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[Deft Beck]

So, Office Create, the creators of Cooking Mama, recently released a game for the US 3DS eShop called Johnny's Payday Panic. It seems to be an English localized version of a game called Gekidou! Arbeiter Koji, released during the summer.

Here's the game's English website: http://www.ofcr.co.jp/koji/en_index.html

For convenience, here's the main image of the site:

The artstyle of this website and of this game seem to strongly resemble that of EBA's comic-book-inspired artstyle. The logo font in particular bears resemblance to many of the bold gradient fonts used in Elite Beat Agents. Johnny/Koji himself looks very similar to characters in EBA/Ouendan 2, as well. Even the little icons of the places where Johnny/Koji work resemble that of the stage select icons found in EBA/Ouendan 2.

Therefore, I suspect that an employee of Office Create, or at least someone they contracted, might have worked at iNiS Corporation at some point, in particular, on the Ouendan/EBA series.

I have purchased the game, but there is not a credits sequence accessible as of yet. Maybe this is all just a big coincidence, but I'd like to figure this out.

Am I crazy, or do you follow me with this?

 

[oti]

WAIT DOES IT ACTUALLY PLAY LIKE EBA?

 

[Dandy Crocodile]

Oh my god, I just played this demo and thought it felt like Cooking Mama with EBA artstyle.

WAIT DOES IT ACTUALLY PLAY LIKE EBA?

No, it's a collection of minigames. Think more Work Time Fun, but slightly less...weird.

 

[Deft Beck]

WAIT DOES IT ACTUALLY PLAY LIKE EBA?

No, it's a part-time food service worker game. You do different part-time jobs to earn money to get expensive stuff to impress people.

 

[oti]

No

...

Now I'm sad.

 

[RelentlessRolento]

The demo makes it not as bad as I was expecting. Def love the style.

 

[Deft Beck]

The demo makes it not as bad as I was expecting. Def love the style.

It's kind of fun! A little repetitive, but as you do better, you earn perks to help make your shifts more efficient/less error-prone.

The way the game punishes you for errors by docking your EXP bar is a little harsh, though.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

What was the original artist's name? Atsushi Saito, I think?

Does he still work for INIS or is there a possibility he's gone freelance and is working on this?

Man, this whole game's aesthetic is such a throwback to the DS era. I kinda have a soft spot for the overall look and attitude of those games. I gotta check this out!

 

[Jhoan]

So it's not a rhythm cooking game?

 

[The Bankslammer]

seems pretty uncanny to me honestly

a brief search is getting me no link between the games at all, but i still wouldn't dismiss the possibility of shared staff. i'm sure documentation on this game's credits are very light, lol. don't really think i'd have the time to purchase and finish the game to document it myself though, lol

still, if it's not shared staff, it's an awfully odd choice of game to take inspiration from. that alone is leading me to believe it's more than just inspiration.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

So many wasted years...

But, it doesn't play like EBA...

Okay...

[*heart monitor flatlines*]

 

[bryehn]

It's made by the Cooking Mama folks.

 

[Ludger Kresnik]

idc if it doesn't play like EBA, I'm sold on just the price and art style.

 

[Owari]

Elite Beat Agents was so good. A sequel that could easily be churned out by Nintendo, but will probably never see the light of day due to "reasons"

 

[yatesl]

Oh my god, I just played this demo and thought it felt like Cooking Mama with EBA artstyle.




No, it's a collection of minigames. Think more Work Time Fun, but slightly less...weird.

Man, what a heartbreak of a topic.

 

[The Bankslammer]

What was the original artist's name? Atsushi Saito, I think?

Does he still work for INIS or is there a possibility he's gone freelance and is working on this?

still at inis

 

[LaserHawk]

See this just makes me miss EBA/Ouendan even more.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

still at inis

Ah, I guess that part's a coincidence then.

Now I kinda want to know who the artist of this game is, then.

 

[WordAssassin]

The game might be fun but god DAMN what a let down. I too was hoping it had EBA gameplay.

):

 

[Deft Beck]

The game might be fun but god DAMN what a let down. I too was hoping it had EBA gameplay.

):

Hey, Nintendo still owns the EBA/Ouendan IP, and iNiS is pretty set with their mobile work.

Maybe for NX...let's hope.

 

[Verder]

mannnnnnnn if we got another EBA i would be so happy.

that game was sooooooooooo good.

 

[toythatkills]

Elite Beat Agents was so good. A sequel that could easily be churned out by Nintendo, but will probably never see the light of day due to "reasons"

I imagine that the reasons are that it probably won't be profitable. After you've licensed all the music you've gotta sell a bunch of copies to make your money back and EBA sold about twelve copies.

I'm not even sure about Ouendan now either, that sold tons but I remember reading that quite a significant number were to outside Japan, and that's basically not an option now so sales of that series would definitely suffer.

 

[The Bankslammer]

ouendan 1 did pretty not-great, first year sales were 48,291 according to famitsu. not sure if import sales were included here, but they were a pretty non-negligible amount relative to total sales.

ouendan 2 did alright though, at 218,248 in its first year. not really a sales expert, but that seems much closer to the kind of expectations one would have for this sort of game. still not setting charts on fire or anything, but probably not "this franchise is unsustainable kill it now" numbers.

if anything i'd say eba alone probably killed the franchise with how high its expectations were, lol. the number of copies shipped/printed seemed pretty crazy. guess if they figured they couldn't make it successful international franchise, it wasn't worth it?

 

[Deft Beck]

Slight update...I tweeted the official Twitter for the game, and got a reply:

https://twitter.com/ofcr_koji_jp/status/666861193915592704

So, it seems that the art was done in-house.