- Square Enix Plotting More Retro Revivals After Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Success Push Square
- Square Enix says it’s ‘considering’ remastering more old titles following FF Pixel Remaster success | VGC Video Games Chronicle
- Following the success of Final Fantasy’s Pixel Remasters, Square Enix is considering more old games PC Gamer
- Square Enix Unsurprisingly Considering More Remasters After Recent Successes; A Shareholder Specifically Wants Xenogears Noisy Pixel
- Square Enix is “considering various ideas” about further remasters of classic games TechRadar
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Tag Archives: Retro
Oscar Sevilla revives retro puncture protection hack at Vuelta a San Juan
The pro peloton is a hotbed of futuristic technological advancement; the cutting edge of our sport with the fastest bikes, the lightest components and the most expensive accessories, all created by some of the brightest engineering minds in our sport.
Rare, then, is it that you see a rider dive into the history books and adopt a generations-old hack for puncture protection, but that’s exactly what Óscar Sevilla (Medellín-EPM) did at the Vuelta a San Juan.
In a video posted to the team’s Instagram ahead of the final stage, 46-year-old Sevilla proudly shows off his “trick”, in which he’s wrapped a few inches of electrical tape – at a cost of just a few cents – around the seat stays and fork legs of his $14,000 S-Works Tarmac SL7 race bike. The tape is positioned so precisely that it very nearly touches each tyre with the intention of ‘sweeping’ away any pieces of debris that are picked up from the road.
“This is a trick I learned here in Argentina,” Sevilla explains. “Nowadays you get a lot of thistles, little bits and pieces, and people walking around carry them on their shoes. And they cause a lot of punctures. So this nicks them off, cleans it.”
Sevilla’s hack is a makeshift replica of a small add-on accessory found on bikes from as far back as the 1940s, possibly further. Known as flint catchers, tyre sweepers, tyre wipers, and perhaps optimistically, even tyre savers, they were mounted to the brake mounting bolt and featured a small D-shaped wire that would wrap around the surface of the tyre.
Like Sevilla’s piece of tape, their purpose was to dislodge any larger pieces of debris that had attached themselves to the tyre before they could make their way around again and be pushed further into the tyre, where they would likely cause a puncture. While they went out of fashion long ago, it is still possible to buy them, with retro-connoisseurs Reneherse offering a pair for $18.00 (opens in new tab).
Interestingly, Sevilla’s bike is equipped with Roval Rapide CLX II aero wheels – as confirmed by this separate Instagram post – which are tubeless compatible. Despite this, and his apparent concerns surrounding punctures, Sevilla’s wheels are wrapped in the not-tubeless Specialized Turbo Cotton clincher tyres, which are well revered for their low rolling resistance, but not so well known for durability or puncture protection.
Specialized does make a number of tubeless-ready tyres, including the new Turbo range, so it’s unclear why Sevilla hasn’t simply taken advantage of the tech available to him. Perhaps the team didn’t have anything other than the Turbo Cotton tyres available, or perhaps Sevilla trusts his sweeper hack more than he trusts tubeless technology.
Whatever his reasoning, it seems to have worked. His teammate Miguel Angel Lopez went on to win the overall, and Sevilla himself finished safely in the bunch on the same time as the stage winner Sam Welsford.
Iconic GoldenEye “Gong” Sound Potentially Missing From Switch Online Version
Update [Thu 26th Jan, 2023 21:05 GMT]: Digital Foundry’s John Linneman has stressed that while he “doesn’t know” the exact details, as speculated elsewhere, this could be down to emulation issues.
“N64 doesn’t have an actual sound chip so everything is done in software… So I suppose the emulator simply isn’t emulating the sound chip correctly. Older versions of N64 emulators had this issue in the past.”
So, as many suspected, it sounds like this is a potential emulator issue. Again, we want to stress that, at the time of writing this, the sound effect is only missing in the video and we won’t know if the iconic sound is missing from the Switch version until it drops on NSO tomorrow.
Former Rare composer Graeme Norgate has also pointed out the missing sounds in the clip on Twitter, saying “hope this isn’t the final version” while tagging Kirkhope.
Original article [Thu 26th Jan, 2023 18:15 GMT]: Yesterday, Nintendo decided to drop a bombshell on us and announce that GoldenEye 007 is, at last, coming to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers this Friday, 27th January. What a treat! We’ve been waiting for this news since Nintendo revealed it would be coming to the service eventually.
Just a couple of hours after the announcement, Nintendo shared what might just be one of the most iconic pieces of music from the game — the Q Watch music by legendary Rare composer Grant Kirkhope. It still absolutely rules, but when we had a listen, we (and users on ResetEra) noticed something was missing…
Did you notice it? The ‘gong’ noise? It’s not there! *gasp* In case you’re not familiar with the music, this is what it should sound like.
Okay, so we haven’t got our hands on the game yet, so we can’t verify if it’s simply missing in NSO release or if it’s just missing in this clip. Still, we’re worried about losing what is probably one of the defining sound effects of many of our childhoods.
Many suspect that, if it is missing in the full game, it could be an emulation issue. Previous NSO releases such as Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Paper Mario have had issues unique to their NSO-emulated versions such as missing fog or menus going too fast. Nintendo has been good about patching these problems out, so if it is present, we’re hopeful they’ll also be able to fix this.
The ‘gong’ sound is not just an iconic part of GoldenEye 007 on N64 though — it’s a big part of the movie’s soundtrack too and something of a trademark for French composer Éric Serra. Serra composed the score for the 1995 Bond movie, but you can also hear the famous sound effect in Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional in tracks such as ‘The Game Is Over’ and ‘What’s Happening out There?’.
