This place needs more threads

grimloch

Is it just me or has feck all been happening with regard to the European side of things? Like the US have a XII release date and a DOC date, the Japs have their dates for the GBA re-releases of some of the 2D games but to name a few.

DOC is being released in just under two weeks in the US and we haven't so much as heard an educated guess as to when the game will be released. Due to the terrible reviews the game has gotten, I'll try before buying, but that's going off on a tangent. I feel we're really being let down as far as releases are concerned. How long does it really take to convert the game from the format the Americans have to our European formats? I recall dates being set sooner in the past.

I'll admit that we usually get a few extra little features like the Dark Aeons which sort of justify the time we have to wait but these things have a tendency to be advertised by Square to generate hype and so forth. With the exception of DOC, no extra features have been advertised. (If someone knows differently, I'd be more than happy to retract that.)

It's just very quiet lately, considering the 6 or so projects they have running at the moment.

GK¦ Ixion²

4give my ignorance, is DOC dirge of cerberus? if so is it some sort of spin off of FF7?? Just going on what ive heard, i dont really know the first thing about it.

Vokes

Its been 5 years now since the last true FF game!

Anyone have any idea of a concrete date for FFV Advance? I've seen dates for Sept and Oct.

Vokes

This says a November release date: http://www.cubed3.com/news/5669

2 new job classes - Gladiator and Cannoneer.

Official site if your Japenese is better than mine: http://www.square-enix.co.jp/ff5/

grimloch

http://www.rpgfan.com/releasedates.html#gba

No proper date given for VI though. 5 years since a proper game? Sure didn't we get X-2 in 2003/early 2004?:)

GK¦ Ixion&#178 wrote:

4give my ignorance, is DOC dirge of cerberus? if so is it some sort of spin off of FF7?? Just going on what ive heard, i dont really know the first thing about it.

It's a spin off about Vincent and it looks sort of like Devil May Cry. It's been absolutely slated over in Japan, it netted a whopping thirty something percent in one review! Needless to say I have little interest in it and most of us know full well what SE are trying to pull with it. Unfortunately, it's probably going to work.

Vokes

DOC certainly looks pretty enough. A few years ago I definitely woud have been interested in all this FFVII related stuff and have had the time to play it. But these days i have limited time due to other commitments (pesky job!) and stick to the games i know ill enjoy. Ah well.

Aside: FFVI Advance has been slated for a Winter 06 release in Japan AND the US. Will be a handy thing to have over the Xmas hols when the relatives have taken over the house

Are you getting FFIII (EU/US), grimloch? Less than 1 month away :eek:

grimloch

SofaKing wrote:

Are you getting FFIII (EU/US), grimloch? Less than 1 month away :eek:

I'm currently too poor to afford a DS and a game so I've ruled it out for the time being. It would have been ideal if it had been released at the beginning of July to keep me amused on those horrible bus journeys into work, but alas, it was not to be.

It's safe to rule out the GBA ones too because I certainly can't afford a GBA either.

In conclusion, I am a cash strapped student. Mobilising money for XII is going to prove very difficult indeed.

Vokes

Hah! You're where i was 5 years ago. A penniless student with time to burn playing games but no cash - the eternal conundrum.

Anyways, some tasty new short videos HERE.

+ this gem

Final Fantasy III, like so many other hot fall releases, will feature use of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The Mognet system from Final Fantasy IX will make its triumphant return in both the game world and the real world. By delivering mail to the Moogles scattered throughout the game and friends across the land, the world’s potential saviors will earn the opportunity to participate in various side-quests. It is currently unknown whether or not the Mognet will be the game’s only Internet-ready application.

from here.

Crucifix

Have the given an official release date for FFIII? Man I want that game.

Vokes

Not sure exactly. Lots of places say Sept 12th. But one of the above links says an EU date for Sept and Nov for the US

Maybe someone else can set us straight?

grimloch

http://www.rpgfan.com/releasedates.html

It requires some scrolling but for those who can't be arsed:

Japan:08/24/06
America: 11/01/06

It's fairly hard to actually track down a European release so anything that anyone says is probably only an educated guess.

Incidentally, RPGamer has the same date for the Japanese release but a September release for the US.

Gamespot confirms that Japanese date too.

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/rpg/finalfantasyiii/news.html?sid=6152193

Retr0gamer

On a more SquareEnix related note I hear that Front Mission 5 won't be getting either a european release or an english language American release. It's an absolutely crime since the word from japan and importers is that it's absolutely spectacular. Back to the old Squaresoft ways :rolleyes: . I'm pretty strapped for cash as well. Worse of all is that by the time the PS3 is worth buying and FFXIII is out my PhD money will run out Have to start trying to finish up.

DarthWraak

My god this thread is depressing. Is the end nigh???

Made me think. Square are scraping the bottom of the barrel atm arn't they. Re-releasing old Final Fantasy games, making a movie of an old (not slagging, I quite liked Advent Children), and FF12 is taking years to come out!!!! WTF!

Final Fantasy 11 is losing big time to WOW. I noticed how the numbers dwindled on the servers for the past year (not a subscriber anymore).

The series, in terms of gaming, is going downhill. Am I right? Please prove me wrong

Retr0gamer

Well the japanese version of FF12 is getting great reviews. However I'm not convinced especially after the awful FF12 demo. Although I must admit the last FF game I had doubts about was FFX and that was fantastic.

