What's your opinion about Mistwalker?

[Nifleheim7]

I have seen a couple more trailers and gameplay footage from Lost Odyssey and i admit that it really intrigued me...and it's the only 360 exclusive game that managed to do that.
Yes,i know that the gameplay is old school but Sakaguchi wanted to focus on the story,characters and the emotions they convey more than anything else,which is something that i really respect.Also i read somewhere that the story is written by a famous Japanese author (and Sakaguchi himself).

I'm really curious though,about Mistwalker's future plans...Do you think they will stay exclusive to MS?If they do so, i think they will loose many potential fans and i really don't think they are big enough to afford something like that.
Also the majority of 360 users are not RPG fans (especially JRPG) and the 360 is doing terribly in Japan.
I think if they decide to continue with the exclusivity it will soon bring them down...and it will be such a waste.

[Larahl]

They're not really exclusivley only to the Xbox 360, they
made ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASH:_Archaic_Sealed_Heat) and Blue Dragon Plus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dragon_%28Nintendo_DS%29) for the Nintendo DS.

For now, since Microsoft Game Studios is their publisher, the main games will be only for Microsoft's console, but who knows, maybe when Mistwalker will publish their own games they will change to a diffrent console.

[KoShiatar]

I hope they'll go multi-console (talking about home consoles not handheld of course), I won't be buying an xbox justfor their games. Too bad because I'm really interested in what Sakaguchi & co. still have to say.

[Zora]

They are third-party, so they won't stay with Microsoft. They are a lot like Level 5, except Microsoft is milking six games out of them (BD, BD2, LO, an MMORPG, CO, and an untitled RPG). They are already making two projects for Nintendo (ASH and BDDS). I imagine they will start producing mutli-console games once the 360 starts selling in Japan because they have been milked so much, or they refuse to do another project. So either never, or when they decline. Since Microsoft has money, never.

Anyways, I enjoyed Blue Dragon, although many didn't. Lost Odyssey I am not too sure about. It looks like a pretty game, but it will either end up being vastly overrated or not meet people's expectations and get low reviews. I will most likely try it. The problem is that LO seems like one of those games that will try to reach so many people and it ends becoming cliche and predictable in the process (much like Final Fantasy X, except it gets praise for being cliche and predictable, but presents itself to look original). That is my only concern about it.

[Nifleheim7]

^Yes,i know that they are 3rd party but i think they are doomed if they continue the exclusivity with MS.As Zora said they should change ship and go multi-console because 360 will never sale in Japan.

And as i said before the majority of western 360 users are not JRPG fans,and both Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are the definitions of JRPG's.
I would really hate to see them go down because of bad sales...

[Zora]

^Yes,i know that they are 3rd party but i think they are doomed if they continue the exclusivity with MS.As Zora said they should change ship and go multi-console because 360 will never sale in Japan.

And as i said before the majority of western 360 users are not JRPG fans,and both Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are the definitions of JRPG's.
I would really hate to see them go down because of bad sales...

They won't be doomed if they continue with MS, well they may. They probably pay MistWalker in set amounts. Such as they give them X million dollars to create an RPG (MS has that kind of money). So as long as they keep producing games they won't be doomed. And I imagine their MMORPG will do well, since they are overrated.

The problem comes when they leave Microsoft. Other companies won't offer such a huge budget and may pay them based on sales, not in a set amount. They won't get their name around working on Microsoft, so unless they get a good game and excellent marketing, they won't do that well. But I would imagine BDDS and ASH exist for that purpose alone, to get their name out before they stop having dealing with MS.

So they probably aren't doomed, but they may have issues when they leave MS.

But both MW and MS need to accept one thing-the 360 won't sell in Japan. They released TWO EXCLUSIVE RPGs for the 360 (plus ES which is exclusive righ tnow), that outnumbers the PS3, especially when you consider quality. THe PS3 sells better than the 360, even though ideally the 360 is all-around better for them (unless they want FFXIII that bad, which would be the only logical explanation). MW can get by fine, it is the fact MS needs to deal with that fact.

Oh, BD did terrible here, but I imagine Lost Odyssey would be popular if isn't wasn't for its HORRID release date (Same day as Brawl? That would be like releasing Fire Emblem on Halo 3 launch day). But then again...

It is doubtful any JRPG will sell well here outside of KH, FF, Mario RPGs, and Pokemon. KH only got popular do the fact it had something very popular in the Western World in it (Disney). I imagine if it wasn't for Disney, it wouldn't have sold that well.

[Bolivar]

sakaguchi usually gets good developers behind him, ASH having some of the ogre battle crew, but that game tanked in japan and its reviews were horrible. for the latter, i'm not sure if i'll be getting it when (or even if) it comes out in the states. So since XBox seems to be where they're moving the most units, it could be a dead deal already.

Since they've already worked with Nintendo, too, I think a Sony release is inevitable. But first things first they need to release a game that does well critically and commercially before they have any future.

[Zora]

sakaguchi usually gets good developers behind him, ASH having some of the ogre battle crew, but that game tanked in japan and its reviews were horrible. for the latter, i'm not sure if i'll be getting it when (or even if) it comes out in the states. So since XBox seems to be where they're moving the most units, it could be a dead deal already.

What reviews? I am not familiar with Japan's press.

I checked Famitsu's score though, and it was a 9/8/8/8, the same as LO (a 9/8/8/8). Ironically, Blue Dragon did better than them (was a sum score of 37/40, that is all I remember).

