Mad Catz Warns of "Substantial" Doubts About Survival
Added: 03.07.2015 13:53 | 17 views | 0 comments
Mad Catz, the prominent peripherals company that has been designing arcade sticks and other esoteric accessories since 1989, could soon face the prospect of closure if its income does not increase significantly. In late June, the corporation offered a warning to investors, explaining that it had failed to meet a monthly target that had been implemented as a failsafe by its credit lender, Wells Fargo. Because Mad Catz was unable to generate as much money as Wells Fargo had asked, the bank was given the option to call in its loan. Had this occurred, Mad Catz may not have been able to continue as a going concern. However, on June 23, Well Fargo waived Mad Catz' violation, and entered into a new agreement with the corporation that will carry on until July 31, 2016. But Mad Catz, which has been losing money for three years straight since 2011, said it requires "significant contributions from anticipated sales of products related to the Rock Band 4 video game." Mad Catz is co-publishing the Harmonix-developed title. The company also manufactures arcade boards for , Mad Catz claims that it has overcome a major hurdle by securing a new line of credit. Initially the company will be loaned $20 million, which could increase to $35 million from September in order to ship Rock Band 4. Karen McGinnis, chief financial officer at the company, claimed that part of the reason it needed to issue a credit warning was because of the necessity to use unequivocal language in financial documents. She claims that the reality of the situation is far more nuanced and positive. For the financial year that ended in March 2015, Mad Catz posted a net income of $4.7 million. Representatives for the corporation were unavailable at the time of going to press.
From:
www.gamespot.com
| 11 tips to make your life easier in Batman: Arkham Knight
Added: 02.07.2015 22:41 | 32 views | 0 comments
As an infinitely wealthy martial artist looking down upon the denizens of his city, usually as he glides over them en route to his luxury tank, Batman isn’t really touched by the small indignities of living in Gotham. The rain-slick city, which recently beat out Chernobyl in a ranking of the world’s best places to live, is an ever-escalating battleground for Batman and the super-criminals always tugging at his cape for attention. In , the city is wider and in greater danger than ever before, demanding bigger and better solutions from Batman’s futuristic fanny pack. Who has time to sweat the small stuff?
Still, that doesn’t mean your quality of life, a truly alien concept within the borders of Gotham, needs to suffer in such a grand scale of things. The detail-oriented design of Arkham Knight means that keeping in mind a few tiny tricks will ultimately grant you the upper hand and an easier, smoother way to pummel the Scarecrow into a wheezing pile of creepy-straw. But, sure, having a giant tank also helps.
After you’ve been to the Gotham City Police Department for the first time, venture into the game options and set the Batmobile’s tank mode toggle to “on.” A tap of the right bumper or R1 will now switch Batman’s armor-plated city sled between drivin’ and blastin’ modes, making for a more sensible control scheme overall. The tank’s vulcan cannon goes on left trigger and its primary cannon goes on the right, just as the video game tank god intended.
Before this change, the Batmobile turns into a roving gun whenever you hold the left trigger - or whenever you want to brake in the Batmobile and mistakenly extend Batman’s cannon with embarrassing prematurity. Another bonus with toggle: The drift button is mapped to Square or X, making it far easier to handle tight corners in the Batmobile. Not that you should be too worried about threading through alleys: Batman’s car can withstand plenty of scrapes without losing speed, so don’t worry about garbage cans, benches, trees or any of the pointless attempts at obscuring Gotham’s terribleness.
You can take the shock gun, or “Remote Electrical Charge” in gadget parlance, as soon as you arrive at the Gotham City Police Department for the first time. It’s locked up in the evidence room, but it’s shielded only by a pathetic layer of glass, belongs to you in the first place and - oh yeah - YOU ARE BATMAN. Just take it.
As you leave the room you’ll overhear police officers consider and then quickly cancel the idea of stopping your impromptu removal of evidence. You can march out with confidence, knowing that you’ve gotten early dibs on one of the most useful gadgets in the game. It’s handy in solving a few of Riddler’s conundrums later on, but you’ll really want to fire it during combat (LT + Circle, or LT + B), where it will stun enemies, trigger their machine guns in undirected fire, and remove electrical shielding from the crooks you can’t normally punch.
