They're pushing back the boundaries of imaginative game design then, whatever it turns out to be.

A teenage boy? With a sword? On a dragon? Be still my beating heart, I've not played a game like that for days.

What if he is the dragon?!

...Oh, wait... That's been done, too...

Why can't it just be a new IP simply called "4"? I wouldn't put it past Square-Enix. Oh wait. A new IP. That's not likely.

The Last Remnant was completely new IP, it's not like everything they chuck out is a sequel although I admit that calling it "4" does suggest an element of following on from three other things.

There's no way this is a teaser for something new.

The Last Remnant marks the first new in-house Square Enix IP since Kingdom Hearts (which came out in 2002.) Given their acquisition of Eidos, it's safe to assume they're treating the west as a more important market than ever, and resultantly, they're loathe to try new IPs because the dipshits running the mainstream gaming news outlets on this side of the planet always complain about them not being Final Fantasy XVII or Dragon Quest MCMXCVII. For a title from a big name like SE, The Last Remnant got a pretty lousy reception outside of Japan (Famitsu gave it 38/40, IGN gave it 5.5/10.)

Thinking about it, why couldn't it be a new FF Tactics game? Not counting spinoffs like Crystal Defenders and the PSP port of FFT, there've been three of those in total. The art style kind of fits, too.

If you think they're going more West-centric, then it's far more likely to be new IP I reckon. I mean, focussing on the "Western" market means aiming at "Casual" gamers rather than "Hardcore" ones right? Well how many of the people who bought the Tomb Raider games and Hitman do you think have even heard of SaGa Frontier or are aware that there's been 3 Romancing SaGa games already?

It's either an announcement of a sequel of something obscure for the Jap market or it's something new for the rest of the world.

Not necessarily... It's just that while Final Fantasy is as much of a cash cow as it ever has been over here, their other "hardcore" titles have gone relatively unnoticed. For some reason, while new IPs are all the rage among American and European developers, new Japanese offerings haven't really enjoyed the same kind of success. I don't think it'll be anything specifically aimed at the international market, I just think it'll be a sequel/spinoff/rehash because it's a far wiser business move for if and when they do decide to release this title in the west.

That said, the fact that the countdown page is present at Square's Japanese site and nowhere to be found on their North American one also implies that they've not even considered localising whatever this new game is. The Chrono Trigger DS countdown from last year was on both.

Not necessarily. The last time Square-Enix said they had the "Western" market in mind was when they were developing the Last Remnant. The Conqueror, a guy who was supposed to be a nod to the hulking and brutal warriors of the typical (and stereotyped) Western RPG, was something that came out of that westward focus.

Gaming is definitely making a move towards the realm of "casual," but it's not at the point where an RPG developer/publisher in possession of many nonRPG-making subsidiaries has to shift focus away from what they normally do.

It's a Square remake of Left 4 Dead. Why lie.

Gaming has been a casual, mass-market passtime since the release of the first Wipeout game on Playstation, if not before. The computer game industry outstripped Hollywood in terms of annual revenue years ago and nobody who goes to watch Hollywood blockbusters would ever describe themselves as "Hardcore" unless they were a collosal faggot. Even jrpgs have been mainstream since FFVII, it's just that Japanese developers haven't realised that yet and internet nerds like to cling to their shield of obscure taste in an attempt to disassociate themselves from the general public, probably so they have something to feel superior about. After all, to admit that gaming is about as mainstream a hobby as you can get these days would be to admit that rather than not fitting in with people because they've got an obscure hobby, they simply have terrible social skills and an inability to fit in with people who share a major interest with themselves. Gaming is no more a niche activity than reading or watching television.

I can think of fewer more anachronistic and frankly tragic terms than "Hardcore gamer".

I was under the impression we were discussing the redubbed "casual" market that's come from the Wii and the recent push to capture that audience from Nintendo-- parents, older individuals, people who think they can lose weight by moving a remote around, etcetera. That's what I was talking about.

I wasn't trying to place a divide between hardcore and casual, and classifications like that are annoying. I was only saying that Square-Enix's idea of "western focus" still entails muscles and ultraviolence, not Wii Fit and EA Sports Active or whatever.

Exactly. I can't stand the labels. I take gaming seriously, but not so seriously that I consider what is inherently a casual activity something to define myself by. I'm a player of games, not a "hardcore gamer".

The real distinction here should be one of quality and substance, not target markets.

Oh is hardcore gaming dead? Well fuck that then.

http://www.thegond.com/rp/12x12block.gifWHO'S UP FOR SOME EXTREME IRONING?!

http://www.thegond.com/rp/extremeironing.jpg

That is the game that had characters with no eyes, or noses right. Just a blank face. I think I have that laying around somewhere.

Yeah, that game used to creep the shit out of me because the characters had no faces.

Of course, it could be worse... much much worse:

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images...1786_front.jpg

Oh god. I remember asking my grandparents for Beyond the Beyond back when I first got my Playstation. Luckily the guy at the store talked them into buying me Wild Arms.

A few years later I bought BtB. That was when I realized Christmas lists are stupid because kids want the worst things ever.

THQ renders it meaningless. Might as well have been LJN.

How so? From my understanding, they didn't have much to do with the development. They're just the ones that brought it over here and slapped on some terrible dubbing.

Honestly, now that I've seen the boy, it really seems like it fits in with Crystal Chronicles art style. I think.

Either that or they're cartoonying up FFT some more.

Granstream was made by the same guys that did gaia and evermore and terranigma. Different distributor.

Plus you can't hate on THQ when they've published Full Spectrum Warrior.

Oh hey, there's a girl there too. This just keeps getting more "original". The drawing style is definitely in the vein of FFT now.

The timer is set to run out the day after the end of the Japan Expo 2009 in Paris, at which Sqeenix have a rather large stall, which to me suggests a Japan-centric game, since you'd think if it was a global thing they'd mention it at the big show they were attending.

In other Japan Expo Squeenix news, they'll have copies of Dissidia allowing European gamers to play it for the first time ever! :tpg:

Are Square not aware that anyone who had any interest in playing that torrented it a couple of days before the official release date?

I know two yaoi fangirls intent on buying a PSP when Dissidia comes out. Maybe they revealed there's Kingdom Hearts characters in there and I didn't hear about it?