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Rumor: Imageepoch is possibly closing down

RyoonZ

Banned
Did Last Ranker ever get a fan-translation? I'd imagine not, which is a shame as I always wanted to try it.



Yeah, I rather liked it, the combat was very reminiscent of Skies of Arcadia. Unfortunately, the voices were absolutely awful, so I bet that put a lot of people off.

It has... in Chinese, that's how I got to beat it lol.
 
Well that sucks. They were one of the only devs doing exactly what I wanted with JRPGs from a concept/system standpoint, even if they never did it particularly well. Arc Rise Fantasia was really cool and pretty much the last traditional console JRPG even if the battley system was WAY unbalanced.

I also liked World Destruction even if it did have some glaring problems.

This is just depressing, especially after their claims of saving JRPGs, something I truly wanted to believe because no one else was stepping up to the palte.

duckroll and I were debating making a thread about this about 2 hours ago, but we decided we were gonna wait until there was official notice since we didn't think anybody really cared about the company anymore. I guess some people care.

Frankly, this is probably the most disappointing fall from grace I've ever seen from a dev. Luminous Arc to World Destruction to 7th Dragon and Last Ranker and Arc Rise Fantasia... and then it just gets worse and worse and worse. So sad. They were not the savior of 'JRPG' like they were trying so hard to be. :(

Last Ranker wasn't good?
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Looking at their released titles and their sales, its almost like a girl breaking up with her bf and goes to marry another guy...and then the guy died 4 years later and she returns to find her ex because there's no other better candidate.

and then the ex goes "lolnope"
 

Oregano

Member
It's a bit of a non-update. It's obvious they don't have better news to share because the official site for Stellaglow still says it's coming out "early Winter 2015" which... is basically over.

Well hey Bravely Second was a winter title too!:p

If they do launch though they're going to be facing more competition now that Langrisser and Fire Emblem If have both been announced. It's definitely not looking good for them.
 

Darius

Banned
Would have been nice if instead of turning it to silly system wars, the list included sales of their GBA and PS3 games as well, so we would have had a better picture of their past and also most recent releases.
 

duckroll

Member
Would have been nice if instead of turning it to silly system wars, the list included sales of their GBA and PS3 games as well, so we would have had a better picture of their past and also most recent releases.

What are you talking about? That is a complete list of games developed or published by Imageepoch.
 

Darius

Banned
What are you talking about? That is a complete list of games developed or published by Imageepoch.

My bad, I overlooked Time & Eternity (different name) when I looked at the list yesterday and mixed up the Luminous Arc games with a similar series on GBA.

Looking at the PS3 version of SonicPro by Nitroplus shows that Imageepoch decision to bet on this IP by developing a 3DS game wasn´t that good in retrospect.
 

Takao

Banned
It's kind of surreal that a mascot to a fairly small publisher got spun off into its own media franchise anyway.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Black Rock Shooter and Fate/Extra were great. Haven't tried the rest of their output, but Time & Eternity did look really awful.
 

duckroll

Member
Black Rock Shooter and Fate/Extra were great. Haven't tried the rest of their output, but Time & Eternity did look really awful.

I didn't really like BRS much. It's a huge step down from Last Ranker, while clearly developed in a hurry using a very similar battle system, and way lower production values. It was pretty disappointing because I basically expected something as good as Last Ranker, except in a crazy BRS setting. :/
 

Oregano

Member
Never seen a developer with such a mixed output before. I'm sad that ARF 2 will never happen now. This means 7th Dragon/2020 is finished too, right?

Luminous Arc Infinity is happening with(EDIT: without) them so the other IPs are possible.7th Dragon is likely dead due to Sega unless they give it to Atlus
lol
.
 

Wagram

Member
Shame. I was really hoping Arc Rise Fantasia 2 would be made. It's definitely one of the better JRPGs of last generation (minus the voice acting).
 
Shame. I was really hoping Arc Rise Fantasia 2 would be made. It's definitely one of the better JRPGs of last generation (minus the voice acting).
Great JRPG who was butchered by Ignition. I'm still hoping for some group to step in, retranslate it and undub it (there's an undub, but it doesn't seem to work on my console, bummer)

Out of business or not, I still hate Ignition for it.
 
Final Fantasy X (Active Time Battle system) meets Tales of the Abyss/Dawn of the New World (FR-LMBS) meets Grandia 2.

Amazing indeed, and that composer that Mitsuda got to do the score, Yuki Harada? Oh my fucking god.

Battle sounded like a better Dream Teater than Dream Theater themselves. So good to get in the groove for something that played as it sounded, good and fast.

The Overworld level of detail fucked Tales of Vesperia in the butt and that one was on the X360 no less (Namco and Tales Studio had no excuse), everything was damn good and it would feature in any Top 5 last gen JRPG list, if not for what Ignition brought to the table, shit literal translation and Koreans speaking english over the phone or something.
 

Takao

Banned
Luminous Arc Infinity is happening with(EDIT: without) them so the other IPs are possible.7th Dragon is likely dead due to Sega unless they give it to Atlus
lol
.

