Elminage Original Brings Deep RPG Customization to PSP Today

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Elminage Original Brings Deep RPG Customization to PSP Today
Andrew Wang Producer, UFO Interactive Games
6 Author Replies

I think RPG gamers need no introduction to the concept of customization. In Elminage Original, the customization options are… abundant, to say the least. There are 12 character races and 16 classes to choose from, so players will be able to tailor their party to suit their specific play styles.

Elminage Original is a dungeon-crawling RPG, and it doesn’t try to hide it. It doesn’t waste time hand-holding, and it lets you jump into the action very quickly if you so choose. Parties are formed in groups of six, so whether you think you’ll do better with Humans, Fairies, Werebeasts, or Magic Dolls, you can rest assured that there are plenty of combinations to try!

Customization is a big reason why I love RPG’s. When I start to play a new RPG, I tend to get caught up when I’m allowed an unlimited amount of time to grind and discover new tactics, and I spend way too many hours doing so. I’m sure that some of you reading this know exactly what I am talking about. In the case of Elminage Original, I even spent time customizing my entire party to make sure that they all had matching themed portraits. You can actually make your own party icons, and then upload them directly into the game!

Elminage Original on PSPElminage Original on PSP

Elminage Original brings players into the world of Halodra Ille, and tasks with finding six missing “God Rings” — made by the gods to create a barrier keeping demonic forces out of Halodra Ille. When a group of evil priestesses damaged the shield and attempted to destroy one of the rings, the remaining five scattered themselves to prevent further damage done to the shield and the world. However, the now-weakened shield is unable to repel demonic forces pouring into the world, resulting in a much more dangerous Halodra Ille…

Elminage Original on PSP

After working on several titles with Starfish in the past, some people realized that UFO and Starfish have a good working relationship. I was asked if Elminage, the series made popular in Japan by Starfish, was ever going to come over to the US, and I am very happy to say that yes, it’s here.

We hope you enjoy Elminage Original. And when you decide to surface for air and take a break from dungeon crawling and monster slaying, navigate your custom party over to our official site, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Should you choose to accept this quest, we can’t guarantee your safety from any random encounters that you may run into along the way. ;)

elminage originalplaystation gamesufo interactive games

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34 Comments

6 Author Replies

  • Pabloo1010
    November 20, 2012 at 7:32 am PST

    Nice to still see PSP support lol!

  • Christian399
    November 20, 2012 at 7:34 am PST

    Vita compatible? If not, I’ll wait.

  • Deekman
    November 20, 2012 at 7:46 am PST

    Tested some more Vita games transferring to Vita after the 2.0 update last night. Portable Ops STILL doesn’t work. It’s ironic they still allow Vita games to release with no plans of supporting them.

  • Gorvi
    November 20, 2012 at 7:46 am PST

    The big two questions are of course:

    1) How much will it cost?
    2) Will it be Vita compatible?

  • Genduke
    November 20, 2012 at 7:47 am PST

    Looks awesome, and $14.99 is a pretty good price for it too. I also hope that it’s Vita compatible, but I’ll still buy it either way :)

  • Jucksalbe
    November 20, 2012 at 7:51 am PST

    Can’t even spell your own game right? ;)

    Anyway, looking forward to the game, will this come to the European PSN, too?

  • iriihutoR84
    November 20, 2012 at 7:53 am PST

    I think you guys are awesome for bringing this over completely unexpectedly. We need publishers like you because the PSP has a ton of fantastic RPGs that never made it out of Japan. Hope this performs well for you and encourages you to localize more handheld RPGs. Any word on the price? I’m getting the game either way but I’m curious to know if I need to fill up my PSN wallet before making the purchase.

    Also, I try to request this from all niche Japanese games publishers because I’d really want to play it in English. Sony’s own Ore no Shikabane wo Koete Yuke is a PSP game that apparently SCEA has no interest of localizing and it really looks amazing. It would be cool if some niche publishers could look in to localizing it instead. The game also has an upcoming Vita sequel so it really needs to be done. Much appreciated and thank you for your time!

