Square Electronic Arts

Square Electronic Arts at a Glance

Square Electronic Arts operated as a joint venture between Square and Electronic Arts from 1998 until 2001. This partnership existed to bring Squaresoft games to North America while sending EA titles to Asia. The company released twelve games during its short three-year lifespan. You will find eleven of these titles listed under the publisher role and a single entry where they acted as the developer. Their catalog spans two decades, with seven releases in the 1990s and five more arriving in the early 2000s before the venture folded into Squaresoft. The platform reach for this publisher is heavily concentrated on Sony systems. Eight games appeared on the original PlayStation, eight on the PlayStation 3, and another eight on the PlayStation Portable. Four titles also landed on the PlayStation 2, while only one game hit the PocketStation. Their genre focus leans heavily toward role-playing games, which make up nine of their twelve releases. They also published six adventure games, two racing titles, and single entries in categories like card and board games, strategy, hack and slash, fighting, simulators, and shooters. The quality of their output shows a clear split between massive hits and weaker efforts. Nine of their rated titles hold an average score of 76.1 out of 100. Five of these titles earned great ratings above 80, while three received good scores between 60 and 79. One game fell into the mixed range with a rating below 60. Their top-rated works include Final Fantasy X from 2001 at 91.5, Xenogears from 1998 at 88.8, and Final Fantasy VIII from 1999 at 86.2. Front Mission 3 and Vagrant Story also secured high marks in the early 2000s. Later releases during their final year show more variance. While Vagrant Story arrived in February 2000 with a strong 82.9 score, The Bouncer dropped significantly to 46 later that same year. X-Squad and Driving Emotion Type-S also appeared around this time without reaching the heights of their RPG catalog. After the merger between Square and Enix created Square Enix, the parent company bought back EA's stake in the joint venture. They folded Square Electronic Arts into Squaresoft, which now operates as Square Enix Inc. in North America.

Release Timeline

Rating Distribution