World of Mana and other tidbits from Square Enix
Posted by inpheaux on August 1st, 2005 at 11:29 am
It seems like it's hype-season over in Japan. First the big Sony event, then the giant Microsoft hype-fest and now Square Enix has thrown one too. Over the weekend they held their "Square Enix Party 2005", and with it came a ton of assorted news. The big one I'm really interested in is the real proper return to the Seiken Densetsu series, with the currently in-development title "World of Mana". It's been five years since the last proper new mana game, and the series has been so consistently good that I was somewhat amazed that it was completely absent during current generation of consoles, unless you count Sword of Mana for GBA.
The real difference with World of Mana is that at this point it doesn't seem to be just one game. From how it's being described, it seems like Squeenix is shooting for a complete resurgence of the series, with releases of multiple games in multiple genres across a wide variety of platforms. I can only guess that this will be somewhat like the set of Final Fantasy VII products currently in development, where you've got a PS2 game, a phone-based game, online components, a movie, and rumors of more coming down the pipe. Details regarding exactly what kinds of games we'll be getting for exactly what consoles is still up in the air, but I expect this will be solidified soon. If not at the Tokyo Game Show, then at some later event like E3 2006.
[ UPDATE: New reports are claiming that Square Enix has confirmed World of Mana will be coming to both the PS2 and the DS. As mentioned above, due to differences in platforms, the two versions will most likely not be direct ports of eachother. Further games could still be announced regarding this whole "World of Mana" thing though, since I don't think Square Enix would make such a big deal about how broad-based and massively cross-platform it would be for just two games. Also: the official World of Mana site is up. It currently features a flash version of the trailer mentioned in the GameSpot article. ]
Speaking of all that FF7 stuff, Square Enix let out some more details about their upcoming FF7 Action-Adventure game Dirge of Cereberus, in that there will be a full-featured online component, and that they'll be starting up a beta test in Japan this fall. Still no details on if or when this will be showing up stateside.
The nice people from GameSpot also badgered the reps from Square Enix about the amazing FF7 PS3 techdemo from E3 2005. The official word is still that no, this is not actually being made. After being asked over and over it seems they finally cracked, and explained that just because this demo wasn't being specifically made into a full game doesn't mean that a remake of FF7 will never ever ever be made.
Well of course! I could have told them that. My current guess is that we won't see a proper FF7 remake for a long long time. Squeenix will most likely hold onto that as their final trump card, an absolute last-ditch effort before declaring the FF7 property completely drained of potential spinoffs.
In more disappointing news, Square Enix also announced that Final Fantasy 12 will be getting a March 2006 release in Japan. That puts it right in the thick of the PS3 release, possibly both times, once for the Japanese release and once when both the PS3 and FF12 come stateside. I'm not sure if this is the best of strategies, to launch a massive game for a previous-gen console right when the next-gen is being released, but then again, the PS3 is going to be backwards compatible, and really, what do I know about such important business decisions? I'm just some guy on the internets.
[ UPDATE 2: Looks like we have an explanation for why FF12 has taken so long. Another announcement earlier today from Square Enix stated that the game's director, Yasumi Matsuno (director of the Final Fantasy Tactics series and Vagrant Story), had to step down due to some manner of illness. This, of course, can't be the only contributing factor to the prolonged development cycle of the game, but having to change directors at this stage of development could very easily have made the difference between a Winter 2005 and Spring 2006. ]
So that's what we know right now. As always, more news from this front is right around the corner, specifically at the Tokyo Game Show in September.
Source: GameSpot
Update Source(s): DS Advanced by way of 4 color rebellion, and 1up.
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