If Square-Enix didnt exist....

[shipp6107]

If Square-Enix didnt exist what would be your favorite RPG (single or series) and Why?

[Furore]

Day-um, good line of thought...

Well lessee... Square and Enix made most of the first console RPG franchises as we know them now and most other series' would have been heavily influenced by them so they either wouldn't exist or wouldn't exist as we known them now.

I'm guessing with Phantasy Star's size and it's release later the same year as Final Fantasy (1987) that it may have been in development at the same time and as such may have not been as influenced by FF titles as many later games seem to have been. It was also a REALLY GOOD GAME as were a couple of titled that followed it until the mostly shitty Phantasy Star titles that have been spewed up recently. If SE hadn't been around to create and influence other games, Phantasy Star may have been a more reknowned series with better sequels after IV which was to me the last truly great Phantasy Star game.

Of course even Phantasy Star may have been influenced by SE to some extent. Why? Well the original Dragon Quest story came out in Japan around 1986 I believe which puts it a full year before Phantasy Star even though Phantasy Star may have already been in production before it was released.

In short there are likely few if any console RPGs not effected in some way by Square Enix and I'd likely be going the way of the Phantasy Star series providing they were actually made with the inexistance of Square and Enix.

But there I'm getting a little ahead of myself. If it's merely Square Enix not existing and not those who came before them I'd likely either be playing older Square and Enix games or newer Square and Enix games provided they still existed some way in the present. Either on their own or with a different merger.

Hell if the RPG creators didn't exist I probably wouldn't exist as I am and the thought disturbs me a little...

[Alpha]

Hell if the RPG creators didn't exist I probably wouldn't exist as I am and the thought disturbs me a little...

Gah! Banish the thought!

I haven't played too many RPGs not made by Squaresoft or Square-Enix, but I know of three games that are bloody good, and in fact are better than many SE games. They are:

*drumroll*

• Jade Cocoon (elements of Monster Hunter; blimmin' good game)
• Grandia I
• Grandia II

The Grandia series is excellent... I hear there's a third one?? I haven't seen it yet though.

[Xanatos]

Well first I wouldn't play my favorite RPG games, and that would be really scary.To tell you the truth I devoted much more time for SquareEnix RPG games than for any other kind of games. Some of the other RPG games that I played are for PC a area where SquareEnix didn't have that much influence. But there are not that great like the ones that SquareEnix made for consoles so I would probably play less RPG games. There are only few RPG games that I would play. One of them are the older games from The Legend of Zelda series.
I just couldn't imagine what would happen to world of RPG games if there wouldn't be the daddy of all RPG games SquareEnix. SquareEnix kept RPG alive for so long, he even made those who hate RPG games to play them. So it would be a shitty world for RPG games, and it would be a shitty one for me.

[Calvan]

if was the case RPGs as we know them wouldn't exist and we'd all still be playing D&D and being CREATIVE.

[Furore]

if was the case RPGs as we know them wouldn't exist and we'd all still be playing D&D and being CREATIVE.

Some people work that much an RPG with a story they don't have to think too much about is a Godsend. If I had to actually use even 10% of my mind's creativity on a daily basis I'd likely go mad. Thank you peoples who gave me RPGs with a set story/cast.

Also I find I get more absorbed in a world I don't know everything about beforehand.

[Calvan]

Some people work that much an RPG with a story they don't have to think too much about is a Godsend. If I had to actually use even 10% of my mind's creativity on a daily basis I'd likely go mad. Thank you peoples who gave me RPGs with a set story/cast.

Also I find I get more absorbed in a world I don't know everything about beforehand.

True but thats why i only DM dungeon crawls with epic boss fights.
Generally only the DM knows the whole world.

[Victoria]

When you say SE, do you actually mean Squaresoft, or both Squaresoft and Enix?

Either way, I have the Suikoden series, Growlanser series, the Fire Emblem series....
Cross Edge would still exist, so that's good. =D

I'm glad I discovered the series I mentioned above, they are easily my favorite series, especially Suikoden because of the vast amount of characters and epic war-like stories of the countries and the world, and also the connectivity of the games (unlike FF).

[Blackbird VIII]

The Grandia series is excellent... I hear there's a third one?? I haven't seen it yet though.

Well actually if Im not mistaken Grandia 3 was made by Square-Enix.

