E3 '07: Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings North American Hands-On

For years now, you've known what to expect when it came to combat in Final Fantasy games. Though recent games have mixed up the formula a bit, it's still been about small parties of heroes taking on small parties of enemies in either turn-based or real-time confrontations. The upcoming Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings for the Nintendo DS will throw a monkey wrench in that design with a mixture of traditional role-playing game elements and real-time strategy combat that serves to create an entirely new Final Fantasy experience. While we've played the Japanese version of the game before, today at the Square Enix booth we had a chance to see the localized version of the game for the first time.

Helmed by game director Motomu Toriyama, Revenant Wings is one of the many games that make up the so-called Ivalice Alliance, a series of games all set in the Final Fantasy world of Ivalice. It's also a sequel of sorts to 2006's Final Fantasy XII, and several of the characters from FFXII will find their way into Revenant Wings, including hero Vaan--who's upgraded from wannabe to full-fledged sky pirate in this game--and his pal Penelo.

The demo version of the game shown off at the Square Enix booth featured the first tutorial that was found in the Japanese version of the game. The idea of the tutorial is to get you used to moving your units in the game with the stylus and touchpad. Moving characters is as simple as sweeping over them with your stylus and then touching the spot on the screen where you would like them to move. You can scroll through the level with the directional pad as well. Just as with the Japanese version of the game, the characters moved at a fairly measured pace across the screen--we were hoping for an increase in the pace from the Japanese version, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards at this point.

The tutorial dungeon had a number of monsters to attack--to do so, you simply tapped the enemies with the stylus, and Vaan and Penelo would automatically lay into them, with Vaan dealing physical attacks and Penelo automatically healing as they went. After defeating those enemies, the pair meet up with Balthier and the rabbit-eared Fran, who join the team as NPCs for a final showdown with a boss monster at a huge structure known as the Glabados gates. As you fight the boss, new enemies are summoned from a spawn point, and it's here you get a glimpse at the flexibility of Revenant Wings' combat. While Fran and Balthier deal with the boss, you could send Vaan to sweep up the stragglers while Penelo stays put and heals. Or you could keep Penelo with Vaan and make sure his health is maximized.

The demo ended once the boss was defeated, so we didn't get a chance to see many of the features that will be part of the final game--including the ability to summon creatures tied to each of the main characters, which eventually greatly increases the number of characters that make up your party; as well as the various special attacks that each member of your party can use in battle.

Because the RTS genre is still looking to gain a foothold in the Japanese gaming market, Revenant Wings is a fairly new experience there. However, Toriyama has said that his team is aware of Americans' predilection for RTS and, as a result, the North American version of the game will be tuned to challenge an audience that's more experienced in the genre. Key improvements to that end will be the ability for enemy units to set their own gambit and more realistically react to situations in combat, and a new "deep dungeon" designed for experienced RTS players, complete with a new boss battle. The game is due for release on November 20 and we'll be keeping you updated with all of the latest in the coming months

Read More :: http://e3.gamespot.com

Game News :: Square Enix Says FFVII Remake Could Still Happen

Fans of Square Enix's Final Fantasy series have been pining for a remake of the classic Final Fantasy VII since before the game's E3 2005 tech demo. And so far, Square brass has been fairly quiet on the idea of it becoming a reality.
Though, as Famitsu points out (via PlayStation Universe), they are very aware of consumer interest. Crisis Core producer Hideki Imaizumi said in an interview to the Japanese magazine that though fans clearly want it, it's a question of timing. The three most likely to work on such a project -- Kitase, Nomura and Tabata -- are too busy with Final Fantasy XIII.

Imaizumi did make clear there's no current plans for a remake, but pointed out some decisions are made quickly. He added that a new game is to be shown at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, taking place from September 20-23.

No doubt this new game is another part of Square Enix's masterful plan to keep developers too busy to re-render Cloud's ridiculous sword.

Read More :: www.gametab.com

Game Review :: Metroid Prime 3 comparison

The graphics we've seen thus far on the Wii haven't done much to dispute comparisons that describe the system as an overclocked GameCube. Game developers have achieved success building games around the Wii's obvious strength, the motion-sensitive Wii Remote, rather than focusing on the graphics. Games such as Rayman Raving Rabbids and Mario Party 8 sell well, but the core gaming audience still needs its high poly-counts and fancy shader effects. Fortunately, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has arrived in time to prove that the Wii is capable of delivering just such an excellent graphics experience.

Retro Studios, already well trained in coaxing performance out of the GameCube in past Metroid Prime games, did a fantastic job upgrading the series for the Wii. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has surpassed Metroid Prime 2: Echoes in all of the major graphics categories. Corruption has better artwork, higher-resolution textures, improved enemy models, highly detailed environments, and extensive high dynamic range lighting. We put together a collection of screenshot comparisons to illustrate the improvements in Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii.

Read More :: www.gamespot.com