Xenogears 2 Didn’t Happen Because of FF: Spirits Within – Monolith Soft President Sugiura

Monolith Soft president Sugiura Hirohide talks about how plans for Xenogears 2 failed to come to fruition due to Square’s investments in the film industry.

[Kaedro]

Damn, I love FF, but spirits within was total trash.

[AceRimmer302]

Unfortunately that movie almost killed Squaresoft, hence the reason to merge with Enix. Can only imagine (and cry about) some of the great games we missed out thanks to that movie.

[Knightofelemia]

Kill a sequel to a great game I would have bought day one to produce a shitty movie.

[BiofourceGun]

somewhat calling BS on this claim because the company went on to produced higher budget games on multiple platforms around the same time on top of making an acquisition. they went on to make the bouncer (which also flopped in reviews) then they made sequels to Musashi and FF10. which each of the games took more of their time to make than the original Xenogears. so you could have very well preferred a sequel to Xenogears instead of any of their other projects running at the same time as well.

[Tekken66634]

right. they were making new IPs at that time. The Bouncer was months before Spirits within.
Kindom Hearts came a year after. i do find it more ironic that The Bouncer was more important than Xenogears 2. or even FF10-2 than a Xenogears sequel.

[ShipWreck200]

"Xenogears 2 Didn’t Happen Because of other "meh" projects."

sums it up.

[rainslacker]

XG wasn't a huge commercial success though. It saw most of it's popularity later after it got digital releases. Even now, i'd say it's probably more of a cult classic than a well loved mainstream game.

Back then, Square was riding high off Final Fantasy 7's success, and they were really trying to push that franchise. They sunk a lot of money into FF:SW, which they never recouped, which did indeed effect their overall game's production, but if XG had been popular, they would have milked that as well.

XG scope was huge. Even bigger than FF7. It was originally pitched to be FF7 in fact. They allowed him to make the game, but wanted to go a different direction with FF7. When he couldn't continue, he left, and made games of even bigger scope with Xenosaga. A series of 3 games which also were not a huge commercial success, and had very high production values for the time. Namco eventually cut the cord, because it wasn't making enough money.

[Godmars290]

Your point?

Spirits Within practically tanked the company. Made Square the soulless AAA remake machine it is today.

[Hamzilla77]

Soul less? so you saying FF7 Remake or Trials of Mana were crap?

[AnotherGamer]

The point is that they didn't have the money to make Xenogears 2?

FF7 remake is soulless? what are you talking about?

[Godmars290]

If the remake is relying on being a remake while fundamentally changing everything its relying on, then fun or no, have to call it as I see it. Especially post projects like FF13 where they didn't know what they were doing.

They know what they're doing this time, but what they're doing is playing on nostalgia. Still could have been its own thing sans specific FF7 trace-over, and should have been self-contained rather than a new sub-franchise who's further entries will only continue to dip into a drying well.

Hell, the point is that they could probably make Xenogears 2 today as a lower budgeted isometric similar to its original style, but they wont or can't go what would effectively be backwards.

[rainslacker]

If you look at it like the creator wanted to go on and make something akin to Xenosaga, then I can see why Square would have said no. Don't get me wrong, this is by far my absolute most favorite series ever, in all it's spiritual forms, but the scope of these games is massive, complex, and the director will spend money to make the game he wants if he can get it. His resources and what Nintendo allowed him when he did the Nintendo games in this "series", was more limited, and it shows within the games themselves.

I can easily see why Square wouldn't want to spend the money on them, especially after taking a huge loss on FF:SW, but I'm not sure that the movie was the sole reason they said no, nor am I sure that SE would have said yes if it hadn't just taken a huge financial loss.

After all these years, despite the rather strong cult following of this series, it has yet to ever been reintroduced through Square, and as you say, Square is a souless AAA remake machine that is more than happy to milk a popular franchise.

This may be a blessing in the end though, because I can't imagine Xeno games without the creator of the series. He seems to have a very unique way of blending all the various themes together into a compelling and nuanced story that can also make people think beyond their own world view.

[Exvalos]

Graphically the spirits within was ahead of it's time, but it just was not a Final Fantasy by any stretch of the imagination. But I did my part to support it as I bought the dvd. So glad to know on my end I did everything possible to get a Xenogears 2

[Hamzilla77]

well put! thankfully they redeemed themselves with Advent Children!

[rainslacker]

FF:SW did have some base FF themes in it. But yeah, it certainly was nowhere close to what one would expect from a FF game. It was more like a side quest. It was also kind of a dull movie, trying too hard to be thought provoking and proving they had some damn good animators and graphics artists, but not enough time being interesting or exciting.

[AK91]

I'm one the five (or most likely less) who actually liked Spirits Within but if this is true then damn what a mistake. I would've much preferred a sequel to Xenogears than Spirits Within.

[ManMarmalade]

Didn't something similar happen with Chrono Break?

[rainslacker]

This is pretty old news. FF:SW was a huge financial disaster.

I'm curious though why that would be attached to XG sequel, as the game itself didn't do so well commercially, and was vastly overshadowed by FF7's release. Ironically, XG was actually the pitch for FF7 before it became what it was.

I always figured the reason that XG never got a sequel was the same reason that Xenosaga never got finished. It just didn't make enough money, and the director/creator had a huge scope and budget for the games that didn't make enough of a return. Something he toned down for games that came out on Nintendo platforms later.

[Dwarrior]

It would have been MUCH better to NOT know this.

Angerrrrr.