Well I agree most good RPGs that arent made by Square were in someway inspired by.So heres a brief list of the RPGs that I really enjoyed outside the SE release.
1.Summoner 2(The arena and the Summons made the game what it was)
2.Any Champions or Boulders Gate game(Hack and Slash with multiplayer)
3.Jade Cocoon 2(Love raising/capturing monsters in any game)
4.Marvel Ultimate Alliance(Love Marvel and love the dungeon crawler game play)
5.Elder Scrolls 3 and 4(Free roaming and very expansive along with lots and lots to do)

[Darkdragoon]

I think Square Enix makes best RPG game's. But i do love Baldur's gate Awsome game, you guy's should try. But let's talk about Square Enix...
I think they make up some awsome game's, best storyline, and odd, but cool charater's. But I think i cant play 9 anymore... I dont want to see the he/she 0.o
But i think my fav. if they didnt exist would be... Uh... Baldur's gate I guess...

[T.G. Oskar]

if was the case RPGs as we know them wouldn't exist and we'd all still be playing D&D and being CREATIVE.

Uh, that's pretty odd. Not every JRPGer likes D&D, and I know that for a fact. Not because I'm the same (quite the contrary), but because of what I've seen.

Though, give it some time and it suddenly becomes a good point for them. Still, the DM can make or break any game.

Well actually if Im not mistaken Grandia 3 was made by Square-Enix.

Quite the contrary. Grandia was originally done, IIRC, by Working Designs. It was promoted in America, IIRC, by Game Arts. Two non-Enix companies.

Grandia X-treme and Grandia III were developed by Enix after Working Designs bankrupted and was bought by the former. GrX wasn't very good, or so critics say, but Grandia III managed to save some face.

Now, on topic:
If Square hadn't succeeded with Final Fantasy (which is, ironically, the whole reason they still exist), and Enix had perished after the first Dragon Quest, then the RPG market would be full mostly of dungeon crawlers. But those are pretty obscure, and mostly thrived on computers, so there's a slight chance I might have never heard of them by the time I got the first SNES games. Mostly, if I have had no FF to work with, I'd have to work with Wizardry VI and Ultima VI, then poke around for a computer, get the rest of the games through DOS, and be mostly an American RP gamer. Wizardry, Might & Magic, Ultima, Elder Scrolls, and so on.

Fortunately, you have Wizardry and Ultima and most American RP videogames for keeping Square and Enix aloft. Because Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are based off American RPGs. Final Fantasy was based mostly from Dungeons & Dragons, and Dragon Quest was mostly based from Wizardry and Ultima, and those are the key games of the companies.

Now, in the case that only Squeenix games would have perished yet the system remained aloft, I'd go mostly with Lufia/Lunar games, Suikoden, Ogre Battle (though not exactly an RPG more than a strategic RPG), and probably give a second chance to Shin Megami Tensei (but definitely not to Persona).

And in the very rare case that I grew up unattached to RPGs...I don't even want to think about it.

[Firefly]

Actually,I have never played anything that isn't Squaresoft or Square-Enix,and I don't even wanna think about Squaresoft or Square-Enix not existing.

[LokentheWolf]

Sadly enough... I might be really waiting for a new earth bound game. V_V;;

[Zargabaath]

Quite the contrary. Grandia was originally done, IIRC, by Working Designs. It was promoted in America, IIRC, by Game Arts. Two non-Enix companies.

Grandia X-treme and Grandia III were developed by Enix after Working Designs bankrupted and was bought by the former. GrX wasn't very good, or so critics say, but Grandia III managed to save some face.

What Hiro said was, "Well actually if I'm not mistaken Grandia 3 was made by Square Enix. Your reply goes off into the uknown. Hiro said nothing about Grandia being made by Square Enix but Grandia 3, get your game right. There is more errors in your recollection: the Grandia series has always been developed by Game Arts. Working Designs is an American company that localized JRPGs. Enix has published Grandia 2 in Japan for the PS2, Grandia Xtreme for Japan and U.S. Square Enix published Grandia 3 in Japan and the U.S as well.

From what I gather Enix never bought out Working Designs, they just closed up shop due to conflicts with SCE, and the president, Victor Ireland, created a new company, Gaijinworks.

Just to clarify things

On to the topic:

The TC didn't really give a clear definition of what games would be lost; would they just be the games developed by Square Enix or plus the games published? I will take only the games developed approach. Thus here are my entries:

Star Ocean series
Grandia series
Growlanser series
Suikoden series
Shadow Hearts series
Shin Megami Tensei
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits
Tales of series
Breath of Fire series
Rogue Galaxy
Legend of the Dragoon
Valkyrie Profile

An interesting game series is Xenosaga; developed by Monolith Soft and published by Namco, however, the first entry into the Xeno-universe is Xenogears developed and published by Squaresoft. Personally I would say that the Xenosaga series is lost with Square Enix never existing, but if others think differently than that too will be on my list (does not include Xenogears).

[Sean]

If Square and Enix seperately never existed, then a butterfly effect to this day would change RPGs as we know them.

