The Shrine

http://www.the-magicbox.com/0604/game060413d.shtml

These are magazine scans, so the quality of the shots isn't excellent, but they still give a good idea of the style of how things are going to look. With graphics like this, they'll have a game that has quality equivilent to RPGs of the late PSX era. As far as music goes, the original FF3j had some great tunes to this, I know they're probably going to mess with it, some may like it better; but I'm the type of player who somehow likes Final Fantasy Adventure's soundtrack better than Sword of Mana's remixed version. Though, I will wait and see, this soundtrack was one of the very best on NES.

As far as plot goes, this game easily has the best plot until Final Fantasy 6 (there is good reason as to why they're giving this game this kind of treatment over all of the other FF games). The only thing that needs to be worked on is the characters, and, like every RPG, some expansion on the original plot would certainly be a positive (except the way they messed it up in Sword of Mana; some of the plot expansion was interesting, but most of it seemed cheap). If they get the characters up to par with those of Final Fantasy 8, 9, and 10, then combined with the already established plot they'll surely have a winner.

Anyways, I am looking very forward to this game.

In side news: Mother 3 (Earthbound 2) scored a 35 on Famitsu, which is EXCELLENT for a gameboy game.

Looks hot

Lets hope they MASSIVELY improve the game as well

I never played the Famicom version, but I'm certain I'll pick this up. My DS is already collecting dust, having played enough Sorrow (Julius mode lost its appeal about half way through) and MKDS (which is good, and the online is good, but it's no substitute for Double Dash with friends). Maybe I'll pick up Brain Age.

Black Lotus wrote:I never played the Famicom version, but I'm certain I'll pick this up. My DS is already collecting dust, having played enough Sorrow (Julius mode lost its appeal about half way through) and MKDS (which is good, and the online is good, but it's no substitute for Double Dash with friends). Maybe I'll pick up Brain Age.

Pac Pix is fun as hell and cheap now. Kirby is a great game. Wario Ware Touched is a must-have if you like the series. And there's Tetris DS.

Haven't gotten Prime Hunters yet. Gotta see how that one turned out

Right now Metroid Prime Hunters is what's hot. I had to temporarilly quit playing the multiplayer due to essays (it's damn addictive). This game is perhaps the best I can remember since Starcraft Broodwar. As far as gameplay experiences go, multiplayer Metroid Prime Hunters is at the top of the list on DS.

My favourite single player game is still Phoenix Wright with Advance Wars Dual Strike being the runner up.

Animal Crossing I don't really look at the same way I do other games, it's too different to compare.

The game I expect to TOTALLY dominate is the new Super Mario Brothers game, this is the first game of this type we have seen since Super Mario World; 15 years ago. This is the evolution of the series that I have been waiting for since I was freakin' 10 years old! This is the real deal, no Super Mario 64, Sunshine, Yoshi's Story, Paper Mario, Superstar Saga, or whatever! This is the REAL deal. One more month until its release, and I TOTALLY expect this game to be the best thing from Nintendo since Ocarina of Time. I'm really looking forward to it.

Screenshot comparisons of the old to the new (note each JPG is a collection of several comparisons):

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8892/u ... 1205ob.jpg
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8194/u ... 1225od.jpg
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/7976 ... 1242ht.jpg

That site doesn't appear to allow direct linking on my browser at least, Seek.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8892/u ... 1205ob.jpg
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8194/u ... 1225od.jpg
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/7976 ... 1242ht.jpg

Alright, try them now.

z0mgz0rz

You know, you could have mentioned somewhere that it's 3D now, and it doesn't look like ass.

Well, looks like I'll have to add a DS *and* FF3 to my "must buy if can afford" list.

Nev wrote:z0mgz0rz

You know, you could have mentioned somewhere that it's 3D now, and it doesn't look like ass.

Well, looks like I'll have to add a DS *and* FF3 to my "must buy if can afford" list.

I thought that had already been established earlier. Anyways, I like the look, it has a lot of similarities to RPGs of the late PSX era. The graphics also seem to be heavily influenced by Final Fantasy Tactics, they are of higher quality than FFT, but very similar style.

Both Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI are heading to the GameBoy Advance.

