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[Lime]

After the apparent 'deep slumber' after Resonance of Fate where tri-ace only released low budget portable games and did outsourced work for Square Enix (FFXIII-2 + Lightning Returns), the studio suddenly released two console games with Spike Chunsoft publishing Exist Archive and Square Enix publishing Star Ocean 5 (after Shuichi Kobayashi switched from SE marketing to tri-ace producer). Yet Exist Archive sold very little in Japan (~54K) and Star Ocean 5 (~150k) also sold a lot less than previous entries. They then released a mobile game Star Ocean Anamnesis later on in 2016, which seems to be doing very well according to Square Enix. They also recently released a PS4 port of Star Ocean 3 which topped the charts of PSN - this is also likely to hit the West at some point in the future (but their SO2 port never made it unfortunately). But I wonder about any future projects at the company? Did the sales of Exist Archive and Star Ocean 5 mean that they won't do any more console RPGs?

As you may recall, Nepro bought tri-Ace back in 2015 and gave it an injection of funds while laying out the future priorities of the company:

Kobayashi explained this acquisition in an interview last year:

Q: Tri-Ace was recently purchased by Nepro Japan, a mobile-focused company. Has this changed the way you work with them at all?

Kobayashi: Since it's not about our company, we can't really go into detail. There's a lot we don't really know, either. It was mostly for monetary reasons. From what I hear, tri-Ace is a lot healthier now. They still want us to utilize their skills in creating games, so our relationship hasn't changed at all. We've rebuilt our relationship with them through this title, and I'd like to work with them even more in the future.

Regarding any future Valkyrie Profile or future Star Ocean, Shuichi Kobayashi had this to say:

Q: Is that a hint of Valkyrie Profile 3 in the works? [laughs]

Kobayashi: I really want to make Valkyrie Profile 3! If SO5 is successful, I'd love to work on Valkyrie Profile 3 as soon as possible.

”If there's going to be a [Star Ocean] 6, it will be when the voices of players once again become louder and louder," Star Ocean producer Shuichi Kobayashi recently told the PlayStation Blog.

I honestly thought tri-Ace was dead after their silence in the post-2010's, so it was a surprise to see them suddenly releasing two console RPGs in relatively quick succession. Yet it was also disappointing that the end results of both Exist Archive and Star Ocean 5 were so mediocre if not subpar, where both games seemed to indicate a lack of budget and a lack of time. After the performance of both titles, I'm not sure if they want to continue with console games and with Yoshinori Yamagishi leaving recently, I wonder how things are going at the company - at least Anamnesis seems to be doing well.

 

[Datschge]

and with Yoshinori Yamagishi leaving recently, I wonder how things are going at the company

Yamagishi hasn't been involved with tri-Ace since SO4 in 2010 and all his other ventures went nowhere. Him leaving Square Enix was not related to and won't have an effect on tri-Ace at all. Square Enix started using tri-Ace more again only once Kobayashi re-appeared as producer.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

VP: Hrist pls

 

[The Praiseworthy]

Make a new PROPER Star Ocean game.

SO5 with a higher budget and more time would have been a much better game.

 

[Xenoblade]

Bankruptcy

 

[Lime]

VP: Hrist pls

I would die for such a thing with the proper time and budget (and the Yoshinaris involved), but why would Square Enix fund money into another tri-ace project after the apparent sales of Star Ocean 5?

Then again, Valkyrie Profile series have sold a combined 2.2 million units across VP1, VP2, and VP:CoP, so it's not *that* of an insignificant series.

 

[Byronic Hero]

I'd take a Resonance of Fate sequel, or at least another game with that type of battle system. I don't see it happening but I can dream.

 

[shmoglish]

I'd take a Resonance of Fate sequel, or at least another game with that type of battle system. I don't see it happening but I can dream.

That would be great. The battlesystem is amazing.

 

[killatopak]

VP 3.

Please?

 

[duckroll]

2.2 million across 3 titles on multiple platforms over 17 years is pretty awful for a franchise. Literally insignificant to any publisher of a decent size.

I mean to put things in perspective, out of the recent mid-range JRPGs which succeeded, Nier Automata sold over a million worldwide, and Persona 5 sold over 1.5 million. The Dark Souls series has sold over 13 million units worldwide across 3 titles on multiple platforms.

