Summary
Unless Square Enix surprises everyone and releasesKingdom Hearts 4this year,Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthis going to be their biggest game of 2024. That’s not to say their release calendar otherwise will be barren as there are assuredly a lot of surprises around the corner.
Square Enix has been trying the last few years to revive forgotten franchises likeValkyrie Profileand there’s even a newManagame on the way. That’s good news for long-time fans of both Squaresoft and Enix but there are still many franchises that haven’t seen a proper sequel or update beyond a mobile game or two in decades. Here are some grand examples.
8Brave Fencer Musashi
Samurai Copy Action
Brave Fencer Musashiwas a PS1 game that was released in 1998. It starred the titular Musashi,a samurai summonedto save a kingdom from being overtaken. It was a typical action-adventure game with a sillier tone but the one mechanic that stood out was Musashi’s ability to steal the power from other enemies. Its 2005 sequel for the PS2,Musashi: Samurai Legend, virtually has nothing to do with the original game but the copy ability did pass on. That’s where things ended and both lay in limbo on their respective consoles.
Bushido Bladeis another samurai-centered game from Square Enix which began and ended on the PS1. The first game arrived in 1997 while its sequel closely followed in 1998. It was a fighting game where samurai, ninjas, feudal lords, and so on could pick from a variety of weapons like inSoulcalibur. The gimmick was that opponents would die in a single hit, meaning that matches could be extremely fast, or slow depending on counter abilities. There have been many spiritual successors to this concept likeNidhoggandDivekick, but Square Enix has yet to revive the brand or idea themselves yet.
6Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest
A Stretchy Adventure
Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest: Shogeki no Shippo Danis the first game in what would become a trilogy. This was released for the Game Boy Advance in Japan in 2003. Its sequel is the only game that made it to the West asDragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slimein 2006 for the DS and the final game launched for the 3DS in 2011 in Japan.
All three games revolve around controlling Slimes and going on adventures to save fellow monsters. There are big mini-game boss battles too and of the manyDragon Questspinoffs, these are quite delightful and could use a modern take.
Dungeon Siegewas not originally owned by Square Enix. The series began in 2002 and would become a popular PC RPG franchise. About a decade later, Square Enix did get the rights and went on to publish the third game in 2011 which did hit consoles. The big marketing campaign focused on co-op which is easy to see why in retrospect. It’s adungeon crawler with looting mechanicsakin toDiabloand that series is also gung-ho on the multiplayer aspect. Sadly, it’s never been remastered and Square Enix hasn’t produced a single sequel.
Of the many spinoffs in this franchise,Final Fantasy Tacticsis the one fans seem to want the most. The original was released in 1997 in Japan for the PS1 while the West got it a year later. What followed was a more kid-friendly sequel for the GBA in 2003 and then the final game was in 2008 on the DS, for North America at least. It seems like Square Enix has danced around the topic constantly as they have released spiritual successors likeTriangle Strategyand mobile games likeWar of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. Why not just make a true sequel or remaster them all?
Square Enix andParasite Evehave an odd relationship since technically this is a licensed game very loosely based on a book. They were able to publish two games with the name on PS1, starting in 1998, but then there was a licensing snafu.
That’s why the series was dead for a while until a new game came out for the PSP calledThe 3rd Birthday. It was kind of in the same universe as it still starred Aya Brea, but it was ultimately a different game. So, any chances of Square Enix continuing the franchise seems slim but not impossible.
2Tobal No. 1
Fighting With A Twist
Tobal No. 1was an early fighting game for the PS1 which got quite popular because it had a demo ofFinal Fantasy 7bundled with it. This was in 1996, a year before that global phenomenon would launch, so it was quite the get. Now, the fighting game mechanics were fine, but what stood out was the dungeon crawler side mode. It was fully fleshed out too which was wild for the time. A year later there was a sequel but it was released in Japan only. There were plans to localize it in 1998 for America but those plans were scrapped and the franchise as a whole died off completely.
Xenogearstechnically never became a franchise under the Square Enix name. Like many PS1 titles from 1998, it was a standalone game. Part of that development team left Squaresoft, at the time, to go on and create Monolith Soft which put out the spiritual successor franchise,Xenosaga. That was a partnership with Bandai Namco, but then they left that partnership after the third game to form a new one with Nintendo and this led toXenoblade Chronicles. So, the Xeno series has gone on, but it hasn’t been with Square Enix. They could still make a sequel calledXenogears 2though as they technically own the rights.
