Watch: Rogue Hearts Dungeon Trailer

Wow, I’m impressed. Although the music for the trailer was a bit overdramatic with its epic sounds, the game looks good. I just hope it’s an actual Roguelike game and not Roguelike-for-dummies or something.

Uh, wait what? Really PS2?
I highly dubt about the chance of see this title out of JP, maybe the gameplay can be good (yeah “maybe”) but it looks just like a snes game xD
(sorry I’m not so much a grindy games lover)

“It kind of reminds me of how Nightmare of Druaga on PS2 looks and plays.”

SOLD!

Neat! I’m not really much of an importer, but I’d definitely pick this up if it came out in the US.

Iceketch: I remember seeing some screenshots that featured high-res 2D art + 3D backgrounds, which the blurry trailer definitely betrays. I think you could compare the graphics to recent PC Ys games. Besides, these kinds of games are definitely all about the gameplay.

EvilAkito: Try hard as I may, I can’t come up with a possible US publisher for this title. The only one I can think of would be Atlus, since they released Izuna recently… but their 2007 schedule seems packed compared to previous years, so I don’t see how they could fit this one in. If anything, Bandai-Namco should pick this up and market it as some sort of a spiritual sequel to Nightmare of Druaga.

jeffx, as unlikely as it sounds, the possibility is always there. I mean, who would have thought that Nightmare of Druaga would have not only gotten a US release, but also a full-color instruction manual?

For a game like this, though, we’re pretty much limited to relying on the usual niche game publishers like Atlus or NISA. Or maybe we’ll see a half-assed but better-than-nothing localization from a lousy publisher like XS Games. Who knows?

Lousy, half-assed? You sure have a bone to pick with XS. I thought both of their PS2 offerings were decent. As for NISA I think this kind of game is outside of their niche. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t mind even a shoddy translation in this case, I just need to know which item does what and which equipment is cursed and whatnot, you know? I couldn’t care less about the story, which this game probably doesn’t have to begin with.

Man, I am ashamed for all of you.

This is AN UPDATE OF ROGUE, among the first of all dungeon exploration games. It predates Wizardry! It was originally written for mainframe systems! The very first random dungeon computer game, and the genesis of the genre of roguelikes. The game Nethack, Angband, Shiren, ADOM and Dungeon Crawl are based off of.

I will say this much for it. If it is like PC Rogue, then it is likely that no one reading this will ever beat it. That game had no ordinary level of challenge. I should know, for I have put more than a little time into it, and I have never won fairly. Even if it’s based on other versions (like Rogue Clone IV, which I’ve won a few times, or Unix Rogue) it will be a kind of difficulty few have, these days, experienced.

I doubt Rogue’s creators (Toy, Arnold and Wichman) are getting a cut of the money for this. Isn’t Rogue BSD license? Doesn’t that prohibit commercial exploitation?

Forgot to add that the only Compile Hearts game published stateside in the past was Astonishia Story, courtesy of Ubisoft. It was a subpar PSP SRPG but I’m probably not telling you anything new. All this to say that Ubisoft is also a possible player.