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Is Square Enix back on the path of the glory days ? (Squaresoft)

I want good sequels to Einhander, Bushido Blade, Tobal No.1, Brave Fencer Mushai, Chrono Trigger, and Parasite Eve + new IPs + the currently announced stuff has to be actually good and then i'll say Square is back. Also, not sure why the older SNES & PS1 franchises are being ignored but Nier is getting a sequel (Was that game a sales success or something?)
 
Spirit of Jazz said:
Maybe they should release a decent game before they're back on the path of glory?
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This is what I'm kind of thinking. On paper it looks great but so many of those games are so far out or have to potential to be kinda average. I'd rather have a thread like this in 2-3 years and see if it holds up.
 
PSX last year was the turning point I say. Ofc many games were already in development way before that infamous moment but I think it influenced Square as a whole company and even if it was just a little bit. At least we're getting our FFVII:R now.
 
They are back at churning out a lot of quality titles again.

The problem in the past is that the directors were given way to much freedom and they kept wanting to make so many changes wasting time and development staff. Now since Square has become more focused it has been much better.

We weren't really getting hardly anything good with the directors having all that freedom for the past 10 years, but now seeing as how things are turning out now I think we can all agree it was a good change of direction.

Square has been listening and productively heading develop games we've been clamoring for, games are getting complete, and they are finally back at their A game. I'm very proud of Square Enix right now, they really pulled out of the gutter and came back strong.
 
They do seem to be on the right track announcing games and making decisions gamers want and most of their mobile games aren't to In app purchase heavy.
 
Too soon to tell and the Eidos stuff doesn't compare to what Warner has given us lately.

How about a proper Deathtrap Dungeon? There's potential there to rival the Soul/blood series.
 
Well, they sure announced a bunch of cool games. I want to to wait and see if they turn out to be good until I say Square is back though.
 
I know everyone wants sequels to their favourite games, but what made Square so amazing in the 90s was the fact that they weren't afraid to try new things. We got a ton of new properties. Not just sequels, remakes, or spin-offs. It would be nice to see that return in some capacity, even if most of the experimentation has to happen in smaller digital games.
 
Square enix is the publisher with the most core single player console games line up announced of any other publisher. Eastern or Western.
 
Add Dragon Quest XI and FF XII remake :)

In all seriousness, I think that SE's current endeavors in console games is extremely cool. So many great games coming, new and reborn alike. I love it. I think consoles are healthy. That's a good thing.
 
Mash83 said:
This. A true console sequel is my most wanted game by miles.
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My 17 year old self wanted nothing more than a true sequel to FFT, but I feel like they would mess up now without Matsuno's involvement. The Tactics Advance games were decent, and A2 had a good mix of game variety and balance, but a lot of the appeal of the original was its scenario.
 
Pyrrhus said:
Way too early to say, OP. All we can say is that they do at least appear to be trying again.
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I'm going to agree with at least this. Hopefully they reach some semblance of their glory days in the near future. My hope goes for the Japanese console market too.
 
May be a good idea to wait until some of these games actually come out before declaring the return of the king.

I'm excited but it's very tempered by years of past disappointment by Square.
 
They are on the path to be an interesting "normal" games editor.

They are nowhere near yet to the confident, youngful, high-spirited energy of their glory days.
 
thekiddfran said:
What about all the dragon quest games?

Still can't believe they are making Nier 2
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Yeah...even more amazing is that they realized how Nier was shit looking and plays bad, so they hired Ivalice games artist and Platinum games to join in.

We still don't know what that secret jrpg is. If it turns out to be a new Chrono game, oh boy.
 
I'll remain super extra cautious about this one.

FFXV can still end like a catastrophe. It's really funny how no FF fan seems botheted by the fact that it tries to be anything but an rpg. They even say it's a good thing to evolve... Their main rpg is turning into something else, but people make thread about how they came back to their glory day.

FFVII is all but vapor for now and it could end being pretty far from what people are expecting.

