Wark Digest #246 - Data Drops
Welcome back to the Wark Digest, your weekly newsletter of new developments and historical insights from the Final Fantasy universe. I’m Chris, aka Hoogathy, and this week potential technical fouls crossed some wires, giving us a shadow drop on Dissidia Duellum’s preregistration and a buggy new port.
This week’s newsletter is 1749 words, a 7-minute read.
The Next Duel Approaches
After a couple months of radio silence, Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy’s launch is now on the radar, and it may be coming very soon.
What’s going on:
Square Enix hasn’t said much of anything about Dissidia Duellum since the closed Android beta back in November, until this week
Unceremoniously on Wednesday night, the upcoming mobile game’s opening cinematic was posted to YouTube and was listed for preregistration in iOS and Android app stores, followed by official communications on Thursday
Players who preregister now will receive a stockpile of early resources when the game goes live, including resources equal to 40 Ability Draw pulls, background music from previous Dissidia games, and 5 Character Tickets to unlock certain characters, among others
The official announcement from Square mentions no concrete release date other than “2026,” but the iOS App Store claims the expected “delivery” date will be on or before March 31—it’s unclear if this is a crack in the chain of information, or just a placeholder
Meanwhile the opening cinematic shows the launch cast going about their everyday lives in Tokyo until monsters arrive and threaten the peace, illustrating the unusual “alternate earth” concept behind the game
What we thought:
The radio silence was expected as the team incorporated feedback, but if the game is truly dropping in March, they need to hit the ground running again to sell people on this unconventional title
If preregistration is open now, it’s likely not too far off, if it’s not coming in March
Apple’s projected release date window would make sense, as the fiscal year ends in Japan on March 31; assuming Dissidia Duellum sees a decent immediate influx of players, there could be a quick infusion of microtransaction profit to flood into the last days of the annual numbers
And yes, typing that hurts my soul a little bit, but Square Enix needs some wins here and unfortunately the modern games industry is designed to microdose those wins off our backs and wallets
The rollout of the information seems disorganized, like the news itself was supposed to drop a good 12 hours earlier alongside the trailer and app listings—more on potential admin fumbles in our next topic
All of that being said, the trailer has a pretty cool vibe; I’m finding myself genuinely curious about the setting itself and the prospects of how the characters will be living their best lives in the real world
The opening cast is somewhat unconventional, with some interesting potential for interactions between characters who don’t normally cross paths, like the way Lightning does a double-take at Gaia, or how Krile’s arrival distracts Angelo from playing fetch with Rinoa (Still not 100% feeling the fedora though, m’dragoon Kain)
It was hard not to feel a little excitement at hearing another version take on the Dissidia theme at the end
Again, I was more impressed with the beta than I expected to be, so fingers are crossed here that the launch will be… shall we say, respectable, at least
It’s an unconventional idea on a tired platform, so it’s all uphill from the start
…but I said something very similar when Gumi got to make a FF game, and Brave Exvius had a good run, so time will tell
What’s next? While Dissidia Duellum gears up for a launch at some point soon, Ever Crisis is about to observe its 2.5-year anniversary (in mobile game world, a half-year anniversary = 80% of the weight of a real, full anniversary). This means a slew of rewards just for logging in, if not participating in the celebratory missions. As one might expect by now, costumes for Tifa and Sephiroth are among the main prizes here, while a new feature called Customization will allow certain weapons to be enhanced further.
If It Ain’t Broke…
The unexpected update to Final Fantasy VII on PC was dated and released early this week, yet for a small reworking of a nearly 30-year old game, the whole process was anything but smooth.