Doh they'll probley get the FFIV treatment, which was nice, but I would have liked to see them get overhauled like FFIII.

yeah I would have loved to have seen 6 with well done 3d. 7 bay be the most popular ff to use with tech demos and whatnot but damnit 6 is still the story standard. and for it's time 6 on SNES looked far better than 9 on the psx end of system life graphics wise....

I think FF7 and FF8 could use a remake more than any of the other games. I think with change to the story in FF7; I really enjoyed the pace and atmosphere of things in the first hours of the game.

FF8 I think would benefit from having a sort of "dumbed down" extended edition plot. The thing about FF8's plot was it was delivered in a rather complicated manner; though from a literary standpoint, it is genius. I do not think the memory and attention spans of gamers are enough to grasp a multi-threaded story that is delivered in a rather non-linear fassion. The plot jumps all over the place in the games timeline; the end of it shows Laguna putting the ring on Raine's finger; that is a beautiful moment for a lot of people, but it is completely lost on most gamers who only seem to be able to follow a straitforward plotline like FF7 and FF10. Though, when you sit down and play FF8 with the average gamer, explaining things along the way, their opinion on the game changes a lot =P

Characterwise, I think things are fairly good, but perhaps give the Quistis a larger role (I personally didn't care for her overly, but a lot of people did, and she had the smallest role of the main cast after a certain point). Seifer, Ultimecia, and Laguna are the three others that a lot of people said would make a huge difference to them if they had larger parts as well.

Personally, I would like to see Squall as an even bigger elitest asshole than he already is for the first portion of the game (he gradually changes throughout the game). It should be quite clear that he and Laguna are the Yin and the Yan.


Gameplaywise, I have one complaint, that is that there is room for expansion, I want to see it. More ways to acquire magic, and with more limitation on the existing ways.

1) Take out character levels completely
2) Take out drawing completely
3) Expand GF skills, make the refinement skill of each type of magic based on books that are acquired as the game progresses (similar to FF1 spells.) which can be used on various GFs.
4) Expand the economy, make more things to buy (as the spell books that I mentioned).
5) Take away the limit on GF skills, yeah, this might over-power things by being able to equip a single GF with a very large amount of skills. So in addition, make it tedious and monotonous to get all of these skills (similar to maxing out the sphere grid in FF10).
6) Add in a lot more mini games and side quests which reward the player with items which can be refined. For example, add in a game like Blitzball which will have rewards of items that can be refined into skills that effect strength and agility, or magic that is most beneficial when junctioned to strength or agility. Card games and such can go towards intelligence, etc....
7) Functional cosmetic improvements, voice acting, skip animations, etc...


All in all, I do think that FF8 would heavily benefit from voice acting. I don't know if anyone else does it, but when I play the game, I usually do it with other people watching, I keep their attention with my own brand of goofy voice acting =D

I think that if they had voice acting in to begin with, that the game would benefit a lot. Same with most Square RPGs from Xenogears on that don't already have it. Sorry, but FF1-7 would require complete re-writes of the scripts, they aren't as well done as the post Xenogears ones. Just read the script of FF6 or FF7 alloud, and then Xenogears, FF8, FF9; there are HUGE noticeable differences in quality.

The Seeker wrote:The game I expect to TOTALLY dominate is the new Super Mario Brothers game, this is the first game of this type we have seen since Super Mario World; 15 years ago. This is the evolution of the series that I have been waiting for since I was freakin' 10 years old! This is the real deal, no Super Mario 64, Sunshine, Yoshi's Story, Paper Mario, Superstar Saga, or whatever! This is the REAL deal. One more month until its release, and I TOTALLY expect this game to be the best thing from Nintendo since Ocarina of Time. I'm really looking forward to it.

Only to be disappointed like we are many times before...

It's sorta like how Worms went to 3D, then they realized that it sucked ass, and went BACK to 2D on the next game. Some games just don't transistion well into 3D, no matter how you dress it up. I wish people would realize that 3D gaming is a different experience and damn near a different genre than 2D games. It's not just an "evolution" of the game type, like so many developers believe.

There are some games that survival and even thrive well with the transistion, but ultimately they retain some 2D elements to do it. (ie: not using a freeform camera)

http://media.ds.ign.com/media/682/682879/imgs_1.html

Do these screenshots look 3D to you?

Final Fantasy III DS, first English shots at Square-Enix Website:

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/e306/titles/ff3/