Latest news with #FinalFantasy
CNET
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CNET
Everything You Need to Know About the Sonic the Hedgehog Magic: The Gathering Drop
Magic: The Gathering hit a goldmine earlier this month when it released its Final Fantasy set based on one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. Final Fantasy was reportedly the best-selling Magic set before it even released, thanks to extensive preorders. Now Wizards of the Coast is hoping to repeat that success with Secret Lair drops themed around video game icon Sonic the Hedgehog, launching Monday, July 14. Wizards of the Coast/Sega Wizards of the Coast/Sega Wizards of the Coast/Sega Wizards of the Coast/Sega Depending on which century you were born in, you'll either recognize Sonic as the star of 1991's Sega Genesis video game Sonic the Hedgehog, or as the star of Paramount Pictures' Sonic the Hedgehog movies. (Or maybe you know him from Smash Bros. or Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, or any of the countless other places he shows up.) Now he's joining the storied Magic: The Gathering card game in a year where Magic is aggressively investing in crossovers with other properties. Those crossovers started years ago with The Walking Dead, which became an official Magic series called Universes Beyond when it released a Secret Lair drop for Stranger Things. We've gotten Magic cards for everything from Street Fighter to Lord of the Rings, The Evil Dead, Jurassic Park and even SpongeBob. Lord of the Rings was the first full Universes Beyond set, but it set the table for Final Fantasy last month, and we're getting full sets for both Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender later this year. The new Sonic Magic: The Gathering cards are different from the game's Final Fantasy set because these are Secret Lair products -- limited-run drops of a handful of cards, rather than a full set of hundreds of Standard-legal cards. That means you can't build decks for most tournament formats around Sonic. Like many Secret Lair crossover products, these cards seem aimed at the casual multiplayer Commander format that lets you build decks around your favorite characters and play with a group of friends. Sonic being a legendary creature with white mana, blue mana and red mana in his color identity, means that a Sonic Commander deck allows you to include his allies Tails, Knuckles and Amy Rose in the deck. Shadow costs red and black mana, which means he doesn't fit in a Sonic Commander deck, but he would fit in a Dr. Eggman deck. And, gang, these cards are kinda wild. Whenever Sonic attacks, he puts power-increasing counters on other creatures with flash or haste, which not-so-coincidentally includes all of the aforementioned allies that fit in his deck. And Sonic having the haste ability himself means he can attack the same turn you cast him, virtually guaranteeing one activation. Tails can draw cards when flying vehicles enter -- a nice nod to his plane, which first showed up in the late stages of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Knuckles has a lot going on, including the ability to create treasure tokens that can help you cast spells -- or just outright win the game if you have enough while he's on the battlefield. There's also some mechanical synergy between these cards and the new Final Fantasy cards. Amy Rose automatically attaches equipment when she attacks and then can buff the power of other creatures, making her a great fit for the Limit Break Commander deck led by Cloud (or Tifa), which cares about equipment and power stats! Wizards of the Coast/Sega Similarly, Dr. Eggman gets to draw cards at the beginning of your end step -- if you also control Y'Shtola Rhul from the critically acclaimed MMO Final Fantasy XIV, you get an extra end step, allowing you to draw two cards instead of one for the low, low cost of ending your turn. All of that adds up to mechanically fun Magic cards that feature a lifelong favorite character for me. And it'll add up financially if I can get my hands on either the foil Sonic: Friends & Foes collection ($40) or the non-foil collection ($30), the cards in which are less likely to warp from the foil treatment. There are two other Sonic Secret Lair drops announced, including one that focuses on reprinted artifacts like vehicles and equipment and another that rounds up existing cards that synergize with the new cards. Both will be available in $40 foil or $30 non-foil versions. All three Secret Lair sets go on sale Monday, July 14, at noon ET/9 a.m. ET. When they do, and I cannot stress this enough, you gotta go fast to get 'em.
