Video games studios undergo huge transformations of business models and plans all the time. Sometimes it's a creative decision, sometimes it's just the practical thing for the studio to do. For instance, Rare moved on from its working relationship with Nintendo upon accepting its Microsoft acquisition. Similarly, Bethesda just went from being one of the most famous and successful third-party game studios unaffiliated with a major game console, to being a Microsoft exclusive studio. It's just a part of the way the video game industry works. One more studio that's totally reinvented its brand over its many years of operation is Mistwalker Studios.
Mistwalker Studios might be an unfamiliar name to some, but it's a successful studio in its own right. Headquartered in Honolulu, Mistwalker Studios was founded by video game titan Hironobu Sakaguchi. Sakaguchi was part of Square Enix until 2004, and while he was there, he was responsible for the invention of the Final Fantasy series and worked on many entries of the franchise up until his departure. It stands to reason that Mistwalker, a studio founded by a major developer of RPGs, is mostly known for its RPG content. Although it continues to deliver story-driven games through an RPG lens, Mistwalker has significantly changed its works over the years.
Honoring RPG Traditions
It's worth noting that Mistwalker often co-develops its games. The studio often outsources work on gameplay to another studio and focuses on other aspects of the game while a collaborator assists with putting the software together. Even with this collaborative strategy, Mistwalker's knack for RPGs shines through. This habit has existed since the studio's inception and the creation of its first title, the Xbox 360 exclusive Blue Dragon. Critics largely agreed that, while Blue Dragon didn't do much to change RPG conventions, it delivered well on traditional RPG gameplay. Blue Dragon was a solid success for Mistwalker's first game, breaking certain sales records in Japan.
Once it had put some roots in the ground with Blue Dragon, Mistwalker could expand its works. It soon came forward with another traditional RPG called Lost Odyssey, which got frequent but somewhat divided praise for its storytelling and the unique elements that Mistwalker sprinkled into its otherwise traditional combat.
Mistwalker delivered a similar experience in The Last Story, a Wii-exclusive RPG with more traditional gameplay and divisive storytelling. Between Lost Odyssey and The Last Story, Mistwalker made several games for the Nintendo DS in rapid succession, including a sequel to Blue Dragon and new RPGs called Away: Shuffle Dungeon and ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat. Another Xbox 360 RPG called Cry On was supposed to release around this time, but unfortunately it was cancelled.
The Transition to Mobile
The Last Story was the last game Mistwalker developed for consoles. After that, it decided to try its hand at mobile games. Its first mobile game was Party Wake, a surfing game that stirred up little attention and got fairly mixed reviews from critics. After that, Mistwalker decided to move closer to its strengths with a tower defense game called Blade Guardian, which was slightly more popular with reviewers. Mistwalker finally found success with an RPG called Terra Battle, which it followed up with a sequel, plus a spin-off called Terra Wars. These games showed Mistwalker still knew how to work in its favorite formula, but servers have since been shut down.
Now that Mistwalker has managed to find a steady place in the mobile world, it's finally coming out with Fantasian. It's another fairly standard turn-based RPG, but it has a few really unique elements. All the settings are actual hand-crafted dioramas that the characters have been animated onto, and there's a unique mechanic where players can stow away several random encounters instead of fighting them immediately, and then they can fight all the monsters stored at once. Fantasian could be a big break for Mistwalker, and captures the historic spirit of the studio. It's yet another way to preserve the spirit of classic RPGs while finding something new to do with those traditions.