Square Enix Message Board older than one year ago

#playthis I was terribly disappointed with the way Square Enix priced iNiS's rhythm game, Demons' Score. So disappointed that when I heard the company had released another iNiS rhythm game on iOS I almost didn't bother. Between the free initial download and the stirring sounds of Dvorak's New World Symphony my tenuous convictions crumbled, and I am so incredibly glad they did. More »

#hitman Here's a look at some of the "deadly disguises" that Hitman: Absolution. You know, like a large chicken. And a scarecrow. And a judge. Lethal! More »

#bravelydefault People in Japan like Bravely Default. They really like Bravely Default. More »

Square Enix is letting Sleeping Dogs fans vote for what the game's next DLC pack will be, via a newly unveiled basset - sorry, ballot. As explained on the game's website, players can vote for one of two content packs, and then that pack gets created and released as the game's next DLC. Both packs include a new cosmetic add-on, buff, weapon, and vehicle.

The first pack is inspired by Journey to the West, the same Chinese folk tale which Enslaved is based on. It includes a Sun WuKong Monkey skin along with a one-handed staff, melee buff, and a Monkey-themed vehicle. As for the second 'Fire Fighter' pack, it includes a firefighters' outfit, unbreakable fire axe, damage resistance buff, and a fire van. Square Enix says the last item is inspired by seeing players repeatedly hijack the game's fire track, which can't fit in the garage. And yes, the trusty fire van is the little van that can.

At the time of writing, the Sun WuKong pack has almost exactly four times as many votes as the Fire Fighter pack. There's still plenty of time to vote here and turn that around before the poll closes this Sunday, October 21. On a side note, there's been a lot of stuff recently about voting, hasn't there? There's the Pac-Man thing, then the poll for the new BioShock Infinite trailer, and now this. It's like there's some big election going on or something.

[Thanks, Gregory]

Sleeping Dogs is waking up and going for digital walkies on PlayStation Network in Europe and Australasia. Square Enix's action-adventure is now available to download from both continents' stores, and comes with three of the downloadable packs released to date.

There's the Retro Triad Pack, which gives you some funky 80s garb and a kiler kung fu van to trawl the streets of Hong Kong with. Also included is the Red Envelope Pack, which dispenses 20 red envelopes (funnily enough) throughout the region, each one stuffed with $50,000 HK. Finally, there's also the Street Racer pack released yesterday, which is kind of self-descriptive. Except one of the three races included is water-based, so there's that.

The digital edition is now available in Europe and Australasia, priced £47.99/€69.99/$89.95 AU. We've reached out to Square Enix to find out if we can expect something similar for the North American PlayStation Store too.

#yoshitakaamano While speaking with Yoshitaka Amano, the legendary designer who created art for almost every game in the Final Fantasy series, I asked him about his dream project. Would he want to work on a direct sequel to Final Fantasy VI? Maybe a Dragon Quest game? Some sort of crazy Chrono Trigger spinoff? More »

#hack Last month, the Square Enix Official Goods Online Shop was compromised as the third-party server, which hosts its online retail store, was breached. More »

#tombraider http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXGyKVDj37 Everyone who's played a Tomb Raider game knows that Lara Croft's pistols are her most iconic and trusty weapons. Always filled with ammo, always ready to mow down the rabid wolves, Yeti and human thugs who get in her way. More »

#toys As you should know by now, Square Enix's Play Arts studio have the rights to make action figures for more than just Square Enix properties. Which is why the cool toys you're about to see come from all sorts of publishers, franchises and games. More »

#bravelydefault On Twitter, a Japanese gamer said she or he purchased a 3DS just to play Square Enix's latest role-playing game Bravely Default—then asked the game's official Twitter, if there were a sequel, would it also be a 3DS title? More »

#sleepingdogs Earlier today, Square Enix and United Front Games announced that they'll be delivering a horror movie style add-on to the gritty open-world action of Sleeping Dogs. The publisher and developer showed off the trailer and some gameplay from Nightmare in North Point, and talked about the special weapons and abilities Wei Shen will get access to with the DLC. More »

#sleepingdogs Square Enix managed to find a surprising success in Sleeping Dogs, their crime drama that takes place in a engaging open-world Hong Kong. Since the game's summer release, it's gotten DLC offerings that give players new racing or cop missions as well as packs filled with new customization options but nothing in the form of new adventures for Wei Shen. More »

The loyal PlayStation.Blog readers amongst you might have noticed that we’ve been unusually quiet in recent times, but no longer, today we come bearing gifts! For all our RPG-loving fans, we’re excited to bring you the world’s first screenshots of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn on PS3 (Chocobos included)!

