In celebration of Gust’s 20th anniversary this year, the company held a special presentation to commemorate their past works and a look at what’s ahead, such as some of their recently announced titles in New Atelier Rorona and Ar NoSurge.
The presentation begins with a formal greeting and introduction from Tecmo Koei’s founder and CEO Yoichi Erikawa, who thanks the fans of Gust, along with staff and other members, for having supported the company for the past 20 years.
After Gust producer Tadanobu Inoue shares a look at the company’s titles released over the past 20 years, we get a look at what we can expect to see in the future, starting with a look at New Atelier Rorona with director Yoshito Okamura and Atelier series artist Mel Kishida at 6:25 of the video.
When asked why they decided to call their upcoming game New Atelier Rorona, rather than making it a “Plus” version like the other PlayStation Vita Atelier ports, Okamura explains that it is because he considers the game to be a complete remake—one that will have the characters fully remade to better match its original artwork, in addition to having a new system, and more.
Starting at 8:40, we get a closer look at the upcoming game and its enhanced system. With new scenarios, battle system, and playable characters, Okamura feels that even those who’ve played the original version of the game, will still enjoy New Atelier Rorona, almost as if they’re playing it for the first time again.
You can check out a bunch of screenshots of the game from our earlier report.
At 16:03, Gust tease a look at a special presentation video to announce Atelier Escha & Logy’s upcoming anime series that was recently announced, due to air sometime next year. Okamura shares that Gust have actually talked about producing an Atelier anime on numerous occasions in the past, but their plans never came to fruition until recently.
One of the things Okamura looks forward to seeing is how the story will translate to its anime form, as the game has two perspectives between the protagonists, which he’s confident that Studio Gokumi will handle with care.
Next up is Ar NoSurge with director Akira Tsuchiya, who begins his presentation along with Ion’s voice actress Ai Kakuma, at 19:50 of the video. After a brief explanation on the past games of the series, Tsuchiya says that he hopes to continue working on them on many different platforms in the future.
When asked if he could share more information on Ar NoSurge, the director states that it might be difficult to explain without having to spend hours talking (and also because he wouldn’t want to get in trouble for revealing too much,) so he prepared a special video which can be seen at the 21:35 mark.
Tsuchiya reveals that the song heard in the video is actually Ar NoSurge’s opening theme song, which was made to represent the game’s theme of “bonding” and the “heart’s inner feelings,” as the story will revolve heavily around the relationship between characters.
Ai Kakuma shares that from her work thus far, she sees a lot of the Ion we’ve come to know from the past title, but at the same time, she also sees a much more mature Ion at times. However, even Ai doesn’t know the connection between Ar NoSurge and Ciel NoSurge, in response to which Tsuchiya teases, “It’s almost as if we’re not sure if it’s the same Ion…?”
Finally, Tsuchiya reveals that Ar NoSurge will have a limited edition version upon release, called “Agent Pack,” which will include a music box to symbolize the theme of “songs” in the game.
New Atelier Rorona will be coming out on November 21 for PS3 and Vita; and Ar NoSurge will be coming out on January 30, 2014, on PlayStation 3.
