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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.
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"
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. ;_;
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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.
I know next to nothing about the original Brave Fencer Musashi, but now I have an incentive for checking out the sequel...
You have to get remember that, predominantly:
Square fanboys = North America
Enix fanboys = Japan
and the Enix fanboys are currently walking over each other in orgasm over a remake of Dragon Quest V in Japan.
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.
-Dipster
First, stop whining. The show hasn't even opened yet; and you can bet there will be more surprises before then. SO was already on the show agenda; this is new stuff.
Secondly, stop whining. SO: End of Time will be out by the end of the summer here.
Finally, stop whining. SE will release new/remade Dragon Warrior stuff in the States soon.
Did anyone else look at this screenshot 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.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Did they let anyone bootleg the concert? Are they going to release a CD? I want my Uematsu!
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
the company mentioned they "are determined to expand their reach across all forms of media, not just limiting themselves to the gaming market"
You mean sort of like when they attempted to do so three years ago, failed miserably because they found out that their pathetic video game sagas couldn't cut it in a mature entertainment industry, and released a slew of godawful Final Fantasy games to make up for their monumental loss?
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
--Moo.
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 circumstances with that one were a bit more out of Enix's control), and well, I mostly trust them to bring VIII here, but how much motivation do they really have to bring V here? I'm personally kinda skeptical, seeing that they haven't set a US release date for V...
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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 much exclusively as a distributor, even if the game being produced is an Enix property, like Dragon Quest. In the case of DQ4, the company that produced the Japanese game up and left Enix shortly after the game was released in Japan, and Enix didn't have the technical documentation/know-how to pick up their work and make the modifications neccessary to translate the game in a economical and/or timely manner. Such is business, I suppose...)
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
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 Knights or Working Designs? Or hell, have the SE team handle the script and Sony publish the thing themselves-- hey, it worked for Wild ARMs 3.
Oh yeah... it's a PSX game. Marketing will probably see it as a wasted effort-- but then again, the PSP is gaining interest...
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
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 back before Final Fantasy was real popular in America.
Hopefully things will change for DW outside of Japan with all the eye-candy in VIII.
I don't know if I trust Square Enix more than I trusted Enix alone. After all, I recall Square really needing its arm twisted in order to release Final Fantasy Chronicles in the US, which did much better here than Dragon Warrior VII did. That was after not including FF4 with Anthologies, too. Square has been as reluctant as anybody in releasing non-mainstream stuff in the US, unless it's something nobody wants, like SaGa Frontier
Argh! Why do I always have trust issues with the people who make my favorite games?!
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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 original developers are going to apply just as much to any attempt to port the game, and, even with the similar system specs between the PSX and PSP, it'd probably be more effort than would be worth it. Plus, there might yet be certain copyright issues involved. If we do eventually see a remake of DQ4 in America, I'd wager it won't be based on the PSX release. But I suppose there's no reason Square Enix couldn't go back and start over with a new remake, should they be so inclined.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
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 Japanese cultural landscape.
That success, of course, does not translate well to American shores, where, if anything, Final Fantasy is the better known brand (though it doesn't approach the status of DQ in Japan), and the established history of the DQ franchise is rather less impressive. Indeed, with the generally static nature of the DQ games, it seems unlikely that they will ever find much more than a niche audience outside of Japan.
Square, basically since they started publishing for the PSX, has localized almost every title they've produced. The only major exceptions that spring to mind are "Tobal 2" (which was Sony's decision, not Square's), "Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon" (though it's sequel did get translated) and games for systems which have failed to materialize in America, like the four FF remakes and the Romancing SaGa remake for the WonderSwan Color.
And, being fair to Enix, they've been equally diligent, after a somewhat slower start: they didn't get a real US publishing arm until relatively late in the PSX lifecycle, and relied on SCEA to publish their games, but even then, most of their major titles ("Star Ocean 2," "Dragon Quest VII," as well as several GBA and N64 games) did get localized. In the case of a game like the DQ5 remake, which is hotly anticipated by many enthusiasts, and, in light of the earlier DQ4 fiasco, I think it's a reasonable bet that it will get a US release. It's just not going to be a major, hyped release, which isn't really surprising.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."