Tag Archives: Squaresoft

Is this truly the FINAL Fantasy?

Posted on by
6

Hello everyone, Megan Highwind here! Joshua Evo sent me an interesting article from the website Kotaku that prompted me to examine and wonder about my feelings on the future of the Final Fantasy series as we know it. If it is not obvious, I am a huge fan of this series and the article entitled “The Slow, Excruciating Death of Final Fantasy” discussed a new game from Square Enix entitle, Final Fantasy All the Bravest, is a game which pits heroes of the series against villains while various themes from the different titles play in the background. Now, I have yet to play this title since I refuse to pay any money for something that has, in every sense of the word, been considered terrible by everyone that has reviewed it. However, this article not only brought up this poor excuse for an addition to the long lived franchise, but how the future of the Final Fantasy series as a whole is in question due to poor choices in titles and lack of anything with any real sense of depth from Square Enix as of late in regards to Final Fantasy and how the writer of the above article feels that Final Fantasy has gone off the deep end and may never recover.

My favorite series of all time.

IS it Final? Who knows?

Square Enix has become a bit of a money grabbing company as of late, this is hard to deny, but the titles they have released are not games that make fans come and stay with a series. Between titles released for the iOS that cost an arm and a leg just to buy some new little upgrade and the terror that is Final Fantasy XIV, there are definitely questions to be raised. It is obvious that all companies in the industry are out to make some money, of that there is no question. It just seems as though Square has become too focused on the money and has started to forget how to make those good, solid, interesting titles of years past. Now, before anyone who likes Final Fantasy XIII gets down my throat about being an old fart who is always going to say things were better back “in my day”, let me tell you that is not the case. I did not love Final Fantasy XIII, I will not lie about that. But, I did not think that it it is the worst thing that happened to the series. It did bring in new fans who never had interest and maybe reawakened new fans who were wanting a change in pace. It also added some new systems and elements to the series that were fun to play. I do think, however, that in trying to bring new fans into the fold, Square has pushed away some of its veteran players. It seems like ever since Square Soft became Square Enix, everything for the series has changed. The first game after the combination, Final Fantasy XII, was fairly similar to other games before the merge except with a more action RPG based fighting style instead of the more familiar turn based style. Then, Final Fantasy XIII took this more action based style even further and changed even more from the older style. Some fans love this new direction that the series has taken while others disagree. The main point I am trying to make is that these changes have changed how veterans feel about the series and that is bound to catch up with Square at some point. There were a lot of people who were excited about Final Fantasy XIII, less excited about XIII-2, and I am supposing from that trend even less are awaiting this final installment in the Lightning saga. Now, will I play this title? Yes. Will I enjoy myself at least somewhat? Probably. However, if Square wants to save itself from losing the fans that it has built from the inception of the Final Fantasy franchise, something needs to change. Things have just become too different for fans of the older titles and while newer fans may enjoy these changes, compromises need to be made to keep both sides happy.

No, you can't take away the Chocobos!

Not the Chocobos. Never the Chocobos.

In my opinion, Square needs to take Final Fantasy Versus and release it, SOON. It may be too late for some fans who kept waiting and being disappointed, but for the series to recover its veterans and keep its new fans Square should release this game. You might ask why I am saying this. Final Fantasy Versus looks to be the combination of the two that will keep both sets of fans happy. I could be completely wrong on this, but at this point what does the company have to lose? From all of the screen shots and demos we have seen Versus uses the old school open world style, storyline concepts and emo main characters, while incorporating the more action oriented style of the newer versions of the series. As I said earlier, there are fans that have been lost and gained by Square Enix as of the past few years. My disappointment in the direction the series has taken I’m sure is apparent from my reviews of the past two Final Fantasy titles. I think that XIII disappointed a bit too much with the overly linear style and XIII-2 tried to bring some of that back, which is why I prefer the latter over its predecessor. However, Square could do better. I have been a fan of Final Fantasy for over 10 years now and in order for the company to keep myself, other older fans, and newer fans from getting bored and straying from the beloved series, Square needs to work to merge the new and the old to make a game everyone can enjoy. I do agree with one thing, at least, that the author has said though, for good or for bad the Final Fantasy series will never be the same.

