There are things i have limits to discuss.
- La-Mulana was developed by Nigoro, not Nicalis. Our job was to market and localize the game. If there were delays related to the development you'd be better off asking Nigoro
- I have a version of Guxt on my 3DS, but Guxt as a game isn't to the level it needs to be as a for-purchase game on 3DS. We spent time with Ikachan to polish it more, improve the game, get more detail on the story and give it actual menus. Guxt needs a lot more work than that. You may be frustrated that you can't play it, but I'd rather you be frustrated that you can't play it then just release as-is so you can bitch that it's not good enough.
- There are a ton of factors in regional releases. In the past NOE and the various rating bodies didn't make it easy to release in a timely manner in Europe. We've had discussions extensively with NOE to improve this and they seem to be trying.
- Dissemination of information is my prerogative, not yours. As much as fans feel entitled to information, there is no obligation on the part of the company to release that information. However, with that said, we do try to communicate directly with fans on Twitter, Facebook and in-person at events. Just because we don't communicate to YOU doesn't mean we're not communicating to other players
- We did announce 1001 Spikes two years ago. We've remade the game from scratch. The original game (1000 Spikes) was built on IG Maker and not a port.
1001 Spikes also has:
- over 100 levels (1000 Spikes had 20-something)
- over 20 characters (1000 Spikes had one)
- An actual story with cutscenes and multiple endings and stories for each character (1000 Spikes didn't have this)
- 1-4P co-op and versus modes (1000 Spikes was 1P)
- Professional chiptun music by two great musicians (1000 Spikes had designer music that wasn't great)
- Coming to Wii U, 3DS, PS4, PSV, Xbox One, Windows, Linux and OSX (1000 Spikes was XBLIG only)
Regarding Grinsia, our testing vendor (who we're never using again) didn't catch this. It's not a cop-out and unfortunately that it has a glitch, but we submitted a patch to Nintendo BEFORE the game released so that should go up soon.
Hope this clears things up for you.
-ty
Does anyone disagree with that sentiment? I don't generally like shitting on people who are trying hard to do stuff with limited resources, but it just seems to me that Nicalis has a terrible track record when it comes to announcing stuff, vanishing off the radar, communicating poorly with the fanbase and with the developers they work with, and just having a reputation for being unreliable. Why is that? Are they stretched too thin by trying to get their hands on whatever they can? Do they announce projects without having an actual publishing plan? Do they just suck?
Here's some stuff off the top of my head:
- The terribly handled La-Mulana WiiWare debacle, where the developer and Nicalis couldn't even agree on what caused the cancellation after a ton of delays even though the game was released in Japan.
- They were supposed to bring Pixel's Ikachan and Guxt to the 3DS eShop. In the end only Ikachan made it, despite Guxt having a ESRB rating. No one seems to know what happened.
- They ported Cave Story+ to the 3DS eShop in 2012, and it seems to have taken 2 years for them to finally release it in Europe. Wut?
- They announced Legend of Raven for 3DS in 2012, which would be a port of an existing and pretty old PC doujin fighter at that point. After not having any news for ages, the Japanese developers even managed to crowdsource a brand new remake in 2013. Nicalis then announces that they're scrapping the 3DS version in favor of a Vita version, and then later they announce PS4 and XB1 versions as well. Without releasing a single thing!
- They announced 1001 Spikes for 3DS and WiiU over 2 years ago. Still nowhere to be seen. It was supposed to be an enhanced port/remake of an existing XBLA game. Still no date.
What gives? Does anyone have insight into why this company can't seem to put out anything on time despite being a middleman publisher localizing and/or porting/enhancing games which already exist and are often pretty old?