The wonderful cadence in Arkham Knight’s combat has you flitting between numerous goons, delivering a biff here and a pow there. Some enemies are temporarily knocked down, leaving you free to deal with the others behind you, but your merciful restraint is costing you in the combo meter. If you have a chance, you can press RT + Circle (or RT + B) to lift up dazed opponents and thrust them back into the fight.
Why do we fall, minor henchman? So Batman can pick us up, pepper us with punches and extract that delicious combo juice. A well-timed pummelfest can help push you past the 8x multiplier quickly, which then lets you do an instant takedown of a tougher enemy nearby.
Brutes, the large and padded men populating every respectable supervillain’s menagerie of minions, can really trip up your flow. Usually, you need to stun them with your cape (you know, like how you were stunned and dazed as a child when you ran through sheets on the clothesline) and then punch them 15, 20 times while countering incoming blows from behind.
To speed up the process, try pushing or luring Brutes to environmental hazards, activated with Square + X, or X + A. They glow blue in unison with enemies that are in range, and they’re indiscriminate in who they knock out permanently - even a Brute at full health won’t get up after you knock them into an electrical box or drop one of Gotham’s many industrial lamps on them. The city planners must have gotten them with that bulk shipment of stone gargoyles.
The Arkham Knight’s propensity for erecting towers all over Gotham seems to hint at his true identity as a disgruntled Ubisoft game designer. His militarized towers don’t “reveal” anything other than an opportunity to punch optional dudes, though, so their difficulty tends to be higher than most challenges stemming from the main story. As such, they’re often guarded by emplaced sentry guns, which are huge pains in the bat-posterior.
You’ll come across a few of the Knight’s watchtowers early on, but don’t bother swooping through the red lights until you’ve obtained the Remote Hacking Device in the story. The wireless gidget lets you temporarily blind sentry guns, letting you tussle with tower guards without having to worry about getting shot. Even a fully upgraded batsuit can only shield you from bullets for so long, and the hassle without hacking just isn’t worth suffering through a lengthy loading screen.
It’s easy to forget the Batmobile’s other flourishes in the roar of its fiery exhaust. It’s a valuable puzzle-solving tool throughout the game, thanks to its sturdy winch and cable, but it can also help you deal with tougher gatherings of goons. Sometimes it’s best to think of it as another gadget in Batman’s arsenal.
If you’re about to descend on a batch of buffoons, take a look around and see if they’re near a road or a window. Chances are you can remotely summon the Batmobile and leave it parked nearby. Now, after building up your combo meter and spotting an outline of blue on your target, you can press A + X (or X + Square) to uppercut them into the air and marvel as your car blows them out of the sky like a crooked clay pigeon. This cool maneuver, like many others in the game, continue to show Batman’s questionable grasp of the words “non” and “lethal.”
If you intend on completing the majority of sidequests in Batman: Arkham Knight, there’ll be plenty of points later on to upgrade Batman’s suit, fists and gadgets. At the outset, it’s better to focus on beefing up the Batmobile’s cannons. The Arkham Knight has more drones than a militarized Amazon warehouse, and taking them out with fewer shots will help battles breeze by and just seem more fun.
Bruce Wayne’s friend and inventor Lucius Fox will also offer a choice of upgrades to the Batmobile as the story progresses. The most useful of these, which you should get as soon as possible, is the EMP, short for Electro-Magnetic Pulse and even shorter for “I’d like to destroy some drones while they’re immobile and defenseless, muahahaha.”
Because urban planners desperately wanted to add “drowning beneath a bridge” to the long list of horrible things you sign up for when you move to Gotham, the city is split between three major islands. You start on Bleake Island (seriously, why does anyone live here?), but from there you’ll venture into Magiani and Founder’s Islands as you track down the Scarecrow and his debilitating fear toxin.
Your video gaming impulse will be to clear out an island of sidequests as soon as you get to it - and before you move on - but you’ll run into a lot of dead ends this way, especially for tasks that require the Batmobile. To avoid wasting time, and to pursue sidequests organically, whenever, play the story missions until your beloved butler Alfred lowers the bridge to that island. Once that’s done, the Batmobile has access to the roads and can bail you out if you get in trouble with drones. It also gives Alfred something to do beyond listening to Batman batsplain every little thing he’s doing. YES, sir, of course you’re using the deep tissue scanner. I get it, it makes sense.
Batman’s predatory style is more refined than ever in Arkham Knight, thanks to the new Fear Multi-Takedown system. Provided you’ve taken enough foes out in silence - just enough to induce a little panic in the rest - you can instantly take out several clustered thugs back-to-back by popping out of a grate or dropping in from the roof.
