Square Exit: Part 3

Particularly poignant this week after Friday’s release of the superb Xenoblade: Chronicles (which you should be playing), today we’ll talk about perhaps Square’s most famous prodigal son, Tetsuya Takahashi and the cats and kittens running the show at the Nintendo-owned Monolith Soft. Be sure to bring your DSM IV.

A lot has been said about Takahashi. Or rather, a lot has been said about his work. Straddling that razor blade-sized line between ambition and ludicrous hubris, Takahashi’s calling card for game making has been his penchant for Big Ideas. That isn’t to say his designs have been big, though Xenoblade certainly seems to counterpoint that argument. No, Takahashi’s work as a scenario writer and director seems hell bent on cramming as much psychology and religious allusions down the player’s throat they need only-released-in-Japan supplemental material to sift through it all. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Takahashi first started working for Square on Final Fantasy IV as an artist. Prior to that he worked on one game for Nihon Falcom before moving to the big leagues (that one game was released NA on the Tubrografix-16, and later remade for the PSP). And big leagues they were: concept art and design for Final Fantasy IV-VII, map designs for Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 (with our dude Kikuta), and art design for the first Front Mission (with our boys from G-Craft). This career arc effectively made him a proto-Tetsuya Nomura (and Jeremy Parish?) as he went from art duties to eventually running his own shop.
 
Xenogears

…but not before making Xenogears first. Perhaps his most beloved contribution to gaming, Xenogears is still frequently cited in silly arguments over Best RPG of All Time for its sprawling story of Jungian psychology and Christian iconography. Released in Japan a year and a month after Final Fantasy VII, it made some minor headlines in the US over a non-controversy revolving around its religious tones and imagery and whether or not it was going to make the localization cut. Square, now flush with dough from FFVII and freshly coupled with Electronic Arts for distribution help in 1998, released a small slew of games that year in NA to strike while the iron was hot (this included the spectacular Einhander, something else that you should all be playing).

Big Ideas were prevalent. Not only was there religion and psychology, gamers got their first taste of Takahashi’s penchant for Nietzschean philosophy – something else that would live through his game designing career. Perhaps it wasn’t gaming’s first example of an ubermensch, his id, the out-of-body automaton experience and an incomprehensible ending, but it may have been one of the most compelling at the time. If that last sentence means anything to you, then the 80+ hours of cut scenes during your first trip through will rock your socks.

Time has not been so kind to Xenogears. The then-novel blend of traditional 2D sprites and 3D mech models and backgrounds looks even more disjointed now than it ever did. The story, though frankly more mature in tone and execution than most other JRPGs out there even today, is overwrought, a little pretentious, and about as easy to firmly grasp Masters-level discrete mathematics. At the time, though, many players and reviewers looked upon Xenogears as a masterpiece of forward thinking game writing (if not design). Plus, they still had something to look forward to: The ominous, “New Hope”-style declaration that you just finished “Episode V” during the end credits.

You can grab a GH version of the game on eBay for roughly $35, or you could just be smart and download it on PSN for less than a third of that.

Xenosaga Series

But Episodes I-IV never wound up materializing; at least, not at Square. Even though the game sold well enough to warrant a Greatest Hits rerelease in 2003, Takahashi and crew (including another ex-Square employee; His wife, writer Kaori Tanaka) left to form Monolith Soft with a publishing deal from Namco. With this deal, we can assume that Namco was really ready to take a big leap into worldwide RPG development in a post-Final Fantasy X PlayStation 2 world. The deal with Takahashi and Monolith promised a six-game saga spanning releases all the way until the PS2 was on its deathbed. Appropriately titled Xenosaga, true believers of Takahashi’s past work were flipping their collective (consciousness) shit hoping that it would be the prequels that would lead to Xenogears. But this didn’t turn out to be the case. The notoriously cagey Japanese development ethos of Takahashi and co. neither confirmed nor denied any actual connections to Xenogears until after its release, and by then, fans were starting to connect the dots while wading through hour-long cut scenes.

