [our] memories from the [SNES] and PlayStation era.” The developer also mentioned that Square Enix’s second mobile division would be “helping out” with the games.
By András Neltz Published April 15, 2014 -
Kotaku EastHow True are Japan’s Latest Gaming Rumors?
The gaming industry is constantly full of rumors. More so in April where you have the gullible falling for all the crazy April Fools pranks that pop up. This week, Japanese gaming mag Weekly Famitsu went through the trouble of gathering up a bunch of rumors and seeking the validity of them a la Mythbusters…
By Toshi Nakamura Published April 10, 2014 -
Kotaku EastI Hope JRPGs Use This Stunning Photoreal Tech
Japan’s Silicon Studio is perhaps best known for co-developing the Bravely Default games with Square Enix. The studio has a new, next-gen game engine, and it looks beautiful. According to Silicon Studio, the rendering engine is working in real time. This is, of course, a tech demo, and as a tech demo, you shouldn’t necessarily…
By Brian Ashcraft Published April 8, 2014 -
Japan’s Big RPG Bubble
Earlier this week, Square Enix boss Yosuke Matsuda said some things that left a whole lot of RPG fans scratching their heads. “Due to having split [the development mindset] according to regions around the world, we weren’t able to see this clearly up until now, but fans of JRPGs are really spread around the world,”…
By Jason Schreier Published April 4, 2014 -
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…
By Jason Schreier Published March 31, 2014 -
Kotaku EastFinal 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…
By Brian Ashcraft Published March 26, 2014 -
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…
By Mike Fahey Published March 23, 2014 -
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…
By András Neltz Published March 21, 2014 -
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.…
By Jason Schreier Published March 18, 2014 -
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.…
By Mike Fahey Published March 18, 2014 -
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.…
By András Neltz Published March 14, 2014 -
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…
By Jason Schreier Published March 13, 2014 -
Kotaku East
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 –…
By Toshi Nakamura Published March 13, 2014 -
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…
By András Neltz Published March 11, 2014 -
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…
By Phil Owen Published March 9, 2014
