Like many games developed by small Japanese studios, Vanillaware's Muramasa: The Demon Blade has something of a shaky history. Questions about whether or not it would be imported, and by whom, created quite the kerfuffle among Western hopefuls. It only got worse when the game played publisher musical chairs a few months ago, bouncing from Xseed to Ignition Entertainment, who now have the rights to publish the game in North America.
Given the amount of hype and positive press Muramasa has been getting (Burch 'n Davis' ho-hum E3 impressions notwithstanding), Xseed ought to be a little bummed about dropping the title. However, it seems that, quite the contrary, losing Muramasa allowed them to publish other Japanese titles in the States.
“As much as it hurts to lose Muramasa that does open us up to give more resources to other titles. That gave us a little more energy to focus on securing Fragile and other titles as well," explained Ken Berry (Director of Publishing at Xseed), speaking with SiliconEra at E3. “In the end when it comes down to the consumer: they are still going to play Muramasa. It’s still going to come to North America. We’ve gone out and gotten a title like Fragile, which I doubt any other publisher other than Namco Bandai USA themselves could have licensed for the US.”
Berry's altruism aside, Fragile has been getting a fair share of positive press in its own right, and I'm sure that Xseed will enjoy the profits made when they distribute Gungho's Ragnarok Online DS in the United States -- it's got a built-in audience of 3.14 million.
[Via SiliconEra]
Joseph Leray is a founding Destructoid editor and has better hair than you. He speaks French and needs to send us his updated bio in English, preferably.
Likes
Confuse Ray,
Feel My Blade
A Mabari War Hound,
Snot,
Spiral Arrow,
Argo,
Dan Smith's critical hit bark,
Rolling things up into my life
Meet the rest of the team
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
12 comments | showing # 1 to 12
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
8:00 PM on 06.09.2009
| 
I forgive Xseed for my small outrage of wondering how i'd get my translated Muramasa fix. Now I can enjoy Muramasa and Fragile.
If you guys are salivating over this, and are disappointed upon release, go get Odin Sphere. Oh, and the PS2 controller kicks the shit out of the Wii-mote/chuck, especially if Muramasa gets NEARLY as hard as OS.
By the way, does anyone else think it'd be cool if games in the vein of Odin Sphere or Muramasa were ported to the DS? I'd buy it.
Even better, if the one that started it all is ported to the DS, I'll sell my soul.
I commend Xseed for trying to localize Japanese games that might otherwise be forgotten, but there are obvious signs here that Fragile was as much a creative failure as it was a commercial failure. To the point, the game was selling used for less than $30 within a week of release, and quickly dropped to about $20 the week after, which is a staggering loss of value for a game that was retailing for over $60 at the time. A quick perusal of user comments and forums similarly points to a game that wasn't acclaimed at all in it's homeland.
@jpgamer: A lot of the people I've seen complaining about Fragile didn't seem to know what it was aiming for. It's an exploration game; the whole point is just to take in your surroundings and come to understand the world. I mean, originally there wasn't going to be any combat at all.
The bottom line is that poor combat overwhelms the exploration elements of the game, and the mysterious story, which when finally explained is head-slappingly stupid, disappoints on spectacular level.