Next week sees the release of survival title Breathedge on September 9th for all Game Pass platforms along with Nuclear Throne. Beethoven & Dinosaur’s trippy platforming adventure The Artful Escape is also launching on the same day for console and PC subscribers. Though it seems like slim pickings for now, more titles will be announced over the course of the month.

Games that will be leaving the service include Red Dead Online for cloud and consoles on September 13th. On September 15th, the following titles will also be gone so play them now while you still have the chance.

• Company of Heroes 2 (PC)
• Disgaea 4 (PC)
• Forza Motorsport 7 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Hotshot Racing (Cloud and Console)
• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales (Cloud and Console)

In November 2019, Microsoft announced that a large number of Final Fantasy titles would be coming to Xbox Game Pass in the future. Since then, of the ones that are confirmed, a few (Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8 Remastered, Final Fantasy 9, and Final Fantasy 15) have been added to the service’s catalog, but many others remain missing.

Final Fantasy 10, Final Fantasy 10-2, Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age, Final Fantasy 13, Final Fantasy 13-2, and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13 were all also among the games that were confirmed for Xbox Game Pass, but these haven’t yet shown up in the service’s library. However, Microsoft confirms that though their arrival will be a bit belated, they’re still planned for Game Pass, and will be coming in 2021.

A Microsoft spokesperson said to True Achievements: “As we announced at X019, we are excited to bring the Final Fantasy franchise to gamers with Xbox Game Pass. We have done so throughout 2020 and will continue to do so in 2021 and beyond. We look forward to announcing specific launch dates for more Final Fantasy titles in the future.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft and Square Enix have also been in discussions to bring Final Fantasy 14 to Xbox One for some time now, so here’s hoping that happens sooner rather than later. Whenever that does happen, it’s unlikely it will come to Xbox Game Pass.

Vivi’s Past – Final Fantasy 9

Final Fantasy 9’s cast has this ineffable charisma that makes it hard to not like them. Vivi the Black Mage is one example, being relatively kind but also easy to manipulate and down on himself more often than not. However, Vivi is actually a manufactured Black Mage, created in Dali by Alexandria as a prototype soldier and accidentally separated from his ilk. Upon reaching Dali and learning the truth – that its villagers are responsible for keeping the entire Black Mage production under wraps – Vivi becomes even less self-assured. When Black Waltz 3, a winged Black Mage, arrives to recapture Garnet, the other Black Mages attempt to protect Vivi despite initially capturing him. They all fall, leading to Vivi facing Black Waltz 3 and taking the first steps to defining his purpose throughout the journey.

One of those classics will be getting a remake very soon (or, well, the first part of a remake, at any rate), when Final Fantasy 7 Remake launches on April 10, and in the lead-up to that, we (and millions of others) have been looking back on the highs and lows of the series over the years. In this feature, we’ll be taking a look at all the mainline numbered Final Fantasy games, and ranking them from worst to best.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

#16. FINAL FANTASY 14 (ORIGINAL RELEASE)

Final Fantasy 14 came at a time when the series as a whole was perhaps in the worst shape of its life. Final Fantasy 13 had been come across as something of a disappointment in 2009, and the fact that FF14 was an MMORPG meant that quite a few automatically lost interest as well. It didn’t help that when the game launched, it was utter crap (to put it mildly). Thanks to being terribly unpolished, being ridden with performance issues, featuring an interface that was a nightmare to navigate, and core interaction, exploration, and combat mechanics that were an absolute chore, the original Final Fantasy 14 was perhaps the biggest misstep this series ever made. Of course, Square Enix did manage to turn things around, to the extent that Final Fantasy 14 as we know it today is probably one of the best games in the series- but we’ll get to that soon enough.

At X019, Square Enix was on hand to announce that numerous Final Fantasy titles would be coming to Xbox Game Pass. This includes Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8 Remastered, Final Fantasy 9, Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2, Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age, Final Fantasy 13/13-2/Lightning Returns and Final Fantasy 15. But wait, there’s more.

