#kingdomhearts
New screens from the opening movie for Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance show off the game's dedication to stirring the series' already convoluted storyline into one large frothy jumble tasting faintly of salt water ice cream. More »
Did you know that you can download handheld games now? That's amazingly convenient! The only inconvenient part of it is finding the right games to buy -- and that's where we come in, with our Portabliss column. In each installment, we'll tell you about a downloadable game on the iPhone, iPad, Android device, DSi, 3DS, PSP, etc. Today: Chaos Rings 2. During GDC this year, Cave Vice-President Mikio Watanabe implored smartphone and tablet game developers to price their products appropriately: a high-quality game should come with a higher pricetag. Square Enix's Chaos Rings 2 certainly follows Watanabe's advice.
At $18 on iPhone and $20 on iPad, it's among the higher-priced big-name iOS releases. But that old adage of "getting what you pay for" applies, too, as Chaos Rings II is a superb RPG that easily justifies its premium pricetag.
#playthis
Final Fantasy fans seeking to relive the glory days of the series when enemies were on one side of the screen and waited their turn have a new champion on the iPhone in Square Enix's Chaos Rings II. More »
#nomuratetsuya
Gearing up for the release of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, this week, part deux of Tetsuya Nomura's interview was featured in Weekly Famitsu. Nomura discussed the latest in the Kingdom Hearts series (and added some more very vague references to Final Fantasy Versus XIII). More »
#dragonquest
Eagerly anticipated role-playing game Dragon Quest X is in beta. And like with most things eagerly anticipated, there are those hoping to make a quick profit. More »
#sleepingdogs
I got to play a video game that came back from the dead and feel pretty hopeful about its resurrection. That's because Sleeping Dogs might just fulfill a very specific desire of mine, which is to play through a video game that takes its cues from the movies of, say, Johnnie To or Chan-Wook Park. More »
#speakuponkotaku
In today's warrior-dragging (get it?) installment of Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Paradox Me ponders the poor treatment Square Enix has given Enix's major contribution to the role-playing world. More »
#nomuratetsuya
Weekly Famitsu hit the magazine racks today, and if you picked it up eagerly looking for more information about Final Fantasy Versus XIII in the interview with Nomura Tetsuya (more than just the leaked tidbits of info), well you were probably let down... But if you picked it up looking for information on Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, you were well rewarded. More »
Square Enix has filed new trademarks in relation to the Mini Ninjas franchise. Which, very quietly, is one of my favourite games of this entire console generation. So this is way more exciting than it should be. [Siliconera] More »
We're used to seeing names in Final Fantasy XIII and its sequel that don't quite qualify as "words" -- things like "fal'Cie" and "Gran Pulse" -- so we don't blink at the announcement of FFXIII-2 DLC featuring the character "Jihl Nabaat."
The FFXIII enemy will be available as a new coliseum opponent this week. Like other coliseum DLC, it will be possible to recruit her into your party after defeating her in battle. The DLC will be released next week on Xbox 360 and PS3 for 240 Microsoft Points/£1.59, which should come to $3 in North America. And Square Enix also announced future DLC called "Lightning's Story: Requiem of the Goddess" coming "soon."
Several users have complained about a persistent issue in Deus Ex: Human Revolution on the PC -- an issue that Square Enix and Eidos Montreal have not addressed yet, according to emails from our readers. Users have complained of in-game stuttering, even with lowered graphical settings, and say these issue have persisted since launch.
Threads on the Steam and Eidos forums have languished since being posted in August, with no official response from Eidos despite each still being active with user complaints. We've contacted Square Enix, who acquired Eidos back in 2009, to find out if there are any plans to address ongoing complaints.
#speakuponkotaku
What's in a name? To the John and Jane Shepards out there, not much, but to those that prefer customizing their Mass Effect heroes picking the right name can make all the difference in the universe. In today's Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Salari wants to know how you name your role-playing game characters. More »
#speakuponkotaku
In today's nostalgic Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Daemon_Gildas imagines a world where Square Enix's The Bouncer didn't bounce from the hearts and minds of gamers so quickly. More »
Square Enix registered chronobind.com and chronobind.net on Friday, Siliconera reports. Despite speculation, this is likely unrelated to popular RPG Chrono Trigger. Chrono Bind is a card game in an upcoming DLC pack for the recently released Final Fantasy XIII-2. [Siliconera] More »
#kingdomhearts
Square-Enix's official French store briefly listed Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream, Drop, Distance for release on July 27 before the company pulled back the listing and replaced it with "Summer 2012." Either way, it's a more precise release window than what we'd heard before. More »
#guardiancross
Publisher Square Enix will release a new fantasy game for iOS and Android this spring, it said on its press Twitter account today. More »
#theatrhythmfinalfantasy
Last week, as part of Theatrhythm Final Fantasy's Japanese launch, Square Enix released the tie-in promotional game, Social Theatrhythm. In this flash game, you create a character and then join up with three Twitter or Facebook friends to play a co-op version of Theatrhythm. More »
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions has been available on the iPhone for about seven months at this point, and when it finally launched back in August of last year we were a bit surprised by its $15.99 price tag -- the equivalent of a hundred million dollars in App Store terms. Square Enix has never released sales information for the iPhone version, but it must have found some justification in its pricing structure as the iPad version just launched for $17.99.
