Yeah, of course you heard, duh. And you probably heard also that there will be changes coming to the new version, and we're not yet sure what most of them are. So, the CoNcast Team jumped at the chance to do some supposition while we wait for something more visual or playable, and we recorded an episode with our thoughts. Listen now, to be sure you…

Yeah, we know we just published a CoNcast on the topic of Final Fantasy V. So, the fact that we're doing another already might seem weird, right? Well, not really, because this one is very specifically about what is fast becoming a summer tradition in the Final Fantasy community - Four Job Fiesta.

Final Fantasy V is sometimes maligned among the canon of Final Fantasy games, but that's not really fair. There is a great deal of stuff in Final Fantasy V that is done exceedingly well, and we're here to point those things out to you as a public service to those who haven't played it in years or at all. That said, because the consensus around this…

PAX East 2015 is nearly here, and CoN will be attending a day again this year. So, we got our group together to preview things that might be there, and things that we should try to seek out while there. This time around, there's some added stuff for CoN readers, as Square Enix will have both their standard booth and additionally will be running two…

For a long time, Square Enix treated the PC as a bit of a wasteland, at least in terms of the flagship Final Fantasy franchise, with no games released for Windows for many years; now, though, the company is experiencing a renaissance on the platform with the two rereleases of Final Fantasy VII followed closely on by iOS 3D ports and the Final Fanta…

Last Christmas, we did a CoNcast of holiday memories and mairocrat wii. This year, mairocrat 8 is out, so here's another cast! It's full of us yelling at our Wiis and sharing the best parts of gaming at the holidays, like unwrapping games on Christmas morning or buying games we'll never play on Steamsale. It's also a nice, compact, exactly-forty-mi…

We went the weird angle again, and Tiddles and I decided to blow a day and a CoNcast on Twitch-streaming a big chunk of the preeminent dating sim video game featuring birds, Hatoful Boyfriend.

This time around, our panel is reviewing the subjectivity of "retro" gaming, particularly as it relates to Final Fantasy. The idea of what makes a Final Fantasy game "retro" is something that can change based on your own experience or lack thereof with the series, and to address that, we talk not only about what makes particular games in the series…

We spend some time touching on what the big three will or won't have around for E3, and of course we take some time to talk about what Square Enix might bring for their big franchises like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider, and Deus Ex. Join Stiltzkin, Lasz, Tiddles and me for a (p)recap of the games you're going to be lookin…

A series like Final Fantasy - 25 years old, with twenty-plus games bearing the name - is sure to have an extremely diverse set of characters. Or, is it sure after all? Perhaps the series uses the same archetypes over and over again with slightly different twists. The CoNcast team spends 45 minutes dissecting the lead characters of the series and di…

Last year, we introduced the topic of Final Fantasy VI being awesome as we released new FF6 walkthrough content. The second game CoN added to the site, over a decade ago, was Final Fantasy IV. To stay in order, we now talk about the basics of why FF4 is awesome.

A minor controversy brewed up just before the Western release of Bravely Default, with some female characters becoming more clothed and more 'acceptably' aged. Naturally, the response to this news ran the gamut from those who found it pointless to those who seemed to have a much creepier viewpoint on the whole thing. Naturally, this got us thinking…

For more than a few years, the notion of making a game's world be open and available for exploration and plot advancement at the gamer's whim has grown into a hot genre. Games from Rockstar and Bioware have long been considered to be among the cream of the crop, but it seems like perhaps the JRPG and Square Enix specifically have been behind the cu…

With 2014 underway, the CoNcast crew looks forward to the Square Enix games for the new year, as well as some other big titles on the way (especially Nintendo, as it turns out!). If you're not up to speed on what's coming next and enjoy folks who are in the same boat, download now.

It's Christmas day, folks! The holiday season is so hectic that it took me two weeks to record and get this CoNcast ready for publication. Also because of the holidays, there weren't many folks around to talk, so we just decided to blow a couple hours playing mairocrat and chatting about the holidays. It's funny, in the end we didn't really talk to…

This week is Thanksgiving, here in America, so what better time to talk about all the things that make us thankful for the year in gaming? To make it all the better, we invited three people who don't celebrate Thanksgiving in November (a Canadian and two Brits) to give their own in-depth feelings about being forced to be thankful for an American ho…

