Semantic Nonsense: Everything but Final Fantasy, including Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy in the back seat?

SquareEnix sure has had a strange sets of announcements this year.

In case you didn’t know, it’s the 30th anniversary of the Mana (Seiken Densetsu) series. SquareEnix feted the occasion in similar manner to Dragon Quest’s 35th earlier this year. In a celebration streamed direct to you, SquareEnix announced an upcoming anime series, a new mobile game (woo-hoo…), and that the long in coming Seiken Densetsu 5 had started development. All that and the previously mentioned remaster of Seiken Densetsu 4 hitting the market really sends the exact same message Nintendo didn’t for Metroid‘s 30th anniversary.

Continuing the celebration, we're introducing the Legend of Mana -The Teardrop Crystal- anime series, which is planned to air worldwide!

The series is from Warner Bros. Japan LLC, Graphinica, Inc. and Yokohama Animation Lab, who also created the #LegendOfMana opening movie. pic.twitter.com/9RQ2LsNmby

— Mana Series (@ManaGame) June 28, 2021

Meanwhile, the announcement of an upcoming anime based on Final Fantasy IX was in a news brief issued by the anime’s production company, Cyber Group Studios.

I know Final Fantasy doesn’t have an anniversary divisible by 5 until next year, but SqureEnix certainly had enough material to make an event out of it. They’ve given The World Ends With You and SaGa more fanfare this year then the higher-grossing of the company’s two flagship series.

But between the FF IX anime, upcoming PS5 classic Stranger of Paradise or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Kill Chaos, and the Pixel Remaster rereleases of Final Fantasies I through VI, there was enough. If they were only going to spend 3 minutes on their biggest cash cow during an E3 presentation because they wanted to focus on their other studios, why not just do a separate event for Final Fantasy, anniversaries be damned? Given how close to release the demo to Stranger of Paradise was, they could have easily produced a deeper dive into it (but perhaps a few minutes shorter than the Guardians of the Galaxy deepest dive). And they could also have filled out the airtime for an event by not leaving us hanging on the details of the Pixel Remaster series.

Now, SquareEnix DID drop a 30-minute YouTube video on the Pixel Remastered series this past Monday. BUT they quickly set the video to private. Why? Because as I have firmly established, this is a clown show.

People luckier than I (including the incomparable @Wario64) managed to watch the video and reported on the contents. We now know that each title is being released individually, though we don’t know if it will be at set intervals. The first game of the series is coming to Steam and Smartphones in July, though we don’t know if that’s a worldwide release date. I’m assuming the first game will be Final Fantasy, but it seems that isn’t explicitly stated. SquareEnix had nothing to announce about console releases, so we shouldn’t assume any are coming.This also doesn’t bode well for the Steam versions not having sloppily-ported smartphone controls, as is the case for the versions currently there.

And speaking of that Pixel Remastered series, it has already proven its worth by killing the legendarily God-awful Steam versions of Final Fantasy V and VI. Earlier today, SquareEnix updated the Steam store pages of both games with a message that they would be discontinued on July 27, which seems to be well before their expected rereleases. SquareEnix has been mumn on whether owners of the current versions shall be upgraded, but given the listings (and URLs) now say “Old ver.”, owners should plan to buy it a second time.

As to just what a Pixel Remaster is? Well, for those hoping SquareEnix would show these games the same love and care they are showing Dragon Quest III by giving it the Octopath Traveler treatment, allow me to refer you to Kefka.

You’re not even getting something visually on par with the 14-year-old PSP editions of I, II and IV. But you are getting something that looks better than the “Ecce Homo” job SquareEnix previously released.

The game’s appearances are largely the same, but with widescreen presentation (which basically amounts to having lots of awkward dead space in battles) and some sprite redraws to take advantage of no longer having the color palette limitations of the NES or SNES.

Not that it has anything to do with this, but…

• Apparently, it took until the year 2020 for the Super Smash Bros. franchise to out-sell The Oregon Trail franchise.
• The lot of you need to not get excited for the final Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighter. Nintendo is not going to be saving the most hype addition for last, or making it super special meaningful. It’s just going to be the next fighter. And those of you who are worried about another Fire Emblem character are ignoring that the current-generation Pokemon games don’t have a fighter on the roster… yet.
• Anybody upset about Llyod Irving and Dante being Mii costumes must have a short memory… both were Mii costumes in Smash for. With their additions, the only character costumes missing from Smash for are Gilgamesh and Monster Hunter Blademaster. Some generic costumes are also missing, though all of these could be part of the final wave of costumes released with the final fighter.