It’s been a long time since Square Enix started milking their audience for everything they’re worth. Since Final Fantasy IV’s original release and prior to its appearance on the Nintendo DS, it had already been ported three times over. With its arrival on the DS marking its fourth port, it also marks its first real remake that would recapture the magic of the original, as opposed to just regurgitating it. Read more…

This story starts with a young boy and a subscription to the MMO Final Fantasy XI. After a few months with the game, he grows tired of it and decides he’s going to cancel. Great, so how do you do that? What seems like should be a simple task ends up an exercise in frustration. Little did Square Enix know — they just messed with the wrong guy. Read more…

Perhaps the most oddly named gaming event of all time, SquareEnix’s DKS3713 is also the same event that’s ringing with a ton of news. Day 1 is over and with it came the expected and not so expected. Read more…

Square Enix President and all around peaceful guy Yoichi Wada recently stated that his company remains neutral in the ever flame-inducing console war. Read more…

From Emily: After acquiring the games journalism bug when I coerced him into live-blogging the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix beta with me, Josh has written his first review. I had been planning on covering this myself, but it got to the point where he had put 20 hours in (then 30, 40, etc) so I knew I would never catch up. This works out because he is actually sort of an expert on Final Fantasy Tactics in general, and I am not really that great at turn-based strategy anyhow. Feel free to heckle us both from the comments section.

The original Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my favorite games of all time, and despite being a twice-removed cousin of that original gem, Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is a remorselessly cute and surprisingly deep turn-based strategy game. FFTA2 is solidly in the camp of its GBA predecessor (thus the “A2″ part of the name). It has the same judge system and simplified combat while adding two more races and even more jobs (bringing the total up to something like 44). Read more…

Announcing games extremely early has always seemed unnecessary and a bit torturous for fans. When multiple Final Fantasy XIII titles were announced at E3 2006 gamers were understandably excited, but two years later little more is known about the games.

A recent issue of Famitsu reports that the wait looks set to continue for quite awhile.

At E3 2006 Square Enix surprised fans and gamers by announcing Final Fantasy XIII hot on the heels of Final Fantasy XII’s release. What’s more, it wasn’t just Final Fantasy XIII that was on the way, but also Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

While various trailers have surfaced and Agito was revealed as a mobile title, we’ve heard little more about the projects. Now, Famitsu has revealed that the majority of the Final Fantasy Versus XIII team has been pulled off the title and reassigned to Final Fantasy XIII itself. Agito XIII is also said to still be in early production and story development. Read more…

Square Enix’s Yoshinori Kitase, who directed the original FFVII, mused that a remake could be possible with some serious collaboration. Read more…

Turn-based strategy gamers are giddy everywhere, as Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift is officially dated for  June 24, 2008. Press release and shameless recommendation after the break. Read more…

No photos allowed — so use your imagination…

Taku Murata, the general manager of Square Enix’s R&D division took the stage at GDC and made it very clear that his English was not very good. The packed house didn’t seem to mind one bit — of course those unable to understand Japanese were equipped with translation headsets, so that may have had something to do with it.

So there I sat, in the back of a jam packed room with my recorder jammed between my ear and the headset (no point in recording Japanese), as I feverishly jotted down the highlights you can read below. Read more…

Only six games had ever walked away from Famitsu with a perfect score and Super Smash Bros. Brawl just became the seventh. Read more…

2007 ended on a great note for Nintendo, with both the Wii and the DS being insanely successful. However, according to the first Japanese software chart of 2008, they’re just getting started. Read more…

For all the great games released this Fall, it feels a bit neutered without any truly huge Square-Enix titles on the market. That’s probably because most of the good ones have been pushed into next year. While we still don’t know the status of Final Fantasy XIII or Last Remnant, they’ve given us a look at what we can expect up through Spring 2008. Read more…

One of the flat-out coolest endeavours I’ve seen in awhile comes from “hattoriyaro,” who’s using a specialized program to turn the individual notes of MIDI music into complex animations. Among his creations are several dedicated to classic video games from Megaman 2 to *ahem* “cult classic” Cheetahmen. Hit the jump for videos and more information on how it’s done. Read more…

I don’t really like Japanese RPGs. I think they show an amazing stubbornness towards evolution of the genre, with recycled story arcs and male characters that are more androgynous than a Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie.

I thought living in Japan might help me become more tolerant, but the inverse proved true and my disdain has only grown stronger. So, if I can’t stand Japanese RPGs then why did I put Cloud Strife’s sword into the Top 10? Read more…

Some developers draw inspiration from a particular genre. Electronic Arts built up some of the most successful franchises in the sports world, Id Software concentrated mainly on first person shooters like DOOM and Wolfenstein, and Lucasarts grew its fan base by creating excellent adventure games. Square Enix falls into this category as well. Their area of expertise is the RPG. Read more…