As some of you may have read, Monolith Soft (notable for the Xenosaga series) was bought 80% by Nintendo. It occurred to me this may be something significant. Maybe not, but work with me here. I'm about to beat an old horse blue.
Monolith Soft, among other things, also worked on Chrono Cross. Not directly, but Monolith is one of those bazillion companies that were formed from splintered Square employees. This alone may not be anything... but consider two of Nintendo's other second parties that splintered from Squaresoft -
Brownie Brown is composed of most of the 2D Artists who worked on Legend of Mana and some other Seiken Densentu. Under Nintendo they made a few of their own games - but worked exclusively with Square to create Sword of Mana and the recent Heroes of Mana. A collaborative effort between Square and Nintendo. Hm.
AlphaDream is another company founded by a former group of Square employees. While they have not worked exclusively with Square, they did secure the rights to use Geno (A Square-Enix copyrighted character) in Mario & Luigi (a spiritual successor to Square's Super Mario RPG).
What does this entail? Probably nothing, but it does offer the tantalizing idea that maybe - just maybe, one Disaster: Day of Crisis (Monolith's current project) is finished, Square-Enix might consider having Nintendo use their Square-esque Monolith company to produce a title for them (as opposed to working with Namco, which would have been a conflict of interest there). Chrono Break perhaps? Maybe being a little over-hopeful there, but with Square-Enix completely engrossed in their Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy spinoffs (to the point Dragon Quest gets the Handheld treatment), I can't help but think Square wouldn't mind continuing some of their other series using other companies... and Monolith seems as good as any other.
Hopeful thinking, granted, but one that might have some merit down the line. Could be the next Chrono game could go down as being a Wii-xclusive title.
