Today, Square-Enix released a new gameplay video for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, this one featuring quests and combat. Check it out below!
Throughout the video, you see a character accepting quests and returning with them completed, which gives us a good look into the new quest system and UI. Everything looks more smooth and streamlined than the old version, including the dialogue. There’s the Duty List on the much-less-cluttered side of the screen where you can simply click and be shown a separate map with your quest targets. The screen looks cleaner, and navigating the options is quicker and easier.
The video also shows instances of characters in combat against multiple foes. Unlike the original combat, the player is not simply sitting there the majority of the time. Instead, the player is constantly clicking and targeting, waiting only for abilities/spells to recharge, which takes much less time. New changes include weaponskills being usable to initiate a battle, and
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Hiromichi Tanaka - Hiromichi Tanaka left college with Sakaguchi so they could join Square and make video games. Tanaka is best known for being a key designer for the first three Final Fantasy games being one of the founders of the Job Class system. He later moved onto work on the Seiken Densetsu (Mana) series and Chrono franchises before being brought back to work as the producer for FFXI, which he considers to be an evolution of FFIII. Later on he helmed the remake of FFIII for the DS and was tasked developing FFXIV. Due to the commercial failure of FFXIV, Tanaka stepped down from the development team and later retired from Square-Enix. He remains a controversial figure for the FF MMO community but is probably most well-known and beloved by the Mana and Chrono fans.
Kazushige Nojima - Nojima joined Square sometime in the mid-90s making his debut as the director of the cult Super Famicom game Bahamut Lagoon. His first and most notable intro to the series was working with Kitase in adapting the original story by Nomura and Sakaguchi for FFVII.
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So I was asked to give a helpful guideline of the movers and shakers of our beloved FF series so people will have a more educated idea of who to vote fir in the 25th Anniversary Ciddies.
Part One: The Big Guns
Hironobu Sakaguchi - Creator of Final Fantasy, Sakaguchi was the director, designer, and producer of the first five Final Fantasy games. He stepped down from this position during FFVI's development but still worked on as a producer and later executive producer for the rest of the series until he left Square in 2002. Sakaguchi was also one of the Big 3 of the creation of Chrono Trigger, he promoted the use of Mode 7 and the jump to Sony's CD based system to better utilize technology for the series. He wrote the original story with Tetsuya Nomura for FFVII, came up with the concept for Parasite Eve, and was the Executive Producer for most of Square's non-FF titles released in the PS1 era. His creation and push for technology made Square into a powerhouse but his foray into the movie industry nearly bankrupt the company with the commercial failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. He currently runs his own game development company
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Square Enix has been in development of a new social game with the company GREE. GREE was the developer of the game, with SE acting as a supervisor to the project. Although SE is not developing the game, GREE is a champion on the social gaming field and already has developed a game with SE before: The World Ends With You Live Remix. On November 30th this second game went live in Japan, and is named Final Fantasy Artniks.
The gameplay of Artniks revolves around finding character cards of various characters through the Final Fantasy universe and using them to battle monsters and enemies from the series.
It is a social game, because you can party with other players to fight! Occasionally there will be "wanted" enemies that will reward winners with rare cards. The first such enemy is Kefka, whom defeating will yield a rare Vivi card! Being the "MVP" of your party will also get you an Umaro card!
Sign up and play today! And remember to check back to Eyes On Final Fantasy, as we will keep up
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It's a question that has plagued us for years: what exactly makes a Final Fantasy game? We've had countless discussions over whether the latest instalment is a "true" FF and tried to think about what we'd like to put in upcoming ones. But Square Enix has got the hint, and has given us the five must-haves for all Final Fantasy games.
The first, and most obvious of all, is Magic. It plays a vital role in the gameplay mechanics, as well as helping to shape each world into something unique. It's even an integral part of the traditional job system; you wouldn't get anywhere if your mages couldn't case magic! Even games taking a futuristic or science fiction approach (looking at you, VII, VIII and XIII) contain magic, so it really is a staple.
Second, and building on the first, is Summoning. This is an odd thing to include considering the original Final Fantasy lacked summoning. Indeed, it wasn't until Final Fantasy III (the Japanese version) that summoning and the summoner class even became A ThingTM. But it has become a constant inclusion, even becoming one the core plot
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The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy is set up like this: the first installment is story-driven, the second is player-driven, and the third - Lightning Returns - will be world-driven. It seems a little strange at first, but Motomu Toriyama, the director for Lightning Returnsspoke with 4gamer and has given us a little more clarity and some fresh info to boot.
The concept behind the game is that Lightning, our heroine once more, has just 13 days to save the world. From what evil force, we're not sure yet, but with each "day" working out to be something like 1-2 hours real time, it seems like a hasty adventure. Except not so much. Or potentially. Lightning's actions can slow down the impending doom, or actually speed it up. It's going to be the core component; managing your time effectively is the only way to succeed. And what happens if you run out of time? Game over, man, game over.
Part of the world that will play such a vital part in Lightning Returns.
The world will run to its schedule though, with NPCs going
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We're all aware of the fact that Final Fantasy XIV bombed at release. It was catastrophic, up there with the crash caused by The Spirits Within. In fact, Naoki Yoshida says that another flop like it would probably destroy the company. With a mountain of pressure on Yoshida, it's comforting to see the constant updates through the Letters from the Producer as well as the new dev blog for A Realm Reborn. These updates are allaying fears and showing fans that the game is in good hands.
