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Class of Heroes 2 [PSP] US website launched!
- Thread starter cj_iwakura
- Start date
Well since no one else is posting I guess I'll sacrifice myself 
Is this better than the first game? I owned the first game for a while and quickly traded it as it was quite boring and poory balanced. Did they improve a lot of stuff for 2?
I skimmed the website a bit and I really enjoyed the class and races descriptions. It's really well done presentation wise like what you would expect from WD's spiritual successor.
Is this better than the first game? I owned the first game for a while and quickly traded it as it was quite boring and poory balanced. Did they improve a lot of stuff for 2?
I skimmed the website a bit and I really enjoyed the class and races descriptions. It's really well done presentation wise like what you would expect from WD's spiritual successor.
cj_iwakura
Member
Well since no one else is posting I guess I'll sacrifice myself
Is this better than the first game? I owned the first game for a while and quickly traded it as it was quite boring and poory balanced. Did they improve a lot of stuff for 2?
I skimmed the website a bit and I really enjoyed the class and races descriptions. It's really well done presentation wise like what you would expect from WD's spiritual successor.
I didn't buy the first game. This one looks twice as good.
Well since no one else is posting I guess I'll sacrifice myself
Is this better than the first game? I owned the first game for a while and quickly traded it as it was quite boring and poory balanced. Did they improve a lot of stuff for 2?
I skimmed the website a bit and I really enjoyed the class and races descriptions. It's really well done presentation wise like what you would expect from WD's spiritual successor.
The first game was painful. The elements of a good game were there (there is literally Wizardry code in it, after all), but the overall package was done poorly in my opinion.
We've had minimal resources to do this one, but my goal has been to make it enjoyable to play. Entertaining characters, logical menu structure (where possible), and a few (very few on this budget) perks like completely translated attack graphics (The "Pow" "Boom" "Clang" messages - Class of Heroes 1 left them in Japanese), analog nub support, new closing credits, slightly new opening credits (more animation), etc.
We would like to catch the US up with all of these, and without fail each installment has rated higher than the last one, so the games are guaranteed to get better through CoH5. We just need at least half as much support as Atlus got with Class of Heroes 1 to do it. Seems very do-able, but then again, I thought a Deluxe Pack for this was, too.
It will help once this one is out and people see that it's actually entertaining to play with characters you want to come back to.Get the word out, though. We need all the help we can get.
Also, my twitter is @gaijin4life, and I sometimes post pics and tidbits there from development.
cj_iwakura
Member
Interesting stuff on the twitter:
English OPs!? Welcome back to the 90s!
(This is a good thing if you ask me)
Also love the font you guys used.
English OPs!? Welcome back to the 90s!
(This is a good thing if you ask me)
-We translated the battle messages unlike CoH1. Check it out
Also love the font you guys used.
cj_iwakura
Member
The twitter's marketing it as Vita compatible(really what PSP title would make any money otherwise), so I assume so.
NeededSleep
Member
Just went back to my kickstarter page and it made me sad a little bit. Was one of the $100 backers.
Still looking forward to this coming out.
wtf @ dwarf race.... Its some sort of furry crap....
want my monstrous beards no furry stuff
Still looking forward to this coming out.
wtf @ dwarf race.... Its some sort of furry crap....
want my monstrous beards no furry stuffThe stuff that irritated me in the first game were things that could easily be fixed so I really hope that's the case with part 2. The gameplay itself was solid and I do enjoy the Wizardry type games (just bought Elminage this weekend!) so I'm looking forward to seeing how this comes out.
Green Card
Member
I want to want this but I'm just not a fan of games with kids/the art. That aside I'm kind of bummed the kickstarter failed (just read about it) since I'd like to encourage physical releases for jrpgs. I bought some dungeon crawlers recently (Elminage Original, Dark Spire) to play over my break coming up so I might go for this anyway if they blow me away.
Thanks. We tried like 10 before we found the one that worked at all sizes present in the game.
We're beginning what I hope is the final testing loop right now. We have one technical issue to solve as well, but that shouldn't be a problem. Game is fully playable and clean from beginning to end as far as we know (starting this final test). Vita compatability is the goal, and we'll do whatever we have to so it works on Vita. We have full source code on this end so we can change anything needed.
All we have left to drop in is the new closing credits movie (the original was just a staff roll over a still, now it's a school yearbook with pages that have pictures from the adventures and the staff on the pages) and see if we can get the people we need together to record the new English lyrics for the redone opening movie. With Christmas looming, then new year's, that's challenging.
But the upshot is that a January release is very likely and if it slips, it should be a very minor date change.