Time of India
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Sonic the Hedgehog x Magic the Gathering collab coming soon; Here's everything you need to know
Magic the Gathering (MTG) is adding to its Secret Lair releases with a Sonic the Hedgehog collaboration. The Secret Lair series refers to the trading card game's limited-time releases that feature special artwork and can only be purchased directly from Wizards of the Coast, in contrast to most randomized card packs that are available at local game retailers. Sonic the Hedgehog's collaboration with MTG comes on the heels of several other high-profile Secret Lair drops, including crossovers with Final Fantasy, Spongebob Squarepants and Deadpool. Among the Sonic the Hedgehog collaboration packs is the Turbo Gear, and it will consist of seven preexisting MTG cards, which will be redrawn with Sonic the Hedgehog artwork. The Sonic the Hedgehog cards will be exclusive to Secret Lair's website We're incredibly excited to announce that Sonic the Hedgehog is coming to Magic: The Gathering in the new @MTGSecretLair x Sonic Superdrop!Three unique drops beginning July 14th. Stay tuned! The Sonic the Hedgehog cards can only be purchased via MTG's Secret Lair website. The Turbo Gear drop is expected to occur on July 14, at 9 am PT. The Secret Lair cards are of limited quantity, and will cost $29.99 for the non-foil version, and $39.99 for the foil version. The Turbo Gear drop isn't the only collaboration MTG is doing with Sonic, but, all the drops are meant to complement each other. The Turbo Gear cards are confirmed to be Sonic-themed redraws of seven MTG cards that are as follows: Sonic's Biplane (Weatherlight), Knuckes's Gloves (The Reaver Cleaver), Air Shoes (Swiftfoot boots), Egg Hammer (Myr Battlesphere), Piko Piko Hammer (Hammer of Nazalm), Power Sneakers (Lightning Greaves), Egg Pawn (Myr). Magic the Gathering has done several high-profile collabs Seven more cards from Secret Lair x Sonic! 🌀💨#MTGSecretLair Star City Games (@StarCityGames) June 27, 2025 Seven more cards from Secret Lair x Sonic! 🌀💨#MTGSecretLair Magic the Gathering's Secret Lair series was first introduced in 2020 in an effort to boost direct sales from Wizards of the Coast's own websites. From 2020 to 2023, these Secret Lair releases were print-on-demand, meaning that they had no preexisting inventory and were instead produced as per player demand. Starting in 2024, Secret Lair has shifted to the limited-print model, thus paving the way for several high-profile collaborations with renowned IPs. Among their most ambitious collabs has been with Final Fantasy, where the drops consisted of an entire draftable set of MTG cards.
CNET
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CNET
Someone Help Me, I Also Need These Sonic the Hedgehog Magic: The Gathering Cards
Magic: The Gathering hit a goldmine earlier this month when it released its Final Fantasy set based on one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. Final Fantasy was reportedly the best-selling Magic set before it even released, thanks to extensive preorders. Now Wizards of the Coast is hoping to repeat that success with Secret Lair drops themed around video game icon Sonic the Hedgehog, launching Monday, July 14. Wizards of the Coast/Sega Depending on which century you were born in, you'll either recognize Sonic as the star of 1991's Sega Genesis video game Sonic the Hedgehog, or as the star of Paramount Pictures' Sonic the Hedgehog movies. (Or maybe you know him from Smash Bros. or Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games or any of the countless other places he shows up in.) Now he's joining the storied Magic: The Gathering card game in a year where Magic is aggressively investing in crossovers with other properties. Those crossovers started years ago with The Walking Dead, became an official Magic series called Universes Beyond when it released a Secret Lair drop for Stranger Things, and we've gotten Magic cards for everything from Street Fighter to Lord of the Rings, The Evil Dead, Jurassic Park and even SpongeBob. Lord of the Rings was the first full Universes Beyond set, but it set the table for Final Fantasy last month, and we're getting full sets for both Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender later this year. The new Sonic Magic: The Gathering cards are different from the game's Final Fantasy set because these are Secret Lair products -- limited-run drops of a handful of cards, rather than a full set of hundreds of Standard-legal cards. Like many Secret Lair crossover products, they seem aimed at the casual multiplayer Commander format that lets you build decks around your favorite characters and play with a group of friends. Sonic being a legendary creature with white mana, blue mana and red mana in his color identity means that a Sonic Commander deck allows you to include his allies Tails, Knuckles and Amy Rose in the deck. Shadow costs red and black mana, which means he doesn't fit in a Sonic Commander deck, but he would fit in a Dr. Eggman deck. Wizards of the Coast/Sega Wizards of the Coast/Sega And, gang, these cards are kinda wild. Whenever Sonic attacks, he puts power-increasing counters on other creatures with flash or haste, which not-so-coincidentally includes all of the aforementioned allies that fit in his deck. And Sonic having the haste ability himself means he can attack the same turn you cast him, virtually guaranteeing one activation. Tails can draw cards when flying vehicles enter -- a