Atlus USA posted a new trailer for the English version of the 3DS strategy RPG Stella Glow, featuring the game’s opening animation. Unique for the western version of the game is an English version of the game’s theme song “Hikari no Metamorphosis”, which was re-recorded by the song’s original artist, Konomi Suzuki. That said, the original Japanese version of the song will also be included in the game.
NISAmerica announced that they will be publishing Stella Glow, Imageepoch’s SRPG that is newly released in Japan, for European release. The game is receiving both a physical and a digital release, and is set to come out during the Spring 2016 window.
NISAmerica has consistently been handling the European releases of games that Atlus has been coordinating for North America, at this point. If as many relatively niche titles can be consistently localized for Europe, I can’t help but speculate if there’s in fact a positive reception to the Atlus games and other titles like Lost Dimension for the region. It bodes well for Europe, if true. And it makes you wonder if NISAmerica will follow suit with FuRyu’s Legend of Legacy.
Stella Glow is set to come to North America via Atlus during the 2015 holiday season.
Stella Glow is coming to the United States and Canada during the holiday season (probably the latter half of November to anywhere in December.) The prices are as follows: $49.99 for the US, and $59.99 for Canada.
The pricing is a point of contention for many gamers. Generally speaking, Nintendo 3DS games are sold at $39.99 for standard editions in the United States. That the price is being marked above this convention is drawing claims of what’s colloquially called the “Atlus Tax” – a pattern of pricing games higher than the general prices of non-Atlus titles on similar platforms. Most recently, this can be seen with Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth.
Stella Glow has just released in Japan, as of June 4. Games in Japan have been offered at price points that vary quite noticeably within platforms. That said, it’s hard not to think of Atlus’ pricing in North America as conspicuous, compared to most other games.
In a Gematsu article announcing this information, Atlus also details additional features from a press release. Notably, a Free Time system allots players a limited amount of time per story segment with which they can grind out battles, shop for and upgrade weapons, explore dungeons, and form bonds with party members. Some bonds, when pushed to high enough levels, will yield more combat abilities or special story events. The game boasts 40-60 hours of play, main story and sidequests combined, with 50+ maps, a New Game+ mode, and multiple endings. Odds are the endings will be tied to the bonds formed in game, alongside other choices made with Free Time.
Seeing as this is a recurring topic, be sure to let us know what you think of the pricing for Stella Glow!
Featured image found at this Gematsu article.
The Stella Glow Song Magic Ensemble trailers continue with videos for Sakuya and Mordimort. The videos were uploaded to Sega’s Japanese YouTube account not too long ago.
Sakuya is themed after fire, reflected in the red and black color schemes and the volcanic demo stage shown off in her trailer. Reflecting her color scheme, her song is intense though not as peppy as Popo’s song. She’s voiced by Yui Sakakibara.
Mordimort is themed after the element of earth, rounding out the four classical elements. Honestly, I can’t guess much behind the aesthetics or personality of this character. The color choices don’t make me think of the earth element. She doesn’t seem emotionally expressive, which could perhaps be tied into an interpretation of the earth element as something stoic. The song feels mostly simple and bass-driven; I feel the presence of the rhythm more than anything. She’s voiced by Emi Nitta.
Continue reading to check out the trailers!
Sega recently released trailers for two of the witch companions in Stella Glow: Popo the Wind Witch and Risette the Water Witch. They are straightforward and comprehensive trailers, showcasing battle and character theme songs. The trailers describe what types of assistance the two witches offer in battle, while also playing the Witch’s theme song in the background.
Risette, voiced by Yoshino Nanjou seems to have a rather demure personality and her song sounds….tender? Soft? The words escape me at the moment, but I’m sure our readers will understand what I’m talking about. Her song is called “Toward the Legendary Sea”. Popo on the other hand is quite spunky and her song has a little more energy in it, even when it’s mostly “quiet.” She’s voiced by Maaya Uchida and her song is called “The Keys that Rusted Together”.
The Japanese demo is out already, for those interested or who might have the means to acquire the demo. Check out the trailers after the break!
Sega recently announced that Stella Glow, a 3DS RPG from Imageepoch that Sega is publishingi in Japan, will be receiving a demo. And the demo is coming out very soon – May 20th, not long ahead of the game’s June 4th release. Atlus is bringing the game to North America sometime later this year, with no specific release date currently announced. Additionally, demo plans for North America are known as of now.