 

[Lime]

Bankruptcy

Anamnesis is doing well and at least the SO3 port topped the Japanese PSN charts for an instant. Things seemed much more dire back in 2011 when they couldn't land a project and had to release a marketing trailer of their engine to sell their expertise. Although SO5 and Exist Archive underperformed critically and commercially, things are probably still better than 2011 thanks to Anamnesis (I'm assuming).

The question is what type their future projects will be and who will be willing to fund them. A mobile project is certain, but a console project? And with the proper budget and time needed to be a quality title? I'm not sure.

 

[Antiwhippy]

2.2 million across 3 titles on multiple platforms over 17 years is pretty awful for a franchise. Literally insignificant to any publisher of a decent size.

I mean to put things in perspective, out of the recent mid-range JRPGs which succeeded, Nier Automata sold over a million worldwide, and Persona 5 sold over 1.5 million. The Dark Souls series has sold over 13 million units worldwide across 3 titles on multiple platforms.

Tbf if you put nier automata into the whole drakenier context the performance is roughly the same.

 

[Waji]

I would like to see new games like EoE (RoF), fresh and deep.
But I have no more faith in the Star Ocean series. 5 was just a very bad copy of 3.
Sad as it used to be one of the 2 company I liked the most.
Wouldn't be the first time it happens unfortunately. So many great Jrpg disappeared, BoF, Wild Arms, GSuikoden......
And not much replacing them.

 

[Drillary Clinton]

They just have to let Star Ocean go. 5 was an abomination and honestly, as a fan of the series, just let it die and make something new.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Honestly they should stick to mobile for the time being. Exist Archive and Star Ocean 5 were pretty big disappointments, but keeping to mobile for a while should give them some recovery time

 

[Daeoc]

Try porting their catalog to PC(Steam/GOG) and if profitable keep doing so, then put profit from that and Star Ocean Anamnesis into SO6, VP3 or new IP and release for PS, XB, Steam/GOG and Switch if possible.

. . . Or just continue with more mobile.

 

[duckroll]

Tbf if you put nier automata into the whole drakenier context the performance is roughly the same.

Right, and would anyone say that Drakengard or Nier were significant franchises for S-E? Not in the least. The surprising overperformance of Automata has definitely made S-E pay more attention, but that's about what it takes even for low budget mid-tier titles. Which is why SO5 had the budget it did too. A hypothetical VP3 would be no different. It's up to the developers and creative talent behind the projects to make do with what they have and put their best effort forth, and if the results are good the publisher notices.

2.2 million for 3 VP games is not an indication that S-E should spend big on VP3. As a VP fan I would love for them to, but let's be honest, there's no business motivation here. If a VP3 with a low budget can sell over a million, the next one could get more support from S-E, sure. But considering how SO5 turned out, I'm going to be assume that tri-Ace is still pretty bad at managing limited resources provided to them - much like how they struggled with Infinite Undiscovery and SO4 back in the day. It's a pity.

 

[vocab]

Ditch star ocean. Seriously.
Hire new writers.
Stop designing stupid characters.

 

[Lime]

2.2 million across 3 titles on multiple platforms over 17 years is pretty awful for a franchise. Literally insignificant to any publisher of a decent size.

I mean to put things in perspective, out of the recent mid-range JRPGs which succeeded, Nier Automata sold over a million worldwide, and Persona 5 sold over 1.5 million. The Dark Souls series has sold over 13 million units worldwide across 3 titles on multiple platforms.

Right, I wasn't saying that it was a popular series or something that manages to sell sufficiently, just that it isn't a completely *insignificant* series in terms of sales. Anatomia, albeit free to play, also managed to be downloaded 2 million times by January 2017 if that's any indication of anything.

Anyway, I wouldn't say 17 years is a proper time-frame since the series has only been 'active' for ~10 years and to this day none of the games can be bought digitally. If you want to look at one single year, (and thereby contrast the sales of VP2 with Nier: Automata or P5 a bit better), the game managed to do 750K in 2007 after a year of release (420 thousand units in Japan and 160 thousand units in North America, plus 170k in Europe = Totaling 750K at the end of 2007).

EDIT: just saw your reply to Aniwhippy, I totally agree with you.

 

[PantsuJo]

I played the last Star Ocean.

It's not terrible as I read months ago, in my opinion.

Not a great game, but it's not trash.

I still hope for a budget Steam release from Square Enix.