Now, we're not saying War of the Lions isn't worth almost 20 dollars, but for a game that isn't a Universal App, and is also available on PSN for a single sawbuck, it's kind of a tough pill to swallow.
#japan
Last year turned out to be a tough one for most Japanese game companies. With natural and nuclear disasters and economic downturns, it's been a rough year all around. In Weekly Famitsu, several game companies have announced their year-end performance and plans for 2012. More »
#finalfantasy
Arriving next week alongside the "Sazh: Heads or Tails?" story pack, these two new outfits for Final Fantasy XIII-2 main characters Serah and Noel might seem like a pair of extravagant attempts to acquire $2.99 from players, but they make perfect sense in the grand scheme of things. More »
#finalfantasy
One of the most fascinating video game dead ends in recent years has been the fact that, up until a few years ago, a Swedish developer was working on a big-money Final Fantasy game. More »
The supplemental toys surrounding Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure have become the latest in a long line of collectable merchandising campaigns to reach "You paid how much?!" levels, following in the proud footsteps of Pogs, Pokemon cards and Beanie Babies.
An eBay auction for 6 apparently rare Skylanders figures has sold for £797, or $1262.68, before shipping. The auction included gold versions of Chop Chop, Flameslinger and Drill Sergeant, as well as silver versions of Eruptor, Boomer and Dino-Rang, and we doubt it'll be the last of its kind. There's no way that these things will retain their value, of course, so we don't recommend participating in this sort of madness, but it is fascinating to watch. Kind of like a train wreck in slow motion, where the train is crashing through one of those houses on Hoarders.
#review
Into the midst of the PlayStation Vita's launch lineup drops a fiery comet, crashing through the Earth's crust and plunging into the mythical underworld below to amass a massive force of evil with infernal domination in mind. The Army Corps of Hell is recruiting. Should you join up? More »
#sleepingdogs
First we had that crazy live-action trailer, complete with obligatory Asian crime movie kitchen fight. Now come screens from the game formerly known as True Crime Hong Kong, showing off chases on land and water and some combat besides. Sleeping Dogs is due out later this year. More »
"It was not a happy time, as you can probably imagine."
Producer Jeff O'Connell conveys the grim atmosphere reigning over the developers at United Front Games, moments after losing their publisher and months before their ambitious open-world game could stand in a lineup with other free-roaming felons. Activision wanted a bold return for its True Crime franchise, but decided to pull the plug in February 2010. The protracted effort just wasn't guaranteed to conclude at the top of the genre.
Enter: Square Enix London Studios, a division of Square Enix Europe (formerly Eidos). At about 20 members it's a much smaller group than the Vancouver-based United Front, which had close to 180 employees at the peak of True Crime development. "We're a pretty small, tight group," says General Manager Lee Singleton. "I think, actually, a couple of years ago I did the math and I think the average amount of industry experience is like 15 or 16 years or something. We're all pretty seasoned guys."
United Front can whip out a similar resume, built on familial qualities. "We consider ourselves very close-knit," O'Connell says. "I'm sure a lot of these studios say they consider themselves a family, and we do, and we do things to foster that kind of feeling. We have a lot of events, and even though we're a very young studio, we're a very experienced studio." The studio began with Modnation Racers, a vibrant, approachable racing game built with Sony, but incorporates veterans from Bully, Prototype and the Need for Speed franchise.
"Meeting Square, which we did very shortly after the game was canceled -- and I'm probably going to use some corny expression -- was like a bright light," O'Connell says. "Right away, we met those guys and I think we just clicked with them. It's one thing for people to come in and love the game, which they did, and it's another thing for people to come in and just get along with them incredibly well and go out for drinks and meals with them, and just have a really fantastic time, and have them in the studio and have them ask questions or make suggestions, and have that show their depth of understanding." If that run-on sentence isn't indicative of real enthusiasm about this relationship, we don't know what is.
#cosplay
You might not know how to Chun-Li. You might not know how to Final Fantasy or SoulCalibur. Chinese photographer Mengjie Luan sure does. More »
