Square Enix E3 2019 conference live report
Final Fantasy 7 Remake looks amazing! And Avongers is also a thing.
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Square Enix closed off Monday with one of the best demos of the show as Final Fantasy 7 wowed eveyrone. And then they showed off The Avengers... Here's everything as it happened.
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
*yawn* I don't even know what time it is anymore.
And we're nearly out of whiskey in the office.
Absolute disaster, tbh.
Still, one more show to go today!
Kami: This whole E3 feels like a hangover.
My whole life feels like a hangover.
Well, this is a surprise. A real live show.
I'm kind of excited?
What to expect?
Well, we know The Avengers is going to be leading the charge.
And we can expect some more on Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
What else? Would love to see some older RPGs return - Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana plz - and hey why not some mad ego trip of a project like The Quiet Man too.
What I'd like - what I'd really, really like - is a new Racing Lagoon.
Never going to happen, of course.
I think it was always going to be a flat year, what with everyone waiting for the next gen.
The last E3 like this - was it 2012? - also felt really dreary.
On the flipside, next year will be amazing!
And anyway I've got a massive backlog to get through, so I'm fine with no games for a year or two.
And away we go.
Let's video game!
Straight in with Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Just the good shit.
This is the intro.
And yes it looks amazing.
And that's just a lovely E3 moment just there - you can feel the love in that room.
Yoshinori Kitase comes on stage to talk us through more.
It still feels slightly surreal to see Final Fantasy 7 Remake being shown off.
Even more surreal that we have a release date now.
(Also as I'm an interminable hipster even though I love Final Fantasy and count 6, 12 and Tactics amongst my favourite games ever, I've never played 7).
Confirmed that Final Fantasy 7 Remake is coming on two discs, and Midgar is its own game.
'Why is this stage set up like they're about to solve a pressure pad puzzle' says Donlan.
We're seeing the action system being properly explained - it's got an action slant, but the ATB system is still in their underpinning it all.
And you can switch to tactical mode, which is more of the traditional combat we're used to.
Also Neal, mate. I know it's exciting. But calm down a bit.
You can switch characters on the fly.
I'm quite into this new action system, though as I've hardly played the original I'm not the sort to be offended by it so easily.
MiracleNachos: This system looks like a lot of fun.
Doesn't it just.
MiracleNachos: This system looks like a lot of fun.
Doesn't it just.
Nicely observed - and they're two fine games. I'm very much into this.
Against my own expectations, and as someone without the nostalgia for the original, this has become one of my most hotly anticipated games of the next 12 months.
Beautifully handled from Square Enix.
It's a low bar to pass, but this Final Fantasy 7 gameplay is the best thing I've seen all E3.
Still some questions surrounding how they'll deal with the mad tone of FF7 - but I have faith.
*All* Final Fantasy games, even the more recent ones, are tonally all over the place.
Here's Nomura!
HerrProduk: I thought you were stanning for Watchdogs Murder Granny this year Martin?
I have like 40 opinions an hour, most of them conflicting. Right now I'm all about this. Tomorrow I'll probably hate it.
So lovely to see the Nomura love in the comments here. I thought it was just me!
I like the tonal inconsistency! Maybe I should say tonal variety...
Anyway, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is playable at E3 this year. That's quite the thing.
And here's something special.
Well okay it's just a longer trailer for FF7 Remake but I'm up for that.
Our first look at Tifa. She looks good!
This really looks very, very good.
March 3rd 2020. That really isn't too far away.
Oddly, there's no menton of that being episodic.
It's just called Final Fantasy 7 Remake on the box.
Would love to know what's going on with that - whether the rest of the game will come as free updates, or it's all coming out on the one day.
Questions for later, I guess - now we're onto Life is Strange 2.
Nothing new there, really. Just confirming that Life is Strange 2 is a thing - a quite lovely thing - that people like.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles gets a tailer next.
And now Octopath Traveler for Steam.
All these are things we knew already - but hey Square Enix are allowed to remind us given what they delivered with that FF7 demo.
Last Remnant Remastered for Switch now. That *is* new.
Not that anyone was looking forward to that so much, but still! You can play it now if you really want to.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 now.
INSOMANiAC: Lost Odyssey was better than them both
You speak the truth.
The original Dragon Quest Builders was absolutely delightful (if a little glacial in its pacing, but isn't that true of all Dragon Quest games).
This looks like a bigger, refined version of all that, so I'm in.
It's out July 12th - as we already knew - with a demo coming to PS4 on June 24th.
Release date for Dragon Quest 11 Switch now.
Not quite a release date, then - just that it's coming out this autumn.
