In Final Fantasy Gaiden DS, you play as (no, not a ninja) Brand, a character who’s just come of age and heads off to the castle to meet the king. Brand then learns that the king’s daughter has been kidnapped by the Witch of the North, and he’s tasked with saving her. Famitsu has revealed that Brand’s big birthday is his 14th one, meaning the cast of FF Gaiden will most likely be youngsters.
Talk about cliches… C’mon Square ENix show us some really amazing original RPGs….
IGN Preview of Final Fantasy Gaiden DS
Going further in depth on the story, the magazine also got commentary from director Takashi Tokita, who said that the game’s theme is about the travels of an adventure. He also said to expect dragons (which shouldn’t come as a surprise given the huge dragon at the official site) and crystals to play a major part in the story.
The magazine scored a few additional details on the gameplay side of things. The game makes use of a turn-based battle system, requiring that players simply select a command with the stylus (it’s unclear if the game is exclusively stylus-based). Regarding the game’s Crown System, said to resemble the FF series’ Job System, this allows you to set abilities with your characters, which then appear as panels in a command panel area of the bottom screen. To execute cure and other spells, you simply touch one of these panels.
The overall goal for the game appears to be to fuse classic RPG gaming with the more modern tech offered by the DS. AS one would expect of a classic RPG experience, this means random battles, so if you prefer seeing your enemies in advance, you’re out of luck.
Missing from the Famitsu story, despite four full pages of coverage, is any mention of the game’s multiplayer support. Square Enix has confirmed that the game will offer Wireless Play support for up to four players, but hasn’t specified how this will be used.
