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Sidicas writes "Squaresoft has released a new version of the benchmark for Final Fantasy XI. The new version includes a preview of the Tavnazian Archipelago from the Chains of Promethia expansion pack. The benchmark is full of eye-candy and makes for one heck of a screensaver!"

Continuing our 'brief impressions'-based look at the major titles and major publishers at E3 in Los Angeles, here's a look at SquareEnix's booth. Read on for info about a cornucopia of Final Fantasies, plus the new Star Ocean and the mysterious Drakangard... - Final Fantasy XI was being shown in the same form as we've already previewed it on the Sony booth. It requiring the PS2 hard disc is a significant expense/hassle, but if you're a Final Fantasy fan or a MMORPG freak, it may be well worth it.

- Star Ocean:The End Of Time was a graphically stunning action strategy game (with real-time combat), including some insanely nice special effects, though there's some very occasional slowdown. You even got to fight enemies like D+D-styled 'eye of the beholder' floating ocular beasts. As far as control goes, you control the main character directly, and the other people in your party follow your lead, but you can stop the action to change priorities or weapons.

- Drakangard for PS2, an unknown quantity until the show, had the player controlling either a warrior on the battlefield, in very Dynasty Warriors-esque hack and slash action, or the same warrior astride a dragon, hovering high above it and swooping down to fire-heat the opposing troops. The graphics looked a little plain from ground level, but being able to see whole groups of enemies from the air and then toast them was neat. Depth of gameplay could be a problem?

- Final Fantasy:Crystal Chronicles was being played by four eager gamers, each using a GBA to control their onscreen character, and we've dealt with this game briefly already in our discussion of the Nintendo booth. It does look like one of the stand-out Gamecube titles at the show, with wicked-looking robot bosses who rotate their body like a windmill, direct action-based controls and plenty of signature Square special effects, but this isn't your standard Final Fantasy title, so it may polarize fans. We heard someone else make the Gauntlet Legends+ comparison while in the booth, so that may be a good way to think of this game.

- Unlimited SaGa for PS2 may be a continuation of a classic series, but it's a decidedly strange one. The use of 2D characters and 3D background mainly works, but it's the opening 2D/3D cinema that really impressed. This definitely comes with an 'only for the hardcore' tag (there's both 'hit points' and 'life points', for example, both of which are important), but if you can get past that, it's a niche title of interest.

- Final Fantasy X-2 can easily be summed up as 'very, very fruity'. From the opening dancing and singing CG, the all-female cast, and the 'Dress-up Sphere' element to combat, with players needing costume changes to power up, it's all very, very Japanese. The game restored the Active Time Battle method for battles, and the graphics surpass even Final Fantasy X, but it's not so much epic as epic kitsch. Still seems to have the gameplay going on, mind you.

For further impressions, screenshots, and media try IGN.com, Gamespot, Gamers.com, Gamerfeed, or all the other usual suspects. More hands-on impressions soon.

conform writes "The New York Times reported today that Sega Corporation (the Japanese parent company) has merged with Sammy Corp, a vendor of pachinko machines. The Sammy side of things are expected to dominate post-merger operations, and will likely shift Sega operational focuses back to the arcade market. Also, the end of the article notes in passing that SquareSoft has been aquired by rival RPG manufacturer Enix."

Every Christmas season brings with it a storm of new game releases, just in time for the gift-buying frenzy. This year however, marks the release of SquareSoft's first Final Fantasy title for the PS2. I was lucky enough to snag a copy soon after release and spend some time with it. Read on for my first impressions.

I expected a lot from Final Fantasy X, if only because it's Square's first RPG outing on PS2. Within the FF series, every time the jump to a new console was made, it resulted in either better graphics or gameplay, or in this case, both. Although fighting a battle in FFX initially feels like fighting a battle in one of it's predecessors there's been a significant amount of changes to the combat system.

I'm not going to discuss much in the way of plot or characters, because if you're like me, you'll want to discover that part on your own, since the plot is what keeps console RPGs moving.

What's New? Final Fantasy games have always been rather combat-heavy, and leveling up at different times had gotten mind-numbingly boring. In an effort to change that, there are many more options during combat. Characters can be swapped in and out of combat at any time, and they can perform moves as soon as entering the battle, so it's no longer a big deal when you have to fight the weak-against-magic monster and you forgot to include a magic user in the party. In the same way, summons (called Aeons this time around) remain summoned until one dismisses them, replacing the party in battle. When an Aeon's HP drops to zero, the party is brought back into battle, but the Aeon can also be dismissed before that. There's still random battles just like previous games in the series, but it feels like they turned down the frequency of the battles a bit, especially from last year's FF9.