-Megan Highwind has left the party.

My Top 5 Final Fantasy Songs – Part 3

Posted on by
1

Alright, now it’s my turn to attack. What’s happening everyone, James B. Boss here with my Top Five favorite Final Fantasy songs. So let’s cast Hastega and get on with the battle.


5. Final Fantasy VI – Dancing Mad

Ok, so I remember a lot of Bosses from the FF series, but none of them can compare to the last boss of FFVI. Seriously, Kefka was a friggin’ lunatic. I remember defeating the first form of the last boss, only to find that there are like seven other parts to go through in order to get to Kefka. After two or more of the last boss’s sections, I started to literally go mad and  start dancing, so this songs’ title is perfect for that moment. While it is quite long, I find it to be a lengthy form of awesome.


4. Final Fantasy II – Final Boss Emperor of Palamecia

So, while the original Final Fantasy II isn’t as popular as the other titles, I found myself to enjoy it. While some of it’s songs were quite good, I found this one to be my favorite among them because I just love the feeling it gave when you fight the Emperor. It goes to show, that when you fight a game’s final boss, it better have some badass orchestral sounding music playing in the background otherwise it’s really just not worth it.


3. Final Fantasy X – Jecht’s Theme

While this song was not used as a badass fight song, it was really cool to listen to. I like this song, because it has a really nice calming mood to it. Every time I listen to this, I feel like I’m riding a Harley Davidson, on a journey to who knows where. Possibly a Blitzball game.


2. Final Fantasy VIII – The Man with the Machine Gun

This song made it on to my top Five list because it really is just awesome. I remember playing FFVIII and personally, I did not like the first battle theme at all. When I got to the part where you play as Laguna and I heard this song, I automatically loved it. Just the rhythm of this song makes want to get up dance my ass off, but that would be just silly. All in all, this song is just one of the best battle themes that I’ve ever heard.


1. Final Fantasy IV – Zeromus Battle

Ok, so let me just take a few moments on why this song is my number one. First, I would like to point out, that FFIV is my absolute favorite of the entire series and secondly it’s because this fight was awesome and this song just made it even better. I remember going through the epic scene where Cecil and his friends gained their strength back in the most epic way possible and then later on confronting Zeromus and revealing his true form. When this song started playing, you knew you were about to jump into some serious s#%t.


Well, that’s my list everyone. I hope you all enjoyed them as much as I did. While they may not be fan favorites (*cough* FFVII *cough*), they are still great pieces that made the Final Fantasy series into what it is today. Be sure to randomly run into part 4 soon enough. Until then, keep on grinding.

- James B Boss, signing out (*Victory Fanfare*)

Day 31 of 31 – Final Fantasy VI

Posted on by
Reply

Finally! We’ve reached Day 31 of our 31 Days of Gaming event, my personal favorite game of all time. Hang around for the end of the article because I have a question to ask you all but until then, let’s get right to it:

Like most gamers, I’ve been playing the various entries of the Final Fantasy since the first one appeared in North America. Since then, I’ve seen the series grow, change and evolve but it in my opinion, it hit the pinnacle of its brilliance with Final Fantasy VI. This was the first game I remember playing where I parked it in one place for hours and hours with the intent of discovering any and everything in the game that I could. On my quest to do that, I discovered that this game had a fantastic story and incredibly well-developed characters. Those things made the grind easier because I became invested in my characters’ lives and stories. I was driven to push forward and get stronger because wanted to see how the Figaro Brothers came up together, Locke’s inspiration for his adventuring, Terra’s quest to discover herself and especially the story of Shadow’s past.  In addition to the multitude of stories was the diversity of the cast’s abilities. Essentially, each character had a unique ability that made them stand out and gave them utility on a team. Considering the size of the roster, several different team combinations (four to a team) were possible and could be created and customized to suit a variety of combat situations. You had the basic brawlers, melee hitters and magic users but even they had their little quirks. Celes for example can absorb magic directed at the party as MP, Strago could attack unique spells learned from encounters with monsters, Mog can use his Dances to attack, buff or debuff. Each character offered something new to the player who chose to use them.  On the other side, this game is also the home to probably one of the greatest video game villains in history: Kefka. Here’s a guy who is CLEARLY mentally deranged, that dresses like a clown and who within the FIRST ACT of the game, sets fire to an entire castle and poisons an entire water supply. What a dick. Again, it’s a further story element that compels the player to take his clown @$$ down.  The monsters are powerful, the battles are intense, the world is huge and the struggles that the characters go through feel real and identifiable. This is what an JRPG should be in my opinion and it was an instant classic. These days, you can play FFVI on the Wii Virtual Console, SNES, PSX, Emulator, GBA and a few other ways. Check it out if you never have and enjoy the experience. I definitely did back then and I still do now. 

