Grand Knights History: Coming Never Anywhere (Except Japan)

Shady3011

Update: Hell didn't freeze over after all!

I guess hell has frozen over. Again.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/22/xseed-publishing-vanillawares-online-rpg-grand-knights-history/

If you don't know, Grand Knights History is Vanillaware's newest joint for the PSP. It's a turn based RPG with customizable classes. It also supports online play with player matches over gaining territory for one of the three factions, which the conflict is at the center of the game's story. As with all Vanillaware games, it looks beautiful.

No release date other than the vague Winter release is known at this time. European folks will have to wait longer since that publisher, Rising Star Games, hasn't announced any kind of time frame. It's still better than the alternative of never.

EVOL

Good news. The PvP in this game is really good, the battle system is pretty robust and the art is obviously god-tier.

Shady3011

Looks like we won't get this until sometime after Dragon's Crown is released.

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/02/08/what-happened-to-grand-knights-history/

Chance

Guh - I just read that Siliconera piece. Severely disappointed

blaze_zero

Looks interesting. I'll be able to get it if it's PSP and not VITA.

JihadJesus

Damn, I was actually looking forward to this. Anyone want to get it gets pushed back to being Vita only? Although I guess they ready have that other Vita game in the works too.

Magic Pink

Wait a minute, since when has Dragon's Crown been a PSVita game? I thought it was supposed to be PS3.

blaze_zero

Isn't it for both?

Renzo

Dragon's Crown is for both PS3 and Vita.

Here's hoping Grand Knights History ends up on PSN at least, so PSP and Vita people can play it.

Shady3011

Good thing the PSP is region free.

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/05/01/grand-knights-history-canceled-for-north-america/

blaze_zero

Uuuugh. I see that they are doing WoS4 though, so I'm not completely disgusted.

RainbowDespair

Europe isn't still a go. The problem with the US release wasn't XSeed Games - it was Vanillaware (aka the original developer). If Vanillaware refuses to help out for a US release, I seriously doubt that they're going to help out with a smaller European release.

Most likely Rising Star Games just hasn't bothered to make an announcement yet.

DeMoN

I literally found out about this game like, 2 weeks ago, and was super happy that I'd be able to play something awesome on my psp. Now I'm sad.

Shady3011

RainbowDespair wrote: »

Europe isn't still a go. The problem with the US release wasn't XSeed Games - it was Vanillaware (aka the original developer). If Vanillaware refuses to help out for a US release, I seriously doubt that they're going to help out with a smaller European release.

Most likely Rising Star Games just hasn't bothered to make an announcement yet.

I never blamed XSeed. Also, Rising Star might actually put up with the delay or might even have a programmer. Your speculation is just as good as mine.

RainbowDespair

Shady3011 wrote: »

RainbowDespair wrote: »

Europe isn't still a go. The problem with the US release wasn't XSeed Games - it was Vanillaware (aka the original developer). If Vanillaware refuses to help out for a US release, I seriously doubt that they're going to help out with a smaller European release.

Most likely Rising Star Games just hasn't bothered to make an announcement yet.

I never blamed XSeed. Also, Rising Star might actually put up with the delay or might even have a programmer. Your speculation is just as good as mine.

Even if Rising Star had a programmer in-house (which is very rare with English RPG localizers), some Japanese companies will refuse to let anyone touch their code except themselves.

So yes, there's a chance that it's still coming to Europe but it's very small. Don't get your hopes up.

EVOL

It looks like Vanillaware isn't doing so well, with Dragon's Crown getting delayed and what not. Maybe they simply don't have the manpower to get it done.

It's really a shame, because using proxies to play the game properly was a really annoying experience, and I was looking forward to play it with people I know.

Shady3011

RainbowDespair wrote: »

Shady3011 wrote: »

RainbowDespair wrote: »

Europe isn't still a go. The problem with the US release wasn't XSeed Games - it was Vanillaware (aka the original developer). If Vanillaware refuses to help out for a US release, I seriously doubt that they're going to help out with a smaller European release.

Most likely Rising Star Games just hasn't bothered to make an announcement yet.

I never blamed XSeed. Also, Rising Star might actually put up with the delay or might even have a programmer. Your speculation is just as good as mine.

