So, Final Fantasy IX on the PC...

A week or so ago, Square-Enix let slip that they're planning to bring Final Fantasy IX to the PC in 2016. It's a move that isn't all that surprising when you look at all of the other games in that series which they've been steadily porting to it over the years. At this point it's largely a matter of speculation as to which of the remain games in the franchise will be ported next rather than if it will be ported. (I'm honestly surprised that Tactics isn't on PC yet.)

Now that we know IX is coming our way shortly, we're also beginning to learn about some of the changes being made to the port. When the Steam page went active, one of the first things that I noticed was that the game is going to require 20GB of storage space. For a port of a game that originally released on the first PlayStation, that's a lot of real estate. As a point of reference, Final Fantasy VII only requires 3GB while VIII needs 4GBs. So, we're seeing quite the jump here which suggests a lot of changes.

I have to assume that the majority of these 20GBs comes from all of the high resolution movies that the developers are promising. Cut scenes were a big contributor to why the various iterations of XIII gobble up so much hard drive space. This move isn't exactly going to win brownie points with me, as I've come out in the past expressing my concern with the continuing bloat of game size in recent years.

For those who like their graphics extra pretty, FFIX is getting a bit of a discombobulated upgrade. As mentioned, the cut scenes are getting the HD treatment (whatever that means), and character models are getting polished up a bit as well. Unfortunately, backgrounds are not. You can thank Japanese design ethos of the 80s and 90s for this, when companies didn't make a point of keeping back-ups of all assets for that. So, for this release the most players can hope for is a bit of upscaling on the environments which, while not terrible, kinda stick out judging by the screenshots making the rounds.

Another thing we'll be seeing in this edition of the game is a number of methods by which players can speed things along. We know that there'll be a "high speed" mode that pretty much does as one would expect, speeding up actual battles, as well as a "no encounter" mode which eliminates all random encounters from the game. It sounds like there'll be more modes, but it's hard to be sure, and it is funny because they really do showcase one of the Achilles heels of traditional, old school JRPGs: random battles. They're often so tedious that revisiting them now almost necessitates accelerated modes of play like these.

Of course, there will be stuff like achievements and autosave features implemented as well, so a decent amounts of bits and bobs added for the PC release. Personally, that 20GBs of hard drive space is making the game a bit of a hard sell for me, even with all of the new stuff being added, and granted I do have the PS1 version of the game that I can play whenever I feel like it, so there isn't exactly a huge urge welling up inside of me to play this. Nonetheless, Final Fantasy IX is pretty much up there as one of the best games in the series as far as I'm concerned (alongside IV, VI, and XII), so I can see quite a few people snapping it up when the game releases. It's won't be lacking for demand at any rate.

World of Final Fantasy Trailer

Square-Enix announced that they were working on World of Final Fantasy at this year's E3, discussing how it will be aimed at younger players to introduce them to the series. It'll have a chibi art style to the main characters with quite a lot of monster collecting, as they will help the party fight in battle. It's planned for both the PS4 and Vita with cross play support to help with the monster collecting.

All things considered, it sounds like a pretty safe way of going about things. Adopt a cute, inviting visual style with simplified battles and toss in some vaguely Pokemon-esque monster hunting, and it seems like a good way to try and get the young'uns interested in the series.

With Jump Festa 2016 underway, the company has now released a lengthy trailer for the game. So far it looks pretty good in terms of environment and character designs. Now it's a matter of speculating what the full roster of characters and monsters will be. Square-Enix tends to be quite thorough with games that span the entire Final Fantasy series, so I expect quite a lot of popular choices will make the cut as well as some more unexpected ones.

With that, does it make me a bad person to be looking forward to this more than Final Fantasy XV or the Final Fantasy VII remake?

