Yesterday, Square Enix announced plans for three new expansion scenarios for their popular online game, Final Fantasy XI. Six years after the game’s release, it still has 500,000 users throughout the world, and those gamers are looking for more content.

I’m as excited as the next guy for these new expansions — especially because they’re being designed by the master behind XI, Masato Kato — but one of the scenario’s titles is a little shaky: A Shantotto Ascension- The Legend Torn, Her Empire Born. Couldn’t they have come up with something that didn’t sound as if Kato’s six-year-old son designed the game? I mean, maybe I’m being a snob. It wouldn’t be the first time I had applied an English major’s standards to a videogame, and I know that a lot of the Final Fantasy titles feel a little kiddy. But still, The Legend Torn, Her Empire Born? It rhymes and sounds like a book report written by a junior high student. In fact, I was so disappointed by the news that I went and found a list of the 50 worst gaming titles of all time. A Shantotto Ascension - The Legend Born, Her Empire Born is right up there with Wild Woody and ASO: Armored Scrum Object . Take that as a slap in the face, Square Enix. I just compared your game to a Sega CD title from 1995.

Annnnyway, all three scenarios will be available exclusively as DLC in the Spring of 2009. And if we’re lucky, Shantotto will lose the subtitle.