DS News, Final Fantasy 1-6 soon available (FF3 in 3D)

[Julius Seeker]

http://ds.ign.com/articles/656/656107p1.html

Final Fantasy 3D
Square Enix ups the dimensional count in the DS's first FF game.
by Anoop Gantayat

October 5, 2005 - Nintendo's DS press conference in Japan today provided Square Enix with the perfect opportunity to solidify some of its recent moves with the Final Fantasy series. We were most interested in learning what is up with DS Crystal Chronicles and all the Final Fantasy port projects now in development.

First off, the ports. The first two FF games are already available in one package for the Game Boy Advance. An updated version of part IV was recently announced, also for the Game Boy Advance. So that leaves III, V and VI as the pre-VII Final Fantasy games that are still screaming for a revival.

Final Fantasy III was announced for the DS months ago, but today Square Enix showed that the game is more than just vaporware. The company shared a trailer for the game showcasing, surprisingly, 3D visuals for both characters and fields, a far cry from the original's 8-bit graphics.

Producer Hiromichi Tanaka, who's heading up the game's DS conversion (Tanaka is also known for his more recent work on Final Fantasy XI) took the stage at the press conference to explain some of the background behind the port project. According to Tanaka, Square Enix has considered remaking FFIII multiple times in the past, but the plans never came to fruition due to various conflicts -- a system's life span running out, the inability to gather the requires staff members, and so forth.

The game's visuals have changed considerably, Tanaka admits, but in order to preserve the image of the original, staff members from the original, including Kazuhiko Aoki and Koichi Ishii, are supervising the remake. New members are also playing big roles in the game's development. Tanaka revealed that FFXI's Ryosuke Aiba is serving as art director and FFXII's Akihiko Yoshida is serving as character designer on the project.

FFIII was the main focus of Square Enix's presentation today, but the company also made sure and provide some closure. Following the release of FFIV on the Game Boy Advance, the company will be brining V and VI to the system as well. As with the conversion of IV, the games will be updated for the conversion.

Sadly, the DS version of Crystal Chronicles wasn't addressed today, although the game is still known to be in development for release some time in 2006. The company is also at work on Dragon Quest Monsters and Seiken Densetsu DS Children of Mana for the DS, both of which were previously announced.

We expect details on most of these games to follow over the next few weeks.

[Lox]

So FF6(j) will be coming to the Advance or the DS?

*drool*

[Julius Seeker]

So FF6(j) will be coming to the Advance or the DS?

*drool*

I am not really sure, the article isn't really clear. It says FF4 for GBA, and that FF5 and 6 will be coming soon after; it says they will be remade, I assume they meant GBA, but it could be DS as well. I am REALLY looking forward to the full 3d remake of Final Fantasy 3j. Either way, if you have a DS, you can play all the games, 1-6. It's an exciting time right now with all these new announcements =)

[Lox]

So FF6(j) will be coming to the Advance or the DS?

*drool*

I am not really sure, the article isn't really clear. It says FF4 for GBA, and that FF5 and 6 will be coming soon after; it says they will be remade, I assume they meant GBA, but it could be DS as well. I am REALLY looking forward to the full 3d remake of Final Fantasy 3j. Either way, if you have a DS, you can play all the games, 1-6. It's an exciting time right now with all these new announcements =)

Seriously!

[Zeus]

They're all for the GBA, according to IGN

http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/656/656170p1.html

[SineSwiper]

You know, I'm kinda tired of the re-re-re-re-re-re-makes of Final Fantasy games. Let's just start making new games, okay? Even if it is sequels, just make new games. I can play FF3 on a emulator, thank you.

[Eric]

You know, I'm kinda tired of the re-re-re-re-re-re-makes of Final Fantasy games. Let's just start making new games, okay? Even if it is sequels, just make new games. I can play FF3 on a emulator, thank you.

Fuck you, bring me Final Fantasy VI, looking like Final Fantasy: Advent Children k thx.

