@weezy:

Oh, I wasn't discounting the quality or relevance of his work. He is responsible for my favorite game soundtrack of all time, and is certainly the greatest composer ever to work in the medium. I'm just saying that his departure didn't really have a significant impact on the company, as I think he is still involved with them.

I think it was a huge impact because he would have been on project for FF12. (although I wish FF12 never existed) FF12's was a mess its music IMO is the weakest FF soundtrack of all time.(oh yea no joke)

SE has lost too much talent to become as epic as they were before

and also FF6 and FF4 is where it's at, FF7 was way overrated =P

 So she is the female version of the worst lead character in Final Fantasy history? That's anything but reassuring.

I haven't played enough of XII to comment.  I can see why they went with Sakimoto though, as he had worked on Vagrant Story previously.

Perfect oppurtunity for Nintendo to buy them out and take over their IP's

I miss Chrono Trigger for one , and Chrono Cross wasn't too shabby

Nintendo can save the world, yes...

They can also take over Game Arts as well, that would be great, Lunar needs some more "good" releases.

To be fair, I don't think Dragon Song was developed by Game Arts. I still haven't played Grandia III, but I've heard mixed reports.

No, I doubt it was, Working Designs (now defunct thanks to sony and stupid choices) brought the game over from Japan, I'd like to see the IP continue , new games done by the people who did the originals on sega cd/psx

Oh, poor Working Designs... may you rest in peace...

*a tear*

Game Arts had nothing to do with Dragon Song and it was obvious from the first moment I popped the game into my DS. Talk about your disappointing games....