For the first time ever, Kingdom Hearts will be coming to Xbox One, with Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue coming to the platform. Even more amazing is that there will be a demo for Kingdom Hearts 3 available today.

The above Final Fantasy games will arrive on Game Pass, along with the Kingdom Hearts titles on Xbox One, some time in 2020. Kingdom Hearts 3 is currently available for Xbox One and PS4 and will receive some new DLC in December with ReMind. This adds new story content, new bosses and additional scenarios to play as other characters. Stay tuned for more details and updates from X019 in the meantime.

BioWare – Anthem

Say what you will about Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition and even Mass Effect Andromeda – on some level, all of those games had something going for them. Not so in the case of Anthem, which released in a horrible state and probably has the worst post-launch support of any games-as-a-service title yet. It’s not the terrible loot drops, boring combat, lack of customization, barren end-game or plentiful glitches that gets us – it’s that BioWare, famous for some of the best RPGs ever made, couldn’t even string together a decent story to tell.

All General Objectives – Anthem

Whether you want to rail on BioWare for this disappointing product or pity it for all the development woes, Anthem’s objectives are pretty boring. Everything you do in terms of objectives – standing in circles, gathering and depositing items, etc – is boring. The lack of interesting enemies and variety to encounters also doesn’t help. There could have been some way to spice up the general missions, perhaps with some chases or aerial dogfights but nope.

Death Stranding’s Japanese voice recording sessions have been underway for a while, and slowly but surely, Hideo Kojima has been revealing new morsels of information about people who’re part of the game’s voice cast. Recently, it was confirmed that Houchu Ohtsuka will be playing a role in the game, and now, thanks to another update shared by Kojima on Twitter, we know about another new addition to the game’s list of stars.

Maaya Sakamoto, who is best known for being the Japanese voice of Lightning in Final Fantasy 13 and its sequels (as well as spinoffs including World of Final Fantasy and Dissidia Final Fantasy), will be playing a role in Death Stranding as well. Other than Final Fantasy, Sakamoto has also played roles in several other high profile franchises, including the likes of Resident Evil, Persona, Dead or Alive, Kingdom Hearts, Yakuza, and more.

In related news, reports recently emerged about trademark applications filed by Kojima Productions that might be hinting at multiplayer elements in the game- read more on that through here. Death Stranding is slated to launch exclusively for the PS4, but a release date hasn’t yet been announced.

https://twitter.com/HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN/status/1100647303612747777

At their recent X018 event, Microsoft announced that the entire Final Fantasy XIII trilogy – which encompasses Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII – would be made playable on the Xbox One through their backward compatibility program, and that all three games would also be receiving Xbox One X enhancements.

All three games were already pretty good looking when they each originally launched on the PS3 and the Xbox 360, but it seems they’ve received a significant bump on Microsoft’s enhanced console. More specifically, YouTube channel VG Tech has uploaded a video (which you can view below), that demonstrates what kind of enhancements Final Fantasy XIII has received on the One X.

For starters, the game has two graphical modes on the system- there’s the Graphics Mode, which prioritizes resolution, and the Performance Mode, which, as the name suggests, prioritizes frame rate. Obviously frame rate is much more stable in the latter, and while the former sees some frame rate drops, it sports a higher pixel count.

In Graphics Mode on the Xbox One X, Final Fantasy XIII renders at a native resolution of 3072×1728. In Performance Mode, the resolution drops down to 1024×576, which is the same as the Xbox One S, and the original Xbox 360 as well. Both modes on both variants of the Xbox One, however, also use higher quality pre-rendered cutscenes.

You can watch the full analysis below.

Chaos Aeronite (Hard Mode) – Final Fantasy 13

What’s worse than a boss with a timer? How about one with an invisible timer? Chaos Aeronite is annoying enough on Normal Mode in Final Fantasy 13 especially since you need to stagger it four times in the first three minutes. Not only can the boss hurt you plenty, but if you fail to stagger it within three minutes, it flies away and must be battled again…which is when all of its HP has been regenerated. Did we mention that Hard Mode gives Chaos Aeronite approximately 57,750,000 HP?