RUMOR: Wii to get a Final Fantasy exclusive? (That isn’t Crystal Chronicles?)

Sorry if this article resorts to rambling, but we’re confused. kirashira posted on the Random News blog that, according to a tip from a Square Enix rep, the Wii will be getting “an exclusive Final Fantasy title.” We were about to say “Old news! Crystal Chronicles, remember?!” – but reading on, it gets more and more curious as kirashira goes on to say that “It won’t be a sequal (sic) to the latest FF‘s but rather it will be similar to the DS’s FF3 and can be said to be a port/remake.“

So the guy might not be talking about Crystal Chronicles, since it has been on the boards since earlier this year, anyway. The reference to a remake like FFIII for the DS also means that we’re drawing from the mainline Final Fantasy series here – hopefully we got this interpretation right.

Of course this is just a rumor – “tip from Square” notwithstanding – so no promises can be made from here. But just for fun, let’s imagine how a port would look like on the Wii. A Final Fantasy (as in the main series) game on the Wii is actually cool, but you gotta consider how the Wiimote will work with the menu-driven gameplay. Point-and-click? It could get pretty hectic trying to pull out the right menus, come to think of it.

Gesture-based commands with the Wiimote would be a more useful approach, using easy-to-interpret gestures for basic commands like attack, magic, and so forth, but then you’ve got to consider the number of potential commands you have to execute with a Wiimote, or a Wiimote and Nunchuck set. The combinations could run pretty high in numbers, requiring you to memorize a Hogwarts curriculum’s worth of gesture commands to execute.

Finally, which battle system will you pair with the Wiimote? Active Time (FFVII-IX, X-2)? Conditional Turn (FFX)? Active Dimension (FFXII)? Or something else entirely? How we hate speculation – yet how we love to dream when we hear the words “Final Fantasy.” And we’re just hoping kirashira of Random News didn’t majorly misinterpret what s/he heard.

Sorry if this article resorts to rambling, but we’re confused. kirashira posted on the Random News blog that, according to a tip from a Square Enix rep, the Wii will be getting “an exclusive Final Fantasy title.” We were about to say “Old news! Crystal Chronicles, remember?!” – but reading on, it gets more and more curious as kirashira goes on to say that “It won’t be a sequal (sic) to the latest FF‘s but rather it will be similar to the DS’s FF3 and can be said to be a port/remake.“

So the guy might not be talking about Crystal Chronicles, since it has been on the boards since earlier this year, anyway. The reference to a remake like FFIII for the DS also means that we’re drawing from the mainline Final Fantasy series here – hopefully we got this interpretation right.

Of course this is just a rumor – “tip from Square” notwithstanding – so no promises can be made from here. But just for fun, let’s imagine how a port would look like on the Wii. A Final Fantasy (as in the main series) game on the Wii is actually cool, but you gotta consider how the Wiimote will work with the menu-driven gameplay. Point-and-click? It could get pretty hectic trying to pull out the right menus, come to think of it.

Gesture-based commands with the Wiimote would be a more useful approach, using easy-to-interpret gestures for basic commands like attack, magic, and so forth, but then you’ve got to consider the number of potential commands you have to execute with a Wiimote, or a Wiimote and Nunchuck set. The combinations could run pretty high in numbers, requiring you to memorize a Hogwarts curriculum’s worth of gesture commands to execute.

Finally, which battle system will you pair with the Wiimote? Active Time (FFVII-IX, X-2)? Conditional Turn (FFX)? Active Dimension (FFXII)? Or something else entirely? How we hate speculation – yet how we love to dream when we hear the words “Final Fantasy.” And we’re just hoping kirashira of Random News didn’t majorly misinterpret what s/he heard.