The Five Lamest Moves From Square

I’m pretty sure once in your life one of your favorite game companies has screwed you over, whether if it’s not releasing that game you wanted in the states, or not releasing a game that you’d expect to be on certain console, or maybe stomping on your first born child. Today I’ll be going over a company that I have a turbulent past with, Square-Enix, and their most dickish moves that rank around the most brutal in the industry that I’ve ever heard of. Let’s get this started.

The Murder of GRIN

For those of you who don’t know about GRIN, they were a gaming development company that did several decent games, the most notable being Bionic Commando, Bionic Commando Rearmed and Wanted Weapons of Fate. GRIN fell under in August 12th, 2009 due to bankruptcy, due to one fucked up issue. Square-Enix had chosen GRIN as the developer for a a Final Fantasy spin-off that went by the codename of Fortress. The company had a lot of concept art and screenshots that looked pretty awesome, however after only six months of working on the project they were removed from it without reason. With the money loss from this project GRIN fell under. To me this is like if I ordered a sandwich at a fast food place, and as they’re about halfway done making it right infront of me, I decide to say “Fuck it, I’m going to that sandwich shop across the street” and leaving without telling them why I did it. Except their entire business depends on that sandwhich. Not cool, Square.

Ruining a damn good series

You know what was an awesome series that isn’t getting anything new for a while? The Mana series. You know, like Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3, Legend of Mana, etc. This series was amazing but it progression began to bother me after awhile. Why? Let’s start from the beginning. Secret of Mana for the SNES was a game that allowed you to play the storyline with up to three of your friends, which was awesome. However, they started phasing this out, oddly starting with Seiken Densetsu 3 which was also for the SNES and had three characters, yet it only allowed you to play it two players which I just don’t fucking understand. They couldn’t be consistent and have three player co-op? That’s like if I gave someone two pizzas, both pepperoni, but one was missing four slices. The person would look at me and ask “What happened to the slices of my pizza” and I’d shrug and walk off, back to that sandwich shop across the street.

Soon after Seiken Densetsu 3 we got Legend of Mana, which was an amazing game but it was two players again and this time you couldn’t even do the story line together. By the time Sword of Mana came out they had phased out multiplayer atleast until Children of Mana, which was a suckfest of a game, which brings me to my next point. When the Mana series hit the DS that’s when it bought a ticket for, boarded, and rode the train straight to Shitville.

As if Children of Mana wasn’t bad enough with it’s lame ass dungeon crawling and boring plot, they released Heroes of Mana: a real-time strategy. This blew my mind. A game series that was composed of nothing but Action RPGs got a RTS game. That’s fucked up. That’s like if you came to me asking for your favorite burger for years, and then one day I give you a taco when you order that same burger, you’d be like “Hey man, what the hell is this?” and I’d shrug and go to that sandwich shop across the street.

Hitting the Brakes on Chrono Trigger Fan Games

Most anyone that is a fan of JRPGs has played Chrono Trigger, or so I hope, since it is a damn good RPG even by today’s standards. So much so that two rather badass fan games were being worked one and was stopped by a cease and desist order implemented by Square-Enix. One such fan game was a Chrono Trigger game known as Chrono Trigger Resurrection, which in it’s first version was a fan game for the 64 but they decided to make it a game composed of ten different scenes from Chrono Trigger for the PC. From the trailers I’ve seen the game looked like it was made by Square-Enix except, you know, good. However, it was Square-Enix who canceled that projected in September, three months before it was supposed to be released. The other fan game that Square-Enix stopped was a full-length fan game by the name of Chrono Trigger : Crimson Echoes, which was supposed to be a sequel to Chrono Trigger complete with a shit ton of amazing remixes, and a well thought out plot, as well as a lot of interesting alterations to the original game. Crimson Echoes was supposed to be released on May 31st 2009, but it was canceled by Square-Enix less than a month earlier on May 8th 2009. I think what pisses me off most about this is the fact that they didn’t bother remaking Chrono Trigger in 3D for the DS, which seem like a damn good idea considering how impressive the remakes of Final Fantasy III and IV were. Are you ready for the food analogy? This would be like if some Mom and Pop restaurant was making your favorite burrito, and they’re sliding it across the counter, and as you’re about to leave with it, I jump on the counter, stomp on your burrito, and hand you this burrito from my crappy fast food place. You’d go “The hell is wrong with you” and I would shrug and go check out the sandwich shop across the street.

The Wait for the Gate

A while back I got into the beta of a MMO known as Concerto Gate, and for those of you who don’t know what this game was like, let me explain. A classic ATB JRPG like Final Fantasy 6, that you play with your friends which is actually fairly challenging and fun. Not only that, the game’s quests actually had an epic and/or funny plot that you can do with your friends. Sounds fun right? Well too bad, despite the rather successful closed beta in the US, Square-Enix decided it wasn’t worth the time to follow up on. They sat on their collective ass for months and months while developer Gamescampus had to keep apologizing for the wait, trying to assure that the next beta will eventually come, which it didn’t. Gamescampus told the last twenty people who were waiting for the game at this point (myself included) that they might as well say “Fuck it”. Now imagine this if you will: you own a sandwich shop, and you introduce a sample product to your customers, and they love it. So you tell me, your supplier, the results and the fact that you’ll be needing more. You call me over and over again but no response. You know why? Cause I’m in that damn sandwich shop across the street, shrugging at my ringing phone.

The Lufia Redux

I heard a story awhile back about one of my favorite JRPG series: Lufia. I heard that Square-Enix was going to reboot the series starting from Lufia II. Needless to say I was pretty excited for the game, until I watch the trailer finding out that they had changed so damn much about the fanchise. It’s an action RPG now, which is something that isn’t so bad, but not exactly what I wanted. The characters have changed rather drastically, most of them looking like typical JRPG character rather than looking like soldiers like they did on the original SNES.  This is most obvious when looking at Tia from the SNES game and comparing her to the new DS version.

The thing that gets me most is how much the setting has changed. Originally the game was a full fantasy game, now there’s a bunch of tanks, you fly around in a ship at some parts, so now I can only wonder how much of the plot from the original actually stayed in. Now this one isn’t all Square-Enix’s since Neverland also worked on it, but I’ll blame them for this one anyway. Enjoy this final food analogy because it’ll be the last until I write another column while being as hungry as a dumpster diving dog. So you enter an Italian restaurant to order your favorite pizza, and I’m like “Hey man, you know how you like that pizza you always get? Check this out, I made a few changes” and I open up the pizza box and you seen that I’ve gone ape-shit on it.  It has paper, cockroaches, a few dead rats and a hobo’s toe, which you can identify for some reason. You’d look at me and say “What the hell is that” and I’d shrug and leave to go you-know-where.