Square Enix President Is Interested In More HD-2D-Style Remakes

Fans of Octopath Traveler and the upcoming Live A Live remake will be happy to note that Square Enix plans to remake more of its classic games in the same HD-2D style.

Square Enix recently began airing a new YouTube series called "Asano Team Development Room Radio." As the name suggests, it will feature Octopath Traveler devs Team Asano discussing their various projects. The very first episode featured special guest Yosuke Matsuda, president of Square Enix, who had some very important info to share.

Matsuda said he's a fan of the art style featured in Octopath Traveler and said he wants to use it in more remakes. According to Famitsu, Matsuda mentioned Live A Live and ActRaiser as the first two games to receive the HD-2D treatment, but more are planned in the future.

Live A Live recently made headlines thanks to Nintendo's February Direct presentation. The 1994 SNES cult classic is finally making its way out of Japan with a remake in the same visual style as Octopath Traveler, which features 2D sprites on a 3D background.

If you’ve never heard of Live A Live, that’s likely because it was never particularly popular and only ever sold in Japan. However, fan translations eventually made it overseas and helped grow Live A Live into a cult JRPG classic. Square Enix surprised those fans by announcing the Live A Live HD Remake, which will come to the Nintendo Switch worldwide in July of this year.

ActRaiser is another classic SNES game that was recently remade in the HD-2D style. ActRaiser Renaissance released on consoles and PC last September as a remake of the 1990 platformer slash citybuilder. In ActRaiser, you play as an angel trying to make a new human civilization. An overhead view lets you build out your city while a 2D-sidescrolling view has you defend it from attacking monsters.

Square Enix seems to have found a winning formula for updating old games for a new generation. Hopefully the Live A Live remake will finally get the audience it so richly deserves.

Source: Read Full Article