Today Square Enix game producer Tomoya Asano launched a development blog for the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV. The development column idea may well have been inspired by the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates community blog organized by the director, Mitsuru Kamiyama. That particular action RPG rose to first-place this week in sales in Japan. Maybe dev blogging might not be such a bad way of promoting a game?

Asano writes that with the full remake of Final Fantasy III for the NDS, his team at Matrix Software focused on novelty in three main areas. 1. Converting the graphics from sprite-based images to polygons. 2. Improving game balance, so that each of the job systems would confer advantages for experimentation. 3. Expanding the scenario. Adding cut-scenes to flesh-out the storyline in a way that wasn’t possible on the Famicom cartridge of the original.

That’s not to mention the role of full-motion videos, along with the instrumentation of the music remixes. Asano calls Final Fantasy IV “Remake #2.” A provocative statement if good sales invite a host of follow-ups to round out the series. Will we be seeing other Super Famicom classics on the DS?

Palom and Porom on the DS

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