- Evo done but not quite out just yet.

 

Well, what can I say that Evo didn’t touch on… Hmm… though I haven’t played this game in years, I will forever remember just how much I wanted to kill that clown. Oh.. Kefka you !@#$%^!! Anyway I really must replay this game. I do believe it’s available on PSN. On that note.

-Victory Music-

 

Hey guys, Evo back again. Thanks again so much for sticking around for the end of this article and for hanging on for all 31 days of this event. We hope you all enjoyed reading as much as we enjoyed writing them. Since Summer is around the corner and a lot of us are starting new jobs or going on vacations, June’s content is going to be a little less regular in terms of “daily” but we will still be posting stuff, trying some new featured articles and don’t forget that in July we’ve got some nifty coverage coming up. In the mean time, I’m planning on definitely doing another 30 0r 31 days of *INSERT TOPIC HERE* and would really like your feedback on the topic. We’ve narrowed it down to two for this particular plan and I’ll have a poll up that I’ll tabulate at the end of June to see what our next event is so please cast a vote and participate. Again, thanks much for sticking with us and if you would be so awesome (and you all are) please continue to check us out for updates and share/follow/retweet our content as much as you can. Thanks again and this has been the 31 Days of Gaming.

- Evo out.

Day 16 of 31: Chrono Trigger

Posted on by
Reply

What’s happening people and welcome to day 16… or is it 17? I dunno, I seem to be all confused on time. Speaking of which…



Ok, so us reviewing this game definitely a no brainer, because it is absolutely awesome. Chrono Trigger is one of the best RPGs that I have ever played in my life. I remember playing this game when I was little, for the sole purpose of one of the characters being a frog (for the record, I like frogs) but after much time playing this game, I grew to love every bit of detail it had to offer. Normal RPGS tend to stick to a straight forward style of gameplay, where you take the main hero and go on a simple quest to save the world from evil and you get to have a happy ending. Chrono Trigger on the other hand does not do that. Instead it offers gamers many choices on how to play the game and what type of ending you can have. There was so much to choose from, that you did not want to just see one ending, you want to see them all. Normally, games with multiple endings tend to be a bit of hassle, because I don’t want to go through that agonizing process of playing the game over and over again, but in Chrono Trigger’s case with it’s multiple endings, I found myself playing the game a certain amount of times, just to see the different endings  (favorite is Frog vs. Magus by the way). The one thing that I truly found fascinating in this game, was that you can go back in time to do stuff. This of course was part of the main story but after a while, you can do this at any point of the game, giving you the opportunity to obtain certain items that you were never able to get before, or if you just want to have fun exploring different areas in the game. The characters in this game were very memorable. They were created by famous artist Akira Toriyama (Dragonball, Dragonball Z, Dragon Quest, just in case you guys don’t know who he is) and I found it hilarious that these characters looked a lot like characters from the Dragonball anime series. I half expected the main hero Crono to have “Kamehameha” listed as one of his attacks. To this day, Chrono Trigger is listed as one of the best all time RPGS and is classic to fans of the genre(myself and my brother included). If any of you have not played this game yet, then there is something truly wrong with you and you should definitely play this game now. I swear, you will not regret it.

