tri-Ace is usually known for its collaborations with Square Enix, so it was quite surprising to see the studio jump into bed with Sega for End of Eternity, its latest stupidly-named RPG full of floppy-haired boy heroes. I’ve not seen many new RPG ideas come from the studio recently, but if you believe tri-Ace, that may be more the fault of Square Enix.
“Because SEGA has a more open attitude towards accepting new RPG ideas than Square Enix, we’d decided to have SEGA release End of Eternity,” explains game director Takayuki Suguro. He doesn’t extrapolate on that, or provide examples of Square Enix holding his team back, but it’s quite an interesting thing to say.
I’m still highly skeptical of tri-Ace, as nothing I’ve seen from the studio in the past few years has impressed me. So far, End of Eternity doesn’t exactly look fresh, so I’ll be interested to see what it is about the game that’s such a “new” idea, Square Enix wouldn’t back it. It’s called End of Eternity, for crying out loud. You’d think Squenix would have welcomed a name like that with open arms.
Whatever the case, if I play this game and find it’s yet another emotastic, by-the-numbers RPG with the usual stock characters and dreary plot, I’ll remember what Suguro said about new ideas.
