True Fantasy Live Online Revealed to Public
- June 16, 2003 11:48 AM PST
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Level-5 gives Japanese college students a shot at the game.
Are you excited for True Fantasy Live Online yet? You should be?not only is it the Xbox's first MMORPG, but it's also the first online project from Level-5, the Fukuoka, Japan-based developer behind the Dark Cloud series. Although the game was previewed behind closed doors at E3 last month, Level-5 head Akihiro Hino held off on showing it to the public until today, when he put on a conference with other local game designers at the Fukuoka Communication Arts College's annual school festival.The conference was part of an event held by three game developers based in Fukuoka?Level-5, Cyber Connect 2 (makers of the .hack series) and Gunbarion (makers of a whole bunch of titles based on the One Piece anime). At the event, Level-5 president Hino showed off the work-in-progress version of TFLO, building a new character with the game's extensive customization system and running around a little bit on the online beta server.
"I think a lot of people believe you can't produce games anywhere except Tokyo or Osaka, but that's not the case," Hino said at the conference. "We're currently involved in the creation of Dragon Quest VIII, and the developers here today are working on a wide variety of popular titles. If all of you follow your dreams, then you could be involved with the next Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy yourself... Let's make Fukuoka the Hollywood of the game industry."
True Fantasy Live Online doesn't have an official release date yet, but is slated to hit the Xbox in both Japan and America. U.S. and Japanese users will play in the same game world, so you might just run into Hino himself sometime. Keep a Japanese phrasebook handy.
Level-5 head Akihiro Hino builds a female character and engages in a bit of fishing. The curvy lines emanating from that guy's head indicates that he's currently talking via the Xbox Communicator headset.
