From: 1up:

…the team is aiming to make FFXIV more accessible than FFXI right from the start — a necessity in a world dominated by World of Warcraft. “The way WOW is aimed at casual users is something we want to incorporate, but we don’t want to copy it,” Komoto says. “The key word is growth, the growth of the character, their development. We’ll have the same type of storytelling and same type of graphics [as in FFXI], but we hope to expand on the in-game systems. Through these we’d like to expand the job system into something different from XI’s. All the knowledge and experience we acquired from FFXI will be incorporated into FFXIV. XI was designed for parties, but we’d like for XIV to have material for solo players and parties alike from the start.”

“While FFXI has changed over time, it’s still party based,” Tanaka adds. “For FFXIV, if you want to play solo you can. If you want to play in a party you can. If you want to jump in play for 40 minutes or for long sessions you can. We’ll offer different play styles for many different people.”

A polished Final Fantasy MMO could be a lot of fun. There is going to be a lot of competition though, World of Warcraft is still strong and BioWare’s SWTOR is getting a lot of hype. If the FFXIV team can make a balanced, fun and involving game from the start — they have a chance of getting a casual audience for the long term. People love online games, but they only stick with the ones that make them feel like they’re a good gamer. Even if they suck (and most do).

Square Enix announced details about Final Fantasy XIV a few days ago. The game is slated to be a PS3 Exclusive focused on online play. They have Nobuo Uematsu on music, Akihiko Yoshida as the Art director, and it’s being directed and produced by Nobuaki Komoto & Hiromichi Tanaka, respectively.

Official site here: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com

Shiggy revealed a new Zelda title at an E3 Developer Roundtable. The game is slated for release in ‘10 and doesn’t have a title yet. Miyamoto said the title would definately use Wii MotionPlus (a controller addon that reads devilishly accurate movements).

From 1up:

During the discussion, Miyamoto briefly showed an image from the game featuring a mature Link barely visible through a broken wall. Although the picture only showed Link from behind, a short girl in a long robe stood in full view at Link’s back. Wearing a crystal necklace and emanating a blue aura, she gave off an otherworldly look — akin to Zora from Ocarina of Time.
Miyamoto had hoped to show off the game at Nintendo’s E3 press conference, but his development team wanted to focus on defining the concept for this Zelda iteration. The team has been experimenting with different gameplay and dungeon designs and they decided that their time would be better spent focusing on the game, rather than a demo.

With so little known about the game, it’s hard to speculate. But I’d assume this addition to the Zelda franchise will be a solid release.

It’s E3 time and Final Fantasy XIII is on my mind. It’s not exactly new news that Nobou Uematsu isn’t going to be the lead composer on the Final Fantasy XIII project (although he is helping), but don’t fret. Masashi Hamauzu is taking the lead composer roll and, if FF XIII sounds anything like his past works, we should all be in for a treat. Here’s a link to the FF XIII Battle Theme. This composition starts very Nobuo-ish (spoiler: it was probably composed by Nobuo), but then turns into an epic Masashi piece after the intro. Nobuo’s take on Final Fantasy music lately has been pretty edgy. He likes to use power chords and harmonics in his music to express intense moments (Its like where the Indians live, in tents). Masashi’s take is more refined. A lot of Final Fantasy XIII will be composed with a live orchestra (for reference, Masashi was lead composer for Saga Frontier 2 — here’s an example). I imagine Nobuo as the eccentric type of composer who writes Final Fantasy music while taking PCP and listening to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. But maybe my basis is misleading since it’s similar to how I describe myself.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years is going to make an appearance in the Square Enix booth at E3 (full listing here). FFIV:AY is going to be a Nintendo Wii; WiiWare release about Prince Ceodore, son of King Cecil and Queen Rosa. Ceodore is the prince of Baron (you remember Baron, right?). The plot of the episodic WiiWare title is reminiscent of more Final Fantasy games. The Moons are coming closer to the planet and monsters are running a muck, and it’s your job to solve the worlds problems. Just think of it as you being America, the moon being Iraq, and your swords being freedom.

No Trailers or Gameplay have been released yet, but expect to see classic battles; and a slew of characters old and new.