You can only incapacitate three enemies at a time in the beginning, but bumping this number to 4 and 5 via Waynetech upgrades makes later story missions much easier, especially when the opposition is armed (plus: a sequence of fear takedowns is guaranteed to succeed unless you fail to point the camera at the next guy). This maneuver is especially powerful if you’re foiling Two-Face’s bank robberies across Gotham, which must be completed before his troops make off with all the cash. With vault alarms drowning out the sounds of gunfire and punching, quickness is better than silence.
Batman typically enters the scene from an elevated gargoyle perch, so you might as well use your bat’s eye view to cause some consternation. The Distruptor gadget returns in Arkham Knight with a wider variety of ways to induce malfunction in enemy weapons, so always consider using it before you swoop down and start flailing.
For instance, the Disruptor can disable enemy medics before you join the fight, thereby stopping them before they wake up thugs you’ve already knocked into next Tuesday. You can also set ammo crates to go haywire, giving you a KO’d enemy before they can bring a gun into the fight. In fact, if you booby-trap them and toss a batarang into the crowd from afar, they’ll panic and get themselves electrocuted before you’ve even touched the ground. Now that’s the classic Batman way.
Even if you love the Batmobile’s wrecking ball approach to fast travel, gliding is still the preferred method of travel through Gotham. Though you can often save time by driving through sewers and other secret passageways, going up and over the city is more fun, liberating and - get this - informative.
Batman: Arkham Knight’s storytelling tricks include the clever use of audio cues, some of which you simply won’t hear over the growling of the Batmobile’s engines. As you swoop through the city, you’ll hear signals of nearby sidequests, some of which won’t even be available on the mission menu yet. In between the light patter of rain you’ll hear a ghastly screech, wafting opera music and even the obnoxious beep of a roadside mine - all little distractions that lead to something more. If you’re playing Arkham Knight this way, you’re doing it right.
Looking for more help? We also have a complete .
Tags: City, Evil, Onto, Ubisoft, Batman, Island, With, Jump, Another, After, Though, Square, Knight, Remote, Amazon, Because, York, Arkham, SoulFrom:
www.gamesradar.com
| Nintendo Defends Metroid Prime
Added: 02.07.2015 1:46 | 8 views | 0 comments
Metroid Prime: Federation Force was not received well by fans at all. In fact, they hate it... they hate it with a passion. Why? Because first off it doesn't star Samus, second it looks pretty low-quality and third, no one sees any relation to the Metroid Prime series. Well, Nintendo has hopped in to defend the new 3DS game.
From:
www.cinemablend.com
| A Look Back at Final Fantasy 15's Troubled Past
Added: 01.07.2015 19:32 | 13 views | 0 comments
Final Fantasy XV has been entrenched in one of the longest development cycles of all time, with few games rivaling its prolonged gestation. Announced long before Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were put to pasture, Final Fantasy XV was originally called Final Fantasy Versus XIII, not to be confused with the mainline game, Final Fantasy XIII. Both games were announced at the same time, yet we've seen not just one, but three games tied to Final Fantasy XIII proper released since it was announced. Final Fantasy XV is supposedly nearing completion, but we still don't have a release date to hang our hat on. While we wait for more news on Final Fantasy XV, let's look back at the game's milestone moments, starting with a little press event in Tokyo almost ten years ago.
Sept. 2006 - Final Fantasy Versus 13 Announced at Tokyo Game Show
During a Square Enix press conference at Tokyo Game Show 2006, three Final Fantasy XIII games were announced: PlayStation 3 exclusives, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII (which would eventually become Final Fantasy XV), and a mobile game, Final Fantasy Agito XIII. Agito aside, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII were the first examples of what a then next-gen Final Fantasy could be. At the time, Final Fantasy XII still wasn't available outside of Japan, so for fans of the series in the west, these announcements were especially captivating. It was eight months before Versus XIII was seen again in the form of another cutscene trailer, but then the game would go dark for the next year, when signs of trouble with development began popping up online.