It turns out that since Square owned Xenogears, any true sequel/ prequel wouldn’t really happen once the developers left the company. Instead, the world received the first part of a spiritual successor in 2003 (NA), chock full of Nietzsche, robots, and religion like its forbearer. But not being connected to his career at Square wasn’t really Takahashi’s problem, the marketplace was.

While well reviewed, the first Xenosaga game sold well enough to follow up with a Greatest Hits edition to the game, a Japanese rerelease called Episode I Reload, and a supplemental “game” called Xenosaga Freaks (also only in Japan). So far so good. Episode II (2004 NA), though, effectively tanked Takahashi’s magnum opus all by itself with its reworked combat system, plodding and introspective story, and re-tinkered visual style. The game sold badly, Namco restructured the deal, and Monolith had to finish the series with the next game. Luckily, Episode III would be regarded as the most even of the series from a gameplay standpoint, but again, Big Ideas were kitchen-sinked into the game, with an appropriately head-scratching dénouement.

The first two games be can had for a song off of eBay or any used shop that still carries PS2 games (a Record Exchange literally gave me a copy of Ep. I just to cut down on the amount they had. Not kidding). Curiously, Ep. III has turned into something of a rarity on eBay, fetching between $35-50 depending on condition.

Baten Kaitos and Nintendo

While still under the banner of Namco, a second Monolith team began co-developing games with tri-Crescendo (of Eternal Sonata sorta-fame; and yes, it really is capitalized like that) for the RPG-dry GameCube. Released in 2003 (NA), the fruit of that labor was the card-based Baten Kaitos. As most games on the GameCube went, BK didn’t burn up the sales charts even with its favorable reviews, but a sequel was still planned for both the GameCube and the DS in the impending years, with only the GameCube game, Baten Kaitos: Origins, ever being released (also to low sales). But this was still a turning point for the developer. The first BK was published by Namco, but at a time when the Cadillac of their relationship was turning into a lemon that was stalling fast. Nintendo, probably realizing that they needed a capable RPG developer, tested the water with Monolith and published BK: Origins themselves in Japan and North America. Evidently happy the results, Nintendo then bought a controlling share in Monolith from Namco in 2007, and acquired them wholly sometime after.

Post Nintendo acquisition, Monolith has been surprisingly quiet, all things considered. Three games were developed for and published by Namco Bandai in Japan, with two being Super Robot Taisen games (one actually making it to the US), but none of them were helmed by Takahashi. His only game until Xenoblade was for the DS; an RPG called Soma Bringer in 2008 that hasn’t been localized. The same year Monolith developed Disaster: Day of Crisis for the Wii, but it was only released in Japan, Europe, and Australia.

Square Exit: Part 2

More of what Square hath wrought...

G-Craft
There isn’t a lot of info out there about the 90s Square defectors that would form G-Craft, the studio behind the first two Front Mission games and Arc the Lad I-III for the PlayStation. Honestly, the only tangible knowledge that we have that these guys came from Square at all other than the Front Mission connection is from old issues of Diehard Game Fan that previewed the first Arc game back around 1994/95 (and that’s not an exactly credible source). But even though there isn't a ton of info floating around about them, these were developers that worked, at least to some degree, with one of the biggest Japanese developers in the world.

Still, the Arc games are worth mentioning, especially now that they’re readily available for PSN download on the cheap. If the above information can be proven factual (and I'm pretty sure it is), then the acquisition of ex-Square staff at the birth of the PlayStation’s life was something of a coup. Remember that the PS was released in Japan in December of 1994. Square was still developing for the Super Famicom/ SNES, and RPGs were just starting to get some attention in North America. Sony had proven that they weren’t stupid with the launch of its first console and had a wide variety of genres represented at launch with a good supply of titles released and ready to be localized by the time the machine was ready for other regions in September of 1995. Even though games like Jumping Flash!, King’s Field, and Tekken were clear indications that Sony was more interested in 3D than sprite-based 2D, having a good old fashioned Square-developed RPG near launch would have lured away 16-bit holdouts toward the Next Big Thing. Logically, this makes good business sense.