So what went wrong the first time? Yoshida puts it down to the lack of vision shown by the original development team. Their goal to just create a game that was different to Final Fantasy XI was a misstep, and one which put the team in a bad position. Despite the poor reception Final Fantasy XIV received during Beta testing, the game was pushed through to be released on time. All in all, it was a bit of a mess.
With Yoshida at the helm, a second catastrophe will easily be avoided.
Naoki Yoshida has announced a new developer’s blog for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The first and as of now only post teases some future behind the scenes info as well as other rare inside scoops of FFXIV’s development. Future updates of the blog, according to Yoshi-P, will be done primarily by the project managers, meaning we should see more detailed, technical information, along with all the pretty screenshots.
In closing, the inaugural blog entry posted some artwork of a baby chocobo and what Yoshi-P referred to as a “super-deformed bomb.”
Also: as mentioned in our last update, the last stage of Alpha has begun today, with another round of alpha tester invites being sent out internationally. Good luck to all of those who applied!
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Welcome back to another week. Ciddies Fever has struck, and it's put our usual updater Goldenboko in a bit of a tizzy! We apologise for the delay, but let's get straight to what's happening!
Ciddies XXIII is under way, and we're currently in the voting stage! Go here to have your voice heard, and don't forget to look out for speeches and predictions as well!
For the very first time, we're running the Final Fantasy Ciddies, which is as close to an official Final Fantasy Awards ceremony as you'll find. Join in the fun with Award Chocobo right here!
Feeling artsy? Why not take part in our Fanart Competition and potentially have your work as EoFF's new bannering! Let your creative side lose in here.
Christmas is coming! To get into the festive spirit, why not sign up for our annual Christmas card swap?
Feeling like it's party time? We are too! Which Final Fantasy characters would you most like to party with? Discuss your top picks in here!
Something about this time of year puts love in the
North Americans can get excited as they've just scored a neat little Final Fantasy spinoff for iOS and Android. Time to live out those sky pirate fantasies as you take to the skies with your own airship and adventure with friends! Japan has already been enjoying this one for a while - they are pretty big on their social games after all - but interested NA folks can pre-register so they're alerted as soon as the game is available. You'll also score a free 3-month exclusive Cloud Strife in-game card! Goodies all around, that's what I'm talking about.
I’m now going to bow to popular opinion. You may recall with my first song, Bartz's theme, I received numerous comments for not going with Gilgamesh's piece, Battle on the Big Bridge. I put forward the view that it was more a battle song than a character song. Well, okay, I'll give you what you want. And I guess the title of this song, The Man With the Machine Gun, can refer to only one man.
That opening little beat. I don't know about you, reader, but that's all I need to hear before my foot is tapping without me having any say in it. The beat and indeed the entire song are so vibrant and fast-paced, providing a really sharp contrast to the last two songs I chose.
The main melody then kicks in. I think this melody is actually rather great, because it has to do two things at once. First, it has to build the tension and get the blood pumping for the battle ahead. Does it do that? I'll say. There's a real intensity to it, and a sense of something that I've been struggling to put a word to for the past five minutes. The best I can do is "challenge".
Before I talk about the next task this song has to perform, I just want to quickly show you the Distant Worlds
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The latest Letter from the Producer went live today. Unfortunately, there are no pretty pictures this time around. The discussion focuses almost exclusively on the progress and future for alpha testing. You can read the whole letter here.
The main takeaways from the article are as follows:
We are currently in phase three of the alpha which will end December 2.
The final alpha phase begins December 3. Thousands of new applicants are expected to be invited to join.
Approximately 1/4 Japanese applicants, 1/6 North American applicants, and 1/3 European applicants have been accepted so far.
Phase four will see the addition of a third world for alpha testing and will involve stress tests for server mergers. New alpha testers are encouraged to join the new server (existing servers are Chocobo and Moogle).
Each world is designed to allow up to 5,000 simultaneous connections.
A Realm Reborn features approximately 40 areas, each of which can support approximately 1,000 active players at a time.
Hello again! Have you guys enjoyed your holiday break last week? We hope so! We also hope you haven't missed us either, as the showcase was absent last week due to the holiday. We're back in business this week! We have some great artwork to share with you lovely folks, so sit down and enjoy your god damn tea while we view some amazing artwork in this week's showcase. Please visit each source if you want to compliment the artists, as always. They deserve the credit for each art displayed.
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Square Enix hosted a live conference showcasing the power of its Luminous Engine, the tool behind the absolutely gorgeous Agni's Philosophy tech demo. While there are rumours that Agni's Philosophy might actually be a game, the engine itself is already proving to be super impressive. The video below shows parts of the tech demo being edited on the fly. I can't even comprehend how detailed all of this is. It's like playing with the Sims Creator except on steroids. Magical.
We'll be keeping our eyes on Agni's Philosophy and the Luminous Engine, because they're just too beautiful to look away!
Almost a month ago we caught wind of a remake of the seventh installment in the Dragon Quest series. The game was being remade from the ground up, with a complete graphical overhaul. The first screens from this 3DS remake have been released, showcasing the player characters, enemies and locations. And, honestly, they look much better than the original Dragon Warrior VII.
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