http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2015/02/20/tri-ace-bought-out-by-mobile-company-gaming-weeps/135848/
As a company that was responsible for such games as Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean: The Second Story, and Resonance of Fate, tri-Ace had developed an excellent reputation and cult following amongst fans of JRPGs. Unfortunately, it looks like those days are coming to an end as a recent press release (translated by NeoGAF) has announced that the company has been purchased by Nepro Japan. Couldn’t tri-Ace still be committed to making high quality, unique, and engaging titles under the guidance of this new company? Technically, yes. Unfortunately, Nepro Japan is a mobile developer that plans on using tri-Ace to develop games on mobile platforms. Anyone interested in Star Ocean: Microtransaction Edition?
While this purchase technically keeps tri-Ace from going under, it is really only in the same way a zombie is technically still alive. An empty, hollow shell of its former self, just shambling around and grunting about brains and freemium content.
tri-Ace had been struggling for a while now, so this is probably good news for people in the actual company. It’s hard to see the upside of this for gamers, however, as a company once responsible for some of the best RPGs on the past couple few generations is now going to be relegated to making derivative mobile titles on a platform most of their fans already roll their eyes at. It is hard whenever one of your favorite developers goes down like this, and some fans were holding out hope the company might be purchased by Square-Enix or Sega or some other company that actually puts out real games.
It was apparently not meant to be. Best of luck tri-Ace. For Star Ocean: The Second Story alone, you deserved a better fate than this.
Its sad news. I loved their stuff and I'm doubtful that they will end up making more console games.