Jun. 2008 - Final Fantasy Versus 13 Development Confusion
After a long period of silence, an interview with Versus XIII director Tetsuya Nomura in Japan's Famitsu magazine seemed to indicate that staff working on the game had been appropriated by the Final Fantasy XIII team because the latter game was the studio's number-one priority. As such, work on Versus XIII would not resume until development on XIII was wrapped. However, despite being translated by numerous sources, Square Enix claimed that the quote was misinterpreted. Rather than what was reported, Square Enix clarified that "reports that development for Final Fantasy Versus XIII is on hold are false. The truth of the situation is that when free, some staff from the Versus team have been helping with the Final Fantasy XIII team on development...Development for both titles is continuing as originally scheduled." Whether the follow up from Square Enix was genuine or not, we now know that Versus XIII would not meet its initial release schedule, suggesting that Nomura's concerns were valid, even if the truth of the matter wasn't as dire as it first seemed. This was the last anyone heard of Versus XIII until 2010, when yet another brief trailer was released. That trailer gave us the first look at gameplay, but it was all too brief, with tightly composed tidbits of exploration and combat that lasted for less than a minute total. However, in early 2011, Square Enix would open the floodgates.
Jan. 2011 - Square Enix Unveils Final Fantasy Versus 13 Gameplay
Following years of short trailers based primarily on cutscenes, Square enix released a seven minute video in 2011 filled with footage of combat and new environments, including city streets, interiors, and grassy wilderness. There was also footage of Noctis, the main character, taking control of weaponized vehicles, including a bipedal mech and a tank, which he hijacked on-the-fly mid-battle. While it's anyone's guess whether or not he will still be able to do that when the game's ultimately released, given that we know a lot has changed in the last few years, it's safe to say that other scenes, particularly where the player is controlling one of Noctis' cohorts, Prompto, is something that won't be in the final game; we now know that you can only control Noctis, with other characters reacting to his needs automatically. Regardless, this trailer, coming five years after the initial announcement, was what players had been waiting for, being the first concrete evidence that the game has had significant work put into it. Despite this reassurance, in 2012, director Nomura would once again hint that something suspicious surrounding the game was afoot.
Jul. 2012 - Final Fantasy Versus 13 Cancellation Rumors
18 months after the massive gameplay trailer dropped in 2011, with little new info surfacing in the meantime, a source close to the game reportedly told Kotaku that production had been shuttered, six years after final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced. This came on the heels of Nomura talking to Famitsu, yet again, about impending news regarding the game's development. "We're almost done with preparing the latest info for the game," he stated. "Because of a totally unrelated reason, there are circumstances in which that info cannot be released." Kotaku was also told that development resources had been folded into the next, standalone game in the series, Final Fantasy XIII. This rumor would be addressed the following year, during Sony's press conference at E3 2013.
June 2013 - Final Fantasy Versus 13 becomes Final Fantasy 15
The rumor that Final Fantasy Versus XIII was being pushed aside was almost unbelievable, but at E3 2013, Square Enix confirmed that it was done with Versus XIII; instead, it would live on in a new form, as Final Fantasy XV. With the PlayStation 3 behind them, Square Enix had shifted development to the next generation of consoles, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A new trailer accompanying the announcement showcased both new and redesigned characters, wide-angle views of large environments, and a wealth of combat scenarios against enemies big and small. It was the most substantial look at the game yet, suggesting that development had progressed quite a lot farther than previous trailers would have led us to believe. Considering that development moved to an entirely new and advanced generation of consoles, it was impressive, but another change, which would be announced over a year later, may have been the key to speeding up the pace of development.
Sept. 2014 - Hajime Tabata replaces Tetsuya Nomura as director of Final Fantasy 15
While Tetsuya Nomura was working on Final Fantasy Versus XIII, he was also working on Kingdom Hearts III, which was announced in 2010. With two massive franchises on his back, it's no wonder why development on Final Fantasy Versus XIII was taking so long. It's still unclear how the transition happened and when it became official, but around the time of 2013's Tokyo Game show, Square Enix announced that Hajime Tabata had taken over as director of Final Fantasy XV. Having previously worked on Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Type-0, Tabata seemed to be the right man for the job, and his appointment would free Nomura up, making it a win-win for Square Enix. For Final Fantasy fans, it perhaps signaled that Nomura's influence would be brushed aside, but it was also a sign that efforts were being made to actually finish the game. Little did we know, we'd actually get a chance to play it in just a few months time.