[Julius Seeker]

You know, I'm kinda tired of the re-re-re-re-re-re-makes of Final Fantasy games. Let's just start making new games, okay? Even if it is sequels, just make new games. I can play FF3 on a emulator, thank you.

1) Square IS making new games

2) There are plenty of people who WANT to play their old favourites on handheld systems, that is why there is a good market for it.

3) You should KNOW these 2 things.

4) Good luck finding a DS emulator that can load things beyond the opening title screen.

[Zeus]

You know, I'm kinda tired of the re-re-re-re-re-re-makes of Final Fantasy games. Let's just start making new games, okay? Even if it is sequels, just make new games. I can play FF3 on a emulator, thank you.

Fuck you, bring me Final Fantasy VI, looking like Final Fantasy: Advent Children k thx.

That is basically a dream game. Won't happen for another generation of systems at least.

And Sine, retro is in, ESPECIALLY in games, why do you think all those compilations are being released and Nintendo is making emulation and downloadable games a standard feature of the Revolution?

[Julius Seeker]

Well, these games are updated. Look at what was done with Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls 1 and 2 and Sword of Mana (even though I despised what they did to it), those are two fairly heavy updates. Making Final Fantasy 3j into a 3D game with touch screen features is well beyond any kind of update Square has ever done before.

I am even looking forward to the FF4 update, mainly because the reason I disliked the original game was because of a large number of annoyances with how the game functioned. I thought the music was great and I thought the story and characters were decent; the gameplay really sucked. The problems with the original gameplay will quite likely be fixed in the update.

[Eric]

Sword of Mana made me cry.

[SineSwiper]

1) Square IS making new games

Well, they are certainly taking their sweet time on FF12, aren't they?

4) Good luck finding a DS emulator that can load things beyond the opening title screen.

Heh, I was talking about an SNES emulator, duh. Wow, but the graphics are pretty on the DS....

[Julius Seeker]

Sword of Mana made me cry.

Because it was dramatic, or because of the gameplay? =P

[SineSwiper]

Because it blew donkey balls?

[M'k'n'zy]

I am really excited about the 3j remake. I havent really been able to find a good translation of the game so I havent gotten to play it really.

[Eric]

Sword of Mana made me cry.

Because it was dramatic, or because of the gameplay? =P

I think it was the gameplay.

[Julius Seeker]

Sword of Mana made me cry.

Because it was dramatic, or because of the gameplay? =P

I think it was the gameplay.

I just hope that they stay away from the Secret of Mana gameplay formula for the coming games; and go with something along the lines of Gaia/tTerranigma. Secret of Mana's gameplay made me want to vomit. There is no reason why Square should have used such a flawed formula for Sword of Mana. Well, on a side note, at least they also updated to Secret of Mana graphics quality which I liked.

[Manshoon]

I hate to say it, but I'm with Sine on this one. Wake me up when Square-Enix has another console "Summer of Adventure" (minus the half-assed promotional soundtracks, of course). Unfortunately it looks like the Square of 2000 died out and won't ever be coming back.

[Zeus]

I hate to say it, but I'm with Sine on this one. Wake me up when Square-Enix has another console "Summer of Adventure" (minus the half-assed promotional soundtracks, of course). Unfortunately it looks like the Square of 2000 died out and won't ever be coming back.

The main reason for that is simple: money. The 5 games they released that summer one after another didn't sell overly well. FF9 was the worst-selling (and by far the best) of the PSX FF games, Parasite Eve 2 sold a fraction of its predecessor, Threads of Fate bombed, Vagrant Story didn't sell as well as hoped, and Chrono Cross was a pretty good seller but well under expectations in Japan (over 500,000 here, where the seies is more popular, but not even 400,000 over there; that's not good for a Square RPG). So, why would they want to do that again when all they have to do is re-release old games with some updates for greater sales and a fraction of the development cost.

