It's a pirate's life for... Square Enix?

So a few years back I played Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XII and Level 5’s Rogue Galaxy within a few months of each other, and noted a disturbing number of similarities between the two. Most of my friends hadn’t played Level 5’s game so they couldn’t see what I was talking about, but the coincidences were just eating at me so for the sake of my sanity I compiled a list. Here are some of the more glaring overlaps between the games that have me thinking Square was straight pilfering their little brother’s pocket on this one.

I’ve read before that the two companies have in the past collaborated on titles - which makes sense being that they work in the same genre vein - but I don’t know of any besides Dragon Quest which was really just more of a hand-off. I don’t believe they collaborated on either Rogue Galaxy or FFXII, but they must have been working on them at the same time, because Level 5’s title released in December of 2005 and Square’s dropped a few months later in March of 2006.

At the beginning of both games you are introduced to a young, sprightly protagonist going about his daily chores in a town surrounded by desert. Both are teen boys with spiky blond hair and an affinity for baggy pants and wrist-guards. Also, they are both orphans, and have been left to the care of charitable men in the form of a priest and a shop owner respectively. Meet, Jaster Rogue and Vaan… uhh, the urchin.


(Changing “Inazuma 11” to “Samurai 11” a new game does not make. Tsk tsk, Mr. Wada.)

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