Mar. 2015 - Final Fantasy 15 demo, Episode Duscae, ships with Final Fantasy Type-0 HD
Tabata, the newly appointed director, promised that a demo of Final Fantasy XV would be released alongside Type-0 HD at the 2014 Tokyo Game Show, and sure enough, people who picked up the initial printing were able to access a playable demo of the long-awaited game, subtitled as Episode Duscae. The demo was huge, giving you plenty of time to explore a single, large region of the world, and battle wildlife and soldiers to your heart's content. It also featured side activities such as cooking, but the most exciting moments included a battle against a large behemoth and a look at the game's summons, which in this instance, was a huge version of Ramuh, the series' elderly lord of lightning. When he announced the demo, Tabata noted that the game was 55% complete, but he also ensured everyone that it wouldn't take another eight years of development to complete the other half now that work on the demo was finished. As it turned out, the development on the demo wasn't exactly wrapped up.
Mar. 2015 - Square Enix seeks feedback from fans, updates Episode Duscae
A little over a week after it released Episode Duscae, Square Enix launched a survey where players could submit their feedback on the demo. Initially, this was pitched as a way for players to influence the final game, but this feedback was ultimately used by Tabata and his team to create an update for the Episode Duscae demo, which launched just a few months later in June. In addition to adjusting the camera and targeting system, Tabata's team also doled out a few new side quests, which partner Noctis up with one of his cohorts. One in particular, where Noctis teams up with Gladiolous, introduces a brand new mechanic known as cross chains. These tandem attacks allow you to take down larger, stronger enemies by following a series of button prompts that appear on screen during combat. It's interesting that such a patch would be released for the demo, but it's even teresting that resources were devoted to it, rather than to the full game.
June 2015 - Changes from Versus 13 to 15 outlined by Tabata
During a episode six of Tabata's Final Fantasy XV livestream series, Active Time Report, he outlined some of the changes that were implemented into the game during its transition from Final Fantasy Versus XIII to Final Fantasy XV. Among them, Tabata pointed out that "after we had switched from Versus to XV, the first decision we made was to make sure that XV would have a complete, coherent story in one game." This suggests that the story was previously designed to suit multiple titles. This shift in thinking led to a reorganization of story events, but also characters. Previously, Noctis interacted in trailers with a character named Stella, who was intended to be the game's heroine. However, her character was totally scrapped in the transition to Final Fantasy XV because Tabata's team "found it increasingly difficult to make sense of Stella's character and role within Final Fantasy XV." Sensitive to the issue that such sweeping changes may have a negative impact on fans expectations, Tabata added: "All these things I have been talking about have been the subject of extensive debate, and were decided with a level of utmost resolve in order to make Final Fantasy XV into the best game possible, so at least in our minds, these decisions are making the game better."
Aug. 2015 - New information will be released during Gamescom
Square Enix and Tabata have promised that there will be lots of new information related to Final Fantasy XV coming out of the Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany. What that could mean is anyone's guess, but there's a good chance we'll finally get a release date for the oft-delayed game. Will it be September 2016, to mark the 10th anniversary of the game's announcement? It would be a shame to have to wait that long, but after nine years, what's one more? If it means the team will get the time it needs to finish the game without sacrificing quality, the wait should be worth it.
Tags: Among, PlayStation, Gain, When, With, Jump, Xbox, Bolt, Fantasy, There, Time, After, While, Shop, Xbox 360, Ball, Lots, Episode, Announces, Kingdom, Kingdom Hearts, Hearts, Square, Final, Enix, Final Fantasy, Kotaku, Square Enix, Because, Crisis, Little, Despite, September, Fantasy XX2, DuringFrom:
www.gamespot.com
| A Look Back at Final Fantasy 15's Troubled Past
Added: 01.07.2015 19:32 | 22 views | 0 comments
Final Fantasy XV has been entrenched in one of the longest development cycles of all time, with few games rivaling its prolonged gestation. Announced long before Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were put to pasture, Final Fantasy XV was originally called Final Fantasy Versus XIII, not to be confused with the mainline game, Final Fantasy XIII. Both games were announced at the same time, yet we've seen not just one, but three games tied to Final Fantasy XIII proper released since it was announced. Final Fantasy XV is supposedly nearing completion, but we still don't have a release date to hang our hat on. While we wait for more news on Final Fantasy XV, let's look back at the game's milestone moments, starting with a little press event in Tokyo almost ten years ago.