A few years back, Grant Kirkhope shared how he managed to recreate what he calls the ‘sonar’-type sound after years of being asked, and @RareLtd showcased fellow composer Robin Beanland demonstrating its genesis:
Hopefully, this is all just a little stumble in the pre-release clip Nintendo shared, but we’ll find out soon enough. We also don’t know if the same issue will be present in the Xbox version, which also releases tomorrow, but we’ll be keeping an eye ear out just in case.
Did you notice the missing sound effects? Do you think it’ll be present in the NSO version when it releases tomorrow? Let us know!
5 Retro Games You Didn’t Know You Could Play For Free
In the down moments of playing a distressingly long Mario Party 2 game this weekend—my friends get a garbage truck full of NES and Super NES games with their Nintendo Switch Online membership—I started wondering what other retro games were only a download away on publishers’ official storefronts.
By that I mean the Microsoft store for Xbox-compatible games, Nintendo’s store for the Switch, and so on. There are actually some hidden freebies therein, and you might not have realized these five games were so directly within your grasp. So hang your hat, partner. The long night is over. Keep reading and check out five throwback games you can download now for free.
1943: The Battle of Midway
In 1987, Japanese developer Capcom published Street Fighter, Mega Man, and, among other arcade games, the vert shoot ‘em up 1943: The Battle of Midway. It was a somewhat disconcerting followup to Capcom’s also-disconcerting shooter 1942, released in 1984. Both games center, oddly, on the players’ U.S. army planes gunning down Japanese fleets during World War II.
But if you don’t often analyze the presence of war in games and aren’t concerned with why a company decided to kill off its own country’s soldiers to appeal to Americans, then, well, 1943: The Battle of Midway is kind of cool.
It’s simple—make the evil planes explode!—but its colors are vivid, its music is dynamic , and its repetitive shooting will make you feel so zen that you’ll instantly forget the plot of any anti-war documentary you’ve ever seen. It’s available for free when you download Capcom Arcade Stadium on PlayStation or Switch, and you can add on four other 19XX games for $2 each.
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Download from the PlayStation Store or the Nintendo Store.
Pac-Man
Fortune cookie-shaped Pac-Man started eating his way through a ghost-lined maze in 1980, and publisher Bandai Namco is still trying to stave off his endless hunger in its often-updated mobile version of the arcade phenom.
This version contains the traditional Pac-Man maze you probably associate with arcades—a midnight blue map spotted with edible dots and bonus-point fruits—along with additional “story mode” mazes, themed “adventure mode” events, and a leaderboard for its “tournament mode.” Submit to the sounds of whiny ghosts and download for your Apple or Android device.
Download from Apple’s App Store or Google Play.
Sonic the Hedgehog Classic
1991 Sega Genesis side-scrolling platformer Sonic the Hedgehog gets another life on mobile while retaining, for the most part, its original look and feel—pixelated waves and trees, tufts of grass and blocky dirt patches that frame the way to taking down bad baldie Dr. Robotnik.
This refreshed version features a remastered version of the original, the classic sparkly soundtrack by Dreams Come True, and is compatible with Xbox controllers. You can play on Apple and Android devices.
Download from Apple’s App Store or Google Play.
Pinball FX2
Microsoft Studios published Pinball FX2 in 2010, not reinventing any wheels, but providing a solid virtual pinball experience with different-themed tables (the aquatic Secrets of the Deep, a Las Vegas take on Rome, etc.). Flicking switches won’t feel or sound as snappy as in a real pinball game, but then again, you can’t typically play those from the safety of your couch. You can play Pinball FX2 on Xbox, and download free trials of additional themed boards like Star Wars and Aliens vs. Pinball, too.
Download from the Microsoft Store.
Shadow Warrior Classic
Former Zilla Enterprises bodyguard Lo Wang gets a wakeup call in the 1997 first-person shooter Shadow Warrior: Megacorporations are bad. He learns this after his power-tripping former boss sends a slew of demons after him as punishment for quitting, which he responds to by blasting them in the face as he runs across Japan.
Good for him. Though, Lo Wang is undoubtedly a racist caricature, with stilted dialogue lines delivered in an awkward accent. And though the game was built with the same engine as Duke Nukem 3D, a modern audience might instead note how simplistic the graphics look by modern standards. It’s far from perfect.
But, like in Duke, Shadow Warrior’s fast-action gunplay holds up, and developer 3D Realms’ obsession with packing every square inch with secret rooms and unexpected (sometimes crude) references provides an enlightening trip back to the weird early days of first-person shooters.
Download from Steam.
What other official freebies have you found in your sojourns through the Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox app stores? Tell me your best finds in the comments.
Zelda: A Link To The Past Artwork “Brought To Life” In Absolutely Stunning Animation
If you’ve ever wondered what classic game art might look like if it was brought to life, well here’s a great example. American animator Parker Simmons has transformed parts of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past SNES manual and other materials into living, breathing animations.
The results are absolutely stunning – with artwork of the Super Nintendo action-adventure from 1991 bursting to life. It’s got many Zelda fans on social media requesting an official cartoon in this style, rather than the one we actually got.
Simmons reveals the ‘Link vs Stalfos’ battle was animated in Adobe Animate, had about 110 symbols, 70 frames, and the music was taken from the “Sound and Drama” Zelda CD from the ’90s. Perhaps most surprisingly, the SFX is ripped from Dragon Quest VIII, but it fits! Note: It seems this original art was retrieved from The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts Dark Horse book released 2016/17.
Apart from the beautifully animated ‘Link vs Stalfos’ battle, Simmons showed Link exploring a dungeon and talking to a Sage:
Parker Simmons is best known as the creator of the Cartoon Network animated series, Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart. He’s also worked on OK K.O.! as a writer and in various other roles including voice work.
If you want to see some of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past artwork in its original state, there’s actually an original PDF manual you can access on Nintendo’s official website. And just remember, you can also play the SNES classic A Link to the Past via the Switch Online service. You’ll require a subscription, of course.
