Thursday, September 16, 2004

The Strange Ways of Sega and Squaresoft

A few weeks ago Sega announced that they would finally be continuing their much loved Shenmue series. However, rather than given fans what they've longed for ever since the credits rolled on Shenmue II, they've decided to make it a MMORPG, and now I hear they're only going to release it in China.

Today, Square-Enix, lords of all that is RPG and Final Fantasy, announced that yes, indeed, they are going to make a sequel to the mighty Final Fantasy VII. However, instead of another RPG featuring Cloud & Co, it is apparently going to be a Devil May Cry clone featuring Vincent Valentine, the moody vampire in the lead role.

Both of these decisions make me shrug my shoulders and say "meh". I'm not too bothered about the FF sequel, as I discovered since 1997 that the Final Fantasy series is not the be all and end all of RPG's, but the Shenmue news is quite upsetting. I, and many other fans the world over, have invested quite a lot of time and cash in the first two chapters of the game, so to be cut out completely is rather annoying to say the least. I can only hope that Sega will decide to make Shenmue III one day and finally bring Ryo's journey to a close. I would be interested to hear anyone's thoughts comments on these two sequels.

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