However, my favorite non Square RPG of all time is Legend of Dragoon. Fantastic game. Second to that is Mistwalker's Lost Odyssey. However, if Squeenix never existed, Sony wouldn't have tried to cash in on the FF buck with Legend of Dragoon, and Mistwalker would have never formed from a split in Squeenix leading to Lost Odyssey never being created.

[ekimeinna]

Mine woud be the Legend of Dragoon... almost like square enix games (that game came from sony computer entertainment)

[T.G. Oskar]

What Hiro said was, "Well actually if I'm not mistaken Grandia 3 was made by Square Enix. Your reply goes off into the uknown. Hiro said nothing about Grandia being made by Square Enix but Grandia 3, get your game right. There is more errors in your recollection: the Grandia series has always been developed by Game Arts. Working Designs is an American company that localized JRPGs. Enix has published Grandia 2 in Japan for the PS2, Grandia Xtreme for Japan and U.S. Square Enix published Grandia 3 in Japan and the U.S as well.

From what I gather Enix never bought out Working Designs, they just closed up shop due to conflicts with SCE, and the president, Victor Ireland, created a new company, Gaijinworks.

Just to clarify things

I guess that "recalling correctly", emphasis on recalling, doesn't mean anything to you? Thanks for the clarification, tho.

The TC didn't really give a clear definition of what games would be lost; would they just be the games developed by Square Enix or plus the games published? I will take only the games developed approach. Thus here are my entries:

Star Ocean series
-snip-
Breath of Fire series
-snip-
Valkyrie Profile

Considering your approach as developers, I find it rather bizarre to imagine how would Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile would have reached US lands, let alone perhaps get a foothold in Japan, without a publisher. The closest assumption would be Namco (since the creators of tri-Ace developed the first of the Tales of games if the info is reliable enough), but that would imply the game probably would never have a chance, if any, to get a foothold in America (considering how late they brought Tales of Phantasia here)

Also, considering how Capcom portrayed the American audience, I feel there would be a difficulty at seeing the Breath of Fire games in America either. They needed Square to publish the game, using their established name in order to promote the series; hence why, after some time, Capcom took to publish the series by themselves.

You know, "Just to clarify things "

Not to say that American audiences may never get to play them (the advent of emulation and the eventual decision of remakes of the games), but at least two more series would be endangered had they failed to secure a publisher in Enix (BoF would be secure, since Capcom published it on Japan anyways) That would make sense with Xenogears, as unless they secured the game with Namco as developer/publisher, there would be big chances of the lack of existence of Monolith Soft; hence, Xenosaga would also be endangered.

But, furthermore, with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest out of existence, the face of RPGs would be quite different. Consider that one of the reasons why Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are so popular is their "heritage", so to speak, of older American RPGs along with new combat systems. If those two had never existed, there would be a shift in the formation of new RPGs, inclined mostly towards American style RPGs (such as Wizardry, Ultima, Might & Magic, Elder Scrolls and Rogue), with only a few setting trends such as Phantasy Star and Shin Megami Tensei.

[Zargabaath]

I know that Tri-Ace for the longest time only had their games published by Enix and then Square Enix, so there is no need to clarify I can recall correctly. I don't think Tri-Ace would have went to Namco, if you can recall correctly, Wolf Team and Namco had some fighting over Tales of Phantasia which caused the three major developers and other employees of Wolf Team/Telenet Japan. They could have went to Capcom, Konami, or Sega who had a great reputation in Japan as well as a better reputation in America than Enix.

Squaresoft only published the first Breath of Fire game in America, though I think Capcom could have done it themselves. I would say the reason behind the move was that they wanted a company who was known for RPGs for the American release.

It's quite hard to say which direction RPGs would have taken because nobody knows what could have happened. Some japanese developing company could have created the JRPG that would have been the spark that Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy were. Dragon Quest was made to be more accessible to other players- especially in Japan, where Ultima and Wizardry were too hardcore. I think it "the JRPG" would have been made, we just won't ever know.

I would like to add that Squaresoft would have been a better option than Enix if Tri-Ace wanted a company that was popular in Japan as well in America. I know this is a non-existent Square or Enix thread but since they did exist, I find Squaresoft a better pick.

[KeyranSolo]

That's a tough question, there are so many incredible RPG's out there. What games initially entered my mind were Grandia and Wild Arms, but on further thought, i'd choose the Dark Cloud series, although a short lived series, a new Dark Cloud game hasn't been in the works for a good five years now, so it's doubtful we'll see Dark Cloud 3.

Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2) is my favourite out of the two, and I reccomend anyone to purchase it, and see why it's so good.

