There is an interview with Treasure in the July Famitsu 360 issue...I was hoping Andriasang or one of the Japanese news sites would cover it but here are some of the more interesting bits of information from it:
- They started thinking about it after finishing Bleach Wii
- They originally wanted to jump right into making Guardian Heroes 2, but after seeing the wild success of Castle Crashers, they thought they would re-introduce the world to the series since it's been so long. Their hope seems to also be to prove to Sega that a full Guardian Heroes 2 would sell well.
- They originally wanted to recreate everything in HD, but the idea was scrapped and it seemed the best approach to re-use the Saturn artwork as is, with a shader/post-effect mode and an original mode. They found out about how important retaining original graphics are with the PS2 ports of Nights and Dynamite Deka.
- There is an original gameplay mode with nearly all quirks of the original intact, save for some bug fixing. They know well of problems with the original game's balance, so to counter that for the remix/arrange mode they have a host of different configurations that can be set manually, such as turning flying off and making line movement that was abused before impossible. They are hoping that people use these rules/configs to make online play more fun and balanced, but rely upon users to maybe find "good hosts" that set sensible rules.
- The character balance is fixed for arrange mode, and they believe overall the game plays with a better rhythm and flow. The sound is the same but more sound effects and voice are available because they were cut for Saturn's limitations. Now some skeletons and villagers talk that didn't before
- 12 person battles are possible, they think it will be "Quite crazy!". They really want people to have fun with the game and seem to be counting on good sales of this game to float the idea of GH2.