E3 - Square Enix Shows Fantasies, Kingdoms, Samurai

Thanks to GamingHorizon for its summary of the pre-E3 Square Enix press conference at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, during which the company mentioned they "are determined to expand their reach across all forms of media, not just limiting themselves to the gaming market", before holding the Dear Friends: Music From Final Fantasy concert in the same venue. However, specific game-related material includes details (though not downloads) of a new Final Fantasy XII trailer, alongside new direct-feed screenshots of the title, as well as snapshots of Before Crisis - Final Fantasy VII, a mobile phone-only spin-off. Also revealed is information on the previously unannounced Musashi Samurai Legend, a sequel to "the original Brave Fencer Musashi on the PlayStation" featuring "Tetsuya Nomura handling the character design... [and] Studio Gainax creating the animated cutscenes", as well as new details on Disney-licensed sequel Kingdom Hearts 2 and its handheld partner, Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories.

Final Fantasy for mobiles

[Zero_Dogg]

I wonder when a market for "wine" like emulators for mobiles will come. Not counting the Ngage emulator for siemens.

"Transmobile introduces the brand new NokiX 2.3.
NokiX is a portability soloution which allows Nokia games to run seamlessly on any Siemens mobile."

"Transmobile introduces the all new SiemX 1.0 which allows NokiX to run seamlessly on any Motorola mobile"

Re:Final Fantasy for mobiles

[neglige]

There might not even be a need for it, J2ME is pretty well established on a number of mobile phones. Using it (as most downloadable games do) lets you reach a lot of customers. Or maybe BREW, but I'm not sure if its catching on.

It becomes interesting when, say, Nokia tries to establish a proprietary platform which is incompatible to other mobile phones. Personally, I wouldn't expect a move like this to be successful. But you never know :)

Re:Final Fantasy for mobiles

[Zero_Dogg]

I know with the current tech they reach a lot of customers. And thats really great.
But if Nokia really does that, which they probably will attempt to someday. I do hope that it wont me much sucessfull. But you never know, most people don't really know what their buying when their buying a mobile phone: "Ooh! Games! Oooh! Ringtones - yaay. I'll take it".
And most people do buy Nokia because they think they are best (stores have been recommending Siemens over Nokia for ages) - and if they start making games

Re:Final Fantasy for mobiles

[neglige]

I'm not sure how comparable the current situation is with the former ringtone/picture-SMS protocol from Nokia. Several years ago, Nokia stepped forward and extended the SMS protocol to allow the easy installation of ringtones and pictures on their phones.

Then, EMS and MMS appeared (as a standardized format supported by the majority of phone producers) and rendered the proprietary format obsolete. Phones are now able to display JPEG, GIF and play MIDI/MP3 ringtones. While the formats are standardized and

Bloody hell. What about the "Enix" half?

[Audigy]

Final Fantasy this and that... Kingdom Hearts blah blah blah... where's the mention of Star Ocean: Til the End of Time, or Dragon Warrior VIII (or V, we can wish) ... ...If Square-Enix ends up eating the Enix portion of their merger, I'm going to cry. ;_;

Re:Bloody hell. What about the "Enix" half?

[llamaluvr]

Finally, stop whining. SE will release new/remade Dragon Warrior stuff in the States soon.

Uh, how do you know?

I don't think the Enix side of things is at the point where we can trust them unequivocally to release their biggest games over here. It took a while for Square to prove that they were committed to bringing all of the Final Fantasies to the American market, and Enix is well far behind them at the moment. We already know that the Dragon Warrior IV will never make it here (although the circums

Re:Bloody hell. What about the "Enix" half?

[Wildfire Darkstar]

I think Enix is generally committed to localizing their games for American audiences, the DQ4 remake being a bit of a unfortunate fluke. It's not a foregone conclusion, but I think there's probably a >50% chance we'll get the DQ5 remake, especially given that Enix seems truly penitent over the DQ4 fiasco.