And that's another thing, particularly with the next gen. The development costs are getting to the point where a 200,000 seller, which would have been a Greatest Hits on the PSX, is considered a failure now since the average game costs over a mil on the Xbox and over 800,000k on both the PS2 and GC. In the end, it's less reason to experiment since it's greater risk. That's why you see so much on the DS and GBA. Cheap development since you're looking at SNES and N64 level graphics and there's a large market. You can release a game with no press whatsoever and at a discounted price and if you sell 75,000 copies, you've made a modest profit. The PSP is better than the PS2, but not by much. So, you don't see as much fringe stuff on that.

[Julius Seeker]

I hate to say it, but I'm with Sine on this one. Wake me up when Square-Enix has another console "Summer of Adventure" (minus the half-assed promotional soundtracks, of course). Unfortunately it looks like the Square of 2000 died out and won't ever be coming back.

Not a lot of companies have released many original games this generation. Most games that have come out are remakes or sequels using the same game engine with maybe slightly updated graphics. I think a lot of it has to do with rising development costs. The vast majority of original games are on GBA and DS right now, because it is the easiest and cheapest system to develop for and make a good profit off of; well this is what I believe is the reason anyways.

EDIT:

Zeus beat me to it =)

[Manshoon]

And that's another thing, particularly with the next gen. The development costs are getting to the point where a 200,000 seller, which would have been a Greatest Hits on the PS2, is considered a failure now since the average game costs over a mil on the Xbox and over 800,000k on both the PS2 and GC. In the end, it's less reason to experiment since it's greater risk. That's why you see so much on the DS and GBA. Cheap development since you're looking at SNES and N64 level graphics and there's a large market. You can release a game with no press whatsoever and at a discounted price and if you sell 75,000 copies, you've made a modest profit. The PSP is better than the PS2, but not by much. So, you don't see as much fringe stuff on that.

Ok, so if development costs are the issue here, why not continue to release games for the original PSX? Surely the console's been out for long enough that by now the costs are comparable to the modern-day handhelds, not to mention the installed base beats out everything else currently. I seem to remember Sony saying a number of years back that they wanted the PSX to still remain a viable system well after the PS2 came out, well this is the perfect opportunity for them to prove it.

[Tortolia]

There's a very distinct reason that I'm much more of an Atlus fanboy now than a Square one.

[Julius Seeker]

Ok, so if development costs are the issue here, why not continue to release games for the original PSX? Surely the console's been out for long enough that by now the costs are comparable to the modern-day handhelds, not to mention the installed base beats out everything else currently. I seem to remember Sony saying a number of years back that they wanted the PSX to still remain a viable system well after the PS2 came out, well this is the perfect opportunity for them to prove it.

That's actually a very good question. I do think the PS2 userbase is larger now though, the PSX sold more, but does that account for all the units that no longer function? One thing I would suggest is that perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to create a game for PS2 with budget cuts in the graphical area. Games can still rock even in this day and age without having amazing graphics, just look at Karamari.


Square has lost a lot of its creative talents though, many went to Namco, others went to Mistwalker. Their best guys are all tied up with the massive (and I do mean massive) project that is Final Fantasy 12.

[SineSwiper]

Square has lost a lot of its creative talents though, many went to Namco, others went to Mistwalker. Their best guys are all tied up with the massive (and I do mean massive) project that is Final Fantasy 12.

Does this mean that all of Konami's RPG folk have moved to Midway? Where is a good Konami RPG when you need one? (The Suikoden series is getting stale...)

[Nev]

There's a very distinct reason that I'm much more of an Atlus fanboy now than a Square one.

Can you advise on ways to start if I were interested in getting back into Shin Megami Tensei? I loved Persona, and Square is not holding my attention storyline-wise these days. Much as I love to play FFX, it's only for prettiness and item collection these days, not for gameplay or plot.

[Lox]

One thing I would suggest is that perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to create a game for PS2 with budget cuts in the graphical area. Games can still rock even in this day and age without having amazing graphics, just look at Karamari.

I totally agree with that. I don't know that the majority of people out there do, but they suck.

