News

Since my last news post, I've been largely ignoring news and instead working on CoN itself - more on that probably later today or tomorrow. During that time, there's been a lot of smallish news coming out of Squenix' press division, so let's touch on that now.

Hajime Tabata has been continuing to make the Final Fantasy XV rounds since the Uncovered event; an interview with Game Informer shows some more gameplay from the beginning of the game and an interview with Famitsu goes into the decade of development on XV and how they're striving to take the brand out of the "crisis" mode that some fans seem to feel. And, tomorrow, there's going to be another stream, this time with Tabata and Hironobu Sakaguchi. Looks like it's starting at 8pm local time, which would put it at 7am Eastern.

Yesterday, the American SE Twitch channel ran a livestream of Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, called Star Log 2. It mentioned the release date (June 28) and the contents of the collector's edition, but it focused on new gameplay and combat footage. Just after, they released three other new videos with a more focused look at combat and introductory spotlight videos for two more characters.

PAX East is just around the corner again, and unfortunately I'll be unable to go this year. For those folks who are able to go, though, or those who just want to see what is coming up, Squenix published their lineup for the show floor. Star Ocean 5 will be playable, as will I Am Setsuna. Additionally, there will be a playable VR game for Oculus and Gear called Hitman GO - it's a turn-based strategy game, for those of you who might be hoping for virtual reality assassinations in real-time. A new challenge for Final Fantasy XIV, Kingdom Hearts: Unchained χ and a few other non-RPG titles fill out the roster.

Death Penalty will enjoy the fact that Nier: Automata hasn't completely ceased to be. In fact, there's a live event coming up this weekend that will be a concert of Nier series music as well as a presentation of new information for the upcoming title. Folks who might like a sample can get one from the official Japanese site.

On the topic of DP, there's a new Valkyrie game coming, even. There's not much information about Valkyrie Anatomia: The Origin, but it has a release window of Spring 2016 in Japan, a timeline short enough that essentially locks it in as a smartphone title for one or more platforms.

Source: Gematsu, Siliconera, Game Informer

We reported back in February that the next big Final Fantasy XV event was to be titled "Uncovered," and is a "real" live event to take place in Los Angeles. The day has nearly arrived now, so remember to tune in tomorrow on Twitch or YouTube at 10pm Eastern.

The group must have something big planned for this event; previously, we mentioned that they plan to announce the final demo, the release date, the price, and more. But there must be even more than that, because the XV team preempted themselves by doing another livestream just last week with Famitsu.

Siliconera reports some of the highlights:

• Cactuars will return as their Cactuar-like selves. Hopefully Gigantuars too, says this writer.
• The new event will have a new Japanese trailer, which is somewhat disappointing given that the event is happening in America.
• The new demo will be shown at the event.
• They estimate a straight run of the game, sans any bonus content or sidequests, to take roughly fifty hours.
• The frame rate target is 30FPS through the whole game, which I also find a bit disappointing.
• The game's running resolution will be revealed also at the event... which, how can this be a question? It's surely not going to run at 4k, and I would think it would be a huge embarrassment if it can't run at 1080p.

One final, very interesting note from the previous livestream is that Hironobu Sakaguchi reached out to Hajime Tabata to talk about the original XV demo and "had a whole lot to say." That could mean a lot of things, of course. Perhaps Sakaguchi loved it. Perhaps he didn't and had a lot to say about how to make it more true to his original slate of Final Fantasy games. Maybe Tabata took it to heart, and maybe he plans to ignore it. Tabata isn't saying, so we'll just have to wonder.

Also announced earlier: the game will, for the first time, have some language options for Central and South America, with "Latin American Spanish" and "Brazilian Portuguese" selections.

I'm not sure I'll be able to see the livestream myself tomorrow night, but rest assured that we'll do our best to recap it for you as soon as possible.

Source: Siliconera

A lot of new Final Fantasy XV information was revealed in Active Time Report 7.0 last weekend, and I missed it all due to moving. In case you missed it too, read on and watch the ATR at your leisure.
The main focus of ATR7 is that the game is now 80% complete and that they consider development to be close to the final build, meaning there will likely be no further updates until after they consider the game to have gone gold.

There are a lot of mechanics and minor updates wrapped up in the beginning, almost like a visual changelog. There are a couple things I hadn't seen anything of yet, such as the snare combat mechanic and the fluid dynamics of characters in deep water, that looked pretty great. Also... frogs! Additionally, the overall updates show that the camera and UI have been drastically changed since the original demo, improving the overall battle mechanics.

This update showed more of Niflheim and its role and personnel, introducing in particular a dragoon officer named Aranea Highwind - it's worth noting that she has a pretty cool take on some classic Kain Highwind-style armor. The story frames Niflheim as a controlling, mechanically oriented kingdom expanding over Lucis, in a manner that echoes a bit of the plot setup for Final Fantasy VI.

