TIM ROGERS - A PLANET WITHOUT SQUARE ENIX

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author=S. F. LaValle
As bumming as Square's fall from grace is, I am pleased to see the light at the end of the tunnel. If Mistwalker and Level 5 both have an eye for Nintendo as implied, I think some great things are ahead.
Professor Layton 4(Level 5) was the best selling game for the 3DS launch. Level-5 literally outsold Nintendo on their own console(I think they got like 200,000 sales on a console that sold 400,000.)
author=Tim Rogers
Autumn 2013: Tokyo Game Show: Square-Enix, at last, announces the remake of Final Fantasy VII.


But they already annoced a remake on the nds!:
http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/nintendo-ds/292/final-fantasy-vii-coming-to-nintendo-ds/397065/

Haha, as if. I'm laughing like crazy if you believed in that. Then again, almost nobody will even see this messages, so...
Tau
RMN sex symbol
3293
Squareenix is like the Activision Blizzard of Japan. They wont be going anywhere, anytime soon. They do make some pretty shit games now though. I'd rather something else be remade.. Like Final Fantasy VI or even a new Chrono game, outsourced to Level 5 or Mistwalker.
i want a remake of Chrono Cross that's equally pretty but with a tolerable battle system this time
Looks like the hits don't stop coming for Square. Taken from a NG topic:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=431693
There was a followup to that article here:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/spela/article13099324.ab

And a tool-assisted translation by me here:
Grin were arrogant

Spela's source: There were no arguments left for the companies to work with Grin.

Square Enix would pay nearly 100 million Swedish kronor to Swedish Grin for a new "Final Fantasy"-game.

The money never came.

Not everyone agrees that it was the Japanases corporation's fault.

Bosse Andersson, former CEO of Grin, critized Square Enix sharply yesterday for the way they backed out of a deal that lead to the Swedish game studio going bankrupt.

Spela has spoken to a source with good insight into Grin - who gives a slightly different picture of why Square Enix never paid.

- I see it like this - and many other on Grin see it like this: Grin were hit by pride. They were very good at selling, Bosse was a damn good salesman. But they couldn't back up the sales pitch with a quality product. Grin released three mediocre games in a row. And only one of them was OK. "Terminator" was the game we knew wouldn't be so great and that was ok. Even the property owners were in on that discussion and said "as long as there's something in the box it'll be okay".

As long as you can shoot things?

- Yes, exactly. On the other hand the fact that "Bionic Commando" and "Wanted" were as bad as they were... compared to the expectations. They weren't overly bad games. But especially in "Bionic Commando" I definitely think "Grin" aimed for a 90+ game.

- But it didn't turn out that way and Grin's profile was built around them being one of the best developers in the world. But when the proof came it and showed something completely different I guess the publishers simply said "this doesn't work. You aren't delivering the talent you say you have." And that, combined with the arrogance Grin sometimes radiated, made it so that there weren't any arguments left for the companies to work with Grin.

In what way do you think Grin were arrogant?

- They though they knew best what made a game good. And thought the publishers didn't possess that knowledge. They did a bit what they wanted, had a bit of a rock star mentality. It's okay to have that mentality if you can live up to it. If you make games of Valve's quality you can tell the publishers that "yeah, we don't give a shit what you say because we've made 'Half-Life 2' and 'Portal' and now we do what we want." If you have that kind of track record you can do that. Grin didn't.

In the 2008 annual revision Bosse Andersson wrote that Grin had become one of the biggest and best developers in Europe?

- Well I want to say that in 2008 that was probably true. The thing with "Bionic Commando" especially was that there was a foundation to make an insanely good game. But to take those last 25 percent to the finish, that's where a great talent is.

Why didn't they hold all the way through?

- They lacked the talent to finish, to focus on what actually was important with the game. To understand the deeper values that make a game good. I mean, there was a lot and deep talent for game mechanics and for the implementation of it. But not so much in how these systems would work together. They released games when they still were in a fairly identityless state.

"fortress" was a big projekt. According to the bankruptcy documents Square Enix were supposed to pay 16.5 million dollars to Grin. But they never paid.

- I think Grin maybe did the mistake to have the same attitude with Square as they had with Capcom. That is poject an attityd of "shut up and let us make the games." You can barely do that with Capcom who have a lot of successes behind them. But you don't do that with Square. It just doesn't work. I can imagine they thought something like "We'll wait for a couple of milestones and see how it ends up." And then the game didn't go in the direction Square had thought. Add that Grin released three subpar games in one quarter and then they probably felt "what's this?". Nothing in the cards said that this would turn out well. Nothing pointed to that at all.

Bosse Andersson refutes the accusations that Grin would have asked Square Enix to "shut up"

- We didn't do that. We had two producers on the project that I was in daily contact with. So it's probably your source who isn't very familiar with how things were. I don't know.
author=interview
So, to test the waters at Square a bit, and to see if it was even paying attention, GRIN sent it some concept art from taken straight from Final Fantasy XII .

The Anderssons were told: “It does not look like Final Fantasy.”


Well... they're right.
I'm changing my name to Bosse
Thiamor
I assure you I'm no where NEAR as STUPID as one might think.
63
Square started to suck after the merger. It is obvious.

Also, all the games after Final Fantasy 9 started to suck ass and go into a totally different direction.

If they want to keep the old/ original fans, they seriously need to go back to their roots and study up on what made them famous.

Most likely, they won't, though. As people would still buy the shit as long as Final Fantasy's name is plugged into any generic, bastardized game.