Also couldn't help myself, so we went the extra mile and added an italics version of the font as well, so sentences can have regular and italicized text in them. Both regular and italics fonts are using custom kerning pairs so they look pretty good even when mixed.
You may still get a chance at a regular, preorder only UMD version with a digital download code bundled. If we can work it out (95% there, but a couple hurdles remain), we'll only make as many as are preordered, and that will be that - then digital only from launch forward.
Pureauthor
Member
Was wondering what had happened to this. Looks good.
Looking forward to this one. The races and classes look a little changed up from the first one, the idea of race-exclusive classes is cool. It also looks like there's a unique portrait for each race/class combo as well.
I was one of the KS backers too, so I'm just happy to get this in any form. A January release would be great, I might be able to go from Elminage to this and then to EO4, and just totally binge myself on first-person dungeon crawlers.
I was one of the KS backers too, so I'm just happy to get this in any form. A January release would be great, I might be able to go from Elminage to this and then to EO4, and just totally binge myself on first-person dungeon crawlers.
Locking classes to races was a controversial change, but I think it really worked in the game's favor for building well rounded, diverse parties. My personal favorite abuse combination is a Ninja Human with a Fairy Sorcerer. Fairy casts Ragnarok spell with Magic Up! then spamming Bewitch from the Ninja is a fanastic combination - even for bosses, which seems like an oversight on the part of the original designers.
Nah, the name really fits well.
Kept the name, fixed the infantile logo, fixed some of the annoying parts of the game, made battles "pop" more. I think people will dig it.
Bassmastergeneral
Member
Wow that's awesome. Would definitely preorder, looking forward to an update on this. *fingers crossed
Augemitbutter
Member
excellent. you have my support.
Music to my ears! If it happens, you've got yourself a deal, good sir.
Seraphis Cain
bad gameplay lol
Why can't more publishers do this? It's such a great idea for niche titles like this one.
KiTA
Member
Wait, the first game got a bad rep? I didn't hear anything about it, good nor bad. I've owned it but hadn't been in a FPDC mood until Elminage Original came out out of the blue.
Er, by "Fixed some of the annoying parts of the game" and "made the battles 'pop' more", what exactly do you mean? Did you edit the game's mechanics for the Western release? If so, in what way?
Edit: Also, Hey Mr. Ireland, any chance of us seeing CoH2 PS3 or CoH3 PSP/PS3 if this one does well?
twentytwo22
Member
If this happens, I will buy it.
Sold.
We have changed some of the ways things work that slowed the game down. Extra keypresses were eliminated (you sure? you sure you're sure? stuff), and messages that really served no purpose were eliminated to improve flow. You used to always get a message at the start of battle that told you that you were attacked. It required a keypress to clear. Slowed things down. It's gone. The only time you get it now is to notify you of an ambush condition, because THAT is a message you need. Just that one change really helped the flow of the dungeons.
D-Pad only was super annoying for me personally, so analog support was added so players have a choice. Analog works everywhere, but on the world map it's still free-roaming like a mouse, so you have the best of both worlds.
The battles pop more because we put in a TON of English comic-style messages overlaying the attacks. The core was there in the Japanese version, but we made it more comic-like. I think it made the battles look more interesting.
That kind of stuff...
And yes, we want to get all the CoH series over here (plus the other games we're working on), but fan support is extremely important to prove that there's a demand if the games are licensed. Japan is watching. We've talked the game, now we have to prove what we've said, and we need the fans to support the game.
As I recall, the last publisher to try was NISA with a small run of physical copies of Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman. They only needed 1,000 preorders to make the run financially feasible and not even that many people signed up.
They don't own it, they licensed it. I'm not sure what the exact status is at the moment, but I know they're working on making T2 happen. There's a related fan-friendly secret, too, but they'll decide when to show it.
Yeah, that's where the rubber hits the road. If the fans show up for it with the minimum preorders, we'll do CoH2 physical+digital bundle. I *think* Class of Heroes 2 should have the goods to make a small preorder threshold, but we'll soon know.
I'd get the game anyway, but this would make this an immediate day 1 for sure!
I was one of them. It was disappointing, but I ended up getting the European UMD afterwards.....hope this one turns out a bit differently, but we'll see...
cj_iwakura
Member
Well this is more of an established/less quirky genre than HIoP, so I guess we'll see. Hopefully the Working Designs pedigree brings some more fans out of the woodwork.
KiTA
Member
Have you considered bringing over the other Wizardry Xth descendant games as well?
