I don't neccessarily think that you need the original Mana 'team' to make a good Mana game. In fact, I'd say your chances of having a young, completely new yet dedicated team on a new mana project would weild better results, because as you say, the "World of Mana' stuff was a financial failure... sounds like it's time to bring some new talent in because Ishii obviously doesn't have what it takes to keep the franchise solid & profitable.bastian wrote:The problem is that that team has been dissolved and reassigned to teams. We know that at one point in time Mana creator Koichi Ishii headed SE's PDD 8 which was responsible for the Mana games. After Ishii left SE there has been no word on any Mana projects. I think it's safe to assume that PDD8 has been dissolved or completely reassigned to a different franchise. Since Ishii's departure there has been a new team headed by Takashi Tokita which has been responsible for the sequel to FF IV ("The After") and FF: 4 Heroes of Light and now the upcoming Final Fantasy Legends... Perhaps this new team is the new PDD8?invisibleham wrote:
Don't ever lose hope! I think that one day we may get a 'good' & satisfying Mana game. What it's gonna take however is for the team involved in said future game is going to have to...
But anyway, my long-winded point is that with Ishii gone, it seems unlikely that SE will do anything Mana. World of Mana was a financial (and critical) failure, so SE seems unlikely to toss any more money into it.
3.) No more gimmicks. Solid, compelling story with some solid, fun action-adventure gameplay. As much as I hate to say it, Legend of Mana introduced so many useless gimmicks that many people feel are standard for Mana games.
Haven't checked these out but if a series of fan-made Mana games are better than anything that has come out of the "World of Mana" franchise, that surely says nothing positive about their team.Which is why I'd contend that MogHunter's Memories of Mana trilogy is actually much closer to what many of us consider "real Mana" than anything official post-SD3.
... but still I have hope that perhaps someone over there will make a game that goes back to the roots of what made the series great & stop clinging on to gimmicks & trying to re-invent the wheel!