Yesterday, I could not give two shits about a Final Fantasy title on the DS, though I now own one. I haven’t been a fan of the franchise since VI a long time ago, and although I commend Square-Enix for the drastic departure in style, gameplay, and story style featured in Final Fantasy XII, I’m still alright with not playing it anytime soon. Things have changed.

According to Wired’s Game|Life Editor Chris Kohler, Square-Enix’s new FF DS title “… is the Mana game they forgot to make when they were making World of Mana.”

I’ll be right back after I stop jumping up and down for a minute.

Anyway, the game uses a modified version of the FFIII DS engine, which is perfectly serviceable, especially on a small screen. I’m not expecting Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword graphics for a title like this (although that would be pretty fucking awesome), nor am I expecting deep, combo driven combat. What I’d like is a similar “Zelda-3-with-way-more-weapons-and-co-op-play” implementation, which is what made the original Secret of Mana so compelling, and which served as the foundation for the even better Seiken Densetsu 3 which was criminally never released here due to hardware limitations on the SNES (limitations which forced drastic script edits to the American version of Final Fantasy IV as well). There hasn’t been a game since that has so effectively combined those elements on any platform, so they can be as derivative as they like from Secret of Mana here if it can convince Square-Enix that a true sequel (instead of a goddamned RTS) is something they should pursue. I happen to think that there are some serious signs of franchise fatigue happening with Final Fantasy, and people seem to be increasingly greeting remakes of popular Final Fantasy titles with “eh” (save for the aggressively persistent demands for and rumors of a PS3 Final Fantasy VII remake). The Mana series has been begging for a proper followup for almost a decade. It’s time Squeenix. If you release it, I’ll buy it.

-Aegies