Last year, Square Enix released Final Fantasy Portal on the Japanese App Store. Similar to their previously released Dragon Quest Portal app, it serves as both an information hub for all things Final Fantasy and a launcher for the various games in the series. The app launched with a free copy of Final Fantasy 1 in Japan for the first million downloads, and eventually added a free-to-play update of the card game Triple Triad from Final Fantasy 8. Unlike its sister app, however, Final Fantasy Portal will be releasing outside of Japan.
it will be interesting to see how Square Enix handles it outside of the domestic market. Apps like this one are relatively common in Japan, but that’s not the case everywhere else. From the screenshots they’ve shown of the English version, it appears to be functionally similar to the Japanese one, and Square Enix has already confirmed Triple Triad will be a part of it. It will likely also retain its ability to launch games, but it’s hard to guess what they’ll do with the version of Final Fantasy 1 that runs natively in the app. In Japan, they pulled the separate version of the game completely off the App Store, giving players little choice but to download the Portal. The updated version from the Portal was already distributed to owners of the standalone app outside of Japan, though, so they’re already on a different course here.
As for the information side of the app, it does its job well enough. All of your FF news regardless of platform is collected in one place, with videos, screenshots, and details to absorb. It’s a nice little companion app for Final Fantasy fans, and with seemingly more exciting FF news than we’ve seen in a while going on, the timing is right. As with the iOS version of Final Fantasy 7, Square Enix has only announced a vague summer release window for Final Fantasy Portal. We’ll be sure to update you when we hear anything else.
Conversation begins as the theme is playing :p
Shortest liveblog ever! :)
Oculus Rift is awesome (even the original DK1 I develop on)--glad you guys got to try VR!
There IS hope for VR at low cost. I've done most of my Oculus Rift work (and playing games by others) on a 2011 MacBook Air. It IS enough for a smooth framerate.... for SOME content. It can't handle every kind of game and environment, but it CAN handle some really fun things. (Luckily, I now have a Mac Pro, and can have all those high-detail massive environments too.)
And Google Cardboard on iOS can be pretty great in a similar reduced-detail way. Google's own demo app is disappointing (no neck modeling, overly-simple content), and most of the other "Cardboard" apps actually predate Google's iOS tools, and do not adapt to different headsets properly. But games made with Google's new iOS tools have potential! I just today tried an iPhone Cardboard game "InMind VR," and although the gameplay isn't special, you do get a great sense of space and motion. With a little more polish and head-tracking audio, it could rival some of the Rift experiences. I am inspired to get back to work on "Church of the Worm" for iOS.
I hope you're right that phones of the future can deliver all the detail we need a PC for. Being tethered to a PC is awkward at best, even if the view is incredible.
I tend to throw on the podcasts weekly and listen to them while I'm doing other things. Might I ask how many followers you have, 200+ episodes later?
Definitely always the highlight of my week's podcast listening shenanigans. Not sure how many I've listened to but it continues to always be on point - keep up the good work. Even when you think a show isn't so great, it's more than decent!
Would be good to see a return of the Kitty Korner. Look at all the cat games that continue to come out. Wondercat Adventures being a particularly awesome one and newly released.
Anyway, I hope to get out to E3 soon. Did you see many Apple Watches on wrists for the companies you met with? Or is it something developers are still not really embracing as a rule?