What’s going on:
As Square Enix recently announced, a new iteration of FFVII has arrived for PC, replacing the 2013 port, which has now been delisted—those who own the game before can still access that version, and are also entitled to access the new version for free
The swaparoo was proclaimed about 24 hours before it occurred, but at the appointed time nothing seemed to go right, starting with the fact that the new iteration of the game was seemingly uploaded to Steam’s servers… without the game files or executable file or anything, simply a 0-byte download
Once the error was corrected and fans got into the “new” iteration, reports quickly came in of glitches and other problems that hadn’t existed before: stuttering animations, frame rate issues, complaints about user interfaces, blurry backgrounds from the bilinear filtering (which is meant to smooth textures when they get scaled up)
The new version’s Steam reviews tanked immediately, sending it to a Mostly Negative, but as of this writing that situation has normalized to Mixed, after some quick patches fixed most of the technical problems
What we thought:
What a strange situation
The technical issues, like the 0-byte install, seem like a complete error on the backend; like the wrong build was uploaded (or not uploaded at all, apparently) on the part of either Square Enix or Steam… but probably Squeenix
The quick patches also suggest that either they knew something this could happen, or they had staff waiting to swoop on any potential issues… or maybe somewhere in-between? Who can say
It’s unfortunate that this all happened while replacing a 13-year old port of a 29-year old game; by this point, FFVII should be easier to maintain and update, and it’s an embarrassing look
On the flipside, the new port (as intended) stands to be a net positive long-term, adding better controller support while removing archaic SE account connections
FFVII has been on Steam in its last iteration since 2013, and has moved plenty of digital “copies” in that time, so the vast majority of people who own FFVII on Steam, for the forseeable future, have access to both versions—as much as SE likes an easy cash-in these days, they don’t stand to line their pockets much by making this version and effectively giving it away to a formidable segment of Steam’s user base
Steam reviews have become a very volatile measure of media’s worth, like Metacritic user reviews (or conversely, AI-generated reviews published by so-called media, as we saw elsewhere in the industry this week)
There’s worth in voting with one’s wallet and leaving a strongly-worded review, but like any customer review, you tend to get the most feedback from the most fired-up segment of the player base, thus it gets filtered through some harsh filters
The legitimate problems were bound to catch flak, rightfully so, but there’s also a segment of users who will be extra unrelenting in chances like this because they’re mad about something else entirely, even if the product is good
To their credit, more good-faith users are beginning to alter their reviews, which has brought the ratings to (at the time of this writing) a “mixed” score, with 251 positive and 293 negative
To this point, FFVII has a strong modding community on PC, and the new iteration is like hitting a reset button on all their efforts… assuming again, that the people who are already invested in them still have access to the old version anyway
Part of the intensified blowback could stem from users who are irate over this matter, or really, anything else that Squeenix has done
At the end of the day, the people who should be most irritated about this are the people who will actually pay for this version in its undercooked state… but hopefully it won’t stay undercooked very long
I personally booted it up to play from the first mission into Sector 7, and didn’t come across major issues—aside from the option to upscale the graphics, which would not take effect at all… but that’s probably a blessing, keeping me at 1920 where the backgrounds don’t get stretched beyond the creators’ intentions
What’s next? With the swift reaction time, hopefully it will only be a little while longer before the PC version is up to the same standard it should have launched at. Good news for achievement hunters who own the 2013 version, however; if you can stand to do it twice, the trophies for the new iteration are separate from the previous, so you have a chance to snag another platinum. Just don’t expect to load a near-platinum save file, as saves between the two ports are not compatible.
Around the Union
Final Fantasy IX has been thoroughly combed through and dissected by now, and despite being revered like a patron saint of JRPGs by some, it has some truly bizarre secrets and quirks. So this week we embrace that “Final Fantasy IX Has Some Weird Secrets,” that add to its charm rather than poking it full of holes. How many of these did you already know about? Do you have any kookier insights that could’ve made the list instead? Let us know in the comments!
Meanwhile, from a beloved classic to some niche selections, over on Datalog we spilled the beans on “7 Game Boy [Color] JRPGs You Probably Have Not Played”! Have any of these crossed your path?
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Until next time, kupo!