– James B. Boss


I like to think that if Crono had anything to say about this adventure… he’s just end up holding his tongue. Apart from being one of my favorite games (not just RPGs or JRPGs) ever made, Chrono Trigger was something of a trailblazer to its franchise. The story was quite interesting:  the time-travelling stories of a young boy and his companions through portals (called “Gates”) and how their actions rewrote history. However, the real trailblazing was in the gameplay design.  At the time, most JRPGs put out by Squaresoft had a lot of set pieces, they tended to suffer from a sort of “more of the same” syndrome even though many of them were still very good. Chrono Trigger changed a lot of that. For starters, as you move about the map, enemy encounters aren’t always random. You could move about pretty freely and avoid encounters if you wanted to. Another thing was that instead of the typical “us on one side, them on the other” sort of battles employed by the FF games, Chrono Trigger’s battlefield was very dynamic and changing depending on where your party and their opponents moved. This even had an effect on the area of effect of certain attacks and made you be pretty strategic with your battle planning. One of my favorite things had to be the concept of Combination Attacks. Two ready characters could combine attacks for more powerful assaults on enemies and some of them looked really cool. This game also had a relatively smaller roster in comparison to the FF games but each of the characters in Chrono Trigger was incredibly well-developed with regard to their stories and the diversity in the roster is really quite awesome. You literally go from mute kid with red spiky head to sentient robot to frog-person to who knows what. Of course, no discussion of Chrono Trigger is complete without mention of the variable endings. Playing through a single time will net you the usual game flow ending but afterwards, a new option, New Game +, is made available and players have the opportunity to progress through the game, but return to a point where they can challenge the final boss of the game to see how the flow of time in the universe would have changed and been effected had certain things been done and not done. The game tops MANY lists of “Greatest Video Game Ever” because all of it was really quite a mind-blowing experience when it first came out and it still holds up amazingly even now. Definitely worth a pick-up for the rare number of gamers who’ve never played it. 

- Evo out.

Day 3 of 31 – Kingdom Hearts

Posted on by
1

Since I’m having trouble coming up with lead in paragraphs and you guys all know what this whole month is about, I’m going to just start the article. Thanks!

OK, I’m just going to come out and say it… when I first heard that Squaresoft (oh, the good old days) was collaborating with Disney on an RPG, I was a bit dubious (“dubious” here having the meaning of ‘throwing up in my mouth a little’) to say the least. I legitimately didn’t think it was going to work… like, even a little. After a while, screen shots started surfacing and I was even MORE unconvinced. I saw my first glimpses of the main character Sora, which weren’t all THAT bad except tha he appeared to be partnered with Donald and Goofy and carried a big key as a weapon. Once again, that “dubious” sense took over again and I resigned myself to thinking that this game would flop harder than a fish out of water at the Super Mario Bros. Movie premiere. [Heeeey I like that movie!! -Jess] Sure enough, when the game was finally released, I picked it up any as a die-hard Squaresoft supporter. After a few minutes in and what seemed like an overly lengthy training portion, I was finally in and questing in grand old style. Turns out that the game ended up being a lot more fun than I was expecting once I dismissed the fact that I was expecting it to play like a standard Final Fantasy-type game. The real-time combat was very refreshing and the story ended up being pretty good despite the (to me anyway) more kiddy visuals. The amalgam of Disney and Square was actually one that worked far better than thought possible, as the cartoony atmosphere was well-bolstered with the standard dosage of Squaresoft’s great game play design and I did ultimately play this game through to the end. I did rather enjoy the nods to all the Final Fantasy games that were present in the game and the inclusion of the optional “Super Boss” battles and as a whole, it was a pretty satisfying experience with the small exception of the Gummi Ship sequences, which felt a little tacked on, in my opinion. For the most part though, Kingdom Hearts stuck out in my head after I finished it for more reasons then just the Disney gimmick (the theme song “Simple and Clean” by Utada Hikaru was stuck in my head for the better part of a year) and I’m quite glad I played it.

-Evo out.

 

TAG TEAM BATTLE Jessica IN!