As for whether or not we’ll ever see something like this, who knows? With Mario now making his way to the big screen this April, perhaps there is a chance for Link to put the television cartoon series from the late ’90s behind him and write a new chapter in his screen history.
Random: The Original NES Zelda Has Been Recreated In VR, And It’s Glorious
We’ve seen Ocarina of Time go VR, and thanks to the Labo, we’ve also seen Breath of the Wild in VR. What’s the next natural step, then? The original NES game, of course!
The 1986 game that started it all, The Legend of Zelda, has been recreated in VR. Shared on Twitter by @kite_VR_noe, the entire first section of the NES game is playable in VR. This VR version is a DOOM mod (what else would it be?) using the QuestZDoom engine for the Quest VR headset — hence the amusingly titled The Legend of Doom. We wonder if Doomguy would do well in Hyrule…
You might wonder if the visuals have been recreated or if there have been any changes, but nope, this is like you’ve been dropped right into the NES game yourself. Right from entering the cave and being told “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this” to exploring the first dungeon, it’s a faithful recreation of The Legend of Zelda, pixel art and chiptunes included.
Final Fantasy’s 35-Year Legacy Of Innovation – How Square Evolved A Genre On The NES & SNES
Final Fantasy is now 35 years old, and that feels a little bit weird to say. While not the first RPG series to ever grace a home console or even the first Japanese-developed RPG, Final Fantasy is, arguably, the JRPG. Everyone knows it, and everyone has played at least one.
There’s a lot of debate about what Final Fantasy as a franchise really is, and over the last 20 years, a lot of people have felt disappointed by huge overhauls to combat or setting. But there is no one kind of Final Fantasy. I can’t really think of any other series that has changed as much and as often as Final Fantasy has. Right back to its origins, Final Fantasy has always managed to innovate, iterate, and reinvent.
Final Fantasy has always managed to innovate, reiterate, and reinvent
And where did all of this creativity start? The original Final Fantasy on the Famicom in 1987. Now-legendary series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi had long wanted to make an RPG for Square, but following Dragon Quest’s runaway success in 1986, he seized the opportunity and pushed through the odds to make Final Fantasy happen.
To celebrate this momentous 35th anniversary, I want to look back at the original six Final Fantasy titles and see how each one innovated and reinvented the wheel, paving the way for other RPGs, as well as forging a path ahead to continue to create unique masterpieces.
Final Fantasy I – A Class Act
“The fun in an RPG begins when you create a character, in my mind,” designer and battle director Akitoshi Kawazu told Jeremy Parish in 2012. Inspired by Ultima, Wizardry, and Dungeons & Dragons, the original Final Fantasy was the result of a team of seven people at Squaresoft, headed up by Sakaguchi. The series creator “made a concerted effort to be different” from Dragon Quest, and the game’s job system is perhaps the defining part of that difference.
Stylistically Final Fantasy was pretty different from other RPGs of the time. It wasn’t totally medieval and it was more “fantasy”, hence the name. But with the crystals, the four elements, and the in-game class and job designs, it felt very different. Wizardry had done classes and jobs before, but Final Fantasy simplified things, and your four chosen classes all got an upgrade as part of the narrative in the game’s most memorable moment – meeting Bahamut, the King of the Dragons.
Warrior, Thief, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, and Red Mage. Those are the six original jobs. You’re not playing as a warrior hero in Dragon Quest or the shipwreck-prone Adol in Ys, nope – you’re whoever you want to be.
the game’s job system is perhaps the defining part of that difference.
The job system is one of the most iconic parts of any RPG, and you can make a pretty strong case for Final Fantasy popularising it. Final Fantasy III (no, not the SNES one) improved upon it tenfold by adding more jobs to the game like Summoner, Ranger, Dark Knight, and Dragoon, with Final Fantasy V introducing even more iconic roles like Blue Mage and Samurai. Both games make other improvements to the system, but this is where it started.
Also, ending a time loop? That’s got to be a pretty significant moment in video games back in 1987. Hey, at least in 2022 we all (read: those with a PS4 or PS5) got to kill Chaos.
Final Fantasy II – This is our story
Really, Final Fantasy IV (yes, the SNES number II) is the game that popularised the story-heavy side of Final Fantasy. But Final Fantasy II (the NES one – keep up!) is the one that really started the trend.
In a lot of earlier RPGs, the story was either barebones or the hero was a nameless character that was left for you to superimpose yourself upon. Here, you start off with four distinct characters (you can give them names, but their defaults are Firion, Maria, Guy, and Leon) and, before you even find your feet, you’re thrust into an unwinnable battle and forced to watch your party die in front of you.
Death permeates Final Fantasy II’s story, which focuses on a rebellion army who are fighting against the Emperor and an evil empire. Character’s jobs are set in stone, and the cast all have personalities and motives – basic, sure, but they’re there. But the success of the original Final Fantasy opened up the sequel to a lot more experimentation and a much darker tale where many named characters die (including party members).
Even though most of the original team returned to make Final Fantasy II, the sequel made some pretty major departures from the first – and not just in having defined characters. I’m dancing around it, but Final Fantasy II is the most divisive entry in the series. The main reason for this is that it’s the only game in the main series that does away with experience points (EXP). Kawazu, again in charge of the battle system, replaced EXP with a reactive kind of levelling. If a character uses a sword a lot, they’ll gradually get better with it. And if a character takes a lot of hits, their HP goes up.
It’s… finicky, to say the least, but it’s the one big part of the early Final Fantasy that Kawazu took with him when he went to develop the SaGa series.