In our first PlayStation 3 reveal, we wanted to give you a guided tour around the game’s interface and menus. With a wealth of different options and commands at your fingertips at any time, it was important for us to create an elegant UI that is easy to read and navigate. Taking inspiration from previous games, the look and feel of the new Final Fantasy will be instantly familiar to long-time fans of the series.

The accompanying screenshots show an action bar with 16 total slots; of which, the left eight can be accessed by pressing the L2 button, and the right eight with the R2. The corresponding eight slots are mapped to the controller’s directional pad, along with the Circle, x, Triangle, and Square buttons. Players can set up to eight action bars, and cycle through them by pressing both the L2 and R2 buttons.

In Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, we’ve put an emphasis on customisation. Knowing that everyone has their own personal tastes, not to mention the need to have a load-out that compliments the character and role you’re playing in-game, all of the UI elements that you see in the screenshots can be enabled, disabled, and repositioned to suit your preferences. Menus are also simple to navigate, with the command you’re looking for only a few button presses away.

The UI, like the rest of the game, is built to offer the high-quality experience that you would expect from its PC counterpart. With Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn supporting cross-platform play, it was important that the features and gameplay align across both platforms. The graphical quality is no exception to this, and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn takes full advantage of PlayStation 3′s resources to bring you the amazing visuals you’ve come to expect from Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn’s development is well underway (currently entering an alpha test phase) and the PS3 version is still on track for simultaneous release with its PC counterpart in 2013. We hope these screenshots have you salivating and eager for more; make sure you keep an eye on the blog, because we’ll be back in the near future with some PS3 gameplay footage. If you’d like to find out more about Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn — and to view our latest trailer — check out the game’s official site.

As always, please leave your feedback and questions in the comments and we’ll do our best to answer them.

The Hitman series is known for allowing players to create their own narratives within the sandbox levels, but with Hitman: Absolution, developer IO Interactive has enlisted Hollywood talent like Vivica Fox, Powers Boothe and Shannyn Sossamon to help tell Agent 47's latest story.

#finalfantasy Didn't see Final Fantasy Versus XIII at this year's Tokyo Game Show, did we? Nope! Well, Square Enix's Tetsuya Nomura is here to say the game is still being worked on. More »

#kingdomhearts In the upcoming issue of Famitsu, Square Enix's Tetsuya Nomura apparently talked up the forthcoming HD Kingdom Hearts collection, Kingdom Hearts: HD 1.5 ReMIX. There are some interesting details. More »

#finalfantasy Square Enix is busy readying the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIV. The Tokyo-based game company doesn't just working on making sure the PS3 version is up to snuff, but it's also aiming for it to become the standard for MMORPGs on home consoles. More »

#squareenix Over the past few years, Square Enix has become something of a force in mobile gaming. The big Japanese publisher, best known for making console role-playing games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, has also found success making solid games for tablets and phones. Some of them are ports of old classics; others are new, original experiences. Many are excellent. More »

#bravelydefault We still haven't heard a peep from Square Enix's North American offices about Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, a lovely-looking 3DS RPG that just came out in Japan last week. More »

#finalfantasy Brought to you by Dan Hobart, the man who cut abridged versions of Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and quite a few other Super Nintendo games, here's all of Final Fantasy VII in five minutes. In case you feel like getting all nostalgic and wistful but you don't have time to play Square's classic RPG all over again. Enjoy! More »

#tombraider Square Enix, along with many other game publishers, will be descending on the Big Apple next week for New York Comic-Con. And when NYCC starts next Thursday, the company will be letting folks shoot arrows at a target in imitation of the newly-rebooted Lara Croft. If the following is to be believed, these will be real Clint Barton/Katniss Everdeen projectiles: More »

I've watched my targets, memorized their movements, and exploited the shortest windows of opportunity to achieve my goal of a silent kill. As Agent 47, the returning killer-for-hire in IO-Interactive's Hitman: Absolution, I've spent more time planning than I have executing.

Being methodical in your approach is key as a, let's face it, no-so-conspicuous murderer. Though a master at his craft, Agent 47 has to contend with one hell of a simple, accurate suspect description: a scowling bald guy with a bar code tattooed to the back of his head and a proclivity for black suits and red ties.

Because of that, and despite initial worries that Hitman: Absolution would bring more of an action tilt to the series, Agent 47 works best when striking from the shadows.