Class of Heroes 1 is a remake with the serial numbers filed off (and all modern elements turned into fantasy elements) of Wizardry Xth 2: Unlimited Students.
As far as I can tell, the team (Michaelsoft) that made Wizardry Xth split up after Xth2, making two teams -- ZeroDev (the Class of Heroes team) and Team Muramasa, which made a ton of different Class of Heroes-like games.
The first was "Generation Xth", a PC First Person Dungeon Crawler. 3 of them, actually - Code Hazard, Code Breaker, and Code Realize. There is also a sequel to that series, "Labyrinth X-Blood", which has 2 games in it.
The same team also did "Students of the Round Table" (synopsis: What if King Arthur and his knights sealed a demon.. which came back 100 years later?) which got a PC, PSP, and 360 release, and will be releasing "Demon Gaze" pretty soon, which is a sequel of sorts for the Vita. (Apparent synopsis: What if the demon from Students of the Round came back 1000 years later?)
I mention this because the publishers and devs have openly stated they're looking for a partner in the states to bring over these games to the US, which is why they localized Students of the Round Table to the 360.
The PSP version is brand new, too (came out a few months back), and Demon Gaze is a Vita game, and the PC games would have zero competition (the First Person Dungeon Crawling Genre is dead on the PC outside of Legend of Grimrock). So if you're looking for more Class of Heroes-like games to bring over... welp. The other "Branch" of the Wizardry Xth family tree is calling...
That's what I had heard, which is a shame because I did want to try it at one point, I like the art style of the series.
If this one is slightly less forgiving, I might take a look.
Yeah, we know the pedigree. There're literally chunks of that Wizardry code in the Class of Heroes 2 source code.
We're up for anything, but we have to focus first and prove that there's a market for this here before anything else in this genre can happen for us. The first attempt at CoH with Atlus did not go well, but we're lean enough that if we can do even half that business with this much better version in the series, we'll be able to do more of them. Which is why this becomes all about the fans showing up to support the effort.
We're up for anything, but we have to focus first and prove that there's a market for this here before anything else in this genre can happen for us. The first attempt at CoH with Atlus did not go well, but we're lean enough that if we can do even half that business with this much better version in the series, we'll be able to do more of them. Which is why this becomes all about the fans showing up to support the effort.
KiTA
Member
Does the "do more of them" include the PS3 version of CoH2? *hope hope*
The Pedigree thing was surprising to me. I discovered it this morning when I was researching Class of Heroes 1 and 2's Japanese Wikis. Found two things -- mention of "XTH2" as being the reason behind some of the weird things in Class of Heroes 1 (for example, apparently in XTH2 you could read books in the library, which was left in the Japanese CoH1 if I understand it right -- but did nothing), and banner ads for "Generation XTH" were ALL over the place.
And the scary thing is, this whole Wizardry Xth -> CoH / Generation Xth -> Students of the Round family tree of like 15 games? This is just one *very tiny* branch of the Wizardry family tree, of which I'm sure you're aware, but many modern gamers don't even know the name Wizardry.
In fact, if you consider that Yuji Horii was inspired to make Dragon Quest after playing Wizardry and Ultima, you could literally trace every single JRPG back to Wizardry in some roundabout fashion.
Crazy stuff. Makes my original copy + manual of Wizardry: Knight of Diamonds for the NES feel extra special.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Awesome!
May want to do a Kickstarter update if this happens, otherwise a lot of people who were willing to back a physical release might not find out
I've heard about the first game, but never really looked into it
Okay, now I'm interested
Okay, now I'm interested
KiTA
Member
This is a great idea. I believe Kickstarter will let you send updates to anyone who pledged even if the Kickstarter has failed. A simple "hey, btw, we're doing a preorder thing and if we get enough support, UMD version" would go a long way.
Plus, I bet if you did that you could probably get some of the Gaming Press to pick it up -- "Monkeypaw Game's Class of Heroes 2 Kickstarter rises from the grave" or somesuch.
DiscoJer
Member
Indeed, the designer of the last Western Wizardry tried a Kickstarter a few months ago for a new Wizardry style game and it sort of bombed (well, it got $250,000 out of $1,000,000, so a decent amount of money, if not enough to succeed)
KiTA
Member
Ah, found it.
Never heard of Brenda Brathwaite before. A bit of research shows she started as a playtester on Wizardry 1-4, is credited with the manual (and probably elements of the design) for 6 and 7, and was head designer behind 8. I always thought Playtesters actually moving up in the world was a myth designed to bring hope in dark (underpaid) places, but apparently not.
Having said that, her kickstarter pitch for that game sounds amazing and I hope they can find support to make it someday.