Final Fantasy fans can grab the series’ latest spinoff and a beloved classic as part of this week’s Nintendo eShop update in North America.
This week marks the release of the Nintendo 3DS action-RPG Final Fantasy Explorers and a Virtual Console port of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, giving franchise fans access to dozens of hours of character building and strategic combat.
Final Fantasy Explorers takes cues from Capcom’s Monster Hunter series, challenging players to defeat hordes of enemies and monstrous bosses in single-player and multiplayer modes. Featuring little in the way of narrative, Final Fantasy Explorers instead focuses on action and equipment crafting as its heroes quest for life-giving crystals.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance features strategy-oriented, turn-based gameplay that unfolds across a series of creative battle scenarios. Originally released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is newly available for the Wii U as part of Nintendo’s Virtual Console service.
Both of this week’s eShop Final Fantasy releases feature a job system that allows characters to take on new professions in order to learn class-specific skills, abilities, spells, and monster summons. The mechanic has been a key element of many past Final Fantasy games, including mainline series entries Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy XII.
The Nintendo 3DS eShop hosts a handful of new titles in addition to Final Fantasy Explorers this week, including the combat-oriented flight sim RV-7 My Drone, rhythm-driven cooking game Hello Kitty’s Magic Apron, and railway puzzler Crazy Train.
Nintendo Wii U owners, meanwhile, can check out the isometric stealth game Level 22, co-op puzzler Shadow Puppeteer, survival horror experience Joe’s Diner and digital compilation Mini-Games Madness Volume #1 as part of this week’s eShop update, along with the superhero-themed multiplatform action game Lego Marvel’s Avengers.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.