Sept. 2006 - Final Fantasy Versus 13 Announced at Tokyo Game Show
During a Square Enix press conference at Tokyo Game Show 2006, three Final Fantasy XIII games were announced: PlayStation 3 exclusives, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII (which would eventually become Final Fantasy XV), and a mobile game, Final Fantasy Agito XIII. Agito aside, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII were the first examples of what a then next-gen Final Fantasy could be. At the time, Final Fantasy XII still wasn't available outside of Japan, so for fans of the series in the west, these announcements were especially captivating. It was eight months before Versus XIII was seen again in the form of another cutscene trailer, but then the game would go dark for the next year, when signs of trouble with development began popping up online.
Jun. 2008 - Final Fantasy Versus 13 Development Confusion
After a long period of silence, an interview with Versus XIII director Tetsuya Nomura in Japan's Famitsu magazine seemed to indicate that staff working on the game had been appropriated by the Final Fantasy XIII team because the latter game was the studio's number-one priority. As such, work on Versus XIII would not resume until development on XIII was wrapped. However, despite being translated by numerous sources, Square Enix claimed that the quote was misinterpreted. Rather than what was reported, Square Enix clarified that "reports that development for Final Fantasy Versus XIII is on hold are false. The truth of the situation is that when free, some staff from the Versus team have been helping with the Final Fantasy XIII team on development...Development for both titles is continuing as originally scheduled." Whether the follow up from Square Enix was genuine or not, we now know that Versus XIII would not meet its initial release schedule, suggesting that Nomura's concerns were valid, even if the truth of the matter wasn't as dire as it first seemed. This was the last anyone heard of Versus XIII until 2010, when yet another brief trailer was released. That trailer gave us the first look at gameplay, but it was all too brief, with tightly composed tidbits of exploration and combat that lasted for less than a minute total. However, in early 2011, Square Enix would open the floodgates.
Jan. 2011 - Square Enix Unveils Final Fantasy Versus 13 Gameplay
Following years of short trailers based primarily on cutscenes, Square enix released a seven minute video in 2011 filled with footage of combat and new environments, including city streets, interiors, and grassy wilderness. There was also footage of Noctis, the main character, taking control of weaponized vehicles, including a bipedal mech and a tank, which he hijacked on-the-fly mid-battle. While it's anyone's guess whether or not he will still be able to do that when the game's ultimately released, given that we know a lot has changed in the last few years, it's safe to say that other scenes, particularly where the player is controlling one of Noctis' cohorts, Prompto, is something that won't be in the final game; we now know that you can only control Noctis, with other characters reacting to his needs automatically. Regardless, this trailer, coming five years after the initial announcement, was what players had been waiting for, being the first concrete evidence that the game has had significant work put into it. Despite this reassurance, in 2012, director Nomura would once again hint that something suspicious surrounding the game was afoot.
Jul. 2012 - Final Fantasy Versus 13 Cancellation Rumors
18 months after the massive gameplay trailer dropped in 2011, with little new info surfacing in the meantime, a source close to the game reportedly told Kotaku that production had been shuttered, six years after final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced. This came on the heels of Nomura talking to Famitsu, yet again, about impending news regarding the game's development. "We're almost done with preparing the latest info for the game," he stated. "Because of a totally unrelated reason, there are circumstances in which that info cannot be released." Kotaku was also told that development resources had been folded into the next, standalone game in the series, Final Fantasy XIII. This rumor would be addressed the following year, during Sony's press conference at E3 2013.
June 2013 - Final Fantasy Versus 13 becomes Final Fantasy 15
The rumor that Final Fantasy Versus XIII was being pushed aside was almost unbelievable, but at E3 2013, Square Enix confirmed that it was done with Versus XIII; instead, it would live on in a new form, as Final Fantasy XV. With the PlayStation 3 behind them, Square Enix had shifted development to the next generation of consoles, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A new trailer accompanying the announcement showcased both new and redesigned characters, wide-angle views of large environments, and a wealth of combat scenarios against enemies big and small. It was the most substantial look at the game yet, suggesting that development had progressed quite a lot farther than previous trailers would have led us to believe. Considering that development moved to an entirely new and advanced generation of consoles, it was impressive, but another change, which would be announced over a year later, may have been the key to speeding up the pace of development.