[Nev]

Well, my guess is, a game that is shitty but pretty may sell, but a game that is great with poor graphics might not.

I had a friend, my gamer buddy while we were growing up, and he would not play a game that wasn't good-looking. I tried to get him to play some great games that just didn't have great graphics, and he wouldn't do it. This was after we had grown older, and he became a product of Los Angeles public schools (which are horrible), while I was fortunate enough mostly to go to private schools and come out with a great education - and, because of that, I think he may be the rule rather than the exception. Educated people might play old Infocom text adventures, but we are visual-reliant creatures, more than perhaps any other sense, so it makes sense that the majority of people notice graphics first and foremost. Katamari was an exception, and honestly I wonder whether or not gameplay considerations (mostly the number of objects in play at any given time) might have limited the graphic quality they could achieve.

I mean, the way my team and I are doing our own cell phone game is, graphics tweaking and prettifying first, THEN gameplay tweaks - much as I hate to do it - because of what I'd mentioned.

[Zeus]

Ok, so if development costs are the issue here, why not continue to release games for the original PSX? Surely the console's been out for long enough that by now the costs are comparable to the modern-day handhelds, not to mention the installed base beats out everything else currently. I seem to remember Sony saying a number of years back that they wanted the PSX to still remain a viable system well after the PS2 came out, well this is the perfect opportunity for them to prove it.

Simple: graphics sell. Bad graphics limit a game's audience, especially in established genres. It's a requirement to have good graphics for a genre people have seen before (go read that article I posted before from the developer who explained why Nintendo needs to innovate, it explains this point well). Sure, you can have the occasional poor graphics game do very well (see Katamari), but it has to be unique AND at the right price point (if Katamari was $49.99 US it would have bombed big time). When I had my store and when I'm in my friend's EB, you would not believe the number of people who use graphics as either their sole or main selling point, even so called hardcore gamers. There are a group who just don't care, but we are very, very small.

Also, it's a status thing. Making a game for a dead system (PSX is dead) more than a year after it's release automatically limits its audience 'cause no one spends $300 US on a new system to buy games for the old one (well, I do, but I'm in the very minority group). So, in order to sell copies of a PSX game, they'd have to sell it cheap; at the absolute most $30 US, but even that's too high. That's not condusive to the long, expensive development process an RPG goes through. Opportunity costs become very, very high, much higher than the development costs, for anyone who's taken an intro Econ course.

But, if you go back a couple generations, like, say, to the SNES, all of a sudden the development costs have dropped (and opportunity costs since any new grad could probably program for the SNES now) to the point where it's worth it to sell only 100,000 copies at $29.99 US and make a good profit. This is why you see so much stuff for the GBA, as discussed in previous threads, but not quite as much for the PSP or even DS.

This is why all you see on a system a year after it's predecessor's release is re-packaging of old games or cheap games - often for children, who get the hand-me-down systems or whose parents wait until it's very cheap - that take advantage of the system's power decently but not nearly as much as the best games on the system and pale in comparison to the next-gen stuff.

[Zeus]

There's a very distinct reason that I'm much more of an Atlus fanboy now than a Square one.

Can you advise on ways to start if I were interested in getting back into Shin Megami Tensei? I loved Persona, and Square is not holding my attention storyline-wise these days. Much as I love to play FFX, it's only for prettiness and item collection these days, not for gameplay or plot.

The others can correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've read, Nocturne is supposed to be a pretty good game to be your first Tensei game.

[Tortolia]

Eh.

You liked Persona, so either get Persona 2, or Digital Devil Saga.

I'm not sold on DDS alone as being better than Nocturne. I'm enjoying it, and it's a very good RPG, but consensus seems to be that DDS2 is a better game than its predecessor in pretty much all respects, so you'd want to treat DDS as a lead-in to the sequel (as it is a direct, immediate sequel, not a FFX-2 "some time later" sequel).

DDS is similar in a lot of respects to Persona in that it's focused on a small, static party that grows stronger as the game goes on, and it's more plot focused.

