Square Enix released their latest trailer for Final Fantasy XIII at this year’s Tokyo game show. And it’s bloody epic. We’ve got love, heart attack, conflict, pain, talks of death, mecha’s, magic and a warblicious Japanese ballad plying all the while. If you didn’t want this game up until this point, you will after having watched this.

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Final Fantasy X-2’s soundtrack got slated by pretty much everybody, their Grandma and their unborn child. And let’s not get started on the game itself. Despite having a love / hate relationship with Final Fantasy ever since VIII and really loathing X something chronic – I rather enjoyed X-2 for what it was. Soundtrack and all. Sure, the compositions were not anywhere near as memorable of some of Uematsu’s works on a bad day. But the soundtrack served its purpose and matched the new tone and direction of the game perfectly. But whilst most of the soundtrack was being tossed in the crapper by the masses, the game’s main instrumental theme “Eternity” got shown a lot of love. Probably because it was the only composition in X-2 that sounded like it was actually from a Final Fantasy game.

Listen: Eternity ~Memory of the light and waves

Composed by Noriko Matsueda & Takahito Eguchi
Final Fantasy X-2
© 2003 Square Enix

For the mp3 players: Eternity ~Memory of the light & waves

An alternate version of “Eternity” which has more instrumentations and an R&B vibe going on for it also featured in the game and on its soundtrack. If you aim for the 100% completion and get ‘the band’ back together, they treat you to a performance of this song in Guadaosalam, and you can hear it every time you go back there.

For the mp3 players: Eternity ~Memory of the light & waves (Band member musical performance)

I was pretty shocked when I first checked out the playable demo of this game. Because what I had previously thought was the main theme to the game, turned out to be the battle theme!

It’s definitely a departure for the Final Fantasy series in terms of it’s sound. You’d never have thought when you first heard the piece play in the trailer a couple of years back that it’d get chucked into the game as a battle theme.

I love the composition. I did from day one. It’s grand. It’s catchy and brilliantly arranged. It really does convey the feeling of being part of a big epic adventure. But as a battle theme!? I’m not too sure. It has a sound about it that I wouldn’t necessarily associate with a battle theme. It’s sound fits, yet doesn’t at the same time: in a good and bad way. Plus, hearing it every single time you fight a battle throughout the game – it would get annoying and wear thin after a while. I’m hoping Square Enix either re-arrange it to keep it in line with other Final Fantasy battle themes and feature more of a kick, or that they’ll have different battle themes for different locations and situations.

But I do love it though. It’s a great piece of music. The sound, the sweeping strings, the mix of edgy guitars with operatic style strings and brass sections. It’s hard not to like it for what it is: a stunning bit of music. Although for a game that Square Enix claimed would not be your typical, pigeon holed J-RPG, they gave the game a very Japanesey style battle theme. All its missing is a koto and a shakuhachi.

Listen: Battle theme

Composed by Masashi Hamauzu
Final Fantasy XIII
© 2008, 2009 Square Enix

For the mp3 players: Battle theme

Another month, another Final Fantasy game on the cards. Square Enix’s latest chronic milking of the series is tentatively titled Four warriors of light: Final Fantasy Gaiden. Not a great deal is known about this game. But it’s Final Fantasy. So there’s not a great deal to know really. It’ll probably play like all the rest, with a couple of changes.

The characters are designed by Akihiko Yoshida, who is also responsible for the games’ official artwork. And the setting will be an old school setting. Dragons, witches, castles, kingdoms and all that good fairy tale shit. We can also expect Final Fantasy Gaiden to be a new off-shoot of the franchise, as with Crystal chronicles and Tactics.

If Square didn’t roll out so many FF games that looked the same, I’d care more. I’m sure at least one of these non-main-entries-into-the-series Final Fantasy games are really good and worth the time. But when you click on gaming websites and see a Famitsu scan of a new game every other month, you feel like losing the will to even bother with half of ‘em.

