• Ariana Grande Joins Final Fantasy


    Sensational pop star Ariana Grande is headed to Final Fantasy territory. In a tweet she wrote today the singer revealed that she will appear as a guest character in Final Fantasy Brave Exivus. There is a short clip of her character on her Instagram page which you can view here and a photo of her meeting Square Enix representatives which you can view below. Final Fantasy Brave Exivus released in October of 2015 for mobile devices in Japan, but didn't see a worldwide release until almost a year later in June 2016. Exvius features turn based RPG combat that the series is known for with some elements of Brave Frontier thrown in.



    There is currently no word on what exact role Ariana's character will play in the game and if it will be a free update or paid content, but given who she is it is likely the latter.

    This article was originally published in forum thread: Ariana Grande Joins Final Fantasy started by Depression Moon View original post
    Comments 83 Comments
    1. Depression Moon's Avatar
      Depression Moon -
      She looks like one too. She fits right in with Selphie, Rikku, Penelo, and Vanille.
    1. Squall Leonhart Loire's Avatar
      Squall Leonhart Loire -
      Eh.... someone remarked that the Japanese like her so much because she looks like an ideal doll or something... IDK like an anime character?
    1. Depression Moon's Avatar
      Depression Moon -
      That doesn't surprise me. She does look uber young, plus the whole cutesy thing she has going on.

      Edit: I did find out that she is an otaku though. There's a video of her speaking in Japanese. Too lazy to search for it at the moment.
    1. Fynn's Avatar
      Fynn -
      And someone mentioned she follows FFXV on twitter. Looks like he nerd dream came true.
    1. Night Fury's Avatar
      Night Fury -
      Well I guess as long as she can prove that she knows all the facts about every video game and anime ever made it's totally okay for her to be in a free mobile game.

      Unless she's just one of those fake nerd girls then she can GET OUT.
    1. Squall Leonhart Loire's Avatar
      Squall Leonhart Loire -
      Quote Originally Posted by Fynn View Post
      And someone mentioned she follows FFXV on twitter. Looks like he nerd dream came true.
      I think it's because she's involved with Square now...
    1. FFNut's Avatar
      FFNut -
      For al we know she may be a giant nerd who loves Final Fantasy. She could even be part of this forum under an alias.
    1. Fynn's Avatar
      Fynn -
      Quote Originally Posted by Night Fury View Post
      Well I guess as long as she can prove that she knows all the facts about every video game and anime ever made it's totally okay for her to be in a free mobile game.

      Unless she's just one of those fake nerd girls then she can GET OUT.
      I think the issue here is just explaining why they chose her of all people. I personally have no problem with her in the game no matter who she is because, like I said before, the mechanics of the game make it easy to implement something like this, but I also don't really care about the game so much. I find it pretty amusing, actually, that people who don't care about this game or mobile games at all complain how this ruins the game :

      Quote Originally Posted by Squall Leonhart Loire View Post
      Quote Originally Posted by Fynn View Post
      And someone mentioned she follows FFXV on twitter. Looks like he nerd dream came true.
      I think it's because she's involved with Square now...
      Pretty sure she followed it earlier. And really, what does it matter?
    1. Night Fury's Avatar
      Night Fury -
      The sexism is rampant in here! She does not need to prove that she is a fan. Nor should we be looking to try and frame her as 'fake' honestly. She has been paid to do a job and lend her likeness to a mobile game and she's excited about it. Leave her alone.
    1. FFNut's Avatar
      FFNut -
      Quote Originally Posted by Night Fury View Post
      The sexism is rampant in here! She does not need to prove that she is a fan. Nor should we be looking to try and frame her as 'fake' honestly. She has been paid to do a job and lend her likeness to a mobile game and she's excited about it. Leave her alone.

      I think you misunderstand me. I hate when a company uses anyone who is pop culture to sell a product. I would rather see them voice a person on a big game then just be made a Sprite to sell the online product.
    1. Night Fury's Avatar
      Night Fury -
      But... we don't know the extent of her character. She might just be a cameo, or she's may play a big part... she may be a seasonal.

      I don't see the harm in them using one of the biggest and most talented young pop stars of the moment in the game - it might bring a whole new young female audience to our series. I suspect she might even reel a few lgbtq in too and that's AMAZING - exposing the game to an audience who might not have given a trout. As a glamorous, dangerous woman myself (who has far too often been accused of being a fake nerd/had my nerd level questioned) I LOVE this and you know what? I think I'm more interested in playing this now!