Sept. 2014 - Hajime Tabata replaces Tetsuya Nomura as director of Final Fantasy 15
While Tetsuya Nomura was working on Final Fantasy Versus XIII, he was also working on Kingdom Hearts III, which was announced in 2010. With two massive franchises on his back, it's no wonder why development on Final Fantasy Versus XIII was taking so long. It's still unclear how the transition happened and when it became official, but around the time of 2013's Tokyo Game show, Square Enix announced that Hajime Tabata had taken over as director of Final Fantasy XV. Having previously worked on Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Type-0, Tabata seemed to be the right man for the job, and his appointment would free Nomura up, making it a win-win for Square Enix. For Final Fantasy fans, it perhaps signaled that Nomura's influence would be brushed aside, but it was also a sign that efforts were being made to actually finish the game. Little did we know, we'd actually get a chance to play it in just a few months time.
Mar. 2015 - Final Fantasy 15 demo, Episode Duscae, ships with Final Fantasy Type-0 HD
Tabata, the newly appointed director, promised that a demo of Final Fantasy XV would be released alongside Type-0 HD at the 2014 Tokyo Game Show, and sure enough, people who picked up the initial printing were able to access a playable demo of the long-awaited game, subtitled as Episode Duscae. The demo was huge, giving you plenty of time to explore a single, large region of the world, and battle wildlife and soldiers to your heart's content. It also featured side activities such as cooking, but the most exciting moments included a battle against a large behemoth and a look at the game's summons, which in this instance, was a huge version of Ramuh, the series' elderly lord of lightning. When he announced the demo, Tabata noted that the game was 55% complete, but he also ensured everyone that it wouldn't take another eight years of development to complete the other half now that work on the demo was finished. As it turned out, the development on the demo wasn't exactly wrapped up.
Mar. 2015 - Square Enix seeks feedback from fans, updates Episode Duscae
A little over a week after it released Episode Duscae, Square Enix launched a survey where players could submit their feedback on the demo. Initially, this was pitched as a way for players to influence the final game, but this feedback was ultimately used by Tabata and his team to create an update for the Episode Duscae demo, which launched just a few months later in June. In addition to adjusting the camera and targeting system, Tabata's team also doled out a few new side quests, which partner Noctis up with one of his cohorts. One in particular, where Noctis teams up with Gladiolous, introduces a brand new mechanic known as cross chains. These tandem attacks allow you to take down larger, stronger enemies by following a series of button prompts that appear on screen during combat. It's interesting that such a patch would be released for the demo, but it's even teresting that resources were devoted to it, rather than to the full game.
June 2015 - Changes from Versus 13 to 15 outlined by Tabata
During a episode six of Tabata's Final Fantasy XV livestream series, Active Time Report, he outlined some of the changes that were implemented into the game during its transition from Final Fantasy Versus XIII to Final Fantasy XV. Among them, Tabata pointed out that "after we had switched from Versus to XV, the first decision we made was to make sure that XV would have a complete, coherent story in one game." This suggests that the story was previously designed to suit multiple titles. This shift in thinking led to a reorganization of story events, but also characters. Previously, Noctis interacted in trailers with a character named Stella, who was intended to be the game's heroine. However, her character was totally scrapped in the transition to Final Fantasy XV because Tabata's team "found it increasingly difficult to make sense of Stella's character and role within Final Fantasy XV." Sensitive to the issue that such sweeping changes may have a negative impact on fans expectations, Tabata added: "All these things I have been talking about have been the subject of extensive debate, and were decided with a level of utmost resolve in order to make Final Fantasy XV into the best game possible, so at least in our minds, these decisions are making the game better."
Aug. 2015 - New information will be released during Gamescom
Square Enix and Tabata have promised that there will be lots of new information related to Final Fantasy XV coming out of the Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany. What that could mean is anyone's guess, but there's a good chance we'll finally get a release date for the oft-delayed game. Will it be September 2016, to mark the 10th anniversary of the game's announcement? It would be a shame to have to wait that long, but after nine years, what's one more? If it means the team will get the time it needs to finish the game without sacrificing quality, the wait should be worth it.
Tags: Among, PlayStation, Gain, When, With, Jump, Xbox, Bolt, Fantasy, There, Time, After, While, Shop, Xbox 360, Ball, Lots, Episode, Announces, Kingdom, Kingdom Hearts, Hearts, Square, Final, Enix, Final Fantasy, Kotaku, Square Enix, Because, Crisis, Little, Despite, September, Fantasy XX2, DuringFrom:
www.gamespot.com
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