Final Fantasy comes to Ouya

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console/posts/278237

by mmahemoff • 14 years ago

72 68 14 years ago

kickstarter.com

funkiee• 14 years ago

I'm not exactly sure what they're saying here other than "Android games can run on our Android console".

KaoruAoiShiho• 14 years ago

They're saying "We got social proof from an A-lister"

debacle2• 14 years ago

FF3 is going to be coming to Android, Ouya or no.

pflats2• 14 years ago

I'm guessing it'll be tweaked to support a controller? And it's a big-name "Launch Title". Gives some cred.

mmahemoff• 14 years ago

An official partnership means they'll probably work together to make it go beyond "it works" to make it a great experience that brings out the best of Ouya platform, e.g. make use of hatever social features, game controller tweaks, settings are available to make it a proper showcase.

moystard• 14 years ago

Same here, they are getting money for a game that has been released already and that many of us play every day... Sometimes I wonder if people think before funding a project on Kickstarter, it is getting ridiculous.

mtgx4• 14 years ago

What has a game being available on a platform ever stopped the publishers from charging for it on another platform?

scribblemacher• 14 years ago

The console doesn't exist yet and SquareEnix already is already making FF-remakes for it! I'm happy to see a big name in the gaming business offering some support, but I'm more excited to see some original, thinking-out-of-the-box homebrew games. I want to play the next Cave Story; I've already played FF3 like a bazillion times.

ConstantineXVI2• 14 years ago

Squaresoft already has it running on Android (and Tegra 3, like in the Ouya), so I doubt it requires much effort on their part. Having Sq's name on board will definitely help PR on both sides though, making homebrew titles more likely.

ajross• 14 years ago

FFIII was an NES game. One presumes the "remake" is just running the original ROM in an emulator. So the "development work" involved is essentially just getting a license written up and signed. Maybe they'll update some copyrights and artwork, too.

cdr5• 14 years ago

Nope. It was done as a pretty thorough remake for the DS a few years ago - added 3D, changes to core gameplay (that were not very well implemented as someone else pointed out), etc. These DS versions are what have been ported to iOS and Android.

danso5• 14 years ago

Call me disenchanted, but Square ports to iOS have been little more than bald, lazy attempts to cash in on years-old, sometimes decade-old properties. And I'm not talking about the original games, I'm talking about the ports (usually for PS1/2/X and Nintendo handhelds) being 10+ years old. Virtually every Square iOS port so far has dismal controls and little thought given to adapting to touch-based conventions...Making Retina-optimized text is about the biggest adaptation they've managed.

For these properties, they charge premium-based prices. For iOS, they don't make them universal...which as a business decision is fine, if unpopular. But they delay the iPad versions for months for inexplicable reasons, but I guess there will be fans who'll pay another $10+ for the new version.

So I don't think the porting of FF3, widely considered one of the worst of the early Final Fantasies, to be much more than another cash-in by Square.

* as cdr noted, the language to market this Ouya port is a bit hyped and misleading: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4317397

freehunter• 14 years ago

The remake on the DS was interesting for the fact that they actually put quite a bit of work into it. I was happy to buy it because it looked and felt like a native DS game (full 3D graphics, new audio, etc). The Final Fantasy on my phone however, doesn't feel native. And they want $10 for it. No thanks.

Kuiper• 14 years ago

The Final Fantasy III remake for DS felt lazy and suffered from lots of poor design choices. As an example, the remake changed the availability of certain classes, but did not change vendors' inventory, so you would run into situations where the equipment available from vendors didn't match what classes were available to you. Also, the class system lacked any semblance of balance with regards to level-ups; the only stat that was permanently raised when leveling up was HP, meaning that it was always best to level-up as whatever class had the best HP growths. Furthermore, HP growths at level-up were based on a percentage of your existing HP, so if a character spent the first half of the game leveling as a low-HP class, their HP penalty would haunt them for the entire game.

I can't directly disagree with your statement that they "actually put quite a bit of work into it," because they did produce new 3D assets, which is a non-trivial task, and the localization had to be done from scratch since it was the first time Final Fantasy III had ever been released outside Japan. However, it certainly didn't feel like a game that that got a lot of tender loving care; it felt like a cash grab predicated on the assumption that people would buy anything tied to the Final Fantasy brand.

jedahan• 14 years ago

Final Fantasy III for Android has been completely rethought for touch controls and it shows. Pinch to zoom for secrets, clicking on enemies to select, swiping across screens for changing characters in equipment/magic/status view. Well worth the $16.

shinratdr• 14 years ago

You can do all that in the iOS version, the Android version is a pretty direct port of the iOS version. The changes you list are basically necessity when converting to a touch based interface.

