At the 2008 Tokyo Game Show, publisher Marvelous Entertainment made a splash yesterday by announcing that Suda51’s beam-wielding otaku Travis Touchdown would return in a Wii-exclusive sequel to No More Heroes. Developed by Grasshopper Manufacture, No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle is apparently laser-cut from the same cloth as its predecessor. It will feature the same unique style and beam-saber action, only “remarkably powered up in scope and quality.”
But though the game is being developed by a Japanese company and announced at a Japanese game show, there’s every chance native Japanese will never play it.Though the game is slated for the US in January 2010, and Europe in February or March of that same year, a Japanese press release at the website of publisher Marvelous Entertainment notes that any plans for Japan are still up in the air.
Unless my Japanese is rustier than I thought, that is not a matter of when, but if.
Though the first game was certainly quite violent, we wouldn’t be too hasty to point the finger at Japanese censors. Like Sega’s MADWORLD, another title which might not see play in its country of origin, the reasons behind the lack of Japanese release are likely financial. Though the original No More Heroes has sold through 400,000 copies worldwide, it reportedly did quite poorly in Japan. They’re hoping for a better outing this time: loosely translated, the last line of the press release reads “by solidifying the No More Heroes brand image, Desperate Struggle is aiming for even greater sales than its predecessor.”
Now the only question is, who’s publishing the game in the United States? Will Ubisoft carry the torch, or will Marvelous’ new US publishing partner XSEED take the title stateside?
Update: GameSpot reports that Marvelous and XSEED will indeed copublish the title in the US.
Update 2, 10/20: XSEED PR representative Jimmy Soga today clarified that though the company did sign a co-publishing agreement with Marvelous for a slate of Japanese titles, No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle was not among those included in the agreement. “There is still a good chance that Ubisoft will publish the sequel to NMH,” he said. In an interview with The RPG Observer, Soga noted that all of XSEED’s import games are basically published on a per-title basis, and that Natsume and Atlus would continue to publish Harvest Moon and Luminous Arc respectively despite XSEED’s new arrangement.
While you dwell on all that, here’s the game’s TGS teaser trailer:
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October 10th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
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