Hopes for Square Enix at E3

Every year, when I'm watching coverage on E3, I always make sure to catch the presentation from Square Enix, in the hopes that attention will be given to some of my favorite series of all time. While Octopath Traveler is one of the games I'm most excited about, and I'm sure they'll make sure to show it off, I'm also sure we'll get more coverage on Kingdom Hearts 3, which has been in development for many years. We might even get more information on the mysterious Final Fantasy 7 Remake. In all honesty, there are other things I'd love to see though.

One of my favorite game series of all time is the Dragon Quest series, and the 11th game of the series is coming to the Playstation 4 later this year. I'm sure we'll get some more coverage on it at E3, but to be honest, there's another game I'd have preferred to see. Dragon Quest XI was developed for both the Playstation 4, as well as the Nintendo 3DS, and we were supposed to have an old school treat with that version, as you could swap between 3D graphics, and 2D, straight out of a Super Nintendo. With my love of all things retro, I was so incredibly excited about this, but Square Enix revealed they were only bringing the Playstation 4 version to North America. With the 3DS on it's death bed, it's understandable, but I'm holding out hope that perhaps Nintendo will publish the game for the West on the handheld. It's been said that the Switch version of Dragon Quest XI is in development, but I'm sure that's a long ways off, from the last statements we saw. It's a shame, because I'd love to be able to grind on the go.

With the lack of Virtual Console from Nintendo moving forward, I think we'll see more companies releasing collections of their classic games, in a similar way that Capcom has done with Mega Man, and that's something I'm fine with, so long as we see them released stateside. Square Enix previously released a Seiken Densetsu collection on the Nintendo Switch, which included the first three games in the series. For those not in the know, Seiken Densetsu 1 was released in North America as Final Fantasy Adventure on Game Boy, and it's sequel came out on the Super Nintendo as Secret of Mana. The final game in the series was never released outside of Japan, and it's said to be one of the greatest Super Nintendo games of all time. I'd love to see that Square Enix took the time to translate the third game for us, and the collection is coming out, even just digitally.

Before I was playing Square's classic role playing games, there was a game from Enix that I was into long before. Illusion of Gaia is one of my favorite games of all time, and I would love to see the Soul Blazer trilogy released in some kind of collection. While not likely, due to the fact that Enix only published the game, and it was instead made by a company called Quintet, I would love to see all those classic adventure and role playing games released in a compilation. Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia are great, but the finale of the trilogy, Terranigma, is an amazing game, and while it was released in the PAL region, we never saw it in North America, so it wouldn't require extra translation, and would be great to finally have in the states.

One game I always hold my breath for like a fool, is the enigmatic Chrono Break, the rumored sequel to Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. For years I've always held out hope that Square Enix hadn't forgotten the Chrono series, but with copyrights expiring, it seems unlikely the game is every to see the light of day, especially with most of the team that was to make it either leaving the company or being transitioned to other projects. Still, year after year, I think to myself how wonderful it would be to see another game from that phenomenal franchise. If you'd like to hear more of Craig_WK's feelings on retro games, make sure to check out The Legend of Retro. For coverage on E3, make sure you stay tuned to GameZilla Podcast.