 Okay, so today is… -checks the title- Kingdom Hearts! Yay! Wooo!! Okay enough of the cheering, on to the point. Kingdom Hearts was a surprising hit for me. I don’t typically have a love of the cuter things in life (despite what those who actually know me might say…) but I have to say Kingdom Hearts was a refreshing game that seemingly came out of no where for me. Living under a rock as I did for most of my younger days, the first I had heard of such a game was on the Disney channel itself while perusing for something more substantial to fill my precious little brain with. Something about a blurb about Imagineering or crap  like that. It caught my eye for about five minutes then I promptly forgot about it. It stayed that way for… I am thinking years, when one of my friends pointed out the game to me, and I promptly borrowed it, played it and fell in love, despite large sections of “NO THANK YOU!” -cough- Gummi Ship -cough-. They story was light and fluffy enough for me to get into it without feeling a huge sense of urgency and by the end of my time playing my friends and I had come up with several mini challenges within the game itself. (My favorite being who can beat Sephiroth with the Kingdom Key in the least amount of time.) Did I enjoy playing as pre-pubescent clueless boy a duck or a dog thing? Not so much. However I did enjoy that you could replace two of the members of the three stooges with actual useful characters such as Beast.  Summing it all up, Kingdom Hearts was an endearing fun game that I would gladly play again. That is more than I can say about any of the portable versions and part of II.

-Ninja Vanish!!!-

-Ninja Reappear-

OH YEAH…. I am pretty sure it is pronounced TIED-US not TEA-DUS. [<--Thank you SO much for this... $#!t drove me NUTS! -- Evo] [I third this his name sounded awful in this game and I refuse to ever call him that. Fail! -Megan]

-Ninja Vanish-

 

Hello all! Megan Highwind here! Kingdom Hearts combined two things that I really love, Disney and Final Fantasy. I think that Kingdom Hearts was a huge surprise to me as well as many others. I did not think it was really possible for these two heavy hitters in different parts of the media world to come together to make something fun that did not tip the scales as too cheesy. I won’t lie and say there weren’t times where I was playing and could not help but think that everything was a little too sugary sweet, but in general I think that the game was a huge success. I really enjoyed getting to play through the worlds of Disney characters that I watched on VHS (I’m not going to lie, I still own one of these and love going back to childhood and watching movies on it!) and getting to see more of their stories; getting to play with them in your party was even more fun! The real time battle elements were also something that I really enjoyed about this game. There is really nothing like a boss battle where you actually have to run away from the boss to avoid being hit instead of just hoping that your character is good enough at evading to do it themselves. Overall, Kingdom Hearts kind of took me by surprise. I was intrigued by the idea of Disney and Squaresoft coming together on a project and it was a huge success. Sora and the gang drew me in and I can’t wait until the next Kingdom Hearts game comes out so I can see what happens next!

- Megan Highwind has left the party.

 

Greetings everyone. So, Kingdom Hearts. At first, I thought that this game was a joke before it came out, mostly because it just seemed that Disney characters mashed up with Final Fantasy characters into one game was a little ridiculous, but once I started keeping up with its development status, I started to believe that it just might work if done properly. When it finally did come out, I picked up my copy, sat in my chair and started playing the game. As I progressed through this unlikely crossover, I found myself enjoying the game and all it had to offer. I loved how I could control my characters movements and actions in real time, rather than just letting them sit there waiting to either kill the enemy or wait to be killed themselves. I also found it fascinating that I was able to travel to different Disney worlds and being able to recruit that world’s character to my party because sometimes I found it quite boring just using Sora, Donald and Goofy every single time in every single fight. Another thing I found interesting, was the weapon that Sora used. Instead of being a standard weapon choice (such as a sword, lance, axe, bow and arrow, etc.), he used a giant key-looking-weapon-ma-jig called “Keyblade”. At first, I found this to be silly, because if Sora could beat people’s faces in with any weapon of choice, the last thing that I would expect would be a big @$$ key, but nevertheless, I accepted the weapon for what it was and what it stood for and in the end, I ended up liking it and all of its wacky variations (Oathkeeper FTW). In the end, I enjoyed playing Kingdom Hearts and was quite delighted with every moment of it (yes, even the Gummi Ship stuff). Even when I beat the game, I still found myself going back to it, which shows how much of an impression it left on me. Being able to play a game where my favorite Disney and Final Fantasy characters existed together in one package, was a great experience and it’s an experience that will gladly re-live *cough*MAKE KINGDOM HEARTS III ALREADY!*cough*. Sorry about that, must be coming down with something.

-James B. Boss