Final Fantasy: The Next One

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Author: stick
Posted on 08/02/2004
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S

quare today unveiled the next game in the legendary Final Fantasy series, “Final Fantasy: The Next One.”

For now, not much is known about Square’s latest installation, but sources at the game-software giant have indicated the main character could be a man or a woman and probably will gain levels and wield a weapon of some kind.

“There’s so much potential, here,” said head game designer Nobotatsatsu Hakaitumorisan. “We’re thinking of going with an alternate way of gaining experience, this time. Instead of just fighting monsters to gain levels, you’ll have to coordinate those monsters’ elemental powers within your sphere of abilities when you absorb their energy to your esper’s materia slot. It’s all very exciting.”

Lead minigame designer Yoshimatsu Takitori also released a few teasing statements. “Our plans are to design a brand new card game nobody knows a fucken thing about playing,” he said. “We found out some American dorks actually had figured out FF8’s card game – go figure. After that, we we’re like ‘a new card game totally has to be done,’ you know?”

But the game plot is perhaps the most enshrouded area of FF:TNO. Head plot developers aren’t saying much, but a few sources speculate the main character could be fighting some sort of ancient evil via a 3d battle system in an attempt to save the world from ultimate destruction.

The new game’s online capability hasn’t been confirmed, but is highly favored, according to varied comments from Square staff members. “All we had to do was trim a bit of funding from the Final Fantasy Tactics sequel and there you have it: code for online gameplay implementation,” said lead programmer Kino Fujimatsuki. “I mean, sure, the actual PS2 network could not work or we might have trouble finding a solid Web host, but what if we didn’t take that chance? It’s not like we’ve tried and failed at this before or anything …”

The gaming humor Web site penny-arcade.com contributed to this article's inspiration.

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