News on Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts 2

GamesIndustry.biz has commentary from Square producer Shinji Hashimoto about the upcoming FFVII movie Advent Children, and the second Kingdom Hearts game. From the interview: "To be honest, all of the staff was burnt out after we made the original Final Fantasy VII! But as you know, Final Fantasy has both a game part and a movie part - and as we made the movie part, we decided to make it longer, because it's so connected to the game part. We don't really think of it as a feature film. It's more like a collection of clips; it's become quite long, but we don't take that too seriously in terms of having a massive concept behind it or anything like that. It's just naturally come about."

Comments

Square

[superpulpsicle]

SquareEnix is putting way too many eggs into the Final Fantasy series.

They need to bring back the Chronotrigger series. The new FrontMission game for PS2 that came out was so half assed compared to the old PS1 version. Can this company actually allocate budget to anything non-Final Fantasy related.

Great visuals != Good Cinema

[MemeSpitter]

The interviewer's focus was just as off as Square's was when they made the last FF movie.

How would you compare the quality of the visuals in this film to something like Final Fantasy: Spirits Within? Has the technology moved on a lot since then?

Great. I was really worried about whether a top-notch game company like SquareEnix can generate good-looking visuals. A better question would have been: "So, did you hire a screenwriter this time? If so, can he/she create a decent plot, or a dramatic structure smoother than something a five-year-old might build out of Duplos?"

Re:Great visuals != Good Cinema

[Harlockjds]

>Actually it was the fantastic story and gameplay that made FF7 the most loved RPG of all time, not the visuals.

No it wasn't. It was the visuals and the fact that it was one of the first CRPGs to get big.

Your first time iss always the best.

Square needs to get back to its roots

[Prien715]

Square hasn't released an original single-player Final Fantasy game since 2001. That's 4 years, the longest state-side gap since FF1 and FF2 (FF4 japan). I'd love to buy an original RPG from Square, but sadly, they don't seem to care about making those anymore. Square's biggest commercial successes (Chronotrigger, FF4,FF6, FF7) featured fairly distinctive storylines and ability systems. After Spirits Within, anything that was not a repeat of some previous ability system or storyline simply got axed.

The real formula square needs to copy is good single player games with original characters and ability systems.

Re:Square needs to get back to its roots

[Neruocomp]

This is so true. So what if they can come out with better looking graphics and such. With no story line to hold it up, its nothing. But I wouldn't call the games that came out afterwards bad. I liked FF9(execept for that ending omg!) and FF Online. Its my first online game and I really like it. Sure its a bit time consuming to get money and find out more of the story, but I'm sticking with it.

You mean there was a *game* in FFVII?

[Alzheimers]

There was actually a game, somewhere in between the FMV and scripted cinematic sequences? Damn, I know I saw it from start to finish, but I didn't realize there was anything in between.

Re:You mean there was a *game* in FFVII?

[Mitijea]

Yeah, it was called "Random Encounter".