Nocturne is still better than DDS1, IMO, but it's much more of a traditional SMT game - minimal plot, no real character development, just a lot of dungeon crawling, demon recruitment, demon fusing, and so forth. If you find that you like the Megami Tensei gameplay as seen in DDS or Persona, then you're on better footing for Nocturne.

Then again, I played Nocturne before I replayed/finished Persona 2, and before I played SMT 1 and 2, so it's not like they're incompatable. There's a lot of overlap in terms of skills and strategies.

[Nev]

Actually, the gameplay in Persona was a bit "meh" for me. I liked the Tarot stuff, but a lot of that was just the ambience of the Velvet Room (which I still think is one of the cooler little ambiences in an RPG). What I really liked was the plot, so perhaps DDS would be good.

[Tortolia]

Persona 2 was a signficant upgrade over the first.

[Don]

I think it's interesting people apparently hold remakes to a lot lower standards than anything else out there. If anyone was making a game and advertised it as 'same old thing as everything we've made before with minor gimmicks somewhere' you'd say that sounds horrible but that's essentially what a remake is.

Whatever happened to KH2 and FF12 anyway?

[Julius Seeker]

I think it's interesting people apparently hold remakes to a lot lower standards than anything else out there. If anyone was making a game and advertised it as 'same old thing as everything we've made before with minor gimmicks somewhere' you'd say that sounds horrible but that's essentially what a remake is.

Whatever happened to KH2 and FF12 anyway?

FF12, there will be a playable demo in Dragon Warrior 8. The game is still scheduled for March 16th 2006 in Japan.

Remakes aren't held to a lower standard, they are held to the standard that existed in the game beforehand, with improvements; or unique features.

[Don]

A standard used 10 years ago is obviously a lower standard than whatever that exists now. If not you'd see 'insert some great game in the past' re-released verbatim and it'd sell millions now. This is not observed.

[Julius Seeker]

A standard used 10 years ago is obviously a lower standard than whatever that exists now. If not you'd see 'insert some great game in the past' re-released verbatim and it'd sell millions now. This is not observed.

Madden Football has remakes each year which sell over a million. Dragon Warrior remakes have also sold millions. Remakes of Mario games almost always sell in the millions. Sonic Adventure remakes.... It depends on the popularity of the game series. For some reason, Square just hasn't been able to do well with remakes, but they certainly haven't done poorly either, the PSX remakes of SNES Final Fantasy games still sold in the hundreds of thousands in North America, the originals also sold in the hundreds of thousands.

Nintendo, Namco, Sega, Enix, Electronic Arts, and likely a few more, have all had very successful sales for the remakes of games. It really just depends on the company and how popular the game is/was at the moment in time of its re-release.

[Don]

Obviously if you remake something and put it on a handheld the standards for those hasn't changed much in a long time so that's how you can have your DW/Mario remakes.

And I don't think sports games count as remakes. Certainly the makers of these games don't market them as 'same as the one year before with updated stats' even if that's all they really are.

[Julius Seeker]

Obviously if you remake something and put it on a handheld the standards for those hasn't changed much in a long time so that's how you can have your DW/Mario remakes.

And I don't think sports games count as remakes. Certainly the makers of these games don't market them as 'same as the one year before with updated stats' even if that's all they really are.

Sports games, it's a tricky question; I consider them as updates, but still the same game. RPG's and platformers really are a whole different animal than sports/puzzle/simulation/fighter titles.

As for the Dragon Warrior remakes remakes being put on handheld; it's not the only platform they have been remade for, but it is the platform that the remakes have been most successful for. It's also the same sort of situation as the Final Fantasy games being moved to handheld which is what started this topic. The feature of the game being handheld is a major thing for a lot of people. People do like to play their old favourites on handheld systems. The fact that the Final Fantasy's are being updated seems more like a bonus feature, to me anyways, than a selling point (with the exception of Final Fantasy 4, but I think I am the only one here who despised the gameplay for that game).