nice nod to his plane that first showed up in the late stages of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Knuckles has a lot going on, including the ability to create treasure tokens that can help you cast spells -- or just outright win the game if you have enough while he's on the battlefield. There's also some mechanical synergy between these cards and the new Final Fantasy cards. Amy Rose automatically attaches equipment when she attacks and then can buff the power of other creatures, making her a great fit for the Limit Break Commander deck led by Cloud (or Tifa), which cares about equipment and power stats! Wizards of the Coast/Sega Similarly, Dr. Eggman gets to draw cards at the beginning of your end step -- if you also control Y'Shtola Rhul, you get an extra end step, allowing you to draw two cards instead of one for the low, low cost of ending your turn. Wizards of the Coast/Sega All of that adds up to mechanically fun Magic cards that feature a lifelong favorite character for me. And it'll add up financially if I can get my hands on either the foil Sonic: Friends & Foes collection ($40) or the non-foil collection ($30), whose cards are less likely to warp from the foil treatment. There are two other Sonic Secret Lair drops announced, including one that focuses on reprinted artifacts like vehicles and equipment and another that rounds up existing cards that synergize with the new cards. Both will be available in $40 foil version or $30 non-foil versions. All three Secret Lair sets go on sale Monday, July 14 at noon ET/9 a.m. ET. When they do, and I cannot stress this enough, you gotta go fast to get 'em.
The Verge
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Final Fantasy fans, now is the time to get into Magic: The Gathering
The Final Fantasy Magic: The Gathering set is here, and there's never been a more perfect assemblage of Magic cards. The set features cards taken from every mainline Final Fantasy title, including the two MMOs, so there's something for every generation of Final Fantasy lovers. And while Magic has featured other video game crossovers in the past (hello, Assassin's Creed and Fallout!), with the way this set is constructed, from card mechanics to art, you can tell this one is a developer favorite, sure to appeal to the massive chunk of people who love both games. But what if you don't inhabit the center circle in the Venn diagram of Magic and Final Fantasy lovers but are still interested in experiencing this set for yourself? Magic: The Gathering is an intimidating game, even if you're a seasoned player like myself. There are so many ways you can play, both in person and online, that it can be overwhelming to figure out the best way to jump in. So here's a few tips and tricks to playing the Final Fantasy Magic set. Be warned, though: this is the best-selling set in Magic's 30-plus-year history, and you will pay for the pleasure of this experience — if you can find the product to pay for it at all. How to play: physical edition Over the years, the designers at Magic developer Wizards of the Coast have realized it can be intimidating as hell for a new player looking to start their planeswalking journey. To help these new players along, Magic developers have created a line of products called Starter Kits. Each is a set of two 60-card decks featuring cards specifically designed for new players and an instruction booklet that goes over the game's basic rules and cadence of play. Keep one deck for yourself, give one to a friend, and learn as you play together. For MTG x FF, the starter kit features two decks themed around Final Fantasy's greatest rivalry: Sephiroth vs. Cloud. These decks are a decent introductory course to Magic. Cloud's is themed around equipment cards (think the Buster Sword or the Ultima Weapon), which are essentially weapons you can attach to your creatures to pump up their damage and hit hard. Sephiroth's deck is all about him. Kill creatures (yours and your opponent's) to make him as big as possible. I played both decks against the set's designers and managed to beat them both, a monumental feat for any Magic player. However, if you want to play them for yourself, the Starter Kit is currently sold out on Amazon, so your best bet to find one is to hit up your local card shop (known in the community as your LCS) to see if it has any in stock. Wizards' website does feature a handy store locator if you don't know where your nearest LCS is. There are also four Commander decks you can buy and play, with each one themed around a specific title in the series. Commander is the most popular format of Magic, but the rules are slightly different from standard play, and matches can often include more than one opponent. The Final Fantasy Commander decks are beginner-friendly but expensive, running anywhere from $80 to $130 when Commander decks in other sets are much cheaper. How to play: online edition If you don't have any friends you can beg, bribe, or beat into playing Magic with you, there is another, far easier option: the game's online version, Magic: The Gathering Arena. Arena is the best way to experience the Final Fantasy set as there's no worry about stock, it's relatively cheaper, and there are so many different ways to play that in-person playing simply does not accommodate. Once you've made your account and downloaded the game, you can play through the game's tutorial, which I recommend to get your bearings. Not only does it explain how to play, but the color challenges also give you