There are no L/R buttons, so you need to be able to swipe between characters. It's a mobile game and the screen is smaller so zooming into secrets is needed, and you need to be able to tap on enemies to select or else you'll just automatically attack the first person in the field.

I don't exactly agree with GP but I do understand where he's coming from. I enjoyed FFIII for iOS and got quite far into it, but it's hardly a touch based game. 99% of the time you're manipulating a virtual joystick.

sadga• 14 years ago

More than decade-old. The prime properties are FF3 - FF7, which are 15-20 years old.

jiggy20112• 14 years ago

FF3? I thought FF7 was the one widely regarded as a classic?

lmm• 14 years ago

Believe it or not the series contains more than one "classic" game. You're right that FF7 is the most popular though; presumably they went with FF3 for its lower performance requirements.

Elessar• 14 years ago

More likely they went with it because an Android port already exists.

ConstantineXVI2• 14 years ago

Highly unlikely the performance reqs between the two (specifically the DS/iOS/Android remake of FFIII vs. the PS1 FFVII) is that wide; Tegra 3 and similar chipsets are definitely capable of eclipsing both. But they already have a FFIII port mostly ready to go; FFVII has yet to be ported to anything besides PS1 and Win9x. And in true Sq fashion, they seem to be saving a FFVII remake for whenever they think they can extract the most cash from it.

jiggy20112• 14 years ago

I hope not, FF7 ran on a PS1

cdr5• 14 years ago

SquareEnix already has remakes of I-IV on DS which are probably reasonably readily portable to iOS/Android; they've already released III and I on Android.

You can probably expect to see II and IV on Android within a year if they continue to sell well, but probably not V or later until they're ported to a portable game system first. I know there were reports of preliminary work on V/VI for DS but nothing beyond that.

randomdrake2• 14 years ago

My opinion is that the Super Nintendo absolutely killed it for the best console RPGs ever made. Along with this comes, what I consider to be, Square's opus: Final Fantasy III (6 in Japan). I am definitely not alone in this sentiment. It could just be an age gap but, for those who have played both, I've only come across a couple people who would take VII over III.

danso5• 14 years ago

Just to be clear, this announcement is for FF3, in the Japanese series.

Also, to clarify, Chrono Trigger was Square's opus :)

debacle2• 14 years ago

FF3, FF6, and FF7 are widely regarded as the strongest entries in the series.

cdr5• 14 years ago

The Final Fantasy III remake port (as in III by the japanese numbering, not american III which was VI) has been out for awhile already on Android. It really works pretty decently for being on a phone/tablet, I recommend checking it out if you can stomach $15.99:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.square_eni...

The game is a port of the DS remake to begin with, I doubt "coming to Ouya" is much more work than maybe adding controller support to the Android build.

It looks like SquareEnix just released FFI also.

cdr5• 14 years ago

Now that I'm more awake and reread the Ouya post, it goes to great effort to mislead which is pretty par for them. It really tries to imply that it's being released specifically for Ouya with "partnering with Square Enix to bring you", " first time gamers outside of Japan can play FFIII", "Previously unreleased in the U.S.", etc.

jeremyarussell2• 14 years ago

To be fair they had qualifiers like "on the TV"

mtgx4• 14 years ago

They were talking about the DS version, not the OUYA version.

duked2• 14 years ago

To be honest I couldn't care less about Onlive nor FF, I would like them to focus more on either hardware such as Wifi, more Ram or an SD card port or on useful software: Mame port or some useful license like GGPO (that could really enable an xbox live like experience on arcade games). I'm a backer but probably not their main usual target I guess, I'm more looking at it like a Rasberry Pi alternative than a real gaming console.

mtgx4• 14 years ago

I still don't understand this craving for more RAM. Does Android need that much RAM for a single game? Does iOS? Does Xbox360? The games for OUYA will not be more powerful than that. And don't expect to keep the 1st gen of OUYA for 7 years, if you really care about gaming on OUYA. OUYA is more like a smartphone - something you buy once every 1-2 years, with much improved graphics performance.

ARM graphics performance improves 2x every 12 months, so 4x after 2 years. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Tegra 4 brings that much improvement alone over Tegra 3, since Tegra 3 was a pretty small chip compared to competition, even at 40nm (therefore weaker), and Tegra 4 is rumored to have 64 cores (5.3x more than Tegra 3). I would much rather like it to come with Tegra 4 or some other 2013-ready CPU/GPU than more RAM.

cicloid3• 14 years ago

If you read interviews and/or talk to people in the industry, they would tell you that more RAM expands the possibilities for many of the games.