But then again, Famitsu has lost is credibility over the years

[LunarWeaver]

I liked Blue Dragon myself, but it clearly isn't enough to change the 360's image. Although I don't really understand that, as if you look at RPGs both out and upcoming, the 360 has a healthy number. I don't really get why it's still considered the shooter box when it has more variety than either of the other two at the moment. Ah, well. Microsoft is an American company, and Japan is never going to go ape-:skull::skull::skull::skull: over that.

Lost Odyssey looks interesting, but it won't be an enormous hit. It wasn't in Japan and it's not going to be over here. It's obviously trying to be MS's answer to Final Fantasy, but that's a hard franchise to penis slap. The only reason Final Fantasy made a huge splash is because VII was pretty back in 1997 and a lot of kiddies wanted pretty graphics for their new pretty machine. They got a hit and got lucky with a Western fanbase. If Sonic has proven anything, it's that getting started on a franchise as a kid develops enormous loyalty even if the games are complete crap (not that FF's are, just saying). Dragon Quest VII wasn't so pretty and didn't get so lucky. All I'm saying is, it's hard to come out with a J-RPG in the Western world and grab a nice chunk of consumers out of nowhere.

I think LO looks good, but I belong to the J-RPG cult. Loading times alone will most likely get it terrible scores, with reports of loading being absolutely everywhere. Hell, go look at a gameplay video and you'll see that from the time battle starts to when you pick commands from a menu it's 17 seconds. That's forever. Sit back and count 17 seconds. Now imagine doing that 1000 times. Toss in that the story is most likely not going to be anything we haven't seen before and yadda yadda. Of course, that's pieced together through assumption and what importers have to say across the intrawebz, so take it for what it is.

I do think they'll start coming out with stuff for other consoles and such. They won't go down or anything like that. Lesser teams have thrived for longer.

[Nifleheim7]

But first things first they need to release a game that does well critically and commercially before they have any future.
Yes,i agree 100%.I don't think that they will ever have commercial success if they continue with MS but i really hope they release a game that get's at least critical acclaim.It will make things easier for them once they decide to go with another publisher.

I liked Blue Dragon myself, but it clearly isn't enough to change the 360's image. Although I don't really understand that, as if you look at RPGs both out and upcoming, the 360 has a healthy number. I don't really get why it's still considered the shooter box when it has more variety than either of the other two at the moment.
I agree that 360 has more RPGs when compared with Wii and PS3 but more than 50% of it's current library is about shooters so that's why it's still considered a shooter box.Also you said it yourself:"At the moment".Because i'm pretty sure that it won't be long before the other consoles get more RPGs (let alone JRPGs).

Ah, well. Microsoft is an American company, and Japan is never going to go ape-:skull::skull::skull::skull: over that.
Yup,this is also true and that is why even mighty SquareEnix doesn't want/affraid to give exclusives to 360 (except Infinite Undiscovery).


I think LO looks good, but I belong to the J-RPG cult. Loading times alone will most likely get it terrible scores, with reports of loading being absolutely everywhere. Hell, go look at a gameplay video and you'll see that from the time battle starts to when you pick commands from a menu it's 17 seconds. That's forever. Sit back and count 17 seconds. Now imagine doing that 1000 times. Toss in that the story is most likely not going to be anything we haven't seen before and yadda yadda. Of course, that's pieced together through assumption and what importers have to say across the intrawebz, so take it for what it is.
I didn't noticed something like this in the videos that i watched,but if it's true then it will be a disaster...

[Shoeberto]

Didn't 360 sales boom in Japan over Blue Dragon?

The only way you can really shed an image of a console is to have games made for it that get rid of the image. The 360 has a lot of potential and Mistwalker probably sees that.

[JKTrix]

The 'Blue Dragon Sales Boom' was only relative to previous sales on the 360. Though I think it may have fared better in Japan initially if it wasn't released right next to a hotly anticipated Gundam game.

Last week, Famitsu listed the top 50 360 games in Japan. (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=220841)

Blue Dragon is #1 at...203,740. It's been out for an entire year, and it's just over 200,000. (Though I think that's like a 50% attach rate, so it's not abysmal...considering.)

I don't think Mistwalker has to worry too much about their games flopping on 360. Microsoft is paying them good money. It's really Microsoft who would have problems, since they're not seeing any good return on the money.

As has been mentioned, they are a 3rd party so they aren't owned by Microsoft. Microsoft only owns the rights to the Blue Dragon game and Lost Odyssey, so you likely won't be seeing those particular games on a competing console.

As for opinions on Mistwalker themselves, can't say I really have one. I haven't been interested enough in any of their games really, particularly after having played a good bit of Blue Dragon (though I was excited when I first played it (http://forums.eyesonff.com/general-gaming-discussion/93388-blue-dragon.html#post1906249)). The most interesting thing coming from them is Cry On, which I coincidentally know next to nothing about. And even the bit I do know (game apparently makes you cry) isn't particularly appealing, but at least ambitious.

I do hope they become successful. Blue Dragon DS is their best bet for now, since everything else doesn't seem to have done too spectacularly.

[Dreddz]

Mistwalker are riding on the fact that Sakaguchi is at the helm but at the moment I dont see them as a huge asset to Microsoft. Until they start making quality games Ill squash this comment. Sakaguchi may be the father of Final Fantasy but most of the talented staff behind the series are still at Square-Enix.