Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy IX European release update

[05.29.00] » Square Europe explains its reasoning why Chrono Cross won't be released overseas, plus announces five languages for Final Fantasy IX's upcoming release.

   While Square's newly-opened European branch recently revealed its overseas lineup for the year 2000, several titles were left out of the lineup: Chrono Cross, Legend of Mana, and Threads of Fate (formerly known as Dewprism). Square Europe confirmed the omissions at the time, but only alluded to a "variety of reasons" why the titles would not be localized. Now, the company has publicly explained its reasoning behind the absence of Chrono Cross from the lineup:

"...Chrono Cross will not be coming to Europe. Chrono Cross has a particularly complicated text system which does not suit the syntax and morphology of German and the romance languages, and so has only been translated into English. We felt that such a big title should not appear as an English-only version in Europe as this would deprive the majority of gamers of the complexities and beauty of the plot. [...] We receive many comments from people who say that they would not mind playing our games in English, but as a dedicated European office we aim to be inclusive rather than exclusive."

   While many European fans are bound to be disappointed at the loss of Square's widely-praised upcoming RPG, Square went on to assure that they will be translating Final Fantasy IX into five languages for its upcoming release: English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. The company concluded by hinting at "extensive" plans for European localization on the PlayStation 2 -- hopefully, the videogaming scene for European gamers normally faced with spotty, random localizations will continue to improve.