But Final Fantasy II might have established the most Final Fantasy things – chocobos, Cid, the Ultima spell, the Genji armour, the Blood Sword weapon, Leviathan, and the theme of evil empires…
Not every innovation has to stick, which is probably part of the reason why Final Fantasy has never revisited this style of levelling (that and the above with Kawazu) or the keyword system hasn’t really returned. But Final Fantasy II also established a number Final Fantasy staples – chocobos, Cid, the Ultima spell, the Genji armour, the Blood Sword weapon, Leviathan, and the theme of evil empires all came from II.
Despite its rocky place in the series’ history, Final Fantasy II was a showcase of the team’s creativity and innovative ideas, and while many series hallmarks have come from this game alone, others were abandoned.
Final Fantasy III – I summon thee
Final Fantasy III – which was actually the last ‘missing’ Final Fantasy game to get an official English version, thanks to a 3D DS remake in 2006 – is a weird one to talk about here. Its defining feature is that it expanded massively on FFI’s job system; there are now 20 jobs instead of just six, and you could swap between them outside of battle. In many ways, Final Fantasy III was a return to what made FFI work so well while improving on those aspects. As FFI was a response to the original Dragon Quest, III was a response to Dragon Quest III, which had a solid class system itself. Final Fantasy wanted to do it better.
Final Fantasy wanted to do it better.
If there are two jobs that feel distinctive and unique to Final Fantasy, I think they were formed here – the Dragoon and the Summoner. So the Dragoon technically was introduced in FFII as an ally named Ricard Highwind, but FFIII is where it really comes into its own, all because of one word: ‘Jump’. Spears and classes that use spears have appeared before in other video games, but the Dragoon is a particular kind of class, one that attacks from the skies and can stay safe from enemy attacks, all with an advantage against aerial enemies.
Summoners, however, are even more important. Summons, Aeons, Espers, Eidolons, Astrals, Eikons – Final Fantasy is the series for summoning huge, ethereal creatures. And while other RPGs like Namco’s Tales series or plenty of Western RPGs have had summoners or summon spirits, Final Fantasy’s brand of summons feels special. These creatures are often plot-critical, rely on an enormous amount of power, and make you feel awesome when calling a huge image of an old, wizened man onto the battlefield just to rain thunder upon the field.
why would you fight a giant bird with a knife and not as an armoured, jumping, spear-wielding expert?
The game certainly encouraged you to swap between jobs, but Final Fantasy III also hints to use certain jobs at certain times. There’s a boss that pretty much requires you to play as four Dragoons (it’s possible to win as other jobs, but it’s not fun, let me tell you!). And while things like that are annoying, I think it’s a pretty fascinating way of establishing what a job is without the characters having defined personalities.
After all, why would you fight a giant bird with a knife and not as an armoured, jumping, spear-wielding expert?
Final Fantasy IV – Actively Timed
This is it – arguably, Final Fantasy IV (the first 16-bit SNES entry) is the game that really put Final Fantasy on the map. At least before that pesky eco-warrior Cloud Strife came onto the scene and actually got the Final Fantasy series into Europe…
Final Fantasy IV has, for its time, a pretty beautiful character arc for its main hero, Cecil. A dark knight employed by an evil empire, Cecil spends much of the first part of the game going through a moral dilemma, realising he’s slaughtering innocents all for the sake of his king, culminating in a scene where Cecil, atop the aptly-named Mount Ordeals, atones for his sins and fights his own reflection to become a Paladin.
But we’re not really here to talk about the story, as impactful or iconic as it actually is. We’re here to talk about perhaps the most important thing Final Fantasy has ever done for the turn-based RPG – the Active Time Battle system (ATB).
Hiroyuki Ito, who would later direct Final Fantasy VI, IX, and XIII, came up with the ATB system when watching Formula One (as lead designer Takashi Tokita told 1Up in an interview in 2013). Previous turn-based RPGs meant inputting all of your character’s actions one after the other before the action played out. In FFIV, though, each character and enemy has an (invisible) bar that fills up over time. When it maxes out, the player can tell that character what to do. The speed of the ATB bar is determined by the character’s speed stat, and you could influence it with time-based spells like Haste.
Hiroyuki Ito, who would later direct Final Fantasy VI, IX, and XIII, came up with the ATB system when watching Formula One
The inclusion of this shaped the series going forward – not every single Final Fantasy game has used it (see Final Fantasy X, XV, and the upcoming XVI), but this was a momentous development in RPGs because it sped up the action while still remaining fixed to the genre’s roots. You could plan battles more accurately and manipulate character speed to your advantage.
This is still one of the most Final Fantasy things out there today, and not many other RPGs have used the ATB system – Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve, Grandia, and Child of Light are examples (and two of those are Squaresoft titles). But many 3D Final Fantasy games have used an iteration of it – XII’s Gambit system relies on order and cast time, and X-2 has different-length ATB bars depending on the job you’re playing as. If anything, the ATB system allowed other RPG developers to experiment with the turn-based system that had been long established at that point.
Final Fantasy V – Adventure and experiment
The middle child of the SNES trilogy might be the least innovative of the original six, but Final Fantasy V is still a pretty special – and pretty important – addition to the genre.
Before Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy V is the most iterative entry in the series – again returning to I and III’s job system, but instead letting you play as a group of established, named characters. It’s also maybe the most humble entry in the series, given that the main character Bartz isn’t some grand hero (though there are some heritage things going on) but is just an adventurer having fun with his best pal, Boco the Chocobo.
Bravely Default, Octopath Traveler, Fantasy Life, and many more games owe Final Fantasy V for their excellent job systems.
Let’s go back to the job system again, though, because if I established it and III improved on it, then V is the definitive job system in the series. Bravely Default, Octopath Traveler, Fantasy Life, and many more games owe Final Fantasy V for their excellent job systems. Even 30 years after its release, Final Fantasy V’s level of customisation and freedom with its job system is excellent, allowing you to not only swap between classes whenever but also enabling you to cross-equip skills between classes as you level them up. So this time, if you really wanted to, you could play the game with four Geomancers, and it would be totally viable. Earth bells for days, right?