What would be a new Final Fantasy without a new magic system? This time around, it's a little quirky, but it doesn't disappoint. Remember when I mentioned leveling up being boring? Well this time around there's no character levels. Instead, everything is determined by a large sphere grid, that the characters move on using points they accrue by fighting battles. At various points in the grid, characters can lay different types of spheres that enhance them with new abilities, increased character starts, or more max HP/MP. The result is a non-linear system which is more open ended than magic systems of the past, allowing for greater character customization. The trick is to guide a character to the places on the grid that will allow him/her to get the skills desired while using the least amount of sphere levels (which are essentially travel points). Backtracking on the grid is allowed, but is also counterproductive.

Now onto the most fun part of the game: the graphics! With the capability of the PS2 at its disposal, this is easily the best looking ever Final Fantasy title ever, and it's a beautiful world that's been painted. While walking around, the world really comes alive, as trees sway and grass moves as wind goes past. Many of the characters' facial expressions are done in realtime, and while the scenes aren't picture perfect, they are a far cry from the jagged polygonal models on Playstation as well as the two dimensional sprites from the earlier FF titles. The battle sequences look better than ever also, as characters move more fluidly, and enemies do as well. The already stunning realtime animations are augmented by amazing FMV sequences. My only small complaint here is that there's no way to skip the movies entirely. Since it's still my first time playing the game, I haven't wanted to skip anything, but I still feel sorry for the impatient. There is, however, a configuration setting to turn off the extended summoning animations, so there won't be a five minute wait for the huge Aeons enter from space.

Something else FFX features for the first time in a Final Fantasy game: voice acting! Although not every bit of dialogue is dubbed, the voices that are dubbed are done better than I expected. My only complaint is that the lips were synched to the Japanese dialogue, and never resynched during importing. However, that never stopped me from enjoying a Kung Fu movie, and it doesn't stop me from enjoying the game either. Given that the game was released two months earlier than originally planned, I'll let this detail slide.

What's the Same? Although the magic system was overhauled, most of the spells are still the same. There's still three levels of elemental spells, and an Ultima spell, and so on. Also, it wouldn't be much of a Final Fantasy without chocobos, and they are featured yet again.

When Final Fantasy IX was released last year, it featured characters with the traditional Final Fantasy classes, like summoner, white mage, blue mage, etc. I think Squaresoft found that players enjoyed the return to these classes, and decided to continue the trend. Although each character is ultimately customizable into any class, they each start with suggest paths across the sphere grid that resemble one of the classes.

Conclusions Well, if my synopsis of the game didn't sound glowing already, let me reiterate. This game is fun! I had more fun playing the first few hours of FFX than I have had while beating other games. After seeing the character designs for the game, I was worried it might degrade into a "Dude, Where's My Water Sword?" kind of angst-ridden adventure, but instead it's just been fun, and lots of it. On a ten point scale, I give this game a nine, and although it's a little early to call, it may be my favorite Final Fantasy yet. Battle is integrated well with the plot, and with the tutorials placed within the game itself, I'd even recommend this game for those who may not necessarily be RPG fans.

thryllkill writes: "GameSpot currently has an excellent article posted about the history of SquareSoft. As most /.ers know Square is responsible for bringing console RPGs to the mainstream, and some claim brought the PlayStation the success it needed to dominate the late 90s video game market. The article is light on corporate info, but a great rundown of Square's contributions. The only error I noted was the omission of Final Fantasy SGI." And FFX is supposed to ship next week.

Rikardon writes: "Adding a little fuel to the ATi-vs-NVIDIA fire started earlier today on Slashdot, NVIDIA and Square are showing a demo at SIGGRAPH of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within being rendered in 'real time' (four-tenths of a second per frame) on a Quadro-based workstation. Now that I think of it, this should also inject new life into this debate." Defender2000 points to the Yahoo article. Update: 08/14 09:30 PM by T : Original headline was wrong, said ".4FPS" but as cxreg pointed out, .4 frame per second isn't .4 seconds per frame. Sorry.

Gemini writes "Gamespot has an article on how Squaresoft is to go multiplatform, starting with Final Fantasy XI. This is good news for Nintendo." Well, good news for the Microsoft's X-Box as well, since they will release for it as well. But I'm sure Sony has happy to hear that it will be out for the PlayStation 2 first, since that will be key to their strategy for defeating the X-Box.

Vegan Pagan asks: "A big part of the FF movie's appeal is how seamless it is, particularly the lip-synching. However, this movie has been synched only to English, and a traditional, audio-only, dub into other languages would ruin it. It seems that to entertain and sell to all audiences equally, Square must re-animate all of the characters' faces, and perhaps the rest of their bodies as well. But since they have already spent so much on this movie, can they afford to?" More thoughts on the question below, but I have to say...while some of you may have Episode 2 on the brain, this movie is something that I've been waiting on for a long time. I hope it's as good as it looks from the trailers.

I imagine, if Square has the money, time and desire, that they could also render a version in Japanese. I would guess that the dubbing is done using some manner of capturing the mouth movements on the voice actors faces, and then appling that data to the movement of their models. However, the issues of how they dub I think are secondary to the cost necessary in re-rendering those areas of the film for the other version. Would Square do something like this? It would be really cool if they did.