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.

Comments

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. ;_;

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.

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.