Really, though, for the first half of the game, Final Fantasy V is pretty cosy. Dragon Quest always felt (and still does) like the cosier series, though that franchise pretty much found its footing here. Final Fantasy V turns away from the darker narratives of II and IV and swaps them for a heartfelt game about exploration and adventure. At least until you have to fight the big tree at the end.
Final Fantasy VI – But what if we lost?
Okay, my goodness, where do I start with Final Fantasy VI?
There’s still nothing really like Final Fantasy VI out there. An RPG with no real definable main character (though it’s totally Terra Branford). A huge playable cast, each of whom (*coughcoughUmarocough*) has a strong backstory. A JRPG where there are choices that can permanently alter your party make-up? Oh, and you lose about halfway through the game.
It’s all about triumph over adversity, and hope prevailing over despair.
Final Fantasy VI is often hailed as one of the best in the series, and for many, many reasons. It’s all about triumph over adversity, and hope prevailing over despair. The world is literally ripped apart in front of your eyes at the halfway point, and you (Celes Chere) are left to fend for yourself and find your friends. Friends who you’ve spent 15 or so hours with, who you think you understand and know everything about. But you don’t. The second half of the game is about showing you that, and then you’ll understand everything that they did in the first half of the game even more than before.
That is if you want. What makes Final Fantasy VI so unique is that it’s about freedom and choice. The first half of the game splits you between three different parties (for the most part) until all three sides come together to join The Returners, a rebel group looking to take down the Empire. But when you take control of Celes in the World of Ruin, you’re only required to meet up with two other party members. In fact, if you really want, you can go and take on the final boss with just Celes, Edgar, and Setzer. But then you’d miss out on Terra’s existential crisis. Or the reason why Locke wants to save everyone. Or that the beast child Gau’s father is still alive. Squaresoft created a game where everyone feels important. Every single character has weight to them – and how many other games can you say have that?
What makes Final Fantasy VI so unique is that it’s about freedom and choice.
Not only can you go wherever you want and recruit whoever in what order in the World of Ruin, the Magicite system means that you can customise characters more than ever before. Edgar might be a proto-Machinist armed with a crossbow, a chainsaw, and a drill, but he can also be a magician who specialises in debuffing enemies. Or what about Locke, a super-fast thief who can mug the enemies and heal the party?
Anyone can be anything, even with their pre-established roles, and for the first time in the series, you can pick your own party and not just rely on the characters you’re given. You can mould the team to fit your preferences. Quietly, that’s the biggest thing Final Fantasy VI brings to the table – not only is it a game about hope, choice, and change, but it lets you experience and do all of those things yourself.
The Final (Fantasy)
Final Fantasy’s innovations might have been more subtle in the NES and SNES days, but they were absolutely there. You can see how each of these six entries has not only influenced this series, but also other RPGs – even though it was through dialogue with Enix’s Dragon Quest series for a time.
no two entries are entirely alike, even when they’re improving on one another
Dragon Quest, now under Square Enix, certainly settled into a rhythm around the time Final Fantasy really started branching out. I personally play Dragon Quest to feel something very particular – something very warm and charming, and something that’ll make me smile. But Final Fantasy has so many different variations under its umbrella that it really depends on my mood. No two entries are entirely alike, even when they’re iterating and improving on one another (I and III, for example).
Nowadays, Final Fantasy isn’t seen as a ‘Nintendo’ franchise – which is strange because it was for so long. Squaresoft jumping ship to the disc-based PlayStation worked out well for the company, and Europe (and NA for some) eventually got all of those NES and SNES games that originally didn’t launch in English as a result. So that’s got to be a win, right?
Nintendo, at this point, has become the home of spin-offs or the classic turn-based Square Enix games like Bravely and Octopath. Heck, even Dragon Quest feels very at home on Switch. This makes the Switch a nice little console to get into the series – either by picking up one of the many Switch remasters, or by checking out a cute spin-off like World of Final Fantasy (which, hey, if you want turn-based Final Fantasy, there you go!). And the arrival of the Pixel Remaster collection has finally been confirmed, too.
Innovation is part of Final Fantasy’s identity. That’s especially true now given that the PS5’s Final Fantasy XVI is an action RPG, but it has also always been true. What’s consistent, though? Well, Cid, chocobos, moogles, certain weapons, armour, and a handful of other things. Writing for Kotaku, Jason Schreier put it beautifully: “Final Fantasy is defined by how it sounds… The chime of a menu cursor. The squeal of an NPC’s dialogue box. The thunderous jolt of a random encounter”. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line should help drive that point home.
Final Fantasy is whatever it wants to be. It always has been, and it always will be. What number will we be at in another 35 years? Who’s to say (probably XXX!), but no one can predict what direction Square Enix will go in next.
Here’s to there never being a final Final Fantasy.
Minnesota Store Worker Gave Her Retro Jordans and to Man Without Shoes
- A store worker in Minnesota gave a man her shoes after noticing he didn’t have any.
- The woman’s manager told a local news station he wished he had “a dozen” of her on staff.
- The woman, who goes by “Ace” said she “automatically” took her shoes off when she saw the man in need.
A store worker in Minnesota gave her retro Jordans to a man after she noticed that he was wearing boxes on his feet, WCCO, a CBS affiliate, reported on Friday.
Ta Leia Thomas, who goes by “Ace” works in a liquor store in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Brooklyn Center Liquor manager, Tom Agnes, told WCCO he saw Ace working in her socks when he came back from his lunch break on Tuesday.
Security camera footage showed a man digging through a garbage can outside the store looking for boxes that he could affix to his feet in place of shoes, according to WCCO. Thomas saw the man and stopped him, offering him her own shows, her favorite pair of retro Air Jordans.
