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PSN-US Vanguard Bandits 11/15 $9.99 EU early 2012

DiscoJer

Member
vireland said:
For those that don't know, this was originally called Epica Stella in Japan. We were going to call it Detonator Gauntlet, and even advertised it as such, but Midway was threatening lawsuits about the title containing the word "Gauntlet" so we were forced to go another way.

Heh, I remember talking about this on usenet

http://groups.google.com/group/rec....tonator+Gauntlet+Vic+Ireland#46269b34ee259690

And mentioning Vanguard, another classic video game that you could have had a naming conflict with.

Which didn't happen thankfully, but lo and behold, that game actually was re-released on PSN this summer, much to my surprise.
 
Vic, keep up the good work here. Particularly for us PAL-land peasants. I shall be supporting everything you're trying to do and purchasing each one.

Also still sat on my Jp Arc the Lad on my PS3 hard-drive. It'll end up a rarity!
 

Angelcurio

Member
As a big WD fan, i'm really surprised by the fact that i've never heard of this title before. Will definitely support since i value the effort that Victor is doing bringing those cult classics back from the dead. I'm really thankful for the Alundra revival and PSone imports.

Btw Victor, can we hope for lunar 1 and 2? And also, how is your relationship with Sony these days? I remember you had a lot of problems with approvals during the PS2 days, specially with the Grownlanser ports.
 

B.K.

Member
Angelcurio said:
Btw Victor, can we hope for lunar 1 and 2?

He's said in other threads that there are too many licensing issues and both Lunar games will never be on the PSN.
 

vireland

Member
Angelcurio said:
And also, how is your relationship with Sony these days? I remember you had a lot of problems with approvals during the PS2 days, specially with the Grownlanser ports.

The tag team of Monkeypaw and Gaijinworks has been very good at getting things moving on the Sony side with these games. Sony is much "hungrier" now than they were when they were #1 with like 70% of the console global game market back in the late PS1 early PS2 days. Also, a number of the Sony people that were actively giving WD trouble in the early PS2 days are gone now. I think in general Sony has a much more game-literate crew now, more like the early-mid-original PS1 days. Been very productive for us as a result. Hopefully it continues to build.
 

MightyKAC

Member
vireland said:
The tag team of Monkeypaw and Gaijinworks has been very good at getting things moving on the Sony side with these games. Sony is much "hungrier" now than they were when they were #1 with like 70% of the console global game market back in the late PS1 early PS2 days. Also, a number of the Sony people that were actively giving WD trouble in the early PS2 days are gone now. I think in general Sony has a much more game-literate crew now, more like the early-mid-original PS1 days. Been very productive for us as a result. Hopefully it continues to build.
I remember hearing stories about this in the 90's. So glad guys like Bernie Stolar and his like are gone from Sony's management team.
 

V_Ben

Banned
vireland said:
The tag team of Monkeypaw and Gaijinworks has been very good at getting things moving on the Sony side with these games. Sony is much "hungrier" now than they were when they were #1 with like 70% of the console global game market back in the late PS1 early PS2 days. Also, a number of the Sony people that were actively giving WD trouble in the early PS2 days are gone now. I think in general Sony has a much more game-literate crew now, more like the early-mid-original PS1 days. Been very productive for us as a result. Hopefully it continues to build.

That's good to hear, I hope it continues too. The weird PS2/PS3 launch Sony was super odd.
 

Angelcurio

Member
B.K. said:
He's said in other threads that there are too many licensing issues and both Lunar games will never be on the PSN.
If there is something to learn from this Vanguard Bandits release is that you can have games with lots of licensing issues released, even if it equals to a higher price point. I would gladly pay $10 for Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete.
 

MightyKAC

Member
Angelcurio said:
If there is something to learn from this Vanguard Bandits release is that you can have games with lots of licensing issues released, even if it equals to a higher price point. I would gladly pay $10 for Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete.

Ditto. In fact I'm sure 90% of GAF would agree.

For whatever that's worth.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Yep, SCEA are saints now compared to the WD days. They're letting fricking Corpse Party and Fate/Extra onto the PSP for god sakes.


This would be Growlanser's time if Atlus USA weren't a bunch of fools.
Well, whoever's calling the shots is being one, at least.
 

vireland

Member
cj_iwakura said:
This would be Growlanser's time if Atlus USA weren't a bunch of fools.
Well, whoever's calling the shots is being one, at least.

They were never fans of Growlanser at Atlus US, which is sad. I'd dearly love to do I and IV, but it ain't gonna happen.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
vireland said:
They were never fans of Growlanser at Atlus US, which is sad. I'd dearly love to do I and IV, but it ain't gonna happen.