      EDIT - and the design is sooooooo cute! It's so Bravely Default!
    1. FFNut's Avatar
      FFNut -
      I agree that it will open up to a new audience. I just fear that when that happens sometimes the need to put out new content gets pushed and the company will suffer in the end. Let's hope it is a true win win for everyone.
    1. Squall Leonhart Loire's Avatar
      Squall Leonhart Loire -
      Wait, who's being sexist?
    1. Night Fury's Avatar
      Night Fury -
      Also it's pretty dang obvious why they've chosen her - she'll be a bard/songstress character that is most likely a celebrity in game too. Similar to pop star Yuna of FFX-2. Biggest young pop star of the moment... why NOT Ari?
    1. Sephiroth's Avatar
      Sephiroth -
      First Gackt, now that. Also good to see that the obligatory "you sexist" card ist still popular on EoFF. Good old exaggerations.
    1. Psychotic's Avatar
      Psychotic -
      Quote Originally Posted by Night Fury View Post
      Unless she's just one of those fake nerd girls then she can GET OUT.
      You know what's worse than a fake nerd girl?

      (SPOILER)
    1. Aulayna's Avatar
      Aulayna -
      The more I think about this, the more genius it is.

      Brave Exvius is all about unlocking characters to use in battles. To unlock characters you have to use in-game currency, which are earned at an fairly slow rate by playing the game, or just simply bought with real money. Each unlock is a complete lottery as to which character you'll get - basically it's like you're opening Kinder Egg toy capsules and hoping to get one of the collectible figurines and not a trout jigsaw (incidentally, capsule toys are another big market in Asia... see where this is going?)

      Ariana has a huge following in Japan. Mobile games are extremely profitable in Japan.

      In the west shes a huge pop sensation and the mobile market is constantly growing. Social RPGs still don't do all that well in the west, with Kingdom Hearts UCX, FF Record Keeper and Brave Frontier being the outlier successes. Square owns the first 2, and incidentally the 3rd - Brave Frontier - is made by the same company who Square partnered with for Brave Exvius - might as well go for the hat-trick and corner that market space right?

      Get Ariana to "organically" market her involvement via her own social and watch the bankroll tick in.

      Even as a fan of the series, it's probably very likely that Square Enix has to pay some sort of royalty to her/her agent/her record label for the use of her likeness.

      So the likelihood is she will either be:
      a) Free, either as a usable character or a plot driver. In the hopes that her legions of fans will download the app, give it a go, and it's free-to-start structure will entice enough of those users to fork over some money to progress.

      b) Part of the random lottery, maybe even a "premium bundle" that has a higher chance to award rarer characters, to entice people into spending small, but frequent, amounts of money in the hopes of unlocking her.

      In return, her inclusion in the game might encourage people to check out her stuff, maybe net a few sales, and more than likely some sort of contractual profit sharing based on the number of sales during her availability.

      There's nothing altruistic or empowering about it. It's a smart business move. It'll piss off franchise loyalists, but to be fair a lot of franchise loyalists already think of the mobile titles in great disdain anyway, and they are probably in the minority when it comes to the revenue generation of these products.

      As someone who likes her games firmly separated from reality, and as a result finds celebrity endorsing/shoehorning to be sleazy at the best of times, I struggle to get behind this - but I can't deny it's a smart business move. In the long-run it isn't really going to affect me as mobile titles (in general) hold very little interest to me. So, cool? I guess.
    1. Depression Moon's Avatar
      Depression Moon -
      I doubt she's going to be free. You don't pay money to get a celebrity in your game and give trout away for free. Best believe they'll charge for the character.
    1. Psychotic's Avatar
      Psychotic -
      Nah, I think they're doing this to build the brand and their playerbase and in which case it makes sense to have her free or cheap. New players aren't the ones who are going to drop money on a mobile game, long timers are. Judging from how the Brave Exvius community has responded, well, they don't give any kind of smurf about her. They're not going to put down cash to get her.

      With that said, I bet that would change if she was a good character. Let me tell you what, I don't give any sort of a smurf who she is and have never heard any of her songs, but if they added her to FF Record Keeper and she had some ridiculously powerful stuff I'd go all out to get it! Having never played XIV I have no idea who Y'shtola, Alphinaud and Minfilia are but I dumped my mythril stash into trying to get their trout because it's good.
    1. Formalhaut's Avatar
      Formalhaut -
      Quote Originally Posted by Aulayna View Post
      The more I think about this, the more genius it is.
      It is pretty much a win-win. I think after my initial shock of 'what the hell is this' has worn off, I'm slightly more warm towards it.

      I never knew Ariana Grande was a fan of video gaming, though! Then again, I don't really follow celebrities, so she could be a fan of hand-gliding for all I know.
  • EoFF on Twitter

  • Square Enix on Twitter