Thomas told WCCO she “automatically took my shoes off” when she saw the man. “He said nobody would ever give me shoes like that and I said, ‘well I’m not everybody,'” Thomas told WCCO.
Thomas said she was “always taught to help others” because “you never know what their problem is, or what they are going through.”
Agnes bought Thomas a new pair of shoes to finish the work day and shared Thomas’s act of kindness in a Facebook post that has since received nearly a thousand comments.
“This was not just a regular old pair of shoes. Ace, being a Minnesota Vikings fan, had on her favorite pair of purple Nike Air Jordans which she gave to the man with zero hesitation,” Agnes wrote in the post. “This is a true example of empathy, compassion, and holiday cheer.”
Agnes told WCCO that he raised $450 to buy Thomas a new pair of shoes as a replacement but later found out that Thomas is taking care of her mother, who is in need of a new bed. Agnes said he gave Thomas the cash instead so that she could use it to buy a bed.
“I wish I could have a dozen Aces on staff,” Agnes told WCCO.
Ranking all 32 NHL Reverse Retro jerseys for 2022-23
The NHL’s Reverse Retro jerseys were a sensation two years ago, creating significant sales and conversation among hockey fans. Adidas felt the pressure of creating a sequel to that blockbuster with its 2022-23 season retro sweaters.
“How many amazing remix combinations are out there?” said Dan Near, senior director at adidas hockey. “We spent a lot of time debating about whether the franchise should evolve into something else or is this a sequel. We went with the latter.”
Like any sequel, there are a few differences from the original. The 32 new Reverse Retro jerseys feature more white sweaters than the 2020 collection. Please recall that because of the COVID pandemic, the 2020-21 season was played without interdivisional games. Now, Adidas hopes to see more retro vs. retro games, such as the Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Buffalo Sabres game on Nov. 2.
This line also features more embroidered and raised elements on the team logos, which is something that arrived when adidas started making jerseys with 50% recycled materials.
Another big difference was the level of anticipation. Near said that adidas is aware of all the speculation, mock-ups and social media scuttlebutt about this collection of jerseys.
“We’re excited about the speculation. I think if you look back at the first time we launched in 2020, it came out of nowhere. Nobody knew what it was,” Near said. “We didn’t announce it was coming back this time, but people seemed to know it was coming. The rampant speculation and energy is making this unique and exciting. We track it. We see what people are saying. Sometimes they’re right on the mark. Other times they’re on a completely different planet. Nothing is official until it’s official.”
But it wasn’t just the fans anticipating the next wave of Reverse Retro jerseys. The NHL teams were as well.
“There was plenty of meat on the bone to do this again,” Near said. “What made it unique the second time around is that you have the teams thinking ‘I want to win Reverse Retro.'”
Which ones were victorious? Here is our ranking of the 32 NHL Reverse Retro jerseys for the 2022-23 season. Keep in mind that we based this just on the jerseys themselves — some really cool elements will be revealed with the full uniform kits, but they didn’t factor in here.
What a concept: It’s only taken nearly 30 years, but a team that plays in South Florida finally has a jersey that’s evocative of South Florida.
This is a mix of the team’s stick-and-palm secondary logo that’s been with it since the 1990s and the light blue from the third jerseys it rocked in 2009. The rays of the sun are slightly raised to give the crest a 3D quality. The colors on the stripes pay homage to the Panthers’ current primary colors. The rest feels like you’re staring at a frozen blue Hawaiian through a pair of expensive sunglasses.
Sure, seeing the alternate logo makes one realize how close that hockey stick looks to a golf putter … but that’s also kind of thematic to the franchise, if we’re being honest.
It was inevitable that the Sharks eventually would honor their Bay Area ancestors with a Reverse Retro jersey. The California Golden Seals’ greatest legacy might be their aesthetics, including a turn to teal 17 years before the Sharks swam into the NHL.
These are essentially the Seals’ 1974 home jerseys with “Sharks” written on them instead, and they’re sublime: a little California love, a little Jackie Moon. That Seals team won 19 games. Given what we’ve seen from San Jose this season, perhaps it’s just dressing the part.
The Youppi! of Reverse Retro jerseys.
Montreal claims this is meant to honor its 1979 look, when it won its fourth Stanley Cup in a row. Adidas claims the light blue is “inspired by the city of Montreal colors.” But for the love of Tim Raines and Larry Walker, we know what’s up with these sweaters: It’s the Habs as the Montreal Expos, and we salute them like Andrés Galarraga admiring a home run.
The most remarkable thing about this Reverse Retro Kings jersey, which honors the 40th anniversary of the “Miracle on Manchester,” is that one swears that it has previously existed. But the crown logo in the 1980s was on either a gold or “Forum Blue” jersey.
This is the first time the iconic sweater has been executed in white, and it looks awesome. Bonus points for creating raised gems on the crown for a 3D look.
The Avalanche topped the 2020 rankings with their ode to the Quebec Nordiques. This year’s model could be seen as a homage to the NHL’s Colorado Rockies, but their logo inspiration was the same as this Retro jersey: the Colorado state flag.
Nothing is going to top the remixed Nords sweater. But this looks clean and sharp, and like other Avalanche alternate logos is an improvement over their primary one.
The Golden Knights had a Reverse Retro jersey last year inspired by the now-defunct Wranglers minor league franchise. This time, they’re inspired by a team that doesn’t exist.
This sweater “imagines what a Golden Knights third jersey might have looked like in 1995.” The font and numbering are inspired by vintage hotel signage on the Strip. Oh, and just to make sure you get the full Vegas ostentatiousness: There are hidden glow-in-the-dark stars incorporated in the crest that can be seen in the dark and under a black light.
“When you think about the glitz and glamor of Vegas, it requires a little ingenuity,” Near said.
The Blues chose poorly last season, resurrecting a nauseating jersey design and inexplicably making red the primary color. This time, they understood the assignment.
