Octopath Traveler. Triangle Strategy. Forspoken. These are just a few of Square Enix’s weirder game titles. But today, the Final Fantasy publisher reminded the world of one of its all-time-greats: Various Daylife. The iOS JRPG now has a Switch port. It came out today and it’s still called, well, that. I’m not sure what’s going on over at Square Enix, but I have many, many questions.
This is not intended as a knock on Various Daylife, a perfectly serviceable simulacrum of a role-playing game that first appeared on Apple Arcade in 2019. But I do question the checks and balances in place at a multi-billion dollar company that gets a second chance to reconsider the name and just goes, nah, keep it.
Then again, Various Daylife is in perfect company. After all, this is the company that first brought us Final Fantasy X-2, and later on, names like Final Fantasy Type-0. Don’t get me started on the Kingdom Hearts remasters and ports. If Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix wasn’t enough to melt your brain, consider Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. And of course there was that time Square released a JRPG whose name perfectly captured the juxtaposition of intriguing premise and broken gameplay: Infinite Undiscovery.
At the same time, my brain is so Final Fantasy-pilled at this point that I hardly blink an eye at grotesqueries like Bravely Default. The phrase is so nonsensical I don’t even process the words as they are anymore: It’s simply a proper noun that might as well have always existed since the stars were born. Nevermind that the sequels were called Bravely Second: End Layer (?) and Bravely Default 2 (???).
It turns out Bravely Default was the default indeed. Square followed it up with Octopath Traveler and, earlier this year, Triangle Strategy. Now Triangle Strategy, initially called Project Triangle, is coming to PC, and Octopath Traveler is getting a sequel: Octopath Traveler 2 (pouring one out for “Octopath Traveler Second”—you never even got a chance). And we still have The DioField Chronicle, Harvestella, and Forspoken all coming in the next six months.
Thank god I’m an adult now and don’t have to worry about my parents coming into my room to ask what I’m playing. But there are people out in this world who still need to ask their parent or friend to download these games for them, or walk into a GameStop and say things like, “Is it too late to pre-order The DioField Chronicle?” Uh, sorry kid, we’re not that kind of store. Try the pharmacy down the street.