Memnoch

you're just being paranoid, there's always a wait of a few years between successive final fantasy games, though this time that wait was a bit more than usual. A big reason for this is that square are spending recources on other projects, sadly most of which we will never get to play.

Anyway XII has gotten great reviews so i'm looking forward to it next year, and XIII shoudln't be TOO far behind.

Still it would be nice if more decent Japanese style RPGs were coming out here, as it's been a while.

I rmember the days of BOF3, FFVII and Guardian's crusade

Vokes

Just a month away for the US release of FFIII DS - 14th Nov.

Review of Japanese version here: http://www.cubed3.com/review/403/

Sales are very good apparently, as are preorders for the port of FFV Advance, which is due out this coming week in Japan.

Check this out: http://www.cubed3.com/news/6027/1/More_Final_Fantasy_Remakes_on_the_Way

GR: This is the first time for this game to come to the US. Alongside the plans for FFV and FFVI, we'll soon have seen remakes of every classic FF game. Where do you go from here?

Tanaka: FFIV, V and VI have been ported to the GBA. As you have seen FFIII is not a port but more of a remake. In the future, since FFIII has been received pretty well so far, we're actually considering remaking some of the other Final Fantasy games.

We could get a FFVII sooner than expected. I wonder if its feasible to remake it (or rather port it) for the DS. FFIII's graphics certainly looks pretty enough.

Or would you guys rather see a proper next-gen remake.

EDIT: US release of FFV Advance is out Nov 6th - happy days

Promo for V/VI Advance ...footage not great but awesome music

Retr0gamer

I'd like to see a next gen remake of FFVII but only if they got hironobu Sakaguchi back to lead development so he can fill in the plot holes that were left gapping due to time constraints during development of the original. however since he was stupidly fired by Square Enix I'd say if they do remake it they will mess with the game and make it inferior with rubbish like adding plot details linking it with the unnecessary and terrible Advent Children and the other spin-offs.

I'd say the DS could easily handle the original game with all the CG. The advances in video compression and also noting how well the N64 handled the Resi 2 port with all the CG included says to me that it could be done.

grimloch

Retr0gamer wrote:

I'd like to see a next gen remake of FFVII but only if they got hironobu Sakaguchi back to lead development so he can fill in the plot holes that were left gapping due to time constraints during development of the original. however since he was stupidly fired by Square Enix I'd say if they do remake it they will mess with the game and make it inferior with rubbish like adding plot details linking it with the unnecessary and terrible Advent Children and the other spin-offs.

And get a competant team of translators.

Vokes

Retr0, about a DS port, how much data can the DS cards hold? Seeing as the original FFVII was on 3discs, with 700MB per disc, that means the game would have roughly been 2GB. Do you think they could reduce that enough for the DS given video compression advances these days.

DarthWraak

Or course a direct port is not possible. If FFVII was coming out on the DS, it would be remade to suit the constraints the DS has such as storage space, memory power etc. It would be prefered if Square just remade it suited to the DS, and change nothing, well except a few loose ends that were evident in the game. Then I would be a happy camper

Retr0gamer

You have to remember that the full FFVII game is contained on each of the 3 discs. Only the videos are different. If you swap the disc during a game of FFVII the game will play normally but the CGI videos will be messed up. The game is just about as big as Resi 2 was but has a little more GCI in it. Video compression has come a long way since not to mention that the Resolution could be reduced without being to jarring. The DS also is a more powerful console than the PS1. The biggest DS cartridge has bigger capacity than the Resi 2 N64 cartridge (i think, need to confirm that point).

DarthWraak

Retr0gamer wrote:

The biggest DS cartridge has bigger capacity than the Resi 2 N64 cartridge (i think, need to confirm that point).

Yes, DS carts have more capacity than N64 carts. DS carts can go into the hundreds of megabytes, while the most storage Ive seen from a N64 game was Conkers Bad Fur Day (65.5 mb). Correct me if I'm wrong..

Retr0gamer

I think Resi 2 came out on the biggest N64 cartridge. It was 512Mb, thats Mbit not Mbyte . Actually I think Conker came out on the same cartridge size as Resi 2.

Reading up on it just there the max size of the N64 cartridges is 512Mbit which equates to about 64Mbyte. The largest current DS cartridge is 1Gbit which is 256Mbytes. 256Mbytes is more than enough to fit FFVII on to with compressed videos if Resi 2 fits on a 64Mbyte cartridge.

Vokes

Also, from looking at the Revenant Wings trailer, which looks very polished, it would seem its feasible for a FFVII port to be done for the DS.

grimloch

It's worth noting that it's not a gameplay trailer though.

Vokes

Right, but wouldn't you agree that these cutscenes are on a par (or maybe better) with FFVII's cutscenes. Of course, that's no substitute for in-game footage, so it'll be interesting to see how that compares come the next trailer.

Vokes

Arrived home today to find FFIII DS and FFV Advance on my doorstep.

Going to start with III. Hope its good

Cina

The spin-offs really all started after the Enix takeover (or whatever it was) or Squaresoft because they pretty much went broke after the disaster that was the Spirits Within.

Ergo we can blame that terrible film for the longer than usual delays in FFXII, well .. I'm going to blame it anyway.