After an exciting amount of screenshots and interviews at GamesCom last week, Square Enix surprised us yesterday by sharing the Tokyo Game Show trailer of Final Fantasy XIV on their YouTube channel. The trailer is dubbed as a pre-release trailer and is quite possibly the last trailer we’ll see before the game releases next month. The trailer is a mix of Square’s high-end CGI (created by their Visual Works studio) and in-game footage (Believe it or not, 0:57 to 1:05 is gameplay). The trailer does a good job of showing the various starting city-states and showing how Final Fantasy XIV, despite being an online game, is a story-driven MMO.

Square Enix also announced that Susan Calloway will be performing the theme song of Final Fantasy XIV. She caught the attention of Nobuo Uematsu and has done several covers at “Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy” including “Suteki Da Ne”, “Melodies of Life” and “Memoro De La Stono”. You can hear this themesong, called “Answers” in the first part of the trailer.

Square Enix has also announced that the open beta will start on September 1, next week. Unfortunately the details aren’t so exciting because the Open-Beta doesn’t seem so open-open. Testers who were already in the closed-beta will get an email from Square Enix with a new Open-Beta key. It is unknown if other people who didn’t participate in earlier beta testing will be able to play the Open-Beta but we’ll find out soon.

Square Enix already admitted that there’s still a lot of work to do and that some things (like mini-games/colosseum in desert city Ul’Dah) won’t be ready at retail. While there has been a lot of discussion lately on a so called “fatigue system”, clumsy/laggy main menu and cooldown time for quests, keep in mind that Square Enix is still balancing those things. Know that, if you play the open-beta, your feedback is crucial and will be read and reviewed by Square Enix.

You will need a Square Enix account to download and play Final Fantasy XIV. The Square Enix Account system will undergo some changes when Final Fantasy XIV launches on September 22^nd (Collector’s Edition). You can read more about those changes here

Final Fantasy XIV launches on September 30 (September 22, Collector’s Edition) on Windows PCs and March 2010 on PlayStation 3. At Gamescom, Final Fantasy XIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka said that the PlayStation 3 delay was because of “memory issues”. They’ve also admitted that they’re hard at work on the PS3 version so with a bit of luck it might release earlier than March 2010 (Certain sites write “early 2010″ although Square Enix hasn’t officially confirmed this yet)

1 Comment

Satellite internet service providers – SIS LIVE is Europes largest HD and SD Outside broadcast (OB) and satellite uplink provider. SIS LIVE also offers Internet and web streaming services, special cameras and mobile production units.

Square Enix dropped a bomb yesterday, revealing that Final Fantasy XIV will hit stores in September. This news came as a surprise to most people since the beta still has to start and there’s still a lot to do according to the developers. This news also came as a shock to PS3 owners because the PlayStation 3 version got delayed until May 2011. Nevertheless the big shocker was accompanied with loads of information which I’ll try to summarize below:

2 versions, 2 release dates

The regular edition of Final Fantasy XIV will be released on September 30th for PCs running Windows XP and above.

Similar to FF13, Final Fantasy XIV will receive a Collector’s Edition.
The collector’s edition contains various in-game items, a gorgeous Travelers Journal which contains artwork to gaze upon while penning your adventures experienced in Eorzea down. Furthermore the CE contains a Behind-The-Scenes DVD (which reminds me of FFX) and an exclusive game cover  with artwork by Yoshitaka Amano (FINAL FANTASY series).If this isn’t enough to convince you to buy the Collector’s Edition, maybe the release date will be. The Collector’s Edition of Final Fantasy XIV releases on September 22nd, 8 days prior to the normal edition.

Pricing and monthly subscription

The standard edition of Final Fantasy XIV will go on sale for $49.99 in America and for €49,95/£39.99 in Europe. The  Collector’s Edition will go on sale 8 days prior to the standard edition for $74.99 in America and €69,95/£49.99 in Europe. Like every other MMO, Final Fantasy XIV will have monthly subscription of $12.99/month. With an additional $3 for each extra character. No €/£ pricing has been revealed so far but this post will be updated once it is available.

What about the PS3 version?

Sadly, the PS3 version has been delayed to March 2010, 6 months after the PC release, without any explanation.

You can read through all this information once more on the renewed Final Fantasy XIV site
alongside with some new screenshots and artwork. The beta version will begin later this month, “early July” according to Square Enix, so stay tuned because when it kicks off, you’ll read it here!

Continue reading for the minimum system requirements

Thanks to RPGSite for the images and system requirements.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment

This was known for several weeks, but I think it’s a good reminder:

Starting this Friday, Micromania Game Show (MGS) will be held in France!

It’s a big European game show similar to Games Convention in August. A lot of popular video game companies will show their latest games there, including Square Enix!


They’ve announced their line-up a few weeks back on the main page of the MGS Site:

“Square Enix will show over 200m ² of its games and some titles from Eidos. We note in particular the presence of Final Fantasy XIII in Japanese, non-playable version. This is a first presentation of the game
in the West. This highly anticipated RPG will land in the second quarter of 2010 on Xbox 360 and PS3. It combines elements from the classic RPG, with very good-looking graphics. The player controls a hero, assisted by two other characters led by A.I. The universe is a combination of fantasy with futuristic elements”

There will be many other famous video game companies like EA, Capcom, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft,…. You can view the full line-up here
Official site (French)

The other games that will also be on their booth:

It seems FFXIV will be playable and FFXIII will only get a presentation. Nevertheless there will undoubtedly be something new about FFXIII and/or FFXIV. 2 months ago a lot about FFXIII was revealed in Germany (GamesCon) but unfortunately no cameras were allowed…Hopefully it’s different this time! The event starts this Friday and runs until Monday the 2nd.

I’ll keep you updated about every single details of FFXIII at this event (and if it is interesting, also FFXIV), so make sure to bookmark this site or you can also follow me on Twitter: 13thCrystal                      

Leave a Comment

Today a new trailer was released from Gametrailers and in my opinion it looks much better than the first one. The English trailer was also made available in Japanese so that might be a good sign for an English FFXIII TGS trailer. I just found out how to post Youtube videos directly so here it is:

1 Comment

Happy Birthday to myself! It seems Square Enix gave me some birthday presents today. Thank You!

While it’s not a major part of my blog, I will still post the interesting bits about Final Fantasy XIV. Today both the Japanese and North American  Final Fantasy XIV site has been updated with lots of info:

- Introduction

- World
a) Story
b) City-States
c) Races

- Gameplay
a) Armoury system
b) Guildleves
c) Aetheryte

- Media
a) Trailer (singular, only the old trailer)
b) screenshots

- Information

 I’ll update this post when I get my hands on the stunning artwork. For now visit these great sites:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/
http://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/

For some reason the European site hasn’t updated yet

And about that mysterious countdown on the Japanese Square Enix site, it turned out to be the rumored Lord of Vermilion 2:

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/lov2/

A birthday couldn’t be better!

I hope to see you in a few weeks hopefully with a lot of news about GamesCon, where Final Fantasy XIII and FInal Fantasy XIV will be prominently present. (And I won’t…  damn the French holidays…)

Update 1: My friends at FF World have posted the artwork and screens in very good quality. Check them out here:

http://www.ffworld.com/?rub=news&page=voir&id=1459

Leave a Comment