BACK TO THE ENTER INDEX.
-By Philip Wesley-
-First Posted May 9, 2006-
Well, today I went to pick up my badge holder and then hike on over to the Square Enix conference. Literally hike actually. It was Don, Imakuni?Neo, Justin Hardy, and I hiking like 1000 blocks to get to their show. Major props to CNN for filling us in on the details. Before I talk about how the conference went, I want to give some shout outs to a few of the interesting people I met. Mostly thanks go to Alex Walker from CNN. You rock and I hope you guys do well against the Fox juggernaughts. So, we're walking to Square Enix's conference and I have to admit that LA has some weird places. Lots of Scientology places, and street wall artworks. Heh. Nothing too interesting really. As for the show? It was fairly dry at first and then it heated up. I have to wonder why they showed off FF7: Advent Children again.. this time.. with the GOD-AWFUL english dub. So, when did Square Enix aquire STREAMLINE? Does anyone care anymore? The day that FF7 AC came out in stores... I bought KARAS: The Prophecy instead. Much better.
Then we had to endure endlessly boring mobile phone line-ups then a trailer for Rocket Slime and some corporate speaking. But whatever, we got a sweet little animated happiness that was interrupted by tanks. The best shot of the show would be the part where our blue slime buddy.. finds his tank and his expressionless eyes look upon it in pure vengeful lust. It's Payback Slime! Oh, God help us now! But you can not help but feel sympathy for slimy vengeance. Slime harder. There was also a bit about the World of Mana which was mostly yawn aside from Children of Mana. Children of Mana owns everyone, so they have to pay it tribute in the form of purchasing it. Then Square also showed off some of the most awesome games out this year.
Yes, I'm talking about Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles DS, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI, and the best reason to buy a PSP ever: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. A long time ago, Crisis Core was gonna be a card based, semi-anime style game with sprites just like the cell phone game. It disappeared, I heard the entire engine got scrapped and it was teetering near the edge. Then.. Square Enix showed the game off and it was indeed beautiful. You get character development for Zach, Sephiroth, and the thing does stuff with the PSP that validates the price of the PSP. They also showed off Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Whatever starring Vincent. Our favorite member of Cure goes about shooting up the town and getting some backstory. Sign me up. Is it somehow wrong to feel that the spin-off games may be SUPERIOR PRODUCT to the original game? Maybe I just hate Cloud? The snowboarding cell phone game dropped off their spin-off list. Maybe they should give us what we all want and put out Final Fantasy VII: Extreme Pudding Volleyball. Think about! Aerith, Tifa, Yuffie, and others playing volleyball.. but not on sand.. on pudding. It is assured to sell! There was also a 3D mobile phone game called Lost Chapter for Dirge of Whatamacallit. It was sweet as well!
They also showed off Crystal Chronicles and Dragon Quest Swords for the Wii. Crystal Chronicles will be awesome. Dragon Quest Swords smacks of toss away. For PS3, they announced Final Fantasy XIII, which I shall call Final Phantasy Star XIII. Heh. Then they announce Final Fantasy Versus XIII which is every flavor of awesome. In fact, I left Square Enix's show with a real sense of happiness. There was a Hogwarts style Mobile phone game for the Cell Phone. to announce as part of the Final Fantasy XIII threesome. Kinda like the Magus Sisters.
A few strange things were their re-release of Final Fantasy Adventure on the cell phone. They pretty much did minimal enhancements to the GB game instead of a complete overhaul like they did with Sword of Mana. This felt so much like THIS that it was spooky. Please stop doing that Square Enix. The Wii titles they showed off were Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and that was sweet indeed; but Dragon Quest Sword.... looked kinda quickie. Hope it ends up fine.
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