[Rikkuffx]

I actually got into games because of the Final Fantasy series. 8 was my first one and i had it on pc. But I have played the champions of norrath series as well and thats a really fun game. The 2nd one was kinda odd,but it was pretty fun when you could hook up your ps2 to the net and play with other people. I've played them so many times I think i have it memorised.
I probably wouldn't be as into games as I am now though if square enix/squaresoft didn't exist.

[ViviMasterMage]

I wouldn't be playing RPG's if Squaresoft/enix didn't exist.
I only started playing them when I saw my brother playing one (can't remember which game maybe 7?) and I wanted to copy him.
If it didn't exist, he wouldn't of played RPG's resulting in my not playing RPG's.
It makes me sad thinking about not ever playing a RPG

[Fate]

My favorite game series is Star Ocean, so that's not Final Fantasy. However, though tri-Ace developed the game series, it was published by Square Enix. If Square Enix didn't exist, then there would have been no company to publish it. So either they wouldn't exist at all, or tri-Ace would've had another company publish it. If it's the latter, then Star Ocean would still be my favorite game series. However, if the former were to happen, then I would be screwed, because next in line would be Valkyrie Profile, Infimnite Undiscovery, and Radiata Stories, all of which are the same as Star Ocean.

[kennedyfan]

if square-enix didn't exist, first of all, i'd be playing a lot more sports games. lol. but, if it didn't, i'd have to say i'd play the suikoden series, the games are pretty good, and it's made by konami, who has a pretty good reputation for making good games.

[Dodie16]

I wouldn't be playing RPG's if Squaresoft/enix didn't exist.

This is my answer as well. I love the RPGs that Square-Enix develops, but I've never really had a desire to play any other RPGs from any other developers. Am I missing out? Probably. However, I am a much bigger fan of Action/Adventure games than I am of RPGs. Final Fantasy is the only series that I've ever gotten into and stayed with of this particular genre.

[LocoColt04]

I'm glad I discovered the series I mentioned above, they are easily my favorite series, especially Suikoden because of the vast amount of characters and epic war-like stories of the countries and the world, and also the connectivity of the games (unlike FF).

This is one of the handful of game-related things that you and I agree upon.

Suikoden is easily my favorite series, even above Final Fantasy. Even though the premise of each game is effectively the same (108 stars, find/recruit them, get a base, giant plot twist, get a new base, take out the bad guy who was probably your friend at the beginning), the gameplay and individual quirks in the story of each game is what makes the series so amazing.

Let me put it to you this way.

Suikoden IV is undoubtedly the worst game in the series. It's still a good game. Quite decent at absolute worst. That kind of quality speaks volumes.



Choosing an individual, non-sequential title, I'm torn between SMT/Atlus's brilliant Nocturne, or Level 5's fantastic Rogue Galaxy.

Skies of Arcadia is also an excellent mention.

[TobiasRainey]

Oh that's easy, Dragon Quest...Wait, that was Enix...then Chrono Cross...Wait, that was Square...Lost Odessey? A world without Square-Enix is a world I don't want to live in!

[Josh_R]

I am happy it does exist cause all of my favorite games have either been square or enix, but if it didnt exist I either never would have gotten into RPG's or I would play nothing but games created by bethesda...

Elder Scrolls III
Elder Scrolls IV
Fallout 1
Fallout 2
Fallout 3

All of the are my favorite bethesda games, so if square-enix was non-existent these would be the games I would live my life playing.

[ZantetsukeN]

I would say Pokemon, purely because I used to play Blue before I got Final Fantasy. I never thought of Pokemon as an RPG. I didn't care what it was, it was just Pokemon to me. So I guess, if it wasn't for FF, I wouldn't be playing RPGs to this day, which in turn would have made me a completely different person.

[Ryu-Kentoshii Hirokima]

I kinda hate the thought of Square Enix Not Existing...But if this were true then My Choice for Best RPG Gaming Series would be this: The .Hack// Series(All of them) It is a Good Series of Gaming and Manga...Involving Gamers.

[GypsyElder]

Gah! Banish the thought!

I haven't played too many RPGs not made by Squaresoft or Square-Enix, but I know of three games that are bloody good, and in fact are better than many SE games. They are:

*drumroll*

• Jade Cocoon (elements of Monster Hunter; blimmin' good game)
• Grandia I
• Grandia II

Same here, except I still want to try out Jade Cocoon, I read the Wiki page you linked me, and I'm most likely going to try and find it when I go to get Chrono Cross again.

My favorite type of games are definitely RPG's, since that is the first type of game that interested me. I was hooked on Tokyo Extreme Racer 3 for a while though O_O Don't play that it's like a drug, I just wanted to try it and then bam I couldn't stop playing. I think I'm missing about three wanderers. You can bet I'm the master at racecar games now.