I know Sega keeps on saying how they're buckling down, but they've somehow managed to continue making Shining games despite them not being big sellers. 7th Dragon sells in that same area, so I don't think it's impossible to see it survive as long as it's developed externally.
 

Reveirg

Member
Final Fantasy X (Active Time Battle system) meets Tales of the Abyss/Dawn of the New World (FR-LMBS) meets Grandia 2.

Amazing indeed, and that composer that Mitsuda got to do the score, Yuki Harada? Oh my fucking god.

Battle sounded like a better Dream Teater than Dream Theater themselves. So good to get in the groove for something that played as it sounded, good and fast.

The Overworld level of detail fucked Tales of Vesperia in the butt and that one was on the X360 no less (Namco and Tales Studio had no excuse), everything was damn good and it would feature in any Top 5 last gen JRPG list, if not for what Ignition brought to the table, shit literal translation and Koreans speaking english over the phone or something.

Glad I'm not the only one who absolutely loved ARF! I turned off the VOs after the first few hours and enjoyed a great, special RPG.
 

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death
People really should experience Arc Rise Fantasia. It's an excellently paced JRPG with a great soundtrack. Plus the combat system is neat!
 

Oregano

Member
I know Sega keeps on saying how they're buckling down, but they've somehow managed to continue making Shining games despite them not being big sellers. 7th Dragon sells in that same area, so I don't think it's impossible to see it survive as long as it's developed externally.

True. Lancarse is probably free seeing as how there won't be a Lost Dimension 2.:p
 
Bad voice acting don't bother me, or is it the music? Both?

The voice acting is utterly awful, but the soundtrack is quite good.

Outside of the VA it was a rather good game. One of my favorite parts was also them getting Eureka 7's character designer.

Great JRPG who was butchered by Ignition. I'm still hoping for some group to step in, retranslate it and undub it (there's an undub, but it doesn't seem to work on my console, bummer)

Out of business or not, I still hate Ignition for it.

Yeah, I wish it could somehow get a HD remaster just so that there would be more of a real chance for some publisher to find it worth picking up, re-translating, and giving it a real proper dub (dual-audio) release.
 
Yeah, I wish it could somehow get a HD remaster just so that there would be more of a real chance for some publisher to find it worth picking up, re-translating, and giving it a real proper dub (dual-audio) release.

As Takao said earlier in the thread:

I'm certain Marvelous owns ARF. There was a time when I was convinced that game was going to get a Vita port. Muramasa Rebirth had sold very well and there was some seemingly random ARF movement with the 5th Anniversary.

I was sorta expecting ARF to be ported to Vita at some point too; there was a point early in its life where it got Little King's Story and then Muramasa and I thought more niche Wii games would've followed. But I guess not!
 

duckroll

Member
It looks like Final Promise Story, Black Rock Shooter, and Sol Trigger have been pulled from JP PSN. The notice from Sony simply says that distribution has ceased. Not sure if Toshin Toshi and SoniPro are still on the JP eShop. StellaGlow still doesn't have any updates, and the targeted release window of "early Winter 2015" has long since passed.

Is this it for ImageEpoch?
 

Takao

Banned
It looks like Final Promise Story, Black Rock Shooter, and Sol Trigger have been pulled from JP PSN. The notice from Sony simply says that distribution has ceased. Not sure if Toshin Toshi and SoniPro are still on the JP eShop. StellaGlow still doesn't have any updates, and the targeted release window of "early Winter 2015" has long since passed.

Is this it for ImageEpoch?

Sounds like it.
 
It looks like Final Promise Story, Black Rock Shooter, and Sol Trigger have been pulled from JP PSN. The notice from Sony simply says that distribution has ceased. Not sure if Toshin Toshi and SoniPro are still on the JP eShop. StellaGlow still doesn't have any updates, and the targeted release window of "early Winter 2015" has long since passed.

Is this it for ImageEpoch?
That's probably it. The JRPG savior is no more.
 
It looks like Final Promise Story, Black Rock Shooter, and Sol Trigger have been pulled from JP PSN. The notice from Sony simply says that distribution has ceased. Not sure if Toshin Toshi and SoniPro are still on the JP eShop. StellaGlow still doesn't have any updates, and the targeted release window of "early Winter 2015" has long since passed.

Is this it for ImageEpoch?

Ouch. Should I rush on the PSN to buy their games before they get pulled or is it ok because it's published by someone else?
 

mao2

Member
It looks like Final Promise Story, Black Rock Shooter, and Sol Trigger have been pulled from JP PSN. The notice from Sony simply says that distribution has ceased. Not sure if Toshin Toshi and SoniPro are still on the JP eShop. StellaGlow still doesn't have any updates, and the targeted release window of "early Winter 2015" has long since passed.

Is this it for ImageEpoch?
Dang, no notice beforehand whatsoever... I guess this is the end for Imageepoch. :/ Kinda regret that I didn't buy them when they were on sale some time ago.

Ouch. Should I rush on the PSN to buy their games before they get pulled or is it ok because it's published by someone else?
Games published by other companies like Last Ranker, Fate/Extra, Fate/Extra CCC, 7th Dragon 2020 and 7th Dragon 2020-II are still available on Japan PS Store, so they should be safe, for now at least.
 
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