Even for AAA titles like Battlefield 3, the difference in 64 players in a pc to 24 players on consoles according to the developers, was mostly because of the lack of memory.

1GB is huge for a game console. Just for comparison the PlayStation 3 has 256 MB of XDR DRAM main memory and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory for the RSX.

duked2• 14 years ago

I think you just took one one my suggestion as THE ONLY suggestion. Ram could mean better textures, more advanced IA, better multi player game (hey it's 2012, online gaming should be the focus). Anyway Ram is not the only answer... read my post again ram was just one of the things I think could be improve ;)

mtkd• 14 years ago

I don't get the negativity on HN for this project.

This team is trying to disrupt a truly oligopolist market - I really hope they do it.

Give them a break on marketing announcement dissection at least until you see what they build.

jeremyarussell2• 14 years ago

Once a few people make the Ouya exclusives people will start singing a different tune, a lot of the hype has been shot down with the logic that it's just a smartphone on a big screen, to me it's an entirely new platform waiting for someone to really make good use of it. The best part is in a few years when the Ouya exclusives are going for round two on the next gen Ouya, people will get to finally play those great Ouya games on their smart phones. (Because who knows, maybe it'll be all funny and backwards, I've seen much stranger things)

mrcharles2• 14 years ago

Actually, the problem is that the market they are disrupting... doesn't exist. There's a mistaken idea in the public right now that Ouya can (or will) replace dedicated consoles. That's not even remotely true. The system simply does not have the power to be that device in your home.

Gamers seem to have backed this based on an idea that it's a $100 full fledged console. It is not. It is, at best, a tablet that hooks up to your tv and has a controller. At least as far as the hardware is concerned.

On top of that, their release timelines aren't even remotely realistic. March? They don't even have their online store prototyped yet. They have some UI mockups and that's it. Launching in March? Yeah right.

And then there's the issue with allowing the console to be fully open, using a hardware platform that is already having so many issues with piracy that developers are slowly being forced to release their games for free and supported with ads to make any money.

I have no doubt that if this system ever materializes, it will make an impact, but it's a long stretch to think you'll be taking delivery of this system in March and playing Final Fantasy 3 on it.

pflats2• 14 years ago

Some relevant quotes from the Ouya devs in Ben Kuchera's article[1]:

"That [controller] design is not final," I was told. "We are in a prototype phase and exploring several options."

"We know the hardware specifications, and are working with electrical and mechanical engineers to test the performance of the hardware. We have begun work on the user interface and software. We’ll pull all these pieces together and test how they fit, while we finalize the product."

It reminds me of that Kickstarter flashlight that's been in development for over a year[2]: they're not quite saying how little is done, and they'll be in over their head in no time. To me, every bit of marketing copy from Ouya seems willfully misleading.

[1] http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/the-reality...

[2] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-o...

danso5• 14 years ago

I've backed 3 kickstarter real-world objects - the Cosmonaut stylus, the Elevation Dock (the first $1M+ project), and U.S. made underwear. The Cosmonaut stylus was two months late and blew past its touted it'll-be-a-great-Christmas-gift deadline. The Elevation Dock is 4 months late and counting. Even the underwear looks like it'll be about 3 months late.

And these were projects for things that are "dumb" objects. I don't expect the Ouya to be on time at all.

baddox• 14 years ago

> The system simply does not have the power to be that device in your home. ... It is, at best, a tablet

Implicit in your statement is the assumption that "a tablet" is less capable then a dedicated console. Is that necessarily the case? Perhaps the aging console hardware still has an edge in blockbuster first-person shooters, but considering consoles generally render at 600p, I doubt the technical disparity is that considerable.

dmix2• 14 years ago

It's important to have good skeptics critiquing your product visions. Particularly if they are knowledgable and well intentioned.

With a big vision like this, it'd be concerning if everyone was just cheerleading them on and being yes-men.

The realistic prospect for a product success is rarely heavily scrutinized. And success rates are always statistically quite low.

Mr Charles raises some valid doubts about launch time. They're most certainly not a stretch - considering the tons of horror stories about launching hardware products we've seen on HN.

Let alone attempting to create a whole new market segment in a highly competitive environment - where even with success - making money might be difficult.

cooldeal• 14 years ago

First, I am sure almost everyone here wants Ouya to succeed. I think some are very concerned with the hand waving away of real issues in all the hype surrounding this, which rings alarm bells and raises red flags reminiscent of other failed projects in the past.