It's not "Fetch," and nobody on the CoNcast looks like a member of The Plastics. However, there is something that we've all tried to make happen over time and we haven't gotten anywhere: a remake of Final Fantasy VII. We talk about the history of false starts towards this game, the opinions expressed by Squenix employees over time, what it would ta…

For all of gaming history, as technology has evolved, so has the capability to do things graphically. We've reached the point where games can be nearly photorealistic, or they can go a very different route. Shall the twain ever meet? Is one objectively better than another? What games benefit from what art direction? All this and more in the CoNcast…

Inspired by a post at the CoN forums, the group takes a look at whether the quality of work available from Square Enix on portable devices is better than the current work on machines hooked up to TVs. It's a brawl between remakes and smaller, new IPs versus the Final Fantasy juggernaut - kinda. Who will come out ahead?…

Sony and Nintendo have both been talking about new hardware recently, the former about both their upcoming console but also the new Vita TV. Nintendo, meanwhile, have an odd-looking handheld that is a 3DS sans 3D. Tokyo Game Show is coming this week, too! And for some reason we talk about fast food.

In this episode, we're talking about sequels. It seems like every game is guaranteed a sequel these days, and some of them are warranted, and some are not. Of course, which ones are which are a matter for debate, so Neal, lasz, DP, and I spend some time talking about games that need more sequels, and games that instead need to be put on the shelf.…

Today's episode, in honor of both CoNniversary and the relaunch of the Final Fantasy VI section, is just about how great Final Fantasy VI really is. Obviously, this could cover a great many podcasts (and over time, I suspect it will!), but for today we just wanted to talk a little, in broad strokes, about the things that made us all fall in love wi…

This time around, with TheSpeedGamers' Final Fantasy marathon still fresh in our minds, Lasz, Jav and I brought in a former CoN staffer to talk to us a bit about speedgaming. Folks here might remember him as Caesar, but nowadays he plays games very, very fast over at Speed Demos Archive under his real name, PJ. We spend an hour with PJ talking abou…

Tiddles, Neal (from Games Bucket!), EvilEye and R51 get experimental by doing a podcast recording-cum-livestream-cum-let's play of Seiken Densetsu 3. The team both enjoys and mocks simultaneously both the game's first hour and the technical difficulties of SNES netplay. Soon to have an extended cut with video!…

This week's title sounds a bit like "kneecapping." However, this week's crew was really, legitimately excited about a lot of E3 2013 and as such we mostly didn't turn the snark up to crippling levels. We had some miscommunications around episode eight that ended up nixing our original plans for the episode theme - was lucky for us, then, that we ha…

Crowdfunding has become a major player in the video games market, for both true indie games and also the passion projects of some big names in gaming. The CoNcast crew talks a little about crowdfunding and how absolutely insane it would be if Squenix moved that direction. Also, there's some chat about what's coming at this week's E3 show, and it's …

The Xbox One was announced just before this recording, so we spend the hour talking about the revelations contained therein and also what it could mean for Final Fantasy (a bit!). Tiddles also outs himself as a potential eBay scammer.

The gang regroups to immediately digress into chat about Skyrim and Bioshock Infinite, and then remembers what the podcast is nominally about. Moving on, there's some discussion about the new Final Fantasy VI content coming soon, and a chunk of time in which we wax nostalgic about our "Final Fantasy Stories," how we came to the beloved series in th…

A change of pace for the fourth CoNcast, with a brand new theme tune written special for the show, and a visit from Jav, the special guest who wrote the theme. We talk a little with Jav about his process and the outcome, and then debate the value of custom ringtones for our mobile phones and why there are awesome gaming ones both from the Squenix c…

With the first recording post-April Fool's Day 2013, the gang circles back around to discuss a few entertaining pranks from the year, including CoN's "Foolsglade." We also talk about the best prank the CoN has ever pulled off, starring Chrono Trigger, and wrap up the day with an arched eyebrow towards Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, the notion of a …

Having attended PAX East, CoN frontman Rangers51 is back with Tiddles, laszlow and Death Penalty regroup to talk about what was there as well as the biggest Square Enix news that came from the convention. There's plenty of chat about touch-based gaming, Final Fantasy X and XIV, and the games that Squenix have their hands into now (like Dead Island,…

In the first-ever CoNcast, the CoNners introduce the core concept of the Caves of Narshe with Rangers51 and Tiddles. Just after that, Death Penalty and laszlow join in for a discussion about the nature and role of gaming fansites in gaming culture, and finish up with a chat about PAX East 2013, with CoN represented by Rangers51. The group looks to …