Seemingly out of nowhere, X-Com creator Julian Gollop revealed today that he is working on a title for Nintendo’s upcoming handheld. The project is most likely far into development, as its release will coincide with the 3DS’ launch. Gollop wouldn’t share much information about the project, though he did mention that it will be a turn-based tactical RPG. You can read his full comments below.
“Publishers run a mile from anything with turn-based mechanics – it is regarded as too niche. RTS games pretty much killed off turn-based strategy games in the mid-90s – but now even RTS games are regarded as niche. So all my experience working turn-based games from 1983-1997 is now somewhat obsolete, despite the success of X-Com. However, I am now working on a turn-based tactical RPG which will be a 3DS launch title. Thanks to ‘Advance Wars’, ‘Fire Emblem’ and ‘Final Fantasy Tactics’ it seems turn-based games are not totally dead – at least for Nintendo handhelds. I would also argue that Pokemon has a lot of parallels with X-Com in its game system, despite being classified as an ‘RPG’. The core of Pokemon is a turn-based tactical battle enriched by a sophisticated higher level meta-game that allows players to experiment with many game elements and combinations of forces – and Pokemon is the second most successful game franchise in the world. If done right, would an X-Com game with a turn-based combat system be successful? Absolutely!”
DSi LL – 111,650
PSP – 104,639
Wii – 89,899
PS3 – 77,315
DSi – 70,147
Xbox 360 – 24,983
DS Lite – 20,285
PS2 – 6,134
PSP go – 4,456
This information comes from the official Okamiden Facebook page…
“Cool Okamiden swag inbound. Details in the coming months… We got the goods. That’s all I want to say right now”
This definitely sounds like some of the Japanese Okamiden merchandise will be brought overseas sometime soon. I’m also hoping that Capcom will consider releasing the collector’s edition of the game… I’d snatch that up right away!
– E3 demo area will be divided in the final game
– Demo bosses will be in different locations
– Demo area was from the realm below the clouds
– The demo area was a field, not a dungeon
– Might be more than 8 items
– Some dungeons might have areas where you need to run from enemies
– Might not have your sword in some places
– Gorons/Zoras mentioned, but not confirmed
– MotionPlus could lead to new puzzle types
– Treasure-seeking ability for the sword
– Don’t want Link or other characters to speak because the devs don’t want to ruin people’s images of them
First, Natsume’s Vice President of Operations Graham Markay was asked if Harvest Moon 64 will be released on the Virtual Console…
“It (Harvest Moon 64) will not [be released on the Virtual Console]. It will not. And it’s not from lack of trying. Unfortunately, the code of the game is not… it’s not an easy transfer. It would be really time-consuming and long, and we’ve looked into it, and we’ve tried to see if there’s any way around certain things, but the conversion to virtual console, it’s just… I shouldn’t say it’s never going to come out, but there’s just a really, really, very small chance that it would ever come out. Which is unfortunate because we know that for a lot of dedicated, die-hard fans, that’s their favorite.”
Markay also shared his thoughts on the 3DS…
“It looks exciting. I mean, from everybody’s aspect whether it’s television manufacturers, Sony, Nintendo, it seems like 3D is the next thing. Speaking for myself and the company, yeah, it’s exciting. Speaking for myself personally, I wear glasses. So putting glasses on top of glasses is always a bit… when I take my kids to see a 3D movie, they enjoy it a little bit more than me because I always tend to not see it as well as they do because of the glasses. But it’s exciting; we are a supporter of the 3DS.”
I really had no idea that it could be so technology difficult to bring titles like Harvest Moon 64 to the Virtual Console. I wonder if similar issues are holding up other releases that could land on the service.
Thanks to Robert for the tip!
We posted the European boxart for this game earlier today, but as you can see, the North American boxart looks quite a bit different. Which one do you prefer?