 

[Stead Fast]

Considering there is definitely a market in the West that would lap up ports of their library (still waiting for SO2...), that seems like money in the bank for them going forwards. It'd help remind a few people why they have a following to begin with.

As for Star Ocean itself, let it settle again for a while, we've had fairly long intervals with each instalment, try not to go back to it until they know what the actually want to do with that series.

 

[Arthea]

I so want new Valkyrie Profile game (I even liked Covenant of the Plume, an underrated game to be sure), or even new sci-fi IP, but it seems tri-Ace of old is mostly gone, considering all their IPs belong to SE and SE not gonna finance games that sell like SO5, unfortunately.

 

[Ravage]

A (proper) sequel to SO3.

What's likely to happen is more 'AA' mobile efforts though. I'm fine with that as long as they make it over to the West and rest of Asia.

 

[duckroll]

Right, I wasn't saying that it was a popular series or something that manages to sell sufficiently, just that it isn't a completely *insignificant* series in terms of sales. Anatomia, albeit free to play, also managed to be downloaded 2 million times by January 2017 if that's any indication of anything.

Anyway, I wouldn't say 17 years is a proper time-frame since the series has only been 'active' for ~10 years and to this day none of the games can be bought digitally. If you want to look at one single year, (and thereby contrast the sales of VP2 with Nier: Automata or P5 a bit better), the game managed to do 750K in 2007 after a year of release (420 thousand units in Japan and 160 thousand units in North America, plus 170k in Europe = Totaling 750K at the end of 2007).

EDIT: just saw your reply to Aniwhippy, I totally agree with you.

Yeah I do agree that the series being on older platforms only is not a great comparison. I -want- VP to come back in a big way. I -want- VP to be successful. HELL I JUST WANT S-E TO LOCALIZE THE DAMN MOBILE GAME TO TEST THE WATERS FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN MORE VP STORY. >_<

I get you, it's really frustrating. There aren't many good Norse mythology game with a Japanese flair. There aren't games which provide that tragic yet mysterious setting VP has. It would be great to have leads like Lenneth, Silmaria, and Hrist show more perspectives of cool female leads.

But I really don't expect S-E to drop more money than SO5 on VP3. I don't even think they need to. Maybe.... what they need to do is to drop tri-Ace instead.... ^^;

Where the hell is Suguro anyway? Nothing since Beyond the Labyrinth. VP2 and RoF were the peak of "modern" tri-Ace games... bring him back!

 

[Bebpo]

Platinum basically killed any chance the studio could survive. Tri-Ace's hope for continued anything was to make games for other people or with SE franchises on a moderate budget but their games don't score great and sell terribly. After Platinum doing that with Nier and getting good scores & good sales, why would SE pick Tri-Ace over Platinum from here on out?

 

[kuroshiki]

mobile or die.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Yeah I do agree that the series being on older platforms only is not a great comparison. I -want- VP to come back in a big way. I -want- VP to be successful. HELL I JUST WANT S-E TO LOCALIZE THE DAMN MOBILE GAME TO TEST THE WATERS FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN MORE VP STORY. >_<

I get you, it's really frustrating. There aren't many good Norse mythology game with a Japanese flair. There aren't games which provide that tragic yet mysterious setting VP has. It would be great to have leads like Lenneth, Silmaria, and Hrist show more perspectives of cool female leads.

But I really don't expect S-E to drop more money than SO5 on VP3. I don't even think they need to. Maybe.... what they need to do is to drop tri-Ace instead.... ^^;

Where the hell is Suguro anyway? Nothing since Beyond the Labyrinth. VP2 and RoF were the peak of "modern" tri-Ace games... bring him back!

Star Ocean has been bad for a long time. I'm sure Tri-Ace could do a good VP with the same budget SO5 got

 

[jb1234]

Ditch star ocean. Seriously.
Hire new writers.
Stop designing stupid characters.

And a new composer. So sick of Sakuraba on autopilot.

 

[encephalon]

If their future output is anything like SO5 I don't see any reason to care. Then again Tri-Ace was always pretty sloppy with the occasional gems (SO2, VP, RoF) ...

 

[Kain]

I thought they were still under Toriyama's thumb. Poor people

 

[Waji]

And a new composer. So sick of Sakuraba on autopilot.

Yeah... no. If there's one thing I want to keep having with a tri-Ace game it's Sakuraba.
Exist Archive's music is probably its best element.

 

[Iriscomeback]

Resonance of Fate for PC would be awesome, but I guess that's up to Sega.

