Topic: Remember Ogre Battle?

[startswithx]

I loved Ogre Battle when I first got my grubby little hands on it and even now can play it mindlessly for hours on end.  Does anyone know if Nintendo has any plans to produce a new one for gamecube?  Honestly, best RPG ever.

[Flames_of_chaos]

The team Quest(I think thats the dev team name) are now with Square-Enix I believe so the magic 8ball says signs point to no.

[MaleficentOgre]

Nintendo won't be prodicing any ogre battle games.  From what I understand Atlus actually owns the rights to the franchise, but quest is with squenix.  That means there won't be any more ogre battle games until atlus finds someone else to develop them.  Seeing as how Ogre Battle has arguably one of the most hardcore cult followings amungst RPG fans they don't want to go out and ruin their bread winning series any time soon.  
Which ogre battle game do you have? There's a few of them out there.

[startswithx]

I have the March of the Black Queen for SNES, which is the one I fell in love with.  I think I overplayed it because both my SNES and the game broke down recently.  There will be replacements.  I also have TacticsOgre for gameboy.  I've never owned an N64 but would consider buying one just because I've yet to find a series that surpasses Ogre Battle.  Thanks for the info; I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[Ian Sane]

I remember how much joy I felt when I found Ogre Battle for the SNES used for only a fraction of what it sells like on Ebay.  Then I played it.  It looks like it's a well designed game but the large amount of stats to keep track is just too much for me.  It looks like it's a good game just not the kind of good game I personally would like.  But it was still worth buying since it's such an essential item for my SNES collection.

I would like to see it come back and to Nintendo systems just because the Cube really needs more exclusive RPGs.  I was under the impression that Square Enix now owned the Ogre Battle franchise or at least that's what all the sites were saying when the deal was announced.  I have a feeling that SE just bought Quest to kill Ogre Battle and thus get rid of a competing series.  I doubt Atlus owns the rights since they didn't even publish all of the titles.

[Infernal Monkey]

I remember how much joy I felt when Nintendo kept refusing to release Ogre Battle for anything here. Oh wait.  

[ruby_onix]

Here's how the whole "Ogre Battle history" thing works, as far as I know.

Ogre Battle is/was made by Quest, and mostly (at first) published in Japan by Enix. Quest wasn't a "partner" of Enix, like Armor Project or Chun Soft or Tri Ace, they just got their games published by Enix.

The first Ogre Battle on the Super Famicom got released in America by Enix of America.

Enix didn't release Tactics Ogre (the second game) on the SNES in America, because those jerks at Enix of Japan came to the conclusion that any money invested in Enix of America (although profitable) would make more money if it was invested in developing more games JUST for Japan, therefore it was "wasted" on us, so they shut down Enix of America.

Then on the PlayStation, Square needed more employees, so they bought half of Quest's original "Ogre Battle Team", including Yasumi Matsuno, the "team leader". They eventually made Final Fantasy Tactics, and Vagrant Story.

Quest used their "half-sized Ogre Battle Team" to port the two Ogre Battle games to the PlayStation, and used the money to hire more employees and get back up to full strength.

Atlus decided to publish the two PSX games in America (Enix of America was still out of the picture).

Then Quest made Ogre Battle 64 on the N64, but Enix (in Japan) didn't want to make any N64 games, so they refused to publish the game. Nintendo (NCL) stepped up and published the game in Japan.

Atlus and NOA apparently both wanted to publish Ogre Battle 64 in America, but Quest decided to give Atlus the nod, and put Atlus "in charge of the Ogre Battle series in America".

Atlus published Ogre Battle 64, and the side-story "Tactics Ogre Gaiden" on the GBA (Atlus skipped releasing the earlier "Ogre Battle Gaiden" in America on the Neo Geo Pocket, for obvious reasons).

Then Nintendo got back together with Square, and Square was impressed with Tactics Ogre Gaiden, so they bought the entire "new Ogre Battle Team" away from Quest, and had them make Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the GBA, under the direction of Yasumi Matsuno.

A few weeks later, Quest gave up on trying to stay in the videogame industry, so they sold the rights to Ogre Battle (and anything else they had) to Square, and went off to invest their money in some other industry.

I haven't heard anything about the Ogre Battle Team (not an official name anymore) working on anything else at Square, but they may have been involved in FF1&2 for the GBA, or they might be helping Yasumi Matsumo with Final Fantasy XII.

Yasumi Matsuno has said in some interviews that he'd really like to be in charge of an Ogre Battle game again, now that Square owns the rights to it, but that he's completely swamped with working on FFXII, so he can't think about any other projects right now.

Since Quest sold the Ogre Battle series to Square, Atlus has apparently let go of their claim on the American rights to the series (at least, according to the US Patent Office website, they have), so any future Ogre Battle games will most likely get published in America by Square-Enix.  

[MaleficentOgre]

Which means no more ogre battle games.  I think Square knows how much the five people that have played the games love it.  Square is getting on this Madden thing right now with making a new FF game every year, which leaves little time for another franchise to get the attention it deserves.

[Ian Sane]

Man Square sure are a bunch of assh0les.  Hey Quest made two great games!  Let's cripple them by stealing half of their staff away to make our own Final Fantasy themed knock-off.  Hey Quest somehow recovered and made two more great games!  Let's cripple them again by stealing half of their staff away again to make another Final Fantasy themed knock-off.

That seriously to me looks like a blatant attempt to kill a competitor by buying them out Microsoft style.

[theRPGFreak]

Thats Square-Enix for ya

[joeamis]

More like, wow these guys can make some good rpgs, the kind we haven't focused on ourselves.  Our fans love the games we make now and we can't change complete direction with our employees to make those types of games all on our own successfully (think of some of the games they've made that are radically different from their usual rpgs).  Let's get some of these guys to help us make a great strategy rpg.  And so they do and the game rules.  

[Koopa Troopa]

Quote
More like, wow these guys can make some good rpgs, the kind we haven't focused on ourselves. Our fans love the games we make now and we can't change complete direction with our employees to make those types of games all on our own successfully (think of some of the games they've made that are radically different from their usual rpgs). Let's get some of these guys to help us make a great strategy rpg. And so they do and the game rules.

LoL, that sounds a little naive.  

[Nephilim]

Oh well
there are new tactical RPG's on the market these days for GBA which are better then FFTA
No way are they as complex or hard as the old orge battle games but still quite fun (which ffta sadly isnt)

[Truthliesn1seyes]

dam, Orgre Battle for the N64 was (and still is) the shiiizzzznite.  Dam that game was a gem.  They def need to build off that.

[joeamis]

Quote
Originally posted by: Koopa Troopa

LoL, that sounds a little naive.

Maybe but what Ian said sounds a little biased, and reflects a hatred for the company.  They got members of the Quest team to help them make a strategy rpg, they didn't buy them out to eliminate them.  And then they let Yasumi Matsuno do Vagrant Story.  And now he is doing FF 12.  Why would they let him do VS and then lead FF 12, if they were just "buying him out"?  I wouldn't just buy someone out because I wanted to get rid of them and then let them head up my companies flagship franchise.

[Deguello]

If you are extra observant of Square (Just Square, Not Enix), you would realize that every game they make with the outside exception of Final Fantasy and Unlimited Saga has been some knockoff of another game.  Heck, before they made Final Fantasy, all the games they made were cheap knockoffs of Sega Arcade games.  their game 3d World Runner resembles Space Harrier a little too much, and Rad Racer very closely resembles OutRun.