SE has a new countdown site...

[Wolf Kanno]

All it says is that "The Legend will return" but some sites think they may be announcing a new Mana/Seiken Denetsu game while others think this may be a new SaGa or Musashi game. What do you think?

[Freya]

I want musashi. I love musashi

[Ayen]

I'm just going to assume it's either a mobile game, or some new game I never heard of before as to not be disappointed when it turns out to be nothing fans speculate it is. As was the case the last several times Square has done a countdown.

[Depression Moon]

Yeah, I'm not getting my hopes up for a mobile game.

[Vyk]

Poopy

I was hoping there would be a style in the art or font or something to hint at what's going on. But nope. Just plain white text on a plain white background. Poop

[Colonel Angus]

FFXIII-4: The Legend of Lightning

[Endless]

Famitsu is thinking Racing Lagoon. I'm not getting any hope up though for a Mana game, because when it comes to disappointing Mana fans, Square knows how to deliver.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well Rise of Mana is getting a port to Vita in Japan and apparently SE has been lending some of the characters to a few other games recently in Japan. We know a SaGa game is going to surface soon because the creator announced one for the series anniversary.

While either would be nice, I'm kind of hoping for something out of left field. Course the age old wisdom is probably true...

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[Vyk]

....I still don't get why that stuff's so popular in Japan. You'd think the people who resurrected video games, and defined their existence for such a long time, would have a bit more appreciation for real games you can sink your teeth into

Though to Square's credit, they're about the only Japanese studio I'm aware of that attempts to put real legitimate games on mobile platforms. But they haven't really done that in a long time either

[Wolf Kanno]

It's largely because Japan is a heavy commuter culture where you're always either going to school, work, cram school, the bar, or home. They just kind of developed into a culture where they never have time to sit down and play games so they have to game on the go.

[Aulayna]

FFVII Remastered. The hype is real.

(I kid)

[VeloZer0]

Also public transit is much more of a thing in Japan, so you have time to kill while commuting, rather than having to drive.

[Vyk]

I just don't get how they don't feel like they're missing out on games with meaty stories. I realize their culture has shifted, but then the technology shifted to accomodate. Like with the PSP and DS you could put the system into sleep right in the middle of the cut scene and pick it right back up later. You could play a long meaty story-driven game, just in bite-sized chunks if necessary. Mobile games aren't designed that way. They rarely have story. They rarely have meat. That seems so unsatisfying in comparison. If I were Japanese, I think I'd live off of older games on older handhelds rather than play some garbage on the phone. That's the part I don't get. Candy Crush Saga might be a fun little time waster to some people. But it's not satisfying as a game. They totally have the option of playing a better game on the go. I mean, isn't the Vita struggling over there just as much as it is here? That thing should be blowing up in a culture like that. And Square making a real game for something like that would make more sense to me. It's just lost in translation to me I guess

[Wolf Kanno]

You also have to understand that the type of games they have for mobile is not the same that we see in the west. A lot of Visual novel games are for mobile and games like Rise of Mana are comparable to what you find on handheld devices in terms of content. Hell DQX, a smurfing MMO is getting ported to mobile and handheld. There games do offer story, it's just our market has been slow to catch up to what they are doing due to cultural differences. I mean when phones over here were porting Tetris and Pac-Man, they had games like FFVII: Before Crisis and Xenosaga Pied Piper getting released, full on RPGs. So their market has better content than ours so it's less surprisingly when you look at it like that.

[Vyk]

Good call. I totally did not consider that. That makes quite a bit more sense then. Thank you