A huge gameplay mechanic introduced this time around has been nicknamed "Final Fantasy Solid" in some circles; a stealth mechanic in which Noctis and crew infiltrate and take down Niflheim bases from within appears to be a significant part of the plot this time around. Destructible and otherwise interactive environments play a role in these takedowns as well, both in terms of destroying and commandeering Niflheim equipment.

With regards to magic, the typical magic system has been modified in XV to be more focused on a few elementals and "ring" magic, which is available only later in the game. The elemental spells have improved efficacy in certain environments, and have the ability to use the environments to spread to wider ranges and therefore envelop more targets.

Coming up next: the Uncovered event. This is the big one, and it's happening in Los Angeles (and free tickets are available, Californian readers!). In this event, the final demo will be announced, the 2016 release date for the final game will be announced, as well as price and "other details."

If that's not enough for XV for you, Gematsu collected a gallery of screenshots to check out too.

Source: Siliconera, Gematsu, Game Informer

The Star Ocean and Dragon Quest franchises both have updates coming soon in the form of new games; as both enter 2016, January's been a good month for updates on the progress them all. This week in particular had a new livestream broadcast for Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, and with it came new gameplay footage and discussion of gameplay tweaks, a new trailer to introduce more background on Fidel, the main protagonist, and new screenshots and background information on how the game's skillsets will work.

In the Dragon Quest universe, there's always a lot more going on. The Dragon Quest franchise turns thirty years old this year, and as such, there's a new website for the franchise in Japan. A demo for Builders, the Minecraft-esque building RPG set in the Dragon Quest universe, will be out next week in Japan for Playstation 4 and Vita. The 3DS game Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 (name just rolls off the tongue, by the by) will be coming out on March 24 in Japan, but the company is also aiming for a demo to come out a few weeks earlier. Another sideline franchise in the DQ universe, Heroes, will see its sequel released for all three living Sony platforms right on the 30th anniversary in Japan. That date is May 27th of this year.

Finally, the biggest game in the franchise, Dragon Quest XI, was announced as having a release date sometime during the anniversary year. That means that it won't be out before the start of the anniversary year, and possibly not out until next May 27th, should they hit the window at all. This news was met with great disdain by the anniversary event's followers, who expected something more concrete.

Source: Siliconera, Gematsu

We're behind on news again, but I didn't want to miss the chance to reuse a headline: Final Fantasy IX, the Final Fantasy packed to the gills with homage and protagonists resembling monkeys, is headed to both Windows and mobile in 2016. This version is going to be similar to the PC and mobile release of Final Fantasy VII insomuch as it is the original PlayStation release with control tweaks added for touch devices and some ease-of-play functions like autosave and optional random encounters. There's no official release window set forth as yet, and very little media.

This release of IX differs from that of VII, though, given that there is an announcement at all; the Final Fantasy VII release on iOS came as a surprise, so there's no way to extrapolate any further details regarding a potential release window based on what we know now.

Source: Famitsu

Shonen Jump, each December, puts on the Jump Festa expo for anime, manga and games. Japan, being fully futuristic as shown in most anime documentaries, naturally calls this year's iteration "Jump Festa 2016." This year, Square Enix will take the stage on December 19 and 20 for several presentations to be broadcast on YouTube. Here's the schedule, with all times listed as UTC and EST.

Day 1:

• December 19, 1:30AM UTC / December 18, 8:30PM EST: Star Ocean: Integrity & Faithlessness Stage interview with voice talent
• December 19, 3:30AM UTC / December 18, 10:30PM EST: Dragon Quest Builders Stage interview with the producers
• December 19, 5:30AM UTC / 12:30AM EST: Dragon Quest of the Stars Stage interview with the producers

Day 2:

• December 20, 4:00AM UTC / December 19, 11:00PM EST: Dragon Quest Monsters: Battle Scanner Stage introduction to a new Dragon Quest arcade game with the producers and voice talent
• December 20, 5:20AM UTC / 12:20AM EST: World of Final Fantasy Stage interview with the director and voice talent

The full list of games to be represented off the stage at Jump Festa are as follows:

• Dragon Quest Builders (Trailer, Playable Demo)
• Dragon Quest Monsters: Battle Scanner (Trailer)
• Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 (Trailer, Playable Demo)
• Dragon Quest of the Stars (Stage Only)
• Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius (Trailer)
• The Sorrow of Sacrifice and Snow (Trailer)
• Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue (Trailer)
• Star Ocean: Integrity & Faithlessness (Trailer)
• World of Final Fantasy (Trailer)

In related news, it was also announced today that the release date for the new Star Ocean has been pushed back to March 31 in Japan from its original date of February 25 to "increase the game's quality." Looking back on previous news here at CoN, one might imagine that graphics quality might be on that list.


Source: Gematsu