Cognition Dissemination: The End of tri-Ace

Tragic as it was, tri-Ace being absorbed by a company primarily known for mobile gaming was bound to happen any day now. The company only received a few large projects in recent memory, after Square Enix no longer wanted to work with them in an extensive capacity. No titles following their break-up took off on dedicated systems, and their previous social effort didn’t find a significant audience. Given the direction Japan is swiftly and increasingly moving in, it was inevitable that the company would dip a large portion of their leg into the mobile space.

Nevertheless, this happened sooner than anyone expected, the reason why news of their acquirement by Nepro Japan came as a blow to anyone who enjoyed their games — recently or otherwise. It appears the choice was between this and certain bankruptcy, and there’s no way a company with any dignity would make a choice involving putting their employees out of a job. That’s fine, but it won’t assuage the emotions of anyone who can imagine how things could have gone in a more just world.

tri-Ace’s relationship with Enix, and subsequently Square Enix, seemed fine on the surface. The company did well when assisting with that company’s output, releasing games in franchises like Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile while providing one-shot oddities like Radiata Stories along the way. They even picked up Infinite Undiscovery when Microsoft lost faith in it. Their games gave SE some assistance when they were struggling with coming to grips with HD console development, a phenomenon best represented in the performance disaster that was the Xbox 360 version of The Last Remnant. But something peculiar happened behind the scenes, and evidence suggests the culprit was one game: Star Ocean: The Last Hope.

And what a “Last Hope” it was, one that clearly didn’t pay off. The fourth mainline SO title received sharp criticism, pertaining to its abysmal story and characters, bad writing, bad voice acting in both English and Japanese (it’s likely the writing was the culprit here), and awkward character modeling efforts. Sure, its story avoided acknowledging Star Ocean: Till the End of Time’s unwelcome endgame swerve and its battle system was excellent, but neither came close to salvaging it. tri-Ace and Square Enix’s significant relationship was severed forever.

I say “significant” because they still maintained a partnership in a much smaller form. A small portion of their staff assisted with Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII’s development. There’s a good reason why LR’s concept could have easily been used for a Valkyrie Profile game, which only made some of that series’ fans hate the FFXIII trilogy even further.

Despite no longer working on original games for Square Enix, it initially appeared their position in the market would remain stable. The team behind the aforementioned Valkyrie Profile worked on Resonance of Fate, a game whose concept was reportedly too risky for Square Enix’s execs to green light. Instead, Sega served as its publisher. Given its sales (or lack thereof), you could understand why their previous partner didn’t take a chance on it. It also never stood a chance in western territories, thanks to Sega’s poor marketing efforts (they only released one trailer) and releasing it a week after Final Fantasy XIII hit stores. It was the beginning and the end of tri-Ace’s relationship with the company — or so it seemed.

Despite clearly trying to get HD console work by advertising their new tech, no one bit, and they had to take what they could get. They drifted to Konami for two handheld games: the Monster Hunter-style Frontier Gate and a first-person dungeon crawler called Beyond the Labyrinth for PSP and 3DS, respectively. The former game sold just enough to receive an enhanced edition a year later, but neither set the market figuratively ablaze. In fact, BtL might have been the lowest selling game in their history.

Since they still couldn’t find anyone to work with them in a significant capacity, tri-Ace had little choice but to turn to new markets. Their first effort was a social browser game called Lemuta: Shooting Star in God’s Tree, which sadly didn’t take off. Its service was halted after about a year, news that made it difficult not to be pessimistic about their fate.

That is, until they found a dim light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a renewed relationship with Sega, with Phantasy Star Nova for Vita. It wasn’t the Phantasy Star V a number of fans have been begging Sega for over two decades after Phantasy Star IV released, but it was close enough for now. It was also the closest we would get to a new Star Ocean game, a franchise that seemed dead in the water. This new RPG took place in the same universe as Phantasy Star Online 2, and used many of its assets. Much of tri-Ace’s development prowess was dedicated to working on it, to get the game out as quickly as possible and, seemingly, because they had nothing else to do.

The game didn’t sell to Sega’s expectations, but sold well for a Vita-exclusive. At the time, though, no one knew it would be tri-Ace’s last traditional game.

With no options open after Nova would be shipping, tri-Ace dipped their feet into the free-to-play market with Judas Code for Vita. It’s a cross between a third-person shooter and an RPG set during World War III, where players can use cards for extra assistance. Some the cards can be purchased with real money, along with other items. Not many impressions exist in English, but it apparently did well enough for the company. They also released Chronos Ring through Konami for mobile phones, another title I’ve heard little about in English. It was after this that Nepro Japan made their move, clearly impressed by their efforts, though apparently the services for their free-to-play games will continue.

Part of me was hoping tri-Ace would reach the heights they previously hit with titles like Star Ocean: The Second Story and Valkyrie Profile again, despite how tumultuous the market has been for Japanese RPGs in the last few years. That’s not to say games like Valkyrie Profile 2 and Resonance of Fate (which came from the same team) weren’t great, but those previous titles represented the company at their best. As much as I wanted them to recover from it, Star Ocean 4 slowly but surely killed the company, and it perfectly explains their state in the last few years. Whether they’ll remain capable of making great experiences on the mobile market remains to be seen, but it’s clear the company fans knew is no more. But thanks for all the memories.