Most of you that may know me know that I am very vocal when it comes to Japanese games getting that something extra and that same game in the West gets nothing of the sort or is something cheap. Now this doesn’t pertain to all companies. Companies Aksys, NISA, XSEED and Atlus do their best to give fans something a little extra as a thank you for being great fans. Now I could go one on how Western gamers should be offered a golden PS3 with matching controller just like in Japan(I’m looking at you Level 5) and things of that sort, but that’s not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is Final Fantasy XIII: Episode Zero: Promise.
Now I know what your thinking, and no this isn’t FF XIII-2 or some other FF XIII spin off game. What Episode Zero: Promise is, is in fact a prequel novel that Square Enix has been posting on their website to promote FF XIII. Promise detailed the events thirteen days before the start of the game’s story line. Now you’re thinking, “But I never heard of this. You say it was on the site, but it wasn’t”. Yes, I did say that SE was posting this on their site…..their main Japanese site that is. Hell I didn’t even know about. I stumbled upon this by complete accident while researching for a news post when FF XIII-2 was announced. And I’m willing to bet that not a lot of people even knew about this, save for the hardest of hardcore fans.
Right now I’m reading for the first few chapters and what I think of it so far is this: WTF Square Enix of America?!?! How come this wasn’t translated to English as well? Think of the hits you would have gotten, the amount of press that could have received, other than a “Oh hey FF XIII has a web novel in Japanese.” Think of the fan hype you could have gotten, maybe they would have been less harsh and spiteful, selling back your game for a cheeseburger. Fans would have loved it and given you lots of money, but I guess you don’t like money.
For those interested in reading about the prequel novel, I found a very well done fan translation at http://dilly-shilly.blogspot.com. After I’m done reading the novel, I’ll probably share my thoughts. Maybe even do a review on it. For now this is something that shouldn’t be passed up by anyone.
