Square-Enix: A Glance E3 2005 Article - ( Review, Preview, Article, Interview, Q&A )

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Square-Enix: A glance
By: Jestin Jund

Being a huge fan of the developers, I was excited as the next person to see what Square had to offer this year. E3 has traditionally been the venue for all of their big announcements, and stunning footage that brings ooh's and aww's from the crowd. After standing in line, getting a ticket to a private screening trailer, and being surrounded in rpg dorkness, I have to say things were rather disappointing.

While I think Square has a number of good titles coming up, absolutely nothing unknown was announced. We were treated to trailers only of games that have been known for some time. While I am generally fine with this approach, I was confused as to why there was a huge lack of gameplay. As beautiful as a cut-scene can be, it doesn't show us the grit of the games. Playable version of Full Metal Alchemist, Kingdom Hearts 2, Dragon Quest, and a number of their new mobile titles were on display, but nothing from the Final Fantasy was there for my paws. I'm extremely interested in all of the Final Fantasy VII spin offs, and nothing shown furthered my interest in the series. After Final Fantasy XII was announced last year at this time, you would expect at least a demo level or something to feed us rabid fans.

Nothing was especially bad, but nothing was especially great either. It seems as though they are reaching for new ideas, and are capitalizing on the FFVII a little too much. It's my belief that if they were to re-release FFVII with either updated graphics, or a direct sequel (yes, I’m well aware of advent children, I just want to play it), fans would be more than satisfied. Instead we have FFVII spin offs that will unlikely match or excel the epic tales of our Playstation kin. With the exception of the Sept. 14 Japanese release date of advent children, we didn't even get release dates, leaving us wondering just how much longer they are going to draw this all out. Let's hope that Square-Enix has some surprises in the following year.