I know for a fact this isn't true. There are Growlanser fans there, but I imagine their voices amount to little.
 

Kuro Madoushi

Unconfirmed Member
Damn you, Ireland! Damn you to hell! I got other stuff to play during that time! Why couldn't you have released it last week or this week BEFORE Skyrim? >:/

I will say though, I wish you were off doing new stuff instead of releasing your older fare.

Any chance we'll see NEW stuff being localized?
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Kuro Madoushi said:
Damn you, Ireland! Damn you to hell! I got other stuff to play during that time! Why couldn't you have released it last week or this week BEFORE Skyrim? >:/

I will say though, I wish you were off doing new stuff instead of releasing your older fare.

Any chance we'll see NEW stuff being localized?

I believe he's said it's possible if this stuff sells well.


Come on Langrisser! (It's the next best thing to Growlanser.)
 

vireland

Member
cj_iwakura said:
I know for a fact this isn't true. There are Growlanser fans there, but I imagine their voices amount to little.

Sorry, to clarify - the ones that can decide aren't fans, and haven't been since the very first one they passed on.
 

vireland

Member
Kuro Madoushi said:
Damn you, Ireland! Damn you to hell! I got other stuff to play during that time! Why couldn't you have released it last week or this week BEFORE Skyrim? >:/

I will say though, I wish you were off doing new stuff instead of releasing your older fare.

Any chance we'll see NEW stuff being localized?

Already underway. Some cool things to announce and some *amazing* things that might come to pass. In any case, RPG fans will finally get more love.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
vireland said:
Already underway. Some cool things to announce and some *amazing* things that might come to pass. In any case, RPG fans will finally get more love.

If this is true, I'll have to buy something to help. And I still own a hard copy of this!


Elemental Gearbolt with Move support would be beautiful. (That game is impossible with a controller, I swear.)
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
I'm so glad the games publishing world still has someone as awesome as Vic Ireland in it.
I hope there will be people like him also for the future gens or I'd probably quit gaming...
 

vireland

Member
Desi said:
This game has a horrible bad ending. DO NOT BUY!!!

Escalflowne SRPG was real fun though.

Fortunately, there are four other endings and two other branches you might like better.
 

vireland

Member
Dash Kappei said:
I'm so glad the games publishing world still has someone as awesome as Vic Ireland in it.
I hope there will be people like him also for the future gens or I'd probably quit gaming...

I'm doing my part raising the next generation. :) My son will have his first Xbox indie game out the first part of next year.
 

Ken

Member
B.K. said:
Yes. It'll work on PS3s, PSPs, and Vita, eventually.

Oh wait. So I can go on PSN right now (North America) on my PSP, download it, and play it on my PSP?

Don't know a whole lot about how the PSN works between the PS3 and PSP so I assumed it was only for the PS3.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
You really need to fix your avatar Vic, GAF changed over a while to having all avatars being hosted locally.

Edit: Oh, you did. Good.

To be honest, I have never heard of this game. Any specific reason you decided to localize it at the time? Just what caught your eye?
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Drkirby said:
You really need to fix your avatar Vic, GAF changed over a while to having all avatars being hosted locally.

Edit: Oh, you did. Good.

To be honest, I have never heard of this game. Any specific reason you decided to localize it at the time? Just what caught your eye?

To quote the translation notes?

STELLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~!



But seriously, I hope they make it into the PSN release, they explain a lot. Mostly in that Human were known for wrestling games, and decided to make an SRPG, and they hit it out of the park in doing so.
 

CitizenKang

Neo Member
I loved this game so much when it was first released. I rarely replay games, but with this one I actually took the time to get all the endings.
 

Kuro Madoushi

Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, there were multi endings...always got the crap ending though :/

Glad to know you're working on something new AND an RPG to boot.

Good luck and long live Working Designs!
 

vireland

Member
Drkirby said:
You really need to fix your avatar Vic, GAF changed over a while to having all avatars being hosted locally.

Edit: Oh, you did. Good.

To be honest, I have never heard of this game. Any specific reason you decided to localize it at the time? Just what caught your eye?

It was a strategy RPG (a genre I love) and I had a relationship with Human from the PC-Engine/Turbografx days. I liked a lot of things about it, but I wasn't sure we had the time to fix the things I felt would make the game flow better because this was concurrent with our work on LUNAR2. I actually passed on it, then they came back and said *please* take it, and since the guy asking was a person I had a long history with who was really a great guy personally, I reconsidered and we did it.

I was really happy with how it turned out once it was tweaked. If you're into pure strategy RPGs (no exploration, etc), this is easily one of the best on the PlayStation.
 

vireland

Member
Ken said:
Oh wait. So I can go on PSN right now (North America) on my PSP, download it, and play it on my PSP?

