Square Enix on FF III, Crystal Chronicle, more
The Final Fantasy folks seem to be firm supporters of the system. They're even talking about bringing mobile titles over. FFVII Before Crisis, perhaps?
Another key speaker at Nintendo's DS shindig this week was Square Enix's Akitoshi Kawazu, who took the stage alongside Shigeru Miyamoto to discuss plans for Final Fantasy III, Crystal Chronicles, and even the possibility of porting mobile titles.
Final Fantasy III, announced for the DS yesterday, is the last remaining Famicom Final Fantasy title that hasn't been ported to any other system; a proposed Bandai WonderSwan Color port was abandoned.
Having shown off a teaser film with a rotating FF crystal and the opening text from the game, Kawazu commented, "It's a 15-year-old game. We've tried a number of times to port it to a new system, but it's never realised yet."
"The interface will really be different from the original, using the touch panel and the double screen. So please look forward to the game's rebirth." That said, Kawazu later reportedly told journalists that he was undecided about whether to include an untouched Famicom port of the game on the same DS cartridge so that players could experience the game both in its new DS threads and as the developer originally intended.
Moving on, Kawazu turned to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, which remains something of an enigma on the DS, but should be out "in the coming months" according to Nintendo's announcement yesterday morning. "Crystal Chronicles was a game that was played with both the GameCube and the Game Boy Advance," he said. "But this time, it won't have that kind of a mechanism - you will play the game with the DS alone."
And when Miyamoto challenged him on Square Enix's plans for Internet enabled titles, the developer had this to say: "I'm not sure if we can just bring our Internet games directly to the DS, since that would be rather difficult. And a lot of people are still saying that the barrier to playing network [games] is too high. But I'm hoping that the DS will help lower that threshold, by bringing mobile games to the DS."
His comments have since prompted speculation that Square Enix's mobile titles - most notably Final Fantasy VII Before Crisis - could conceivably transfer to the DS, although that has yet to be confirmed by either Nintendo or Square Enix. Still, why would he say it otherwise?