The Blues’ Reverse Retro is based on a 1966 prototype worn by the team’s ownership a year before the expansion franchise actually hit the ice, which is like giving an Oscar to a teaser trailer. Despite being their second most prominent color, this is the first primarily gold jersey the Blues have worn. It incorporates the light blue seen on their Winter Classic jerseys.
Sound the trumpets: These rule.
This is the most “meta” Reverse Retro jersey in the collection.
In 2020, the Coyotes honored their much-maligned 1998 thirds that magnifying the head of the “kachina jersey” logo, made green the primary color and ceded the waistline to “a painfully obvious desert landscape complete with cacti,” as the Five For Howling blog noted. Their first Reverse Retro jersey swapped the green for purple from the team’s crescent moon alternate logo, and it was one of the best of the lot.
Now they’ve gone Reverse Retro on their Reverse Retro, swapping out the green for sienna, marking “the first time this trending earth tone color has been worn by any NHL team,” according to Adidas. The million dollar question: Are these supposed to abstractly evoke Arizona State athletics colors or is this simply coincidental?
The Pooh bear has returned!
The Bruins wore this logo from 1995-2006 on a third sweater. The blog Stanley Cup of Chowder called it “the greatest jersey in Bruins history.” The Pooh bear was originally featured on a gold jersey. This time it’s a white background, all the better to see the kind eyes, parted hair and Marchand-esque smirk on the bear’s fuzzy mug. Put one on and snuggle up with a pot of honey.
I once asked comics artist Todd McFarlane about creating this logo, which Edmonton used as a third jersey from 2001 through 2007.
“What’s the design I could do that could pay homage to the Oilers but also just be cool to look at?” he pondered. “Selling it to someone in Edmonton is preaching to the choir. How do I sell it to someone in Miami?”
We’re not sure how it played in Florida, but its initial run in Edmonton wasn’t unanimously beloved. But this version might be an improvement.
His “dynamic gear surrounding an oil drop” logo has been enhanced by being raised in some areas and with that splash of orange in the middle. Each spoke represents a different Oilers Stanley Cup championship, and sadly that hasn’t needed to be edited since it debuted in 2001.
The Islanders have slowly reclaimed the ill-fated legacy of the “Fishsticks” logo that reigned from 1995-97, selling gear with that logo and color scheme in their official store in recent years.
For the team’s 50th anniversary, Adidas has added “the most requested uniform” for its Reverse Retro series.
Here’s the thing: The slight modifications they’ve made to the logo — like the TRON-esque orange highlights and the current color scheme — tone down the kitsch and the charm. One could argue the original Fishsticks jersey’s Aquafresh palette and queasy waves are more in keeping with the Reverse Retro aesthetic.
There’s an interesting separation between Canucks fans and outsiders when it comes to this Reverse Retro jersey. It’s inspired by their Western Hockey League look that featured Johnny Canuck, only this one has raised embroidered gloves and suspenders.
But the Canucks Army blog notes that Vancouver fans (a) feel this look to too close to that of the Abbotsford Canucks, who also use Johnny Canuck, and (b) were hoping for a less predictable experiment like “a green and blue edition of the Flying Vee or Flying Skate jerseys.”
In 1995, the Capitals went from red, white and blue to blue, black and bronze. They had a black third jersey for 10 years during that fad, with the capitol dome logo seen on the shoulders of this Reverse Retro jersey.
Now they’ve turned the “Screaming Eagle” into another black alternate sweater, with some really nice tweaks to the formula. This jersey features metallic copper and “Capital Blue,” giving the whole thing a sleeker look.
You can’t improve on perfection, which is why the Red Wings’ first Reverse Retro attempt looked like a practice version of their iconic sweater. But give the Red Wings credit for taking a swing with version 2.0.
An homage to their 1991 NHL 75th anniversary jerseys, which were red and white, this bold red and black look is accented by a DETROIT wordmark inspired by the 1920s Detroit Cougars. For a young team developing its swagger, we’ll allow it.
This Ducks jersey is cool. It’s clean looking. It’s got the proper logo on the front. They’re going to slap “ZEGRAS” on the back of these and move racks of them.
But after much debate inside the ESPN fashion offices, we came to a consensus: If Anaheim is dipping back to the inaugural Mighty Ducks season and their Reverse Retro doesn’t have even a hint of jade or eggplant, then what are they even doing this for?
The Rangers finished No. 2 on the 2020 rankings by simply bringing back to the Liberty Head logo for the first time since around 2007. They went back to that well for this Reverse Retro jersey, slapping it on a royal blue jersey with red sleeves.
The whole thing honestly feels like one of those sweatshirts that costs $50 more than it should, and hangs untouched with its friends in some distant corner of the NHL Store.
ROBO PENGUIN! Memories of Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Petr Nedved come rushing back as we celebrate the majesty of this flightless fowl.
But we had to award some demerits for what could have been: This is the Penguins’ 1992-93 jersey flipped from white to black, leaving out some of the more audacious Robo Penguin gradient designs from the latter part of the decade. It’s a jersey that thinks the 1990s stopped with grunge, when “Bills, Bills, Bills” actually dropped in 1999.
The most interesting aspect of this Stars jersey, which is a homage to their inaugural season look back in 1993-94, is the dimensional embroidery on the crest to give the star a 3D quality.
Otherwise, the current “victory green” color integrated with this classic design makes for a fine looking sweater. But we’re now two Reverse Retro jerseys deep and the “Mooterus” has yet to return, so we really can’t go any higher than this for Dallas.
The Jets’ first Reverse Retro jersey was one of our favorites, but this one isn’t nearly as bold.
Winnipeg remixed the Jets 1.0 jersey from 1990 with the team’s current color palette, minus the red. A great sweater for Teemu Selanne completists but one that doesn’t come close to the streetwear grandeur of the previous Retro hit.
