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| Peter Triezenberg |
Oh, snap, our game is successful! Now what?
05.04.15 - 9:19 PM
Mistwalker Studios' Terra Battle recently reached its 2 million download milestone. As part of their Download Starter initiative, this means that Mistwalker will begin work on a console version of Terra Battle. Unfortunately, it seems that Sakaguchi and company were a little caught off guard by the fact that they made it this far.
“When we first began planning the Download Starter and setting our goals, I never thought we’d reach two million downloads. Or rather, it was a far away goal. But meeting this feeling, it is expected we keep our promise of ‘starting development on a consumer version,’ but I didn’t think that day would really come," says Sakaguchi in an interview with Famitsu. It seems as though Mistwalker didn't really have a concrete plan for a console Terra Battle, and now Sakaguchi is panicking a little bit when faced with the prospect.
Sakaguchi also mentions in the interview that, while he doesn't have ideas for the console game set in stone, a second Download Starter will be revealed shortly. He says that he wants to keep "the characters and story" in line with what they've been doing thus far, and mentions virtual reality as an experimental direction. "I plan on doing a lot of experimenting to see whether we otherwise actually take the game in any new directions. Virtual reality could be an interesting direction to take, as could having some sort of connectivity with next-gen if we could pull that off.”
Personally speaking, I'd love to see a grand return to console JRPGs from the master. A console version of Terra Battle that keeps the same core combat, story, and (fantastic) music, but expands on the world and gameplay systems would be more than ideal. I feel slightly concerned at the prospect that Mistwalker doesn't have a clear goal in mind for the next evolution of Terra Battle, but all we can do for now is wait and see.
Off-topic, but after Terra Battle maybe one day we'll see a PS4/X1 version of Lost Odyssey? I know it's unlikely, but a man can dream.