It took 2 years, a batch of trailers, finally getting an Xbox 360 and finding out more about the story to finally get excited about Final Fantasy XIII. So it’s gonna take more than just a magazine scan to peak my interest in an FF game. A lot more.

It’s cool that the DS is still getting major third party support though, especially in the way of RPG’s. Of all the systems and consoles out right now, the DS probably has the best library of RPG’s to choose from.

You can check out the official website for the game here: complete with a cool piece of artwork, and a hot piece of retro, 8-bit, muffled and compressed to hell music.

Square Enix have gone on the record to say that Final Fantasy XIII will not be a typical J-RPG and that it will straddle genre’s. Game producer Yoshinori Kitase said…

“There’s a trend these days to strictly categorize games as western RPGs or Japanese RPGs, but Final Fantasy is something that we don’t try to categorize as either, or. For us, the game straddles genre’s”.

If Final Fantasy XIII isn’t a J-RPG, then Princess Peach is black and from Kijuju. We all know full well Final Fantasy XIII will feature a theme song sung by a female J-Pop artist, complete with warbilicious vocals. That there will be magic. There will be a love interest that will never fully come to fruition. There will be a kakkoii boy or two. There’ll be a girl with big eyes, pig tails, mini skirts and boots. Some Mecha’s. A couple dozen beasts. Bahamut. And shit loads of FMV. Shoot, with seen 90% of this stuff in trailers! Of course it’s a J-RPG!! Final Fantasy had continued to pretty much define a J-RPG all by itself.

I know games developers in Japan are currently feeling the crunch to lob loads of western appeal into their games. But there’s nothing wrong with a full on, unashamed Japanesey title. I just hope Square don’t bastardize Final Fantasy further than they have up until now. Although given the hash job they’ve made of the series so far, there’s not much more Square can do to make things any worse. (Although I wouldn’t put it past them!) And no matter what they do, whether the end results are good or bad – Square Enix will rack a shit loads of sales, a broken record or two and commercial success. With XIII releasing on 2 successful platforms this is already guaranteed. Square’s so called straddling genre’s and injection of western influences is probably making the lead main character a white female and chucking in a black guy with a gun and an afro. I hope it ends there. The last thing I want is for Square to try and deviate too much and ruin the game as a result.

The problem with Final Fantasy has never been it’s never been western enough. It’s been that Square seem to have lost sight of what made the games so good originally. I just hope that Final Fantasy fans do not end up greatly disappointed. This could easily go the Resident evil 5 route: a game which sells loads, gets decent reviews across the board, but ultimately ends up a game that falls really short. Although XIII has something in its favour and one less burden that Capcom had: the game that came before it wasn’t all that brilliant, and can easily be bettered.

[CVG]

Square Enix should really stop churning out RPG rehashes and do something new, we’ve all heard that phrase, we’ve all said it at some point, be careful what you wish for.  Square Enix has announced two new titles for the Japanese Xbox Live Arcade. 0 Day Attack on Earth, the one you see above and CUBE which is after the jump.

Both games are shooters, both made by the same company that makes the prettiest, smoothest RPGs around and both look like crap.

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The game looks great graphically. I get sick and tired of saying it whenever a Square Enix trailer drops, because it goes without saying and it’s stating the obvious. But it’s something you have to throw out there none-the-less. Final Fantasy Versus XIII is a pretty looking game!

The whole thing is wreaking of Kingdom Hearts so far. I know the same team is behind this game, but damn! This whole trailer just stunk of Kingdom Hearts. The kakkoi boys with their over done hair do’s, puny arms and big feet. The main man wielding crazy blades looking like a member of Organization XIII. The girl who looks like she shares fashion tips from Naminé. And also the main characters names having dual meanings with things related to the earth ‘n shit: Kindgom Hearts – ‘Sora’, ‘Kairi’ and ‘Riku’ meaning sky, sea and land respectively. Versus XIII – ‘Noctis’ and ‘Stella’ meaning Night and star. Real original.