Also I'd not mind a 7 remake as long as they keep it EXACTLY the same, only with new graphics. No new text. No new gameplay. No new options/system (battle system, item,armor,weapon system and so on). If it keeps the original game, then I'm all for it.
Ocean
Resident foodmonster
11991
author=DBAce9Aura
http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/5-reasons-square-enix-is-facing-financial-ruin


This was a funny article. Especially this part:
"Square Enix being business and sort-of artists, I fully encourage exploring some new ideas and being creative"

Then later:
"but seriously, how many phone calls, emails, press conference questions, and open letters does Square Enix need to receive before someone makes Kingdom Hearts III or HD remakes of Final Fantasy V through IX? Who does that? What other business knows the overwhelming majority of its customers wants a certain thing and then just sits idly by?"

Basically "I WANT SQUARE TO BE CREATIVE" then later "NOT REALLY I JUST WANT MORE KINGDOM HEARTS AND REMAKES"
You know what amazes me about Square? Their ability to lose talent. I mean, think about it, damn near the entire Final Fantasy founding team is gone, Jeremy Soule went on to do more epic games like the TES series, I mean, Uematsu & Shimomura still contribute at times, but, they don't really have the powerhouse team they once had. Hell, even the Xenogears team had enough of Square.

Next thing you know they'll lose the Dragon Quest team, then what'll they have? I mean, they still have Star Ocean, & Valkyrie profile, but, those aren't even developed by them. Now, I grew up with Square, I do say though in my opinion Final Fantasy VIII is one of the worst games I ever played plot-wise, it's still my favourite and still a whole lot better than a lot of the dreck we wade through now.

It seems as though as the graphics become more human, the games themselves lose more of their humanity. I could not empathise with any of the cast of Final Fantasy XIII, I mean, hell, at least I liked one character in VII, Reno, overall, I think the entire industry is suffering, but, that looks to change, Mistwalker's looking to capture the magic of '87 all over again and though Blue Dragon is far from a good game in my opinion, they seem to be doing much better now with The Last Story.

And, I think I'll always be a Tri-Ace fan, I mean, they gave us the Tales & MegaTen series back at Wolf Team, & they're still making magic with Star Ocean, I just hope we see a new Valkyrie Profile soon. Capcom also needs to step it's game up, I'd love to see a new Capcom game, maybe Breath of Fire-esque, take back Shimomura, her music was the reason Street Fighter II was amazing (though it was already good).

Another point, though it seems like I'm all over the place, I don't see the appeal of Kingdom Hearts, it was overall just a bad game. The story was more post-Amano Final Fantasy dreck, but, with Disney characters, so you could see how it was an obvious cash-cow. Kingdom Hearts is the only game I've never beaten out of sheer boredom, I mean, I've stopped playing games because I've got too little time, or a corrupted save file or something, but, no, after an hour of pointless high-school fantasy drivel, I gave up.

But yeah, Squeenix'll never die, just hope they find more talent and learn how to keep them around this time, because, honestly, I couldn't imagine a Squeenixless world.
Thiamor
I assure you I'm no where NEAR as STUPID as one might think.
63
author=Fallen-Griever
Also I'd not mind a 7 remake as long as they keep it EXACTLY the same, only with new graphics. No new text. No new gameplay. No new options/system (battle system, item,armor,weapon system and so on). If it keeps the original game, then I'm all for it.
Because you can't just replay the original FF7? If nothing else changes except for the graphics then what's the difference?


The difference is my opinion. Good enough for you? Kay. It doesn't really matter what the difference would be other than what I want the difference to be.
author=tanakayuuji
You know what amazes me about Square? Their ability to lose talent. I mean, think about it, damn near the entire Final Fantasy founding team is gone, Jeremy Soule went on to do more epic games like the TES series, I mean, Uematsu & Shimomura still contribute at times, but, they don't really have the powerhouse team they once had. Hell, even the Xenogears team had enough of Square.

Next thing you know they'll lose the Dragon Quest team, then what'll they have? I mean, they still have Star Ocean, & Valkyrie profile, but, those aren't even developed by them. Now, I grew up with Square, I do say though in my opinion Final Fantasy VIII is one of the worst games I ever played plot-wise, it's still my favourite and still a whole lot better than a lot of the dreck we wade through now.

It seems as though as the graphics become more human, the games themselves lose more of their humanity. I could not empathise with any of the cast of Final Fantasy XIII, I mean, hell, at least I liked one character in VII, Reno, overall, I think the entire industry is suffering, but, that looks to change, Mistwalker's looking to capture the magic of '87 all over again and though Blue Dragon is far from a good game in my opinion, they seem to be doing much better now with The Last Story.

And, I think I'll always be a Tri-Ace fan, I mean, they gave us the Tales & MegaTen series back at Wolf Team, & they're still making magic with Star Ocean, I just hope we see a new Valkyrie Profile soon. Capcom also needs to step it's game up, I'd love to see a new Capcom game, maybe Breath of Fire-esque, take back Shimomura, her music was the reason Street Fighter II was amazing (though it was already good).

Another point, though it seems like I'm all over the place, I don't see the appeal of Kingdom Hearts, it was overall just a bad game. The story was more post-Amano Final Fantasy dreck, but, with Disney characters, so you could see how it was an obvious cash-cow. Kingdom Hearts is the only game I've never beaten out of sheer boredom, I mean, I've stopped playing games because I've got too little time, or a corrupted save file or something, but, no, after an hour of pointless high-school fantasy drivel, I gave up.

But yeah, Squeenix'll never die, just hope they find more talent and learn how to keep them around this time, because, honestly, I couldn't imagine a Squeenixless world.


^^ This

FF 8 Was disgusting, but, is still better than all the new final fantasy. I cant stand against final fantasy 13. Is awful. The same for XII and XI. X is for me the "last" true final fantasy. Why cant square jsut o back to the time and start to make good things again ?? A Chrono Trigger remake?? (not launching the same game again and again AKA SF II Syndrome lol). Square lost his touch, we have to accept the true, square doesnt listen to fans.
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