In our last preview of Hitman: Absolution, contributing editor Mike Schramm detailed six ways he executed a target. This mission, which is the game's second, asks players to kill a single, guarded man in a bustling Chinatown market. Six ways to kill the man is already an impressive number, but the actual limit to your options is daunting: there are twelve.

The latest Hitman: Absolution gameplay trailer is a cavalcade of ingenious/ridiculous murders. As always, Agent 47 will be able to kill in a variety of ways, from cutting the wire of a disco ball so it smashes onto someone's head, to programming surgical robots to violently dissect a victim. Silent, but diverse.

"It'd be unusual" for there not to be an HD update for Kingdom Hearts II, series director Tetsuya Nomura told Famitsu magazine. As Gematsu reports, following last month's announcement of 1.5 HD Remix, Nomura admitted a second HD update for the Kingdom Hearts series is probably going to happen.

With Kingdom Hearts, Chain of Memories, and 358/2 Days being bundled in 1.5 HD Remix, we'd wager our limited edition Goofy figurine on a second update including the remaining major releases, namely Kingdom Hearts II, the PSP's Birth by Sleep, and the recent 3DS game 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

Nomura also dished a few more details on 1.5 HD Remix. Rather than upscaling old character models, the update will simply feature those used in Dream Drop Distance. Also, the gameplay is being tweaked to be closer to Kingdom Hearts II's - which should mean there's no need to fear the return of the first entry's temperamental camera.

"It'd be unusual" for there not to be an HD update for Kingdom Hearts II, series director Tetsuya Nomura told Famitsu magazine. As Gematsu reports, following last month's announcement of 1.5 HD Remix, Nomura admitted a second HD update for the Kingdom Hearts series is probably going to happen.

With Kingdom Hearts, Chain of Memories, and 358/2 Days being bundled in 1.5 HD Remix, we'd wager our limited edition Goofy figurine on a second update including the remaining major releases, namely Kingdom Hearts II, the PSP's Birth by Sleep, and the recent 3DS game 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

Nomura also dished a few more details on 1.5 HD Remix. Rather than upscaling old character models, the update will simply feature those used in Dream Drop Distance. Also, the gameplay is being tweaked to be closer to Kingdom Hearts II's - which should mean there's no need to fear the return of the first entry's temperamental camera.

How do you reinvent an icon? No, seriously, how do you do that - we've never done it and it sounds hard. For many of the folks at Crystal Dynamics, it's the greatest undertaking of their careers, evidenced in this latest episode of the Final Hours series focusing on Tomb Raider.

Tomb Raider lead writer Rhianna Pritchett weighs in with just how much of herself she's put into Lara Croft and what it's like being the first female lead writer in series history. Crystal Dynamics' Karl Stewart also goes into showing off the game at Comic-Con 2012 and the anxiety that comes from showing off Tomb Raider to the general public for the first time.

#hitman This sizable chunk of gameplay footage highlights Hitman: Absolution's user-generated content feature. In the new Contracts Mode, players can craft and distribute specific missions for each other within the single-player levels. More »

#squareenix With tensions rising between Japan and China over ownership of a group of islands (called "Senkaku" in Japan and "Diaoyu" in China), and between Japan and Korea over ownership of a different group of islands (called "Takeshima" in Japan and "Dokdo" in Korea), 81-year-old video game composer, Kouichi Sugiyama (of Dragon Quest fame) recently voiced his opinion on the issue, focusing his argument, not against China or Korea, but against the Japanese media. More »

Square Enix is slapping some discounts on the plethora of Final Fantasy XIII-2 DLC, with all twenty-plus items on sale on the Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network. True, most of the premium downloadables feature weapons and outfits (though what outfits they are), but there are discounted options for those who focus on the 'content' side of downloadable content.

'Lightning: Requiem of the Goddess' is 50 percent off at 200 MSP/$2.49 on XBLM and PSN. Within is an episode which sees you play out Lightning's story in a battle with Caius, before unlocking the heroine of Final Fantasy XIII as a party member. Also going at half-off is 'Sazh: Heads or Tails' for the same price, and Snow: Perpetual Battlefield at 160 MSP/$1.99. Both unlock the named heroes for use in the sequel.

The sale doesn't end for another week, so there's plenty of time for you to... what's that? You just want to see Serah in N7 armor? Well, fine, you go do that.

#manga Since the Final Fantasy games have been so incredibly influential, it's interesting to see where FF's designers have looked for their own inspiration. More »