a feel for the playstyles of Magic's five different colors. Think of colors and color combos as characters in your favorite hero shooter. Each has different abilities and favors a specific style of play. Blue and white center on going over your opponents' heads with flying creatures, while mono green (my favorite and the best way to play) favors big, stompy creatures that run over your opponents' defenses. The Final Fantasy set makes it easy to find a color or combo that works for you. If you want to get straight into the Final Fantasy set, you can simply skip the tutorial to unlock all of Arena's many game modes and features, and it'll still be there to try if you ever need to go back. Once you're ready, you have a number of options available. You can get right into the thick of things and start playing the game's constructed modes. If you've never played Magic before, do not do this. It is expensive, costing a lot of resources your account will not have unless you buy them in the game's cash shop, and it is hard. Making decks is difficult; even I don't like it that much compared to playing decks preassembled for me. Your best, most economical option is to play Jumpstart mode. In Jumpstart all the hard work of making a viable deck is done for you. You are presented with a number of archetypes: Bold, Mage, Chocobos, Equipment, and more. You can pick two of them based on nothing more than vibes and personal preference, and the game will automatically create a deck using those two archetypes. Then you play your deck against other Jumpstart decks and rack up the wins or the valuable experience that comes with losing. The great thing about Jumpstart is that it's cheap — a new account grants you enough currency to try the mode three times — and the cards you pick are yours to keep. Do it enough times and you'll eventually have enough cards to tool around with making your own decks to try out in the game's friendly mode, Quick Start. I've enjoyed all the different Jumpstart decks I've made, but if you really wanna have some fun, pick chocobos whenever you get the chance. They're creatures that get stronger whenever you play a land card (think of land like the gas that powers your deck's engine) and have incredible synergy with other card types, leading to a deck that will overwhelm your opponent. Also, they're chocobos! What could be more Final Fantasy than chocobos? If you are a Final Fantasy fan, I cannot stress enough how much fun its Magic set is. And if you're intimidated by Magic's difficulty, don't be. There are so many beginner-friendly ways to play, and there are so many beginners trying this set out for the first time, that you'll be in good company. Plus, I've found the community is always happy to help newcomers. When I played at an in-person event, my first opponent had never picked up the game before. Over the course of our match I taught him everything I knew as best I could, and before the end, he beat me. Badly. I've never had more fun.
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From Street Fighter to Final Fantasy: Yoko Shimomura, the composer who put the classical in gaming's classics
Alfred Hitchcock, David Attenborough, Harold Pinter, Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, Hideo Kojima – these are just a few of the recipients of the Bafta fellowship, the highest honour the academy can bestow. Japanese composer Yoko Shimomura is the latest to receive the accolade; one of only 17 women and four Japanese people to have done so. She is also the first video-game composer to be recognised by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the first composer recognised at all since John Barry in 2005. It is with good reason that the academy has honoured her. Shimomura is an icon. You'll know her music from Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, Super Mario, Kingdom Hearts, Legend of Mana, Streets of Rage and more than 70 other games she has contributed original compositions or arrangements to. Her 37-year-long career has seen her record at Abbey Road Studios, have her music played by symphonic orchestras around the world, and work in genres ranging from rock to electronica, ambient to industrial, pop to opera. And yet Shimomura seems unchanged by her success. 'Certainly, over the course of my career, there have been a number of times – a lot of times perhaps, compared to other people – where I have struggled. Enough to think maybe I want to give up.' She tells me that even as far back as her first job at Japanese developer Capcom, she thought she had maybe two or three years in her before she'd quit. She also says she applied for that job with 'barely any hope of getting accepted' – with a modesty that still seems a core part of her character. 'Even though I love this job, there have been plenty of times when it was really hard for me to continue. I couldn't sleep, and I would especially struggle as deadlines would approach.' Part of her fatalism came from the culture of video games in Japan in the late 80s. Despite the thriving arcade and development scene later leading to the mainstream success of the PlayStation in the mid-90s, pursuing a career in video games was seen as a dubious prospect by Shimomura's peers and family. 'This is something I think most gamers who were around at the time will understand,' she laughs. 