Drakengard’s a good example: the first game is an unflinchingly dark story about terrible characters in a horrible world, while the second is just typical JRPG dullness. In the period during- and post-merger, you really started to see less and less of the Enix-style risks in the new firm. 2 The riskiest (pun not intended) title from Square of this time was doubtlessly Vagrant Story, an extremely demanding game which is both beloved and loathed by many. Square, meanwhile, was always far more risk-averse: even when they branched further outside of their bread-and-butter RPGs in the PSOne era, the stuff they made always felt like it was trying to mimic other successful things on the market rather than make daring strides in gameplay design. To me, stuff like NieR and Drakengard still feels very much like the Enix of old. It’s quite odd that more than a decade post-merger, you can still separate Square-Enix’s software output into “Square Games” and “Enix Games.” Besides Dragon Quest – a franchise that’s built on a sense of tradition and familiarity – Enix was always the company more willing to try weird and unusual things: the Bust-a-Move series, early Tri-Ace titles that pushed JRPG conventions into strange territory, and really puzzling obscurities like Nanatsu Shima no Monogatari and Super Galdelic Hour. And frankly, I don’t know if we’ll ever see something like it from Square-Enix ever again. It made me realize what, exactly, makes TWEWY so very special: it’s a risky game that challenges players to do new things, to step outside their gameplay and setting comfort zones. Yet hearing Calling stirred something inside of me. It made me bitter towards a game I had invested a great deal of time and emotion into. As focused as I was on carefully gliding my stylus through the note barrage, I felt an intense longing hearing that music again.īut why? After all, back when I played The World Ends With You in 2008, I really enjoyed the game – but I hate, hate, HATED the ending, which I felt was an utterly stupid and transparent twist that undermined a great story concept. What I wasn’t prepared for was an unexpected flood of emotion through me as I ran through it. It’s a beautiful song, and I was very eager to play it 1. One of the DLC tracks from TWEWY is “Calling,” a theme that plays primarily during exploration and dialogue sequences. Last week, Square-Enix released a new batch of non-Final Fantasy DLC for Theatrhythm, including some songs from Chrono Trigger and The World Ends With You, which I promptly acquired to accompany me back on my trip to the West Coast. It’s a rather lengthy flight from the DC metro area to San Francisco – a little over five hours – so of course I came equipped with entertainment.

As I write this, I’m sitting on a plane heading back from MAGfest 13.

Final fantasy spirits within interview