Interesting Leaks from the Steam Help Desk (FFX / FFX-2 HD, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Half Life 3)

Some folks have managed to get their mitts on some interesting data from Steam's Help Desk, suggesting a number of titles that may be coming to the platform in the not so distant future. Some of the more interesting games to appear on it include the HD remakes of Final Fantasy X and X-2, Guilty Gear Xrd - SIGN -, and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 1-3. Both Danganronpa games also appear to be getting ports to PC.

Of course, the big stand out was data suggesting Half Life 3, but this just makes me question the validity of the whole leak. It just sounds too good to be true with this on it. Who hasn't wanted a new Half Life for the better part of forever as we patiently wait and watch Valve seemingly work on anything and everything but this. It's like the old poster Agent Mulder had in his office that read "I want to believe" except we replace the UFOs with Gordon Freeman.

Still, I'll at least raise an eyebrow and watch to see what happens here. Most of the other stuff sounds completely plausible. Square-Enix haven't been squeamish about bringing all of their Final Fantasy games to Steam, and I've been wondering when Guilty Gear Xrd would come along (Battle Fantasia is on Steam now for crying out loud), Danganronpa would make sense when one considers how many Vita ports have hit Steam of late, and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, while unexpected, certainly doesn't seem like an unusual title to transition over.

The only big question mark is Half Life 3. So, all we can do is take a wait and see approach, watching whether any of these games really do appear on Steam or if it was all just a poorly informed rumor.

A Trio of Triple A Games from the Triple E Show that Made Me Go "Ooo!"

Normally I'm not the sort who gets terribly worked up when E3 comes along. The thick corporate veneer, lingering stench of focus groups, fake smiles, and cacophony of talking points are enough to make me want to flip tables, kick puppies, or in the very least pen a strongly worded introduction to an article discussing the event. This year was actually a bit of a surprise. There were three games that I actually thought were interesting enough to set aside my unbridled hatred for big business, and start to drift ever so slightly towards actually being excited about something.

Futzing Around in Final Fantasy XIV

Playing as Summoner in Brayflox Longpost.

Once I walked away from World of Warcraft, I figured I was done with MMORPGs, but recently that hasn't been the case.  I've poured an absurd amount of time into Final Fantasy XIV, a game that in quite a lot of ways is very similar to WoW.  Battle mechanics and the whole hot key controls setup are very reminiscent of Blizzard's MMO, yet the game squeezes in all of the Final Fantasy-ness that one would expect from a game to bear the name.  What I'm left with is something that has totally consumed me.

Weekly Checkpoint 53 - Wizardry, Final Fantasy XIV, and Very Little of Xbox One

It's the weekend, so Jeff chats a bit about the week that was in gaming.  Having already said his bit about the Xbox One, he's focusing more on some interesting news regarding classic Wizardry games and the relaunch of Square-Enix's troubled MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.

The Weekly Checkpoint 18

It's the end of the week, and with that it's time for another news round-up.  This week we discuss Gabe Newell and Rob Pardo's concerns regarding Windows 8, Yoichi Wada confirming that Final Fantasy XIII Versus is still in production, and Nintendo's latest batch of financials.

Retro Review: Final Fantasy I (NES)

After a bit of a hiatus, Retro Reviews are back, and Mr. Nash kicks things off with a look back at one of his favorite RPGs as a kid, Squaresoft's Final Fantasy on the NES.

The Weekly Checkpoint 15

It's the weekend once more, and with that Mr. Nash discusses some of the bigger gaming news stories to come up over the last few days. This week we look at the EU's recent ruling on the resale of digitally distributed software, Final Fantasy VII getting re-released on the PC after all these years, and Sony deciding to team up with Gaikai.

News: Final Fantasy VII Coming to the PC...Again

Years and years ago Final Fantasy VII came to the PC (and so did VIII for that matter).  The game wasn't terribly well received because the thing was a terribly half-assed port, and left gamers of the time with the feeling that if they want to play a Final Fantasy game, they might as well get the console version.  Now Square-Enix is taking another kick at the can for a PC version of FFVII.