Arc The Lad

What the Japanese players of the time got, though, was more like an extended tech demo than a full game. Though well animated and not without its charm, Arc I was a very short, almost toothless experience. A strategy RPG more akin to the Shining Force series on the Genesis/ Mega Drive, Arc I was definitely a product of its time complete with boy-hero-takes-on-evil-empire plot. Enemies on the field were overly aggressive and could be easily bated by the player, and some areas featured repeatable battles so one could easily power level the seven team members and steamroll upcoming foes. An optional, 50-floor dungeon was available to pad the length of the game, but it was the only minor diversion from grinding levels and finishing the main plot.

This isn’t to say that Arc I is bad. In fact, it’s a very competent game and still fun to play. In a move that may have influenced later PlayStation RPGs like Suikoden, clear data could be saved (after watching Arc I’s Empire Strikes Back downer of an ending) for further use into Arc II. The backgrounds still look very good after all of this time, too.

Arc The Lad II

If Arc I was an appetizer, G-Craft’s second Arc game was definitely the meal (and other overused metaphors). Substantially longer than the first and loaded with piles of side quests, Arc II is fair example of a game that took what was good about its predecessor and built something larger around that framework. The strategy RPG battles were still present and encounters were again repeatable, but now players had towns to explore and guild hunts to accept to flesh out not only some of the play mechanics (like monster taming) but also more of the plot – though it still isn’t exactly Dostoevsky.

As mentioned above, one of the better additions to the game was the ability to import your clear data from Arc I; essentially bringing in your wrecking ball characters from the first game. This turned out to be a downfall of sorts as these characters could basically shit all over your enemies while still gaining levels far outside of the team you already had, making them the only logical choices for most boss battles. Balance issues aside, though, the longer game and monster hunting (more on that in a second) makes it perhaps the best in the series. Plus, the main character wears the hood ornament of a Mercedes Benz as an earring. If that isn’t a sign of quality…

Arc Arena: Monster Tournament

Not much to say about this game other than what the title basically implies, Arc Arena is a small, though separate side game that allowed players to import their tamed monsters from Arc II to duke it out in arena battles. Players could also trade and import saved information for further, um, monster battling.
Remember: there are monsters. These monsters battle in an arena tournament.
There you have it.

Arc The Lad III

Along with the general lack of knowledge about G-Craft is a void of information concerning ARC Entertainment, the team behind Arc III, though it would be pretty logical to infer that G-Craft reshuffled themselves into a new studio. No matter; they made more Arc, and if Arc II was your thing, Arc III will give you the payoff that you’ll certainly dig.

Ditching the pleasant 2D art in favor of more contemporary 3D models, the core game didn’t change much and still offered an import feature to bring in your cats and kittens from the first two games, though a bit more limited in their involvement. Arc III also puts a period on the series in some ways as it ends the story of recurring main (and more often side-) character Arc before the license moved on to two PlayStation 2 games: the moderately successful Twilight of the Spirits and the more universally maligned End of Darkness (which, for some reason, was also an online game).

Both of the PS2 Arc games are listed on Wikipedia as being developed by a studio called Cattle Call. Again, without some concrete information we can’t exactly be sure of this, but it’s not so outside of the realm of possibility that that G-Craft was owned by Sony Computer Entertainment (the publisher of all of the Arc games in Japan), which begat ARC Entertainment, which then begat Cattle Call –something that happens all of the time with studios that work directly for large publishers (RIP Sacnoth/ Nautilus). Since the last Arc game was something of a flop (and not entirely loved by the Arc fan base, such as it is), we can also assume that Cattle Call was wholly absorbed by either Sony or another one of its second party studios, or disbanded altogether.

You can get the first three Arc The Lad games and Monster Arena on PSN, or get the whole PSOne box set (released by Working Designs in NA) in all of its absurdity on eBay for a pretty reasonable price, all things considered.