(For those who don't know, the reason the DQ4 PSX remake was never localized had to do with the way Enix traditionally does business: independent developers develop/code the games, and Enix acts pretty

Re:Bloody hell. What about the "Enix" half?

[shadowcabbit]

True. To add to this, of course, SE has a huge cash cow in its Final Fantasy franchise. Thus, half of the business can make money hand over fist (Square properties) while the other half can bring over more obscure and niche titles (Enix stuff).

And as for the DQ4 thing, well, why not just give it a good thrash? We've got some decent hackers over here, and for the most part Dragon Warrior fans are patient. Why not go the Nintendo route and outsource the translation to a US house like, say, Silicon Knight

Re:Bloody hell. What about the "Enix" half?

[llamaluvr]

Final Fantasy is only a cash cow because an FF game comes out almost every 1.5 years, rather than Dragon Warrior games, which take a lot longer. However, when a DW/DQ game comes out, it generally sells better than anything Final Fantasy in Japan. I remember reading that Dragon Quest 7 was like the best-selling game ever over there.

As a recall, it was actually Enix that bought out Square (although it was handled more like an even merger). Enix was a cash cow before, probably more so than was Square bac

Re:Bloody hell. What about the "Enix" half?

[Wildfire Darkstar]

A lot of the popularity of the Dragon Quest series in Japan has little directly to do with the quality of the games: DQ7 had... uneven reviews even in Japan, and when magazines like Famitsu run surveys asking gamers what upcoming games they're most interested in, or whatever, the Final Fantasy series often trumps the Dragon Quest series. The thing is that Dragon Quest was the first significant console-based RPG to hit it big, and it has brand recognition to die for. It's ubiquitous, and a part of the Japane

Re:Bloody hell. What about the "Enix" half?

[Wildfire Darkstar]

The problem is that most programmers aren't willing to work for free, and that, without solid documentation to work from, we'd be looking at a pretty hefty amount of time just deconstructing and reverse engineering the core of the game, let alone the time actually necessary to localize the thing. The amount of money Enix would have had to have poured into the game to get it ready for US release simply could not have been recouped.

I also wouldn't wait for a PSP port, for that matter: the problems with the o

Re:Bloody hell. What about the "Enix" half?

[silentbobdp]

What's truly fun about this is how Enix is the one pushing through all of this so that the company can get cash :D

Franchises

[jbfaninmo]

So they are basically planning sequels of their popular games for the PS2, and spinoffs of these games for handheld platforms.

God, I though only EA was supposed to act like that.

GAINAX and Square-Enix working together?!

[May Kasahara]

Dude, I am sooo in Geek Heaven ^_^

I know next to nothing about the original Brave Fencer Musashi, but now I have an incentive for checking out the sequel...

Re:GAINAX and Square-Enix working together?!

[shadowcabbit]

I know next to nothing about the original Brave Fencer Musashi, but now I have an incentive for checking out the sequel...

Ah, you missed out on one of the funnier pseudo-RPGs of the Playstation's halcyon days. It was a fairly well-done Zelda-type game (far better than Alundra), but there were lots of sidequests and additional activities to take part in. It had a great story and decent voice-acting, too. I'd highly recommend hunting BFM down as soon as possible.

Oh, and as for the Gainax thing? Yeah, t

Re:GAINAX and Square-Enix working together?!

[May Kasahara]

I shall check it out, thanks! Sounds like a good game :)

And GAINAX did the Xenogears cutscenes? Haven't played that one yet, but still interesting to know...

Re:GAINAX and Square-Enix working together?!

[shadowcabbit]

Credited to Production I.G., actually, but close enough.

Wow, I find it kind of hard to believe you haven't played either of them. ^_^ Get BFM first-- if the copy you have was sold off by someone nice, you should have a demo disc for XG on it. (I'd send you mine, but unfortunately I don't have it anymore.)

Re:GAINAX and Square-Enix working together?!

