Square-Enix Descends Into Fail. Final Fantasy VII Remake ASAP?

So, I’m sure that you have all noticed that I am quite the fan of a little game called The World Ends With You. Right? Well, if not then read here. Done? Okay, good. Sure I didn’t rave about it, but I didn’t start my review yet either, then you’ll see my true thoughts on it.

But I digress, upon reports that Square-Enix had performed quite poorly in the 2007 fiscal year, one had to wonder just what they would do to remedy that. Out of all the possible methods of fixing their situation I don’t think anyone expected them to do something as radical as stamp down on creative ideas.

That’s right, you heard right.

Yoichi Wada placed an ultimatum before his employees, and it goes as follows: if any games are made that don’t fit into the mainstream circle, then jobs will be cut. What does this mean? Well, the most likely scenario is developers will probably too concerned about losing their jobs to try something new. Which furthermore would result in no more unique games like The World Ends With You and the such. The sort of titles that really do not grab the mass cash that established, done-to-death games Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest get them. So now instead of looking forward to a new Square-Enix game every now and again, you can just go ahead an insert a SNES Final Fantasy remake for DS, or a SNES Dragon Quest remake for something instead. Is that bad? Well not necessarily, but it just means we’re not going to see anything as fresh as The World Ends With You for awhile now.

Its sad, just sad.

As a result of this news maybe we should expect that Final Fantasy VII Remake sooner than anticipated? I mean, it’d certainly make back a lot of that cash that they have lost. But is it really worth it? Personally, I really want the remake but this is not the time for it. With games like Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, a couple of Kingdom Hearts spin-offs, and a Final Fantasy IV remake already coming did they ever stop to think that your fans like the fresh games because they are different to your usual stuff. And releasing a Final Fantasy VII Remake WITH all those games would purely clog up the market. If they do want to do it to earn back the cash, finish the other games off first. Because there is no sense in flooding us.

It’s sad that it has gone this way, Square-Enix. Really sad.

What do we do now? Cherish our copies of The World Ends With You and let no person take them from us. Because assuming this policy remains, we won’t see a game like it for a long time and they probably will discontinue production of the game as well.

One Outta Two Ain’t Bad

So I didn’t end up going down to Yahtzee’s conference. To be fair, I couldn’t be stuffed. It would have been cool no doubt about it. But money wasn’t really on my side this week, so it was beyond my expenses.

However, I did play GTA4. And it was fun. Not worthy of all those perfect scores from what I’ve been seeing, but it was fun. Definitely an improvement over the rubbish that is GTA:SA. San Andreas was a big leap into the pit for Rockstar, selling it via controversy. GTA4 brings it back to a reasonable level of controversy.

I found the visuals to be pretty and such, music was typical of an awesome GTA compilation. But underneath it all, it had the same GTA mechanics. I didn’t find doing story mode very interesting at all and mostly stuck to the random car theft and police mayhem.

GTA4 is fun but overrated (as usual)

However, the PS3 itself is sleek and sexy. Can’t wait to pick mine up next month with MGS4.

*hype*

Also, I have finished The World Ends With You and am starting my review tonight. If all goes well it should be up in a matter of hours. At the latest, a couple of days providing my University workload doesn’t weigh me down too much.

The Weekend of Gaming

Somewhat full weekend coming up.

Got The World Ends With You to finish at some point, I think I’m about halfway… expect a review sometime next week if your lucky. On Friday night I’m going over to my friend’s place to play some GTA4 and see just what all this hype is about… I’ll post my thoughts on the game upon my return on Monday.

And probably the biggest (gets its own paragraph) is I’m probably going to see Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s conference at GAME ON on Sunday afternoon about “What Makes A Good Video Game” so that’s probably going to be awesome. Let’s see if this opinionated critic has as many good ideas as he enjoys shooting them down. Haha.

But seriously, good weekend lined up.

Although I have to fit my Traditional Cosmologies homework in there somewhere… that won’t be fun.

The World Ends With LMX

There’s caving, and then there’s temptation. Today I experienced both. And the latter led to the earlier.

I bought World Ends With You, the apparently unique and amazing effort of SquareEnix and Jupiter. I’m only just into the 2nd day, and I must say so far I’m impressed. The game is good, I avoided coming into this thing with unbelievable hype because it would have killed the game. I’m still trying to get into the combat system but its definitely a new style.

Overall its a decent effort for a new title, and from what I’ve played so far… I’d love to see a Wii installment, would be pure awesome. But that’s just me, that opinion could change by the end of the game.

Whilst I am enjoying it, I still enjoyed the newness of Kingdom Hearts much more when I first played it… pure magic. But that’s because I heart Square AND Disney… so it was like some sort of strange dream come true.

But World Ends With You gets my stamp of approval so far, I’ll do a full review once I’ve completed it.

Happy 2nd Birthday, WiiLoaded!!

So we’re here again. WiiLoaded has hit its 2nd birthday (as has the Auto-Mailer) so what better way to celebrate than a bitching party!

*sigh*

If only. Haha. But seriously, happy birthday to WiiLoaded and a big thank you to all the fellow staff and members who have made it such an awesome place to be.

And many hopes for further great years.

But wait…

The mystery begins…

If I May…

So yeah, its May now. Woo. A non-video game related event (my 21st) is drawing nearer rather rapidly… should probably look into organising something.

So you may be wondering why I’m blogging today. Well having overcome severe frustration I finally unlocked the last two characters on Mario Kart Wii! Huzzah!! However, that doesn’t mean I’m done, there are star rankings to get on cups and more expert staff times to unlock if I want all the karts and bikes. But does that really concern me at the moment? No… not really. But truth be told, I’ve found myself bored of Mario Kart, even of its online. So for the first time in a week, Brawl graced my Wii once again and its found its home there.

Sorry Mario Kart, having better online doesn’t beat out a game that is just plain more fun (plus it can actually be fair) in the long run.

Seriously, it is almost like Nintendo were setting out to eliminate skill needed in video gaming with this installment. Items have been bad in previous games but in this one they are just plain shocking!

Coming first on the final lap, about to cross the finish line. Brace yourself as you are likely to be hit by several blue/red shells or some other annoying item that will knock you down. Its even worse if its a close race as you can easily fall from 1st way back to 8th. A such example was I’d just been hit by a blue shell, knocked me down a couple of ranks. Then as I was recovering I was hit by a Red Shell, knocked me down another couple. And then to top it off someone with a Star drove straight through me.

To Hell with items!

Yahtzee hated Brawl. Well I’d hate to see what he’d say about this game. My God, about twenty times worse in lack of skill needed AND in annoyance of obtaining unlockables.

But still, a fun game to have out when a party is happening.

Brawl is better though.

Wii Fit is nearing release down under, ads are popping up everywhere and its getting a lot of marketing time over here. I’m actually interested to see what will sell better down under. GTA4 or Wii Fit. Both have different audiences, both are guaranteed big sales.

It’s going to be an interesting race. I like neither games, but in the end I’m supporting GTA4. Real games are too good to resist, however I do not detest Wii Fit’s target crowd. I just think it’d be better in the long term to just get a gym membership.

Adios.