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Why Final Fantasy 7 is (still) unstoppable 25 years since its release, the cultural phenomenon is still generating headlines.
Search “Final Fantasy 7” on YouTube and some of the titles coming back at you read “The Life Changing Impact of Final Fantasy VII,” “What Made Final Fantasy 7 A BIG DEAL?” and “Why FFVII Is So Important To So Many People” – and videos along this theme have hundreds of thousands of views. There is no denying the impact of FF7 on its fans. And, in fact, 25 years since its release, the original PlayStation and Square masterpiece is still generating headlines. There is no denying that the game has also made a cultural impact. Apart from the multiple spin-off gaming appearances, movies, remakes and merchandise, the story of…
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The worst (best) ads in early video game history We remember some horrific advertising campaigns in gaming.
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Hardware limitations are holding back Final Fantasy’s butt sliders Naoki Yoshida: "You all really like butts, don't you?"
The director of Final Fantasy XIV says hardware limitations are keeping characters’ bums smaller than their players want. In an interview with Gamespot, Naoki Yoshida explained the work that would have to go in to butt customization. The issue dates back to FF14’s Nier: Automata crossover, where a character outfit based on 2B had a larger behind than other characters, which caused clipping problems with certain animations. That model had its butt shrunk down, but community backlash caused Yoshida’s team to reverse its decision. Additional information about the 2B outfit in FFXIV, it fucking increases the size of your character's ass. Taro you madman. pic.twitter.com/WatsfMIDmj — Buttons Montgomery (@HBJohnXuandou) October 29, 2019 pic.twitter.com/WShEmjawV4 — Dace…
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Video game journalism is killing itself Game journalists are killing themselves through political peacocking and attacking consumers.
Metroid Prime like you’ve never seen it before An extract from the new issue of Heterotopias.
Mint condition Super Mario Bros. 3 cartridge breaks all records—sells for $156k Super Mario Bros is once again the most expensive video game ever sold. It's-a more money than sense!
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The heartbreaking story of how one man spent $16k on Final Fantasy and nearly lost his family Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius' combining of characters that people love with gacha-esque monetization can end up going very badly.
Everyone knows that Square Enix’s favorite activity is milking Final Fantasy. And fair enough, the fans love it too — for the most part. Personally I find the ‘extended universe’ of Final Fantasy a bit of a turn-off, and I suspect others do too, which is why Square Enix increasingly focuses on bringing its most iconic characters into any new title – such as the announcement, a few days ago, of Cloud coming to Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. Good old nostalgia, eh? Thing is, when you combine characters that people love with a gacha-esque monetization model, which is what Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius does, it can end up going very…
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The largest ever MMO battle—3000 players!—was an accident Someone forgot to pay rent, resulting in a space battle involving over 3000 players and $300k worth of the game's currency gone forever.
The game journo echo chamber: suppressing dissent and vilifying gamers Apart from a few comments sections, gamers are often defenseless to the torrent of accusations against them by ivory tower weirdos.
The spooky, gory, and gorgeous worlds of DOOM Sometimes, it pays to shoot pictures instead of demons.
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Love in a time of Warcraft Sarah found herself cast as the Yoko Ono of WoW, being blamed for the dissolution of what has been a successful raiding guild.
Heidi met John playing Final Fantasy XIV. They were part of the same Free Company, and would often help each other out with quests. Getting to know each other, the pair soon realized they had plenty in common, and began to spend more time together. “Seeing his name light up when he logged on brought a huge smile to my face,” says Heidi. John later tells me that he spent weeks carrying his laptop around at work or college on the off-chance she signed in. Eventually, John drove from Tennessee to North Carolina to meet Heidi in person. They spent a week together in which time they realized they weren’t…
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Why do Polygon reviewers suck so much at video games? We knew their reviews suffer from political bias, but basic game-playing competence is also a big issue at Polygon.
Mortal Kombat has kept a secret for 24 years That's... a long time to keep a secret. Huh.
Seditionis: Tower Defense reinvents while making love to the classics Seditionis harkens back to classic tower defense games while adding gripping new features—and we can't stop playing.
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Year in Review: 2016’s biggest freakouts over video games A shortlist of all the video games moral crusaders lost their minds over in 2016.
From sexy clothing to political references, no video game is without sin when you’re on an eternal search for content to be outraged by. The moral crusaders, who embed themselves firmly within the games press, blast their outrage to millions in the form of “hot takes” across social media and video game publications. Here are some of the many things they lost their minds over in 2016. Tracer’s Pose in Overwatch Given that Overwatch has one of the most diverse casts in any game, you’d think social justice warriors would love it. They do, to the extent that people who shoot at health packs can enjoy a video game – but…
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We are producing way too many (good) video games There more good games out there than ever before, and they're getting longer. Let's look at the numbers.
Former jewel thief reviews GTA 5’s jewelry heists A former jewel thief has taken Grand Theft Auto 5’s heists to task, and explains how he would have done it instead.
The best JRPG you’ve never heard of The SNES was the home to a lot of classic Japanese RPGs, but this one is in danger of being lost to time.
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Are Final Fantasy XV fans sexist pigs? Check your ‘toxic masculinity’ at the door, gaming fans.