Even if Rising Star had a programmer in-house (which is very rare with English RPG localizers), some Japanese companies will refuse to let anyone touch their code except themselves.

So yes, there's a chance that it's still coming to Europe but it's very small. Don't get your hopes up.

The big reason why Vanillaware "refuses" to put in the translation is that they are busy with Dragon's Crown. They are a small group of peeps and until Atlus came on-board had very limited resources. If you want to go and be a pessimist, be my guest. Just don't go saying stuff as matters of fact.

Edit: Sorry if I'm sounding confrontational. I'm obviously just really bummed we probably won't get this like a shit-ton of other PSP games.

RainbowDespair

I just think the tile is misleading. The European release status isn't a "go," it's unknown and looks unlikely. If it was still happening, the European localizer would have probably issued a statement to that effect by now since one of the worst thing you can do for business is to ignore a cancellation rumor.

And speaking of Vanillaware's poor financial status, since they cancelled the US release that means they're in breach of contract with XSeed Games. At the very least, I imagine they'll need to pay XSeed Games back the money they were paid for the localization rights which means they're in even worse financial shape than they were before.

I mean, hey, I wanted to pick up this game too. I'm disappointed that I won't get to. But we shouldn't sugarcoat what's happening here. The game's localization was cancelled because the original developer doesn't have the resources to insert the translated script (which I've heard is basically done). That's the kind of thing that's most likely to result in a cancellation of every localization, not just the US one.

Shady3011

Wasn't it XSeed who cancelled the game? Vanillaware never said they wouldn't do it. They must have reached a mutual agreement to terminate the release.

Edit: As for Rising Star, I'm reading they were going to use the XSeed translation. That's no bueno. Does anyone know if Rune Factory Frontier uses the same localization that XSeed made for the US release in Europe, which, Rising Star published?

RainbowDespair

Shady3011 wrote: »

Wasn't it XSeed who cancelled the game? Vanillaware never said they wouldn't do it. They must have reached a mutual agreement to terminate the release.

They can't give all the juicy details due to NDAs, but from what little they have been able to say on their forums, it sounds like the script was basically done and they submitted it to Vanillaware and Vanillaware just kept putting them off. Eventually, they had to say this won't work and cut ties.

Also, if I'm not mistaken Rising Star Games was going to use the XSeed Games script which is another strike against that version happening.

And Grand Knights History has a heavy online component. It will be hard enough to justify releasing a PSP game in 2013 after Dragon's Crown's release but a PSP game that requires online servers? Yeah, there's no way that's happening.

Anyway, if you're interested, you can check out the official forums for the game. I imagine that's where any updates will show up first:
http://xseedgames.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?37-Grand-Knights-History

Shady3011

The dude in that thread losing his shit over the game's cancellation is pretty hilarious. First he hates XSeed. Now he hates Vanillaware. In both cases, he goes off the deep end in ways to hurt both companies. The best part is that he's the only one in that thread doing it.

Xenogears of Bore

It's a PSP game in 2012. The system has been realistically dead since the end of 08. If there is anything left that gets a physical release that is worth playing outside of what Atlus is doing I'd be amazed. Hell they are relying quite a bit on their faithful already with Growlanser

Unco-ordinated

EVOL wrote: »

It looks like Vanillaware isn't doing so well, with Dragon's Crown getting delayed and what not. Maybe they simply don't have the manpower to get it done.

It's really a shame, because using proxies to play the game properly was a really annoying experience, and I was looking forward to play it with people I know.

As far as I'm aware, it's not that they're not doing well, it's that they bit off way more than they could chew and are now putting everything into getting Dragon's Crown done. And while it sucks for us, it does make a hell of a lot more sense for them to focus on an upcoming title for two active systems than it does a localisation for a system that's dead in the US and only selling decently in Europe. Hopefully they'll be able to sneak out a PSN release after Dragon's Crown is done but I wouldn't count on it.

I can't imagine the Ignition/Atlus switch over had much to do with anything though, as Ignition were undoubtedly going to offload them to someone else regardless (as their parent company was bought out by Disney).

Shady3011

Just in case some people didn't know, this isn't getting localized. Anywhere. Now go bother NISA about Black Rock Shooter or something.