Those two games are huge financial risks, not even counting Kingdom heart III. Huge budget, super long dev with delays, engine problems, direction problems..

I'm not sure SE has lost his recent bad habits yet! At all. Nomura is still there after all.

Do i see SE having lots of refreshing, small budget rpgs with good stories, art, gameplay ? Not yet. They are still in a process of having AAAAAAAA impossible titles that have to make concessions to please the western crowd and need 5 sequels to be profitable.

I'm not saying good things won't happen, but i wouldn't say every signs are good right now.
 
Probably already been mentioned, but there's been a bit of a workplace culture shift at SE as well.

Some of the development teams have started using a more western-style design environment. (this was the case for FFXIV ARR, and I believe FFXV as well).

workers are encouraged to bring feedback to the director/producer, workers are rotated to jobs and workloads no to prevent burnout and tend to favor their skillset and their personal preference

Also, many of the devs for XIV have pet projects that they've been allowed to work on. Its apparently part of why so much new secondary content has been released for the game, because the devs find something they're passionate about working on, and subsequently gives them more passion about the game as a whole.

Seems strange as this is pretty common among some of the better studios in the West (Naughty Dog, Valve, etc.) but previously it was very much "work on this until its done, don't question the producer, he is god, etc.

This might be playing across a bit more of the company as well.
 
Spirit of Jazz said:
Maybe they should release a decent game before they're back on the path of glory?
Click to expand...

ARR? Heavensward?

So many discussions go on here in the context of FF and SE seemingly oblivious to FFXIV. That game is fantastic and has one of the best story lines in an FF game. Period. MMO's might not be your thing, but they are *much* harder to pull off than a single player game. And they just released a massive expansion pack - in a timely manner - that was very well received. This is a good sign. Think of all the background complexities that come with managing an MMO and integrating an expansion into it. There are a lot of moving parts. If this was still SE of last gen, Heavensward would have shipped a year later and riddled with bad design decisions.
 
TrounceX said:
ARR? Heavensward?

So many discussions go on here in the context of FF and SE seemingly oblivious to FFXIV. That game is fantastic and has one of the best story lines in an FF game. Period. MMO's might not be your thing, but they are *much* harder to pull off than a single player game. And they just released a massive expansion pack - in a timely manner - that was very well received. This is a good sign. Think of all the background complexities that come with managing an MMO and integrating an expansion into it. There are a lot of moving parts. If this was still SE of last gen, Heavensward would have shipped a year later and riddled with bad design decisions.
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Unfortunately it gets written off because its an MMO, which is sad, since its so damned good. Heavensward definitely feels every bit a mainline FF game. Also worth noting that they desperately need to get Soken scoring some other RPG's, some of the best music Square has had to date can be found in Heavensward.
 
FF14 is a solid MMO but if you're not into that type of games, it's most likely not going to change your mind about them. It's a very traditional MMO.
 
I think one the greatest things they could do would be to put crisis core on psn, I'd like that, it'd sell like hotcakes too.
 
Wilsongt said:
Eh, don't count on DQXI anytime soon unless Square-Enix gets their heads out of their ass about the series.

Dragon Quest Heroes ‏@DragonQuest Jul 29

Hi everyone! I know a lot of people have been asking if Dragon Quest XI is coming to the West but sadly we don't have a concrete plan atm :(

Dragon Quest Heroes ‏@DragonQuest Jul 29

I've been told the team will consider bringing DQ XI to the West as we've done in the past for other DQ games but I don't know anything else
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You know what pisses me off ? We are getting games like Dungeon Travelers 2 and other niche games here while getting a freaking DQ game in English is like asking for a miracle .
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against niche games or Dungeon Travelers 2 but I'm tired of hearing SE making the excuses of translation cost VS sales when smaller companies like XSEED and Atlus (ok maybe not small anymore since they are with Sega) take chances by releasing all these good rpgs in English .


Even Bandai Namco is releasing Tales of Zestiria the same year it released in Japan and released a lot of Tales now, which is awesome btw .

The game doesn't need to sell 6 million to be a success !
 
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