[May Kasahara]

Production I.G.-- still decent ^_^

I promised myself I'd play Xenogears a long time ago, but I still haven't gotten around to it (of course, now that it's a Greatest Hit, I should have no excuse, right?). I did play Xenosaga Ep. 1 though... blah.

Re:GAINAX and Square-Enix working together?!

[Chemical]

Xenogears is just as long-winded as Xenosaga. Maybe even more so. The entire second disc is hours and hours of cutscenes with a few minutes of gameplay thrown in here and there. And most of the cutscenes are the main characters (Fei and Elly) sitting in a rocking chair and reminiscing.

It's still better than Xenosaga. At least it had music.

Riding the Cash Cow

[Mr.Dippy]

Seriously, I think it's time to retire the Final Fantasy Series. Talk about sequels plaguing the gameing market. Enix is in the double digits now.

Re:Riding the Cash Cow

[Kalak]

Aside from X-2 (which felt more like the pre-VII days than anything), none of the FFs have really been a sequel. They have similar production teams, but the only thing that has been connected between them have been things like Cid. The stories are new and unrelated, though they follow a format that many RPGs follow. I still find a new plot line twist there to keep it from being "just another FF". I've yet to find one that wasn't new enough to make it worth playing as an individual game.

The "FF" moniker really tells you who is working on the game, not that it's a sequel. If "FF" was spun off as it's own company, say a "wholely owned subsidary of SquareEnix" then they could probably name the titles something different and just call the company Final Fantasy Productions. The most wouldn't claim it's a collection of sequels.

Re:Riding the Cash Cow

[Mr.Dippy]

That is a good point. I agree that most of the games (even all) don't fell like a sequel. It's just annoying that SquareEnix is unoriginal in the Title nameing department. They should just come up with unique titles to the game and do what you said, label it "brought to you by Final Fantasy Production. However, most of the games are based on the same formula (run around a world map, level up, ride some chocobos, save the world with a team of people you just met).

Re:Riding the Cash Cow

[Wildfire Darkstar]

Eh. The name sells. If that sort of sell out is neccessary to allow these folks the freedom to make the games they wanna make, then I'm fine with it. And, save for the copyrighted bits (chocobos), the description you just gave can be reasonably extrapolated to apply to 90% of all role-playing games out there, and a good chunk of adventure games, too.

I wouldn't mind, however, them dropping the numbering in favor of new titles (a la "Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles" or whatever). When you get right down to

Too... Many... Belts!

[shadowcabbit]

Did anyone else look at this screenshot [1up.com] and immediately think "Yeah, that's a Nomura character all right."? Nothing against the guy's work, it's just... well... he's got more belts than real clothes.

Concert Bootlegs

[Kalak]

Did they let anyone bootleg the concert? Are they going to release a CD? I want my Uematsu!

Re:Concert Bootlegs

[shadowcabbit]

I'll bet anything there will be a preview on the Advent Children DVD and an official concert DVD to follow. From many accounts there were plenty of cameras at the event, which leads one to believe a DVD is indeed forthcoming.

As for a CD, well, yeah, that would be cool, but I'd actually be more willing to buy the film than the soundtrack. ^_^

Re:Concert Bootlegs

[Kalak]

I'm definitely for buying the DVD when it comes out (and I agree from the desciption they will put one out - it'd be a damn shame not too). I just don't want to wait, and I'll take a crap bootleg now to hold me over until the real thing is produced. It's not my fault I couldn't afford to go to E3 for the concert. This would have made a great Pay-per-View. Better than profrssional wrestling, that's for sure.

Re:Concert Bootlegs

[SleazyC]

Considering that a CD was released of the original Final Fantasy Concert (20020220 Music from Final Fantasy SSCX-10065~6, in case anyone is wondering) I don't see why Squre-Enix wouldn't release this concert on CD.

As for a DVD, the 20020220 CD came on 2 disc's with one having about 5 minutes of footage of the concert and some interviews with Uematsu and such. I really do hope to see a full-fledged DVD release of the conter this time though.