Don't know a whole lot about how the PSN works between the PS3 and PSP so I assumed it was only for the PS3.

Make this statement about Vanguard Bandits on 11/15 and the answer is yes.

Until then, you could download any of the PSOne classics or Import store stuff for Playstation on PSN and it would work like you describe.
 

davepoobond

you can't put a price on sparks
vireland said:
You can turn the battle scenes off in the system menu to speed it up if you don't want to watch them and just want the result.


yeah i did that after a couple of battles. it made the game more enjoyable for me :p
 

truly101

I got grudge sucked!
Will buy. I still have to get around to playing this copy of Brigandine I acquired a couple of months ago.
 

KariOhki

Neo Member
At this rate I won't have to get hard copies for the WD PS1 games I'm missing :p Which is more than I realized, but whatever. I'll be picking this up eventually with the Arc the Lad games and Alundra. And then keep playing my US CD and Japanese PSN copies of Silhouette Mirage.
 
Great to see this game getting more coverage.

I've said it before, but VB is quite a fun, but average game. What I enjoyed was the emphasis placed on defensive positioning, and how your characters change their actions as such. Furthermore, the branching paths are really neat. I've only ever finished the Kingdom Branch, but I'll get around to the other 2 some day.

Overall, I think VB is worth your time if you're an SRPG fan. Even though I call it average, it's certainly better than a lot off the SRPG dreck that was released during the PSone's life cycle.
 
This is a pretty average SRPG. It suffers from the usual lack of depth, difficulty, repetitive scenarios and combat, etc. It is nice that the dev team improved on the NA version, though. It's not 'one of the best on the playstation' considering there were many SRPGs of similar quality that just happened to not be localized. It's a decent but forgettable game, and feels generic if you've played a lot of tactics games already.

Here are some of the best turn based tactics games for the PS: X-Com, Tear Ring Saga, Panzer General, Allied General, Front Mission 2 & 3, Super Robot Wars F/FF, Nectaris, SRW Alpha, SRW Alpha Gaiden, SD Gundam: G Generation series. If you had to make a shortlist of the best tactics games on the PS, this game wouldn't be on it.
 

LordK

Member
I remember coming across Vanguard Bandits at my Toys R Us (in Chico, Vic!) in high school and buying it because of the trippy cover, haha.

Me and my friend wanted to work at Working Designs out of college. I even emailed Ken about what it was like to work there and he was nice enough to reply.
 

vireland

Member
mjemirzian said:
Here are some of the best turn based tactics games for the PS, which should more or less be the only ones worth playing at this point, if you're going to dig that far into tactics gaming history: X-Com, Tear Ring Saga, Panzer General, Allied General, Front Mission 2 & 3, Super Robot Wars F/FF, Nectaris, SRW Alpha, SRW Alpha Gaiden, SD Gundam: G Generation series. If you had to make a shortlist of the best tactics games on the PS, this game wouldn't be on it.

I was totally getting where you were coming from until you put Nectaris on your "best" list. The Playstation update of Nectaris was terrible. IF you want that experience, the PC-Engine version was way more satisfying. The PlayStation version of that was a shadow of the original and nowhere near the best on the PS platform.
 
vireland said:
I was totally getting where you were coming from until you put Nectaris on your "best" list. The Playstation update of Nectaris was terrible. IF you want that experience, the PC-Engine version was way more satisfying. The PlayStation version of that was a shadow of the original and nowhere near the best on the PS platform.
It plays more or less identical, has a lot more content, you can skip animations and increase movement speed, and it's one of the only PS tactics games with a map editor. I don't see where the problem is in terms of gameplay, and it's a solid tactics game in the PS library regardless. It does look uglier, though.
 
waaaaaaaaay off topic, but you're proably the only guy in America who can answer. If Human's old IP's are still salvagable for reselling, what are the chances some of their other stuff from the era might come out?

Who doesn't want to see Clock Tower 1/2 on PSN? Or the PS1 port of the Super NES Clock Tower for that matter? I sure friggin do.
 

Rarutos

Member
Seems awesome! Will buy with the 10 bucks I got from that PSN promotion last month.

I missed out on a lot of great RPGs in the PS1 era, great to be able to play the some of the more obscure ones through PSN.
 

vireland

Member
HyperZone<3 said:
waaaaaaaaay off topic, but you're proably the only guy in America who can answer. If Human's old IP's are still salvagable for reselling, what are the chances some of their other stuff from the era might come out?

Who doesn't want to see Clock Tower 1/2 on PSN? Or the PS1 port of the Super NES Clock Tower for that matter? I sure friggin do.

It's all doable with enough will and enough money.
 
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