Weekly News Roundup: 07.17.2011

Final Fantasy comes to 3DS, video services hit 3DS around the world, Monolith Soft swears it’s ready for HD, an update on Assassin’s Creed: Lost Legacy, and more.

By Michael Edwards. Posted 07/17/2011 13:00 1 Comment     ShareThis

Before any news I’d just like to take time to remind everyone that the Play For Japan charity album, featuring some of the greatest game composers of all time, is now available on both iTunes and the Amazon MP3 store. All proceeds go to the Japanese Red Cross.


Final Fantasy Coming to 3DS in its Own Unique Way

Guess which genre won the “you get to have a Final Fantasy game” lottery? The winner this year is…a rhythm game! I like to imagine Square-Enix has a large wheel somewhere with various genres written on it and when they’re looking for Final Fantasy ideas, they just spin the wheel. Long ago they hit racing, recently they’ve hit fighting game twice, and now we’ve landed on rhythm game.

We don’t know a whole ton yet, but here’s the plot: there is apparently space between the gods Chaos and Cosmos called Rhythm, Rhythm gives birth to a crystal (see, a crystal…Final Fantasy!) which controls music. Chaos, however, starts some…chaos, and the crystal’s powers start to fade. Thankfully our favorite Final Fantasy friends (in chibi form of course) team up to save the day.

As for the music, there will be three songs from each of the 13 main Final Fantasy games, one for three different types of levels: field, battle and event. Field and battle are shown in the screenshots. Field has easy difficulty where you just slide the stylus up and down. Battle has higher difficulty, with you following on-screen prompts based on three different types of icons. Red means tap, yellow means slide in the prompted direction, and green is tap and hold. Of course the more accurate you are, the more successful your attacks will be, and you can even chain your way to critical attacks. There has been no information released on event yet.

Personally I’m pretty pumped for this. I love the idea of using rhythm in turn based battles, like in Mother 3, but rather than being an addition, this is full-out all rhythm controls. It already looks crazy, and considering Indieszero (whose credits include Electroplankton and Game Center CX/Retro Game Challenge) are working on it, I’m already sold. The game will be out this winter in Japan.

Source: Andriasang

Video Hits 3DS Worldwide in Various Forms

So two different video services were rolled out this week for 3DS. First is Nintendo Video, which went to both Japan and Europe, which is odd because it’s not a JRPG. (Kidding.) Last month in Japan, Nintendo released Spot TV, which sends original content from Fuji TV and Nippon TV, all in 3D, to your handheld via Spot Pass. Nintendo Video sounds pretty much the same, just more infrequently, sometimes in 2D, and from other providers. The European service is similar, with content specific to that region.

Although initially bummed out that Nintendo Video wouldn’t be arriving until later this summer in the States, some video content arrived there this week as well in the form of Netflix streaming. Now whenever there is a Wi-Fi connection around, you can use your 3DS as a streaming device.

While the interface is done well, connecting to the service wasn’t so hot. I probably could have drawn each frame of the 30-minute show I was trying to watch in high detail before the program started playing. It took three tries of exiting the Netflix app (once where it didn’t recognize the home button so I had to hard reset) to finally get it to work. Once playing it’s smooth, but initiating that connection was rough. Still, I now have a 6th option for streaming.

One interesting note is that there was a bit of a hint that in the future Netflix will offer 3D streaming as well, which would make the service on 3DS much more appealing. Hopefully the connection will be smoothed out a bit by then.


Monolith is Ready for HD

Monolith Soft has been the topic of many a conversation lately thanks to Xenoblade, but while that game is weeks away from hitting Europe, and probably an eternity away from going to North America, it’s been out in Japan for over a year now and they’ve moved on to Wii U. The main concern it wanted to address is that, yes, they are ready for HD. In fact, Michihiko Inaba called out American developers, saying he wants to surprise everyone with their first title. He said their goal is to match the “quality” of Fallout 3, although that’s not much of a lofty goal anymore.

As for the Wii U controller, it seems their focus for now is utilizing the second screen rather than getting all touch-happy with it. That would be an appropriate fit for something like an RPG, assuming they are doing an RPG. Along with trying to convince people that yes, they can do HD, the interview served a second purpose: recruiting. So if you’re young and know a little bit about Havok and Shaders, and are comfortable with potentially working on a game called Xeno-something, start updating your resume.

Source: Siliconera

So Where Has That Assassin’s Creed Game for 3DS Been?

Way back when the 3DS was announced, Ubisoft, always one to jump at the chance to release boat-loads of games on new consoles, said an Assassin’s Creed title would be coming to the system called Lost Legacy. The story would involve Ezio going back to the Holy Land and learning more about his ancestor, Altair. Fast forward to this year when Assassin’s Creed: Revelations was announced for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The story would involve Ezio going back to the Holy Land and learning more about his ancestor, Altair. That sure did sound familiar. Meanwhile, no sign of the 3DS game. See where this is going?

Yeah, they took the story from Lost Legacy and gave it to the flagship title, which is kind of understandable considering it has always been an intriguing plot, especially to a big Assassin’s Creed fan like myself. Sadly, their language in regards to an Assassin’s Creed title on 3DS now involves a lot of “ifs”, so don’t expect any dude-knifing for a while.

Source: Joystiq

Final Five

For our stunning conclusion to this week’s news, here are five more stories you should check out:

  • Who should you blame for absentee games on Virtual Console? Regional managers. – VG247
  • Team Ninja has some ideas for the Wii U controller. – Siliconera
  • Making those 3D Classics isn’t as easy as it looks. – Kotaku
  • What’s in that Dragon Quest Anniversary Collection? – Siliconera
  • NOA now has The Last Story trademarked. Still, keep your hopes low. – GoNintendo

And that’s all the news from this week. Now it’s your turn to reply! Are you anticipating or dreading the release of a rhythm-action Final Fantasy? Will you use Netflix on your 3DS? Do you think a Monolith game will ever see the light of day in America? Let us know in the comments.

One Response to “Weekly News Roundup: 07.17.2011”

  • 1379 points
    xeacons says...

    Well, I’m not happy with the price hike, so I’ll avoid the DVDs (since I never did like waiting for them in the mail anyway). But now with service on the 3DS, I want my Netflix back (pout)…

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