The mystery surrounding this game is what I think keeps it on people’s radars. Plus, PlayStation 3 owners can take solace in knowing it will be a system exclusive. Unless of course Microsoft drop a skip of money outside Square Enix HQ and it gets a release on the Xbox 360 too. Not out of the realm of possibility. We know how Microsoft’s pockets are deep and that Bill Gates can make it rain on hoes and game studio execs for days.

With Final Fantasy: Advent children complete now out in Japan, the first playable demo of Final Fantasy XIII is also out and about. As is the way in this new age of embeddable videos – Japanese gamers, importers and owners of hacked PS3’s and bit torrent software have done us a favour and uploaded videos of the demo being played through! You can peep a sneak peak at a section of the demo below…

The game is looking great! But it always did and was always going to.  I mean, c’mon: It’s Square Enix! You can always rely on them to push some stunning visuals out of a console when it comes to their big releases. Whilst the differences between the FMV and in-game engine graphics is easily distinguishable. There’s no denying how good the graphics are. Although after the graphical marvels that are Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resident evil 5, Final Fantasy XIII isn’t looking leaps and bounds above what we’ve seen on platforms already. Although I’m sure there are some visual marvels to be witnessed, particularly where summons and magic spells are concerned.

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Square Enix updated their official Final Fantasy XIII website with a brand spankin’ new trailer! Definitely worth checking out.

NOTE: In a bid for YouTube to keep up with the Jones’, embeddable videos now feature an option to be viewed in high quality instead of the usual compressed-to-shit quality we’ve been forced to put up with until now. Just click the icon in the bottom right corner once the video begins playing and select ‘HQ’ to view the trailer in all it’s high quality glory.

This is easily the first trailer in the series which has left me with a feeling of anticipation for the game’s release. The preceding trailers were just a little too dull and void of anything really interesting. They lacked a hook. In this trailer  we finally get to see more of the battle system and actually hear the character’s voice over dialogue. Square Enix is still keeping rather tight lipped on the battle system, but it looks like XIII will share more in common with X-2’s than XII’s: with all the chain attacks being able to interrupt enemy attacks and visa versa.

I always liked leading lady Lightning’s design, but this trailer has me loving her even more. She looks like even more of a bad arse! I just hope Square Enix give her some depth. No characters in a Final Fantasy game have been given a great deal of development and depth since the cast of Final Fantasy VII.

The game is looking real sharp from a graphical standpoint. I just hope the story and gameplay are up to scratch. Because XII damn near bored me to death with how boring it was, despite it being one of the PS2’s best looking games.

Square Enix seem to be getting the XIII wagon rolling now, which is a good sign. I think fans were beginning to get bored with there not being anything on the game and Square Enix rehashing the same images and trailers. Still no confirmed release date, but it is certain that Japan will definitely be getting this game at the end of the year. With the America’s and Europe seeing a 2010 release.

The official websites for Square Enix’s forthcoming Final Fantasy epic’s (I shall use the term ‘epic’ lightly until I see and know more about the game) have gone live! There’s not much to look at, but there are a few high resolution screenshots of the game and main character art to check out.

Most interesting is that the Final Fantasy XIII site features a previously un-heard piece of music! The name of the song and its composer is not disclosed anywhere on the site. And whether the piece is the theme of XIII, simply a piece that’ll play on the title screen or if it’ll appear in the game at all is unknown. But what is certain is that it’s a stunning piece and a sole reason to check out the site – seeing as there’s sod all else to get caught up in.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII also has itself a website, but there is nothing on it as I write this.

Square finally seem to be taking baby steps in getting the Final Fantasy promo train running. Although it could be a good few months until we get anything new on the game. I cannot wait for the system comparisons to make their way onto the Internets. I’m already scared at the potential can of worms that could open – especially if the 360 version ends up on only 2 discs and looks better…

Official Japanese ‘Fabula’ websites: XIII | Versus XIII