Star Ocean has potential, but after 5 I doubt this studio can make a truly awesome entry in the series :-(

 

[Datschge]

Maybe.... what they need to do is to drop tri-Ace instead.... ^^;

Well, that's what Square Enix did with Valkyrie Anatomia.

And lol at people saying tri-Ace wouldn't survive, being part of Nepro just ensures they survive by keeping working at stuff in the background as support along all the smaller projects. The big budget tri-Ace died ages ago.

 

[Lime]

Honestly they should stick to mobile for the time being. Exist Archive and Star Ocean 5 were pretty big disappointments, but keeping to mobile for a while should give them some recovery time

I can see that, but I wonder if they'll ever return to console or even go westward with their products (mobile and/or console) if/when they take such a route.

Where the hell is Suguro anyway? Nothing since Beyond the Labyrinth. VP2 and RoF were the peak of "modern" tri-Ace games... bring him back!

Suguro is still listed as working for tri-ace on his Linkedin, but that might be outdated information that he hasn't updated? I haven't seen his name at all in the credits of either Exist Archive or Star Ocean 5, so I have no idea what he's doing there or if he's even there. His design for both VP2 and ROF was amazing and I'd love to see another stab at it from him.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Suguro is still listed as working for tri-ace on his Linkedin, but that might be outdated information that he hasn't updated? I haven't seen his name at all in the credits of either Exist Archive or Star Ocean 5, so I have no idea what he's doing there or if he's even there. His design for both VP2 and ROF was amazing and I'd love to see another stab at it from him.

He is working on VP: Hrist

#believe

 

[Seik]

SO5 was kinda shit, but did it sell well?

I do want VP3.

 

[Linkark07]

Well, I personally hope Resonance of Fate will hit PC sometime. Seeing how Sega is interested in porting their games to PC as of recently, it seems more likely Resonance of Fate will be one of them. A sequel or another game using that system would also be great.

As for Star Ocean, they seriously need to think twice what to do about it. And give those games a bigger budget.

I still need to play Exist Archive. It is interesting to see how in Amazon the game was lowering its price day by day until Amazon ran out of stock.

 

[jiggle]

Working on ffviiir

 

[Lime]

SO5 was kinda shit, but did it sell well?

I do want VP3.

If you compare it to Star Ocean 4, that game sold 208,438 units on 360 in Japan, whereas Star Ocean 5 sold 154.778 units on PS4 and PS3 in 2016 in Japan.

I imagine the reviews in the West and bad word of mouth didn't help the overall sales.

 

[LordGorchnik]

SO5 was kinda shit, but did it sell well?

I do want VP3.

No

 

[Coxswain]

I guess it's just forever too much to hope for that they make a game with the aesthetic and tone of that tech demo short they did in 2011, right?

I'll just go cry about it some more then, I guess.

 

[Ray Down]

Mobile .

 

[Spiritwalker]

Mobile probably. They haven't made a good game in ages and their sales numbers are poor. I don't see them doing another big(ish) console RPG again.

 

[Fisico]

I get you, it's really frustrating. There aren't many good Norse mythology game with a Japanese flair. There aren't games which provide that tragic yet mysterious setting VP has.

You will get the new game of Istolia produced by Baba and you will like it.

 

[ReaperXL7]

I wish everyday for a proper sequel to one of my favorite Tri-Ace games

But I know it won't happen, and I'm not sure modern Tri-Ace could make the follow up that I would want.

 

[Lime]

I guess it's just forever too much to hope for that they make a game with the aesthetic and tone of that tech demo short they did in 2011, right?

I'll just go cry about it some more then, I guess.

I guess they had a shot with SO5 for using such an aesthetic, but fan expectations of the Star Ocean would've probably clashed with such a change (and Square Enix' push against experimentation and change as Suguro mentioned in a Resistance of Fate interview regarding the change to Sega as a publisher).

 

[10k]

Unemployment if the sales and critical reception of the last decade of their game output is a thing to go by

What a disappointment SO4 and 5 were.

 

[CrimsonCrescendo]

Would love for Resonance of Fate 2... but I know it won't happen.

 

[AtkO]

If this article is to be trusted, they'll close down very soon.

Spoiler

For real tho, I really liked Resonnance of Fate, they always gave me that feeling of being a very smart and resourceful developper. Their games weren't always met with success afaik tho

 

[Thud]

Thirsty for Hrist.