More debate inside the ESPN fashion offices on this one.
The Devils pay tribute to the Colorado Rockies 40 years after the team relocated from Denver to East Rutherford. It’s certainly a fun look, with the Rockies’ gold, red and navy accenting the jersey. But we’re a little disappointed that the color scheme only carries through to the logo via a blue circle around the “NJ,” when this could have been a fun opportunity to play around with that logo.
As it stands, this sorta looks like when a pro shop irons the right crest on the wrong jersey.
“Say kids, did you like the Minnesota North Stars-influenced Reverse Retro jersey? What if we told you that it’s now available in … green?”
Seriously, no points for creativity, but these remain pretty dope.
Inspired by Chicago’s 1938 uniforms and their 2019 Winter Classic gear, this Blackhawks jersey had the unfortunate timing of being immediately market-corrected by a similar — but much better executed — Red Wings Reverse Retro.
Sorry, but this just doesn’t work. The “goat head” logo loses its magic when stripped away from the red, black and silver color scheme that evoked images of Dominik Hasek saves and Miroslav Satan goals.
Outside of the nostalgic kick of having this logo back on a Buffalo sweater, applying the traditional Sabres colors to it feels slightly blasphemous.
What’s a nostalgic Kraken jersey? A Mark Giordano sweater?
Obviously lacking history, Seattle just decided to make a sea green jersey that makes it look like they’re wearing a cummerbund under their own logo. It’s not a bad looking sweater. It’s just not as audacious one might expect from a team nicknamed after a mythical sea creature. It’s a Reverse Retro with real “why don’t we make our mascot a troll doll?” energy.
Missed opportunity here. There was speculation that the Predators were going to put their 2001 third jersey logo on a navy jersey, which would have properly remixed their mustard stain sweater with a currently used color.
Alas, they went with gold, making this jersey practically redundant with their current ones.
It’s their current away jersey remixed into a red sweater, with two sets of hurricane warning flags on the shoulders.
Your mileage here is entirely dependent one how you feel about nicknames on jerseys instead of full nicknames.
Adidas says this is a remix of the jersey the Senators wore during their 2006-07 Stanley Cup Final run with “the current Ottawa color scheme and breakouts.”
Sure. It’s very much an Ottawa Senators jersey. But we’ll wait and see the full kit, as Adidas notes these Ottawa jerseys will be “presented in a powerful black head-to-toe visual including the helmet, pant and sock complimented by a thick super-sized player name and number system.”
The Blue Jackets got a little funky last time with a primary red jersey that sported their original logo. This is the first black jersey the Jackets will have worn, with blue sleeve accents that evoke their current third sweaters.
These FrankenJerseys are on the borderline of looking like a stitching accident, but in the end we like our jerseys like we like our steaks: black and blue. But maybe not as cold.
Toronto is honoring its 1962 Stanley Cup championship, remixing a primary white jersey into a primary blue jersey with white shoulder pads.
A blue Maple Leafs jersey. Wild stuff. Save us, Justin Bieber.
Have you ever seen a movie where one bad performance ruins the whole thing? The Flames have a cool black jersey, with an iconic logo and an eye-catching color scheme.
They also decided to bring back to truly bizarre “diagonal pedestal hem stripe” from their mid-1990s sweaters.
It just ruins the whole thing and makes it look like the Flames are wearing an achievement belt from a strip mall taekwondo academy.
“I don’t want my guys looking like a [expletive] crayon box. I don’t want them wearing a bunch of whozies and whats-its. Just make a Flyers jersey. Who cares?” — John Tortorella, maybe.
Nostalgia can be comforting. Nostalgia can be inspiring. But nostalgia can also cloud one’s judgement on what should or should not be mined from the past for the benefit of the present.
To that end: These Lightning jerseys should have remained buried under whatever landfill in which they were decomposing. Tampa Bay wore these jerseys from 1996-99, during a time when the NHL had its share of ghastly third jerseys. They had storm waves across the waist; lightning bolts on the sleeves, and in perhaps the single worst aesthetic touch for an NHL jersey in the last 30 years, “bold rain” flecked across the front of the sweater that looked like it was taken straight from an 8-bit video game.
Whatever Lightning player feigns excitement the most for these monstrosities should win the Lady Byng, full stop.
Dan Near of adidas offers a brief rebuttal about this jersey: “There were some jerseys from that era that we presented and the teams weren’t excited about. There were others that the teams embraced right away. This isn’t a permanent choice. This is a celebration of a moment in time and the nostalgia about a team. Maybe we don’t have to take ourselves so seriously and bring something back that might have been polarizing but that in today’s day and age is very trend-right. I give a lot of acclaim to the Lightning for making a risk well worth taking.”
Unreleased Mario Kart XXL Tech Demo For Game Boy Advance Surfaces Online
DNF
Nintendo preservation website Forest of Illusion has acquired the “infamous” Mario Kart XXL tech demo – a pitch by Denaris Entertainment Software for the Game Boy Advance, dating back to April 2004. It’s now been made available to download.
The German development studio (founded by Turrican creator Manfred Trenz) originally showcased the game and its “dynamic and adjustable perspective view engine featuring dual playfields” to Nintendo of Europe. The demo is made up of a single track using Mario Kart assets and features BGM from a PlayStation racer called Moorhuhn Kart, which Denaris also helped develop.
Interestingly, this Mario Kart demo began life as a racing game called ‘R3D-Demo‘. The same developer eventually went on to release a Game Boy Advance kart racer based on the CGI-animated character Crazy Frog. Yikes!
You can get a more detailed history and look at Mario Kart XXL along with the R3D-Demo on the Hard4Games YouTube:
What do you think of this slice of kart racing history for Game Boy Advance? Comment below.
[source forestillusion.com, via youtu.be]