Found the unsubbed, (obviously JP TV) ad for the GA space shooter/dating game in the extras section of the latest Galaxy Angel AA DVD. No mention of a time frame or US developer but Bandai did the same leading up to the Eureka 7 games coming out.
Perhaps this long-rumored title FINALLY will be seeing the light of day here sometime in 2008?
Would be pretty damn awesome. Namco Bandai certainly has the money and talent to make it happen. Their voice actors/actresses aren’t too bad… well… some of them - if titles like Soul Caliber are any indication.
sigh
I’m just still sad they haven’t bothered with a translation for The Idol Master…
[ 11-16-2007, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: Nargrakhan ]
It’s been known they were trying to make it happen for awhile. There was even the weird drama with the people who pretended to be fannotating the game, except legitimately, that eventually got flatly denied by the company. I’m glad; while I’m not as big a fan as some people evidently are, I do like GA.
I also remember Hirameki’s (as well as PPs) name bandied about with it, back when Bandai talked about wanting to associate with an ‘established’ company for the GA game release.
Is there a PS2 version of the game? Given the uncertainly of Hirameki and the PERCEIVED failure of the US PC market for such titles, it would seem bringing over a console version and working with say an Atlus, Aksys, D3 or the like might work if Bandai doesn’t want to manage it themselves.
And on the IdolMaster front, I can remember a net story (which I can no longer source) back around the time of the first IdolMaster picture pack in NA that had Vic Ireland or other old Working Designs folks working on it as part of their inclusion into MSes evil empire.
Ugh… I’m not much of a Working Designs fan to be honest. They rape and gut the hell out of things they get their hands on. They de-soul their titles, like Viz Media de-souled Naruto. 
I fully understand anyone’s concern over WD; but I do think they did a respectable job with some of the music they handled (I’m thinking the Lunar SS boat song) and they are on a very short list of teams with ANY previous US experience doing a title such as IdolMaster.
I’d of course include Atlus on that list, but even they have localization critics and many of the core people from Atlus’ PS1 days have moved on to Aksys and other places.
I don’t know a thing about that first game and have been most diappointed with the IdeaFactory games brought over on the PSP, but apparently Atlus is dipping its feet into the 360.
Their changes to lunar for some of the quirky dialogue are what made Lunar so good, as well as the underlying storyline (because dialouge can’t make a bad rpg good). One of the critism of Lunar Dragon Song/Genesis was the lack of such dialogue from WD.
Of course I wished they had kept an option for Japanese subtitles for voices, but i realize CD-format isn’t best for size and given the audiance they were trying to target i don’t think they could have reasonably just subtitled audio.
On the not of GA game, if it is true, this is great news.
[ 11-18-2007, 03:35 PM: Message edited by: Jinnai ]
Well I have to give credit where credit is due, and Lunar is the one series that WD did tremendously right - even if they cut out some stuff here and there.
However Lunar 1 & Lunar 2 are those kinds of games, that it’s almost impossible to screw them up, unless you TRULY screw them up.
Dragon Force - good as it was - got a TREMENDOUS rape in story content and dialog. Magic Knight Rayearth was pure abysmal… they blame the fact that the source files were lost in a HHD crash, but that’s a load of crap: You can reverse engineer the game from a completed commercial copy… it’s done all the time by fansub groups - and WD had more resources than they do.
Feh… don’t get me wrong: I like what WD did to help what was then a niche market (RPG and TRPG games) - and their work made major steps to get it mainstream - but I still dislike what they did to the originals.
As for Lunar Dragon Song… that game was pure FAIL. The battle engine alone killed it - and the story SUCKED, SUCKED, SUCKED. I can hardly believe the same people who made Lunar 1, Lunar 2, and Lunar Magic School - put that piece of crap together. They must have been drunk and on drugs.
That single title, killed a magnificent legacy that lasted over a decade. :roll:
[ 11-18-2007, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: Nargrakhan ]
I’m not sure it was the same people doing Lunar DS as Lunar 1 & 2. Same company, but i don’t think it was the same team.
Complex answer that one…
Lunar Dragon Song was developed by JAM - they did the second generation ports of Lunar Silver Star Story and Lunar Eternal Blue on the Saturn and then Playstation. However in the case of EB, the staff was “reassigned” to Game Arts because of that infamous legal battle - so JAM is not given direct credit… although they are mentioned in the ending credits.
Now here’s where things get crazy: Studio Alex - not JAM - created the original Lunar Silver Star, Lunar Eternal Blue, and Lunar Magic School. However Game Arts produced the Saturn remake (which the PS version is based off) WITHOUT their graces… or at least without paying them enough. There was a lawsuit, and all said and done Game Arts won, so Studio Alex - despite creating Lunar - lost all rights to it. They also went bankrupt.
Thus that Lunar 3 rumor from waaaaay back when that Vic Ireland was talking about? Dead. Although we did get the Lunar Eternal Blue remake: so it wasn’t a total waste.
So long story short: SSS, EB, and DS share the same artist (Kubooka) and programmers (too many to list), but not the same writer (Shigema) and composer (Iwadare). So that would be like… what… 50% of the team?
So I suppose you’re half right, and I’m half right. Man… that’s a story I haven’t told in a looooong time. 
Well, Working Designs did do well with three(technically six) other games. The first was Vanguard Bandits, which I have to say I enjoyed immensely as that was the first game I played with multiple endings, and it was a pretty good tactical RPG though the Kingdom Branch ending was tough to get. The next was the Arc the Lad games (1-3 anyway), which were all great to play, though the last boss for 2 was tough as hell to beat. And finally, Growlanser 2 and 3 released as Growlanser Generations were two games I also enjoyed playing.
Still about Galaxy Angel, while I’d definitely enjoy seeing it released stateside, I’m not sure if it will happen considering Sony shot down every attempt to release Sakura Wars stateside.
Maybe, but Sony has also for the large part moved beyond the PS2 and is more concerned with PS3 titles. Shortly after the PS2 came out, a lot of 2D remakes came out for the PS1 even though Sony America didn’t care much for them, even for the PS1 because they switched market focus to the PS2. I believe they are doing the same thing for the PS3.
It’s been five months, and I haven’t heard any news about Galaxy Angel translations, good or bad. And since Bandai’s games are officially discussed on various websites, it’s tough to track a project like this down.
Just yesterday, I was browsing video store shelves, and saw a Samurai Deeper Kyo game packed-in with the box set of the anime. That might be one way to distribute a GA game…
rofl…Galaxy Angel Diamond Edition - all the episodes and the games.
Just playing a Devil’s Advocate here… but wouldn’t it have been possible, that the game ad was only translated because it was on the original Japanese DVD? Therefore the only reason why there was an English ad at all, is because they didn’t want to cut anything out and do a 100% authentic translation for the disc?
That being said… perhaps there isn’t a Galaxy Angel game coming out. 
Some have told me, Namco would port over THE iDOLM@STER rather than that title (given that American Idol show popularity)… and we all know Namco isn’t porting THE iDOLM@STER. 
Japan already has a second title!!!
Live For You isn’t really a “second title.” Its really just a way to milk more money out of the franchise. All of the actual simulation gameplay form the original is absent here. You just pick the girls, clothes, and music, then press the “GO!” button. There is a rythm-music button pressing mini-game, but its a far cry from the first game. The main appeal is it has better video editing features, also a whole 2nd year of Downloadable Content is on the way. It has brand new songs, but you have to buy them seperately. :x Its an enjoyable add-on to the first game and I’m pleased with it, but I think everyone was hoping for something more…
Reminds me of what people say about Artificial Girl 3.