Do you remember the 2007 Japanese indie gem Rosenkreuzstilette? You know, the one that was basically a love-letter to Mega Man and 8/16-bit retrogaming in general? Well, get ready to gear up: the game is receiving a modern publication on Steam and Playism on February 3.
Back in 2009, the rather niche English fan translation group Darkside Translations devoted several months to bringing the game to a wider audience with a well-received release. Darkside gained attention for its 2002 re-translation of Mega Man X. Thereafter, certain members of the group gained space in the industry with quality assurance for Ys I & II Chronicles, Ys: The Oath in Felghana, and further contributions to ef - a fairy tale of the two and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Now, ten years after RKS’s initial release in Japan, developer Active Gaming Media took notice of Darkside's pedigree and took them on as the official translation team for the Rosenkreuzstilette series. The group was rechristened as Darksquid Media.
While the story for Rosenkreuzstilette is unique enough (rather than futuristic, it’s more of a medieval fantasy), the gameplay and music is where it really shines. It adapts the classic formula we all know and love and brings it to life with detailed visuals, tight gameplay, and a memorable soundtrack. Gone are the Robot Masters and in their place are various characters (former comrades of the game’s heroines) that must be defeated in order to gain entrance to a certain castle. The game certainly features its share of challenge, but should be approachable and enjoyable for fans of the genre.
According to Darksquid’s TDOMMX (Leif Landevag), RKS will most likely be followed up with a release of its 2012 sequel, Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel. What’s on their agenda after that? Nothing is officially confirmed, but TDOMMX says he would love to work (officially or unofficially) on retranslating/redubbing the PlayStation Mega Man X titles. Now, if only we could get them to work on Mega Man 8…
Anyway, go check out Rosenkreuzstilette on Steam - you should be in for a treat!
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Guest post by Jessica "Allaweh" Brown
Given how much you've not posted about clones not named Mighty No. 9 in the past I'm honestly surprised you posted this.
ReplyDeleteAlso that header image is from the sequel.
Amended. And the motivation behind this is the possible re-translation project for various MMX games from the same team. Commendable work.
DeleteFunfact, this started life as a hentai visual novel but then they decided to make it a game instead
ReplyDeleteWhich game? I have never heard of that
Delete"Guest post?" Wait, didn't I do one those one time years ago?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this is pretty interesting to learn. Years late, perhaps, but better late than never. Hopefully, this will reach an even wider audience with a proper worldwide release.
Thanks for the shout-out, Jessica!
ReplyDeleteRosenkreuzstilette is undeniably a love letter to retro gaming, with hundreds of nods, both subtle and blatant, to gaming's history. Interestingly, Anonymous is right: the game was originally planned as a visual novel, which may explain why the character designs look the way they do (one of WOMI's mockups looks like it came out of the Rance series).
Although I'm a longtime fan of visual novels (as my contribution to ef clearly shows), I'm glad that Isemiya and WOMI decided to take the action-platformer route. We volunteered to work on RKS because we thought the game was great; the fact that we ended up getting careers as a result of our work is an unintended (but entirely welcome) side-effect.
If you'll forgive a shameless plug, you'll find a chronicle of the game's English development at our blog, Schwer and Schwer Alike. Be advised that there are plenty of spoilers discussed in the blog (our original English language localization came out in 2009), so I recommended playing through the game first before diving into our behind-the-scenes minutiae.
This game is superior to almost every Mega Man game under the sun. A must buy.
ReplyDeletethat's some BOLD statement to make on a megaman website.
Deletei do admit the rosenkreuz game was great
That's kind of a hard position to argue when the game literally cuts and lifts parts of level designs from actual Mega Man games.
DeleteI agree that that's quite the exaggeration; the game's good, but I wouldn't say it's that good. But, credit where it's due: RKS's story is a lot deeper and more nuanced than Megaman's. That was a pleasant surprise for us.
DeleteTrue, there are many bit of levels that are used as direct references to classic Megaman (the first fortress stage in RKS uses a few stage elements from the NES fortress stages. But, the games also get pretty original with how they combine well-known elements to make challenges Capcom hadn't even considered. Or when the devs try out entirely new ones. I'd elaborate, but I don't want to spoil anything.
cheapest game ever it looks like it was made by touhou fans not that that is wrong but if they charge money for it then it needs to be made with a higher budget.
ReplyDeleteRelax, man. The game's a decade old, and it was put together by a two-man team. It's not a new $60 AAA release with a multi-million-dollar budget. Please temper your expectations accordingly, and don't be a dick by making unreasonable demands.
DeleteI bought these legit ages ago, totally going to get them again on Steam! Much excite. I hope more games like this show up on Steam, maybe Touhou eventually??
ReplyDeletePlayism has the rights to Project Touhou, so it's entirely possible. One member of our team really wants to work on that series; here's hoping his wish comes true.
DeleteThe main issue with Touhou is ZUN straight up lost the source code for most of the old releases so making any significant changes could prove difficult.
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