Square-Enix is a cruel master when it comes to its classic series. The company is all too happyto tease sequelsto fan favorites likeThe World Ends With You, only to turn around and release them as incredibly expensive mobile ports. While its audience clamors for a new traditionalFinal Fantasy gameor aChrono Triggersequel, Square’s response is to make $40iPhone and Android-onlyRPGs. This week brought on another cruel moment for longtime fans, as Square-Enix announced the first new game in the Final Fantasy Tactics series in six years! Then it revealed it’s a social game.
Square opened a teaser website forFinal Fantasy Tactics Son Thursday. Rather than a follow up to the 2007 Nintendo DS gameFinal Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, this game is a social title developed in a partnership with Mobage. Mobage has worked together with Square before, namely on the social gameFinal Fantasy Airborne Brigade.
Brigadeshould offer some insight into howTactics Swill work. Rather than selecting a character, assigning them a job, and then growing their skills through battles,Brigadeplayers do that by purchasing collectible cards that represent skills, spells, and summoned monsters. The webpage forFinal Fantasy Tactics Sshows some of the familiar job classes from Yasumi Matsuno’s classic strategy games, like Black Mage and even a rabbit like Viera archer as seen in his games going back toFinal Fantasy Tactics Advance. There even appears to be the silhouette of knight Agrias, one of the main characters in the original PlayStationFinal Fantasy Tactics. As with Square’s past social games, you’ll likely have to pay for these characters piecemeal.
It’s surprising to see Square-Enix announce another game of this type just one year after the release ofFinal Fantasy Airborne Brigadesince the once lucrative Japanese market for collectible card social games has started to shrink. Competitor Capcom is actually backing off that market for that exact reason. “In Japan, growth of card battle-type social games has stagnated in the market,”said Capcomin a recent note to investors. Here’s hoping Square makes a proper Final Fantasy Tactics game is this one suffers in a stagnant market.
