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| Chris Winkler |
Square Enix's Yamagishi wants to move on.
09.25.09 - 11:00 AM
In a recent interview, Square Enix producer Yoshinori Yamagishi stated that he has no intention of working on the Star Ocean series after Star Ocean The Last Hope's upcoming PlayStation 3 release. The veteran producer who had overseen the development of tri-Ace titles at Enix and later Square Enix, explained that he has accomplished everything he had set out to do with the franchise. Originally, Star Ocean had been conceived as a trilogy and hence the plot had been written accordingly. Yamagishi claimed he never had any intention to continue the series for a lengthy period from the very beginning. With the PlayStation 2-based Star Ocean: Till the End of Time the team had delivered the science-fiction themed game he had imagined from the very beginning. To create an ending to the series, the team came up with the idea of an entirely different universe and turning The Last Hope into a third-person shooter. Looking back, the producer thinks that Star Ocean together with Valkyrie Profile helped to establish the tri-Ace brand.
According to Yamagishi, the development team is currently making some minor adjustments to the gameplay to improve the experience of playing The Last Hope's PlayStation 3-based international version.
Star Ocean The Last Hope: International will be available in Japan on February 4th 2010. The Stateside release will follow on February 10th.
