I guess Square Enix didn't get the memo about The Wheel of Fortune being an infernal American television show -- Pat Sajak and Vanna White are obviously zombies. Or vampires. Or zombie vampires -- but someone from their El Segundo offices should really speak up before they localize too much of the new Tactics Ogre game.
Well, new is a bit misleading: Tactics Ogre: The Wheel of Fortune is, according to the most recent Weekly Famitsu, a "rebuilding" of the 1995 Super Famicom release. (Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together eventually made its way stateside on the PlayStation.) The PlayStation Portable remake is being spearheaded by the original Ogre Tactics team, a pretty celebrated list of Square Enix veterans: Hiroshi Minagawa, director; Yasumi Matsuno, game designer; Akihiko Yoshida and Tsubasa Masao, character artists; Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, composers.
Square Enix devotés will recognize those names from games like Final Fantasy Tactics (!) and Vagrant Story (!!).
In his interview with Famitsu, Matsuno emphasizes that the game is being re-designed from the ground up (including new side stories!) while trying to retain the flavor of the 16-bit original. You'll be able to change the viewing angle, add up to 30 unites (up from the original 20), and use new skills and tactics, but the turn-based battle, with its focus on terrain advantage, remains unchanged.
Japanese blog Game Jouhou quotes Matsuno on the team's approach to Wheel of Fortune: "If you developed and played Tactics Ogre in this day and age, it would be like this." From the same interview, FF-Reunion says that Matsuno would be "proud" if fans compared the new game to the original.
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11:00 AM on 07.21.2010
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Up next: Final Fantasy Tactics: Double Jeopardy
Indeed I have some retro love for the series, but a new fresh Ogre Battle game would be a much better idea. What I don't also understand is why this game is also not due on 3DS as well as PSP. Seems to me, that the Sony side of Square is favouring their format choices (like FFXIII masive delay on 360 in japan), which might sound nice for a fanboy, but sets a dangerous precident of favouritism, which won't work.
I'll probably buy it, but ask yourselves, how many times must we buy the same games? I rather see something fresh Sqaure, but it seems they are also running out of ideas.