For example, this particular news update about FF is misleading, as the version they're proclaiming to be exclusive is already available on iOS in the US(and can be played on a TV too), so they're adding caveats such as "on a console on the TV in the US".

A significant portion of the Kickstarter audience may not be knowing the above and might think that this is a big exclusive coming to the platform. The utter hype surrounding this is immense, and not much is ready. While this does not mean that they're going to fail, it sure is hard to execute and they need to show more before hyping the platform to raise even more money from the ordinary users.

MaxGabriel• 14 years ago

If its anything like FFTactics for iOS, using a controller will be huge. When games aren't designed for touch controls, and are poorly ported, they might as well not even exist on the platform.

Edit: There is more detail on this below, with some contrasting views for FF3, which I've never played.

hammersend2• 14 years ago

Considering FF3 is available for download both on the iOS and the Android app stores I'd say it is extremely unlikely that most of the people who pitched in on kickstarter and actually care about Squenix games think it is exclusive. You're nitpicking marketing literature and there aren't even any real nits to pick. To use an analogy you don't expect Nissan to be sure to point out that Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge have better towing capacity than the next Titan. That's not their job and it isn't misleading at all.

ghshephard2• 14 years ago

If there was ever a Kickstarter project (And I say this as a backer of several kick starters, check my ID) - that was destined to failure, this is it. Unrealistic schedules, overhyped expectations, poor communication. Of course we'd all love to see something like this happen, but disruption has to happen more organically. You can't just announce that you are going to build a competitive console in eight months. These things take years - particularly given all of the obstacles (Store, Controller, Development Platform, DRM) that exist.

Most of the kick starters that I find are successful, are those which _already_ have a fully functioning prototype that people are able to use, work, play with - and the kickstarter is something that lets them do this at scale.

The kick starters that are for the R&D/Development almost never hit their targets - even for projects much less aggressive than this one.

Plus - the budget is tiny for all these sub-projects, particularly because they are going to have to pay for all these consoles out of it. It's a train wreck in the offing.

slurgfest• 14 years ago

You may be right that Ouya is destined for failure.

But (and I say this thinking about things other than Ouya) a game platform does not need all the things you list at the outset. That's like saying you need to create an EA in order to make games. If you can put together pieces to make hardware that will run a game successfully, you can have a start.

There is a vast gulf between homebrew and EA which is not very well exploited commercially.

zokier2• 14 years ago

If it were to ship with GNU/Linux (like Debian or Ubuntu) and run Android stuff via something like Alien Dalvik, then I'd be much more interested. I can't get really excited about yet another android box, even if it had slightly unconventional form-factor.

ThomPete2• 14 years ago

Perception is reality. To the geeks this is "just android in a box" to everyone else this is a gaming platform that comes with a lot of games for free and is dirt cheap.

People seem to have forgotten on of the major reasons why the PS1 became so successful.

It wasn't it's superior hardware or software or numbers of colors. It was the simple fact that it could be modded and thus allowed you to play games for free.

slantyyz• 14 years ago

>> To the geeks this is "just android in a box" to everyone else this is a gaming platform that comes with a lot of games for free and is dirt cheap

I personally like Ouya, but realistically, the second part of your sentence should be "to everyone else this is a gaming platform that they haven't heard of". Only the nerds really know about Ouya, Joe Q. Public probably won't hear about it unless the nerds who bought the first wave can make it go viral.

ThomPete2• 14 years ago

Never underestimate the next generations need for finding their pet pevee. They know more about what is going on than you might think :)

aaron-lebo2• 14 years ago

Geeks are excited about it because of that. Others either aren't aware of it or would rather play games on the Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, iPad, etc they already have.

The PS1 was successful because it was put out in large numbers by Sony, not because of the relatively small modding scene.

They are going to have to find something more than ports from other systems to wow people.

engtech• 14 years ago

I haven't been following Ouya since the initial hype, but wasn't one of their initial talking points that they would only allow free games?

I guess they're doing paid games now: "But that’s not the end of it: We’re promising to deliver Final Fantasy III like you’ve never seen it before – Hironobu Sakaguchi’s third installment in the role playing game franchise will be updated to exploit OUYA’s high-definition resolution in glorious graphic detail. For those of you who are new to Final Fantasy, we’ll offer a free demo so you can give it a go!"

aaron-lebo2• 14 years ago

I believe the game either has to be free to play or have a free demo. So that requirement is easily fulfilled.

zokier2• 14 years ago

I'd assume that Ouya would get (S)NES emulators fairly quickly, if it manages to launch successfully.

Final Fantasy comes to Ouya

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