INSOMANiAC: God the new dragons quest is so shit. It's as basic as it gets. Vastly overrated by reviewers
I thought it was okay, but also didn't get the love for it shown elsewhere - it didn't quite have the spark or reason to be that classic Dragon Quest has.
INSOMANiAC: Have I missed avengers?
They'll be closing with that, I'm sure.
This is an all-new game.
It's about Alpine?
Coming in 2020, it's a chibi racer called Circuit Superstar and I am *in*.
HerrProduk: Will we ever get another cell-shaded racing game? I loved the look of Auto Modelista
Auto Modelista was great! Well, it looked great at least.
Battalion 1944 now, which is lovely but kind of had its chips pissed on by the likes of CoD: WW2 and BF5.
It's a fun shooter, mind.
An advert for Square Enix Music now, which is - music, from Square Enix. On Spotify and whatnot. Which we knew, but now there's a nice trailer to confirm all that.
Kingdom Hearts 3... DLC I guess.
INSOMANiAC: Give us DQ9 remake on switch...
I like you. You have the right opinions on things. (This would be so good).
A little slice of FF14: Shadowbringers now, with Naoki Yoshida taking to one of the onstage pressure plates to show us more.
I doubt any of this will be new info, given the proximity of the release - it's out early next month.
Still, I'm just buzzing off that FF7 demo so I'm fine to take a minute to have a breather.
INSOMANiAC: Have you come down from the dying fox hallucinations yet Martin?
I hear foxes rutting in my garden most nights. Most of my life is a fox hallucination.
I sometimes tell myself that Square Enix hasn't done all that much in recent years, but really this is all a reminder that, for all its faults, they've done some great stuff.
FF14 is much-loved and shows how they can see through their stumbles.
INSOMANiAC: Keep on being Square Enix, one of the few non-evil big game publishers left.
Let's not go too far - they're still kind of evil. But also they've done some great stuff!
A Techland game?
Ah, I'm told that Square Enix is distributing Dyinlg Light 2 in North America.
Romancing Saga 3 is coming west y'all.
As is SaGa: Scarlet Grace.
That's nice.
A new Brave Exvius - a mobile game, I know, but a good one - is coming. It's called War of the Visions.
People Can Fly's new game - The Outsiders? - is next up.
Sorry, Outriders.
Sebastien - I'm not typing that surname this late tonight - is here to show us more.
Outriggers!
OUTRIGGERS!
What a goddamn video game. I was talking about it earlier as we were killing time in the office by playing Virtua Tennis 2 on our Dreamcast.
I think Outriggers is a forgotten great.
Okay, it wasn't great.
It was interesting though.
Still can't believe AM2 made a first-person shooter, and it was pretty wild.
Anyway that was Outrider which we really didn't see too much of.
Outrigger tho!
This is Oninaki.
I'm afraid on the RPG Factory's past form I will not be getting excited for this.
And now.
Final Fantasy 8.
A remaster - coming later this year.
And now here is Avengers. At last!
This is the big one.
Well, it isn't really - FF7 was the big one. But I think people have alos been looking forward to.
Oh. They haven't got the rights to the actors of the films.
So... It all looks really weird. And sounds weird.
It's a bit Lidl.
They've taken the aesthetic of the Marvel films but couldn't go the whole way.
When you put it like that it's not so bad.
Well, the proof is in the pudding.
And the pudding, Alan, is GAMEPLAY.
These two pressure pads the presenters are on will hopefully unlock gameplay.
I kind of hope so.
Well, we're getting a look at the cast to make us feel less hostile about them lifting the movies aesthetic but stopping short and having weird faces on all the characters.
But really it'll always look like Poundland Avengers. That's a bad choice someone made there.
I'd like to see the game now please, because interviews with voice actors won't salvage this.
They didn't look that happy.
Here's some content though! It's a weird cutscene!
Oh this has gone so badly.
So, to the game - you can play online, there are custom abilities, it's all a bit Destiny.
A string of free updates, and it is games as a service. Or GAAS.
Or GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSS
Or whatever can you just show the game rather than saying there aren't lootboxes in it what even is this.
It's coming to Xbox One, PS4, Stadia and PC.
PS4 players will get early beta access and unique benefits can we see the game please.
It's Ontmon!
No, we're not seeing anything of the game. It's out next May.
That was an absolute disaster. I loved it.
A shitshow for the E3 annals there.
Still! Final Fantasy 7 Remake looks great.
I'm honestly heartened by how bad that Avengers showing was - a good old-fashioned E3 shitshow.
A lovely way to sign off today's E3ing.
Noel Edmond's Iron Man is one to remember though.
Thank you for joining us - it's been fun, as ever. And I'm kind of excited to do it all again tomorrow.
Kami: We doing it for Nintendo tomorrow?
Hell yes.
Now get some sleep everyone!