Rumorama: FF4 Japan Mobile Game Coming to XBLA
Well the folks over at 1up have been snooping around on the Japanese XBox website and have stumbled across an interesting URL:
http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/games/f/finalfantasy4/
If you click on the link you'll notice that the server you request the link from appends a 'details.page' to the link; however, if you try any other random name in place of finalfantasy4, you don't get the details addendum. This means that Final Fantasy 4 is registered in the Microsoft servers database, even if there is currently no information for the game.
Most likely, this means that the mobile Final Fantasy 4: The After squeal that is currently an episodic game available only on mobile phones in Japan might be coming to the XBLA. This rumor is in part due to the fact that Square-Enix is already working on two titles for the XBLA, Yosumin and Crystal Defenders, both of which are mobile games, so porting another mobile game to the XBLA platform is probably a safe bet. Add to that an article reported last September in which the producer of the Final Fantasy 4 sequel, Takashi Tokita, said that "we'll do our best to make this game available for our overseas audiences as well!" Making it available on the XBLA would allow Square-Enix to reach a far larger audience in the US/Europe than just trying to release it as a mobile game.
I'm happy to see Square-Enix trying to port more games to platforms on which all consumers across the world can enjoy them, but since this game revolves around the son of Cecil and Rosa returning to the moon ten years later, I for one probably won't be playing it. Going to the moon in that game on that flying-whale ship seemed like the most out of place storyline that I had witnessed as a kid playing it on my NES. Now give me a FFVI (FF3 in the US) sequel, and I'll be all over it like a Japenese kid on any Saquare-Enix title.
Mystery URL At Japanese Microsoft Site Suggests 360 Final Fantasy IV [1up]
PixelPoet
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 28 January 2009
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: final fantasy iv, microsoft, mobile games, rumorama, square-enix, xbla
Here's hoping this turns out to be true, if only that it might mean we'll see it on the Wii. It would be a shame for something made in the style of a Super NES game to not return to a Nintendo system.
Also, playing the DS Final Fantasy IV revived my interest in Cecil and crew, so I'm geekishly wondering what happens to them.
If they bring this to the US it will be a day one purchase by me, for sure.