• 7Dec 07

  Square Enix Unveils Jump Festa Lineup

  New trailers for Final Fantasy XIII and Kingdom Hearts.

  Square Enix has unveiled its lineup for this year's Jump Festa. This year's installment of the annual December event sponsored by the folks that publish the Jump series of comics will be held at the Makhuari Messe just outside Tokyo on 12/22 and 12/23.
  
  Those who make it to the Square Enix booth, usually the largest booth amongst game publishers, can look forward to the following:
  
  Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road (arcade): Game will be playable at 100 yen per play. No limited edition cards are planned. A tournament will be held for elementary school kids on the 22nd and kid/parent pairs on the 23rd.
  
  Dragon Quest IV (NDS): Special data to be distributed to those with DS systems and a copy of the game. Make sure you've advanced to the 5th chapter.
  
  Final Fantasy IV (NDS): Playable
  
  Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon (WII): Video-only.
  
  Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (WII WARE): Video-only
  
  Final Fantasy Dissidia (PSP): New trailer in Closed Mega Theater
  
  Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (NDS): New trailer in Closed Mega Theater
  
  Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep (PSP): New trailer in Closed Mega Theater
  
  Kingdom Hearts Coded (Mobile): New trailer in Closed Mega Theater
  
  Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII (PS3/Mobile): New trailers in Closed Mega Theater
  
  Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete (Blu-ray): Video in Closed Mega Theater
  
  Star Ocean First Departure (PSP): Video-only
  
  Front Mission 2089 Border of Madness (NDS): Video-only
  
  There doesn't seem to be too much in the way of playable product in there, but the video footage in the closed, and tightly patrolled, theater should make this a worthwhile event. Look forward to coverage later this month!

  • Posted Dec 7, 2007 9:24 am GMT
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• 6Dec 07

  Top 100 Games of all time!!! (30 - 1)

  

  1. Super Mario Bros.

  2. Tetris

  3. Civilization II

  4. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

  5. Super Mario 64

  6. Half-Life 2

  7. Super Metroid

  8. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

  9. Final Fantasy III (US)

  10. Resident Evil 4

  11. StarCraft

  12. Star Wars: TIE Fighter (Collector's CD-ROM)

  13. Ms. Pac-Man

  14. Pirates! (1987)

  15. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

  16. Shadow of the Colossus

  17. Super Mario World

  18. Chrono Trigger

  19. Doom

  20. Metal Gear Solid

  21. X-COM: UFO Defense

  22. System Shock 2

  23. Super Mario Kart

  24. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior

  25. SimCity 2000

  26. Half-Life

  27. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

  28. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

  29. Dragon Warrior

  30. Metroid Prime

  • Posted Dec 6, 2007 2:21 pm GMT
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• 28Nov 07

  Nomura Talks FFXIII (Exclusivity, air ships, and a world map)

  Apparently, Final Fantasy VII placed quite highly in these so-called "Den-Play Awards." The game took the award for best story, best RPG, and best overall game. Cloud Strife took the award for best character, followed by the other vertices of his love triangle, Aeris at fifth and Tifa at eighth. Six characters in all placed in the top 50, with Sephiroth at 14th, Reno at 15th and Yuffie at 42nd.
  
  Awards awarded, Dengeki PlayStation took the opportunity to get FFXII director Yoshinori Kitase and character designer Tetsuya Nomura to sit down for a lengthy interview recapping the past ten years with the FFVII offshoot. The two offered a few short insights into upcoming projects.
  
  The magazine asked Nomura if Cloud's role will expand from here on out. To this, Nomura responded with, "I have my hands full with Final Fantasy Versus XIII now, so I can't say anything about the future, but the scenario writer, Nojima (Kazushige), says he doesn't want to part from Cloud yet, so there will surely be something."
  
  Next, the PS3 Final Fantasy games. The two were first asked to comment on the changes the move from the PS2 to the PS3 brings to the series.
  
  "On the hardware side," said Kitase, "thanks to the storage space of Blu-Ray and the inclusion of a hard drive, we're able to deal with load times. Regarding the production side of things, because it's a next generation machine, any and all sections require multiple times more work, so it's difficult. With FFVII, we advanced over previous games in all areas, but aiming for the same thing with the PS3 is difficult. For FFXIII, we're looking at what specific areas we should focus on improving."
  
  As for Nomura, the Versus XIII director said, "Compared to the move to the PS2, the move to the PS3 is more difficult. Planning and so-forth haven't changed much as far as work is concerned, but overall, the amount of graphics work has gone up considerably. You can show tiny details, so you have to make put tiny details in your illustrations."
  
  Getting a bit specific on the Versus project, Nomura continued, "It seems that the Versus team was, from the start, trying to get the full specifications out of the PS3, and that takes time. Just the other day, during a Versus meeting, a programmer asked, 'Is it okay to program with PS3 exclusivity in mind?'." I asked why, and he said, 'If we port it to other hardware, we have to program with that in mind.' I responded, 'Of course, Versus is PS3 exclusive.'"
  
  While Nomura admitted that Versus will still take a bit more time, he let slip a big hint on the final shape of the game: Versus may have airships and a world map.
  
  "The other day," said Nomura, "I saw a test of an airship flying over the world map. I felt that I was seeing a Final Fantasy-like screen for the first time in a long time. However, the fact that things have become realistic made us concerned about what to do about the scale. It's the same scale as past FF games, but even then, it's so wide that you can't make out the first town."
  
  Nomura seems to be confident in his team's ability to deliver with Versus, though. "We still haven't announced the Versus team, but there are some well-known members in there, so it will become a good product. Also, we're getting advice from the team working on FFXIII, which is being developed first, so we're progressing well."
  
  Square Enix usually shows new footage from its major titles at the annual Jump Festa event in Tokyo in late December. We'll be sure and let you know if anything related to FFXIII (or even FFVII) shows up.

  • Posted Nov 28, 2007 8:22 am GMT
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