'Generally, my friends and people I hung out with were not big gamers, so they weren't too familiar with what games really were. At the time, a lot of them were confused about what a job in video-games music even was! Certainly, my parents were not of the generation who would have played the Famicom [the NES], so they would say things like: 'Oh, video-game music? Is that a job? Is that real?' There was a lack of knowledge and understanding about the profession, really.' Surprisingly, given the male-dominated western world of video games in the 80s and 90s, Shimomura tells me that a lot of her colleagues in the sound department at Capcom were women. The developer split its composers into corporate and consumer divisions, where the top staff were all female. 'I felt that since the head staff were women,' she says, 'it was easier for other women to join the department.' Her peers began to understand how serious Shimomura was about her musical career with the release of Street Fighter II in 1991, the ninth game she worked on. 'That's when the tide started to turn. It sold so much, and so many people knew it and became familiar with my music, that it was a really significant title for me. I certainly think it's why I ended up working with Square on titles like Live a Live and Front Mission – because the bosses there knew me from Street Fighter.' For Street Fighter, Shimomura would study the character designs and personalities of the fighters, then design themes for them. She would also pore over the detailed pixel art stages for each character, and draw out details from their 'home stage'. She would then compose music based on the character's ethnicity and culture, often to striking and unusual effect. The best example, to my ear, is the use of a major key rhythm track for the Brazilian fighter Blanka, while the main melody playing on top of the rhythm is in minor. It's odd but it works, and gives the green-and-orange fighter a musical identity as as much as a visual one. Shimomura's classical background gave her the tools to work techniques such as this into her music. She eventually departed Capcom for Square, the most famous RPG developer in the world, because she wanted to work on games where she could utilise classical composition techniques. 'Why is classical music such a good fit for RPGs? I think it's because so many of those titles are set in medieval, European-style worlds where that music naturally belongs,' she says. 'But even if an RPG is set in a more modern take on a world, they're very rarely close to reality; the game world is of another age. And classical music is of another age too, so it's a very good fit.' The first project Square set Shimomura to work on was Live a Live, a 1994 RPG that takes players on a fantastical journey as eight characters across nine scenarios. 'There are so many different worlds and different settings in there, and very few of them actually needed classical music, so it was completely different to what I was expecting,' she laughs. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion Shimomura would not get to flex her classical music muscles the way she really wanted to until Square's 1999 release Legend of Mana, on which she felt she could truly express herself. 'Until that point, at Square, the projects I worked on did not allow me to do something 100% from scratch,' she explains. 'There were always other factors, other legacy things that went before it. Music in Live a Live had to align with the characters. For Parasite Eve, I had to work with what was established in the original game. Mario RPG, of course, is set in the world of Mario and had to be 'Mario music'. I was not free to create something from the ground up until Legend of Mana.' Legend of Mana would be foundational for the rest of Shimomura's career. Three years later she would work on Kingdom Hearts, the now-mainstream success that trades on the unlikely idea that the worlds of Final Fantasy and Disney could somehow become merged. 'When it first released, Kingdom Hearts wasn't a big hit,' Shimomura recalls. 'After it was released, it was one of those hard times I mentioned before: I left Square, and I wasn't sure if I was going to continue in this job or not. But then they came back to me and asked if I wanted to work on Kingdom Hearts II, and that was significant for two reasons. One, it proved I could continue doing this as a freelancer. And two, it was the first time I'd been asked to come back and work on another game in a series.' Even at that point, 17 years into her career, Shimomura was uncertain about her standing in the world of video-game music. 'I think, both professionally and in a sense of personal growth, that's why Kingdom Hearts means so much to me.' Now, 37 years since her first job at Capcom, Shimomura has been lauded with Bafta's highest honour, and she is still as polite, humble and respectful as the young woman poring over Street Fighter's stages. 'I was blessed to have mentors and seniors who really helped me grow as a composer and taught me a lot of what made me who I am,' she says. 'I feel very lucky, and it is down to all those people that I am here talking to you today.' And her advice to other young women hoping to break into making music for games today? Be tenacious, persevere and work through that self-doubt. 'I think the reason I haven't given up is because I always make myself think of the love I have for music and for games. I cherish that feeling. And so if people do ever think they want to give up, please, cherish that feeling of love yourself, and keep going. I hope I can be an example for people when times are tough. If I can get over that, I hope that they can too.'
