Summary
The mid-2000s was the era whenSquare Enixexcelled at portable gaming. Their console efforts were minimal comparatively, as they seemingly saw the potential in portable gaming and multiplayer on the go. TheNintendo DSwas the portable gaming system to beat, which led to some innovative titles likeThe Word Ends With You.
Players got to use both screens while in battle, which was tricky to master but fun to learn with. A less ambitious but still good RPG wasFinal Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift. These two titles and more are remembered well, but what about otherSquare Enix gameson DS? Who remembers this handful of titles?
As long as a game was developed or published by Square Enix, it will be considered.
Dragon Quest Warshas to be the most obscure entry on the DS for Western fans. There are plenty of Japanese exclusives that would blow the minds of fans though.Dragon Quest Warswas made in collaboration with Intelligent Systems, which is most widely associated withFire Emblem. Like that series,Dragon Quest Warswas a tactical RPG wherein players could command classic monsters like Slimes on small maps.
It was a good, albeit bite-sized, tactical RPG experience, even for the DS. It was a digital exclusive on the DSiWare store, which predated the Nintendo eShop. Now, it is lost to time thanks to the store’s closing. Square Enix does make a lot of remakes, remasters, and collections though, so maybe one dayDragon Quest Warswill no longer be obscure.
Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wingsis a direct sequel to the events of the main game. Vaan and Penelo join Balthier and Fran on their adventures in the skies as pirates. The gameplay and tone are vastly different from the main game. It was an RTS rather than MMO-style RPG.
Vaan and other main characters were hero units, and they could summon underlings to do their bidding. It’s a simple concept found in most RTS games. The cheerful nature of the experience was a nice improvement over some of the more dire moments in the original. However, the DS’ small screen made it hard to navigate units well, which made things harder than they needed to be.
Square Enix experimented with not one, but two RTS games on the DS.Heroes of Manaplayed similarly toFinal Fantasy 12: Revenant Wingsexcept with a less involved story. It ran into the same problems too, as the DS’ screen was too small. If not for the DS’ limitations, these two games may have excelled on other platforms like PC or Switch, which allows for touch controls in handheld mode.
Maybe then they wouldn’t be as forgotten as they are. There was another game besidesHeroes of Manain the series that some may have missed as well:Children of Mana. Overall, theManaseries during this time was not fairing too well.Children of Manawas at least a more traditional experience as a dungeon crawler, but it still wasn’t a hit.
PostKingdom Hearts 2, Square Enix was getting experimental with the series in terms of platforms. There wasKingdom Hearts Birth By Sleepon PSP, which was a prequel to the first game.Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days took place in between the first and second games and was aboutthe villains, Organization 13.
Then there was the most obscure game at this time,Kingdom Hearts Coded. This was released exclusively in Japan as a phone game which saw Sora jump into digital recreations of the first game’s events. It was later remade for the DS asKingdom Hearts Re:coded. Even diehard fans probably skipped this one as it retreaded too much territory and offered clunky controls with little revelations on the main plot.
One of the greatest collaborations of all time was between Square Enix, Squaresoft at the time, and Nintendo. They developedSuper Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Starson SNES, which just got a remake on Switch. Years later, the two companies would work together again, but in an unexpected way, via a sports game.
As the name might suggest,Mario Hoops 3-on-3was a basketball game where players manage three characters against three opponents on small courts. It was an arcadey experience much like theNBA Jamgames. There were classic Mario characters in it, such as Mario, Donkey Kong, and Princess Peach. There were alsoFinal Fantasy-adjacent mascots such as Moogles, Black Mages, and Ninjas.
Even though it may seem like Square Enix fancied RTS games on DS, they made a lotmore tactical RPGs.Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plumewas one of those games, which was a spinoff from the original that debuted on PS1 with Norse mythology still a major part of the narrative.
It was a typical grid-based setup with hero characters, classes, and abilities. It was extremely hard, though, at the level ofFire Emblemgames at this time. Some players like a challenge and miss this series dearly, so it would be nice if this game got a port along with Square Enix’s other tactical RPGs on the DS. They could simply call itThe Square Enix DS Tactical RPG Remastered Collection. A bit of a mouthful, but this is the publisher behindKingdom Hearts,so that hasn’t stopped them before.