The demo will allow players to sample the game’s prologue, wherein the evil witch Hilda will clash with the protagonist Alto. From there, Alto’s main mission will involve him recruiting witches to help him stop Hilda’s nefarious plans.
Stella Glow will also very likely be Imageepoch’s swan song, as the company has filed for bankruptcy. It’s been an unfortunate series of events for the company that apparently hasn’t been financially sound for the past couple of years. Gamers were likely first alerted to Imageepoch’s troubling circumstances with the publicized discovery that the company’s CEO had “disappeared.” But before Imageepoch filed for bankruptcy, the company had sought publishers for Stella Glow, and successfully contracted with Sega for publishing duties in Japan.
Credit goes to this Gematsu article for the initial news announcement.
Sega uploaded footage of a recent livestream showing off Stella Glow onto YouTube. Perfectly-Nintendo notes that the game was recently streamed on NicoNico. In total the gameplay segments doesn’t total more than ten minutes, but it’s another glimpse into the game for interested gamers and those who are currently on the fence. The trailers do show off the capabilities of Song Magic – a theme central to the story of Stella Glow.
The game is being published in North America by Atlus, and is set for release in Japan on July 4th. The entirety of the stream can be seen below. Gameplay footage does not start until around 11:47. Toshihiro Nagoshi also makes an appearance outside of gameplay footage, too.
Sega have released a new trailer for Imageepoch’s upcoming RPG, Stella Glow. The trailer shows us various aspects of the game, such as the story premise and the battle system. Your main team (a squad called the White Knights who are tasked with saving the world) consists of the characters Alto, Risette, Klaus, Popo, Sakuya and Moldimolt. Their opponents are Dante, Dorothy and of course the witch Hilda, who threatens to destroy the world with her song of destruction. The trailer also highlights the use of Song Magic by the witches on your team.
The game also features a system called “Free Time” which, similar to the Persona games, allows you to spend your time outside of battle on various activities, such as managing your equipment, talking to and bonding with various characters or completing side-quests called “Free Missions”. The game also allows you to unlock new Song Magic in the witches on your team using a process called Tuning. This apparently has Alto completing dungeons within the witches’ hearts. Completing the dungeons unlocks new powers within the witches, and also new costumes (shown in the featured image in this article).
Atlus USA just announced that they will be publishing Stella Glow for the Americas. There isn’t any new localized media out there for the announcement, but Atlus expects to share more on the game in the future. They do suggest that a 2015 release is planned – possibly late this year, if I had to guess.
If you recall, Sega is publishing the game in Japan. Imageepoch, the development team for this game, had run into financial difficulties and approached Sega about publishing the game, meant to celebrate Imageepoch’s 10th anniversary.
There have been games in the past localized and distributed for different regions by different publishing companies, but of course it’s hard not to notice that Sega is publishing the game in Japan and Atlus is handling publishing in the Americas, since Sega now owns Atlus. This shouldn’t necessarily sound any alarms for Atlus localizing internally-produced Sega games, as there isn’t anything to suggest such a future is in the cards just yet. By now, however, we can understand that there’s a pretty good working relationship between Sega and Atlus. Sega of Europe distributing Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax in Europe is one other such notable reference point.
Atlus’ PR statement was found in this NeoGAF topic announcing the game’s localization, reproduced below:
Here’s some great news for JRPG lovers: ATLUS USA will localize the upcoming RPG Stella Glow for the Americas! Developer Imageepoch, who you may recognize as the team behind the Luminous Arc series (the first two entries were published by ATLUS on the Nintendo DS), is back with a brand new IP for the 3DS! More details/assets/all that good stuff will be coming in due time (2015 release!), but for now, here’s a very brief press release!
We don’t have any localized assets yet, but here is the Japanese trailer and some artwork to tide you over!
Featured image courtesy of this Gematsu article.
SEGA recently uploaded the first trailer for the Imageepoch-developed Stella Glow to their YouTube channel. It introduces several characters (and their voiceover artists!) while showing off some gameplay and animated cutscenes, all accompanied by an opening theme song.
The “LAST SONG FOR YOU” text flashed at the end of the trailer must have some thematic significance – it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out once we learn more of the game. We know from our previous writeup that the witch antagonist Hilda plans to use her powers of song to crystallize the world within the game.
Stella Glow is a 3DS strategy-RPG scheduled for release in Japan on June 4th. No word on release outside of Japan as of yet. Continue reading to check out the trailer!