Like many other popular, highly anticipated games, Final Fantasy XV is no stranger to controversy. First announced in 2006 as a spin-off title to the Final Fantasy cycle, it was repeatedly delayed and endured a complete overhaul before a demo was released last year. As the first Final Fantasy to feature an all-male main cast, Final Fantasy XV has suffered through no small amount of outrage and criticism. The upcoming title features four male leads who go on a road trip and fight fascist stormtroopers along the way. Dressed up like members of an edgy, leather-clad J-Rock boy band, the four must discover what it means to become heroes and…
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Five standalone ‘sidequels’ that are far better than their main series The bitesize masterpieces that edge out their main series counterparts.
The state of health Nobody wants to die. But were games more fun when we still could?
Love in a time of Warcraft Sarah found herself cast as the Yoko Ono of WoW, being blamed for the dissolution of what has been a successful raiding guild.
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The only way to save Final Fantasy was to change it: talking FF with XV’s Hajime Tabata Final Fantasy XV’s director Hajime Tabata talks about his approach to the series, the necessity of change, and reading the comments.
Final Fantasy is in the midst of a comeback… though of course one shouldn’t call it that. Final Fantasy XIII sold millions and Square-Enix has been doing gangbusters with its various mobile and handheld releases (and re-re-re-releases), but the series’ reputation took a steep dive after XIII and the original version of XIV left fans disappointed. Since then, Square-Enix has taken a rather odd decision for a studio of its size and pedigree and changed things up, making cuts and moving the people around in order to restore the name of Final Fantasy. The key moment when everyone realized Square-Enix was listening to people came back in 2010, when Naoki…
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What do you do after you’ve made one of the world’s most successful games? King was bought for $5.9 billion by Activision last year. It has two of the most successful games in the world right now. Where can it go from here?
Why Final Fantasy 7 is (still) unstoppable 25 years since its release, the cultural phenomenon is still generating headlines.
The rise and fall of video gaming’s most vocal enemy Over the course of 10 years, lawyer Jack Thompson aggressively pursued video games in the courtroom. This is a history of his career.
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Sitting down with World of Final Fantasy director Hiroki Chiba We sit down with the man behind the gorgeous-looking Final Fantasy monster collecting game.
At E3, Square Enix unveiled World of Final Fantasy, a monster-collection RPG based on the Final Fantasy series. As a huge fan of Final Fantasy, this is a game I’ve been dreaming of for a long time, and I’m honestly quite surprised it hasn’t happened before now. With the outrageous popularity of games like Pokémon and Yo-Kai Watch, and Final Fantasy’s impressive roster of recognizable critters, it seemed inevitable. I had a chance to sit down with Hiroki Chiba, the director of World of Final Fantasy. Previously, Chiba held scenario writer and event planner roles on the likes of Final Fantasy Type-0, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, and Final…
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The best (worst) Watch Dogs multiplayer trolls Watch Dogs online has been designed to drive you nuts and here's a compilation of some amazing moments.
One person’s long, arduous quest to restore the first color arcade game Ed Fries, a former Microsoft executive, has restored part of gaming's history in his garage.
10 hilariously offensive Steam games you aren’t allowed to buy any more In memoriam the best of the worst banned games in Steam's storied history.
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10 biggest influences on video game history Marquee moments that have helped gaming get to where it is today, and laid the groundwork for what we'll hear about in the future.
Gaming, embedded in our culture as it might be, is still a relatively new phenomenon. Invented in 1947, the first videogames weren’t realized in any real way until 1971’s release of Galaxy Game – the first ever arcade machine (first color arcade game? Color Gotcha). This was followed up by the formation of Atari and the release of the Magnavox (the first ever home console system), both in 1972. From there, things moved at an ever increasing speed, while the industry steadily gained attention, notoriety, and value. In the forty years since, gaming has become one of the most important facets of the entertainment industry, with sales expected to tip…
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The secret history of G.I. Joe and Transformers We’re going to look at the many times in the past the two franchises have collided.
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Discord has a furry pedophile problem 'Furry' pedophile groups survived the Discord purges despite hundreds of reports. Then activists uncovered a nest of furry admins within Discord, Inc itself.
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Video game romance: a lost cause? You can't force love, especially not when it comes to western games.
Not too long ago, I was thinking about Mass Effect 3. In fact, it seems we were all thinking about Mass Effect 3, not least in terms of how we wanted to string it up by its eyes and feed it to half-starved crocodiles because of its ending. Times change and the story of Mass Effect 3’s ending has itself acquired an ending, one that’s easier to understand and more satisfying than the ending to the series’ story: most of us hate it and the developers have said sorry. So let’s move on and talk about love. Mass Effect 3 offers you ten potential love interests. Ten. That’s the equivalent…
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Swearing at the screen: a history of rudeness in text adventures Much effort went into providing responses to inputs quite removed from an adventurer's staple activities of bashing heads and examining stuff.
Why do Polygon reviewers suck so much at video games? We knew their reviews suffer from political bias, but basic game-playing competence is also a big issue at Polygon.
The weirdest fighting games of all time Most fighting games have some degree of strangeness to them, but there are those who are downright bizarre.