  • Ryumoau
    November 20, 2012 at 7:59 am PST

    wow…you are actually releasing a niche dungeon crawler for a dead platform, on the release dates of both PS All Stars and Persona 4? good luck….

  • IcedDice777
    November 20, 2012 at 8:54 am PST

    Don’t have a psp…Put this game on PS3/PSN and people will gobble this up! I know i would.

  • FrogmanTM
    November 20, 2012 at 9:26 am PST

    The headline on the main blog page says for PSP/Vita. It may or may not mean that this is the case as there is no indication or reference to Vita on the game site. Also, this game is a PSN download.

  • Major_Hoare
    November 20, 2012 at 9:32 am PST

    I think I played this on my SNES.

  • ProfessorAnatil
    November 20, 2012 at 9:49 am PST

    @8 (Ryumoau) And Hitman. Though personally, I only care about P4G out of the retail releases today.

    I definitely want to get this one too, however I also need to know if it is compatible with the Vita as I do not have a PSP.

  • blinkstar17
    November 20, 2012 at 11:55 am PST

    @3 I think you meant PSP games not transferring, buddy. The vita hardware supports its software :)

  • jhl74
    November 20, 2012 at 12:05 pm PST

    I’ve been wanting this game for years now. Thanks for bring it on psn. Will look forward to Elminage 2 as well.

  • MGO_Count
    November 20, 2012 at 12:37 pm PST

    I’ll highly likely buy this game on my payday. Honestly, I miss these types of games :\. All games now are such mainstreamed..

  • Iteration7294531
    November 20, 2012 at 12:55 pm PST

    Sine Mora, P4: Golden, and this on the same day…amazing. Oh, yeah…and PS+, I guess. I only have just over 4 gigs left on my 32 gig card. Time to clear out something. But what?

  • mastorofpuppetz
    November 20, 2012 at 2:41 pm PST

    Wow, launching on PSP not vita? Does sony want vita to fail?

  • promethean
    November 20, 2012 at 5:10 pm PST

    Yep, Vita compatible. My guess is that you can make a PSP game that runs on Vita (obviously) but you can’t make a native Vita game that runs on the PSP, even one that has low CPU/Graphics overhead.

  • promethean
    November 20, 2012 at 5:12 pm PST

    Unfortunately, there is no manual for this available at PSN or the publisher’s web site. While those familiar with this type of game will understand most things, many stats are not explained… UFO, a little help here on the manual?

    • Andrew Wang
      November 20, 2012 at 5:25 pm PST

      There is a built-in digital manual in the game.
      Let me know if it’s not enough, maybe I can arrange something in the near future…

  • promethean
    November 20, 2012 at 5:34 pm PST

    Okay, after much searching in-game, I pushed the PS button on my Vita and half-exited, at which point the “?” jumped out to my eyes… Sorry, I’m new to the Vita and didn’t realize this was where it was. Thanks for the rapid response though!

  • CrawfishFiesta
    November 20, 2012 at 7:08 pm PST

    Thank you for the information, Andrew. I had been trying to find the manual. I notice that the manual doesn’t have any lists of races, classes, spells, etc. Similarly, I have not yet found any description of the races or classes in-game. Is this intentional? It would be nice to have some descriptive text and insight into what the different classes and races are capable of while building a party.

    Perhaps I just haven’t found it yet.

  • promethean
    November 20, 2012 at 8:14 pm PST

    I agree, a list of race descriptions & class descriptions would be very helpful.

    Otherwise, having played for about 3 hours, I can fully attest to this being an excellent game for anyone who loves the Wizardry series. It doesn’t have the “little kid” feel of Class of Heroes and allows for character creations & customization to a much higher degree than Unchained Blades. As such, it fills a unique space in the PS VIta or PSP roster. Fans of hard-core RPGs shouldn’t debate this: Just purchase and play. If you aren’t familiar with the Wizardry series but are looking for an RPG challenge that deviates from the typical JRPG, look no further than this.

  • CrawfishFiesta
    November 20, 2012 at 9:52 pm PST

    Also, based on the stats and face icons, it looks to me like the gnome and dwarf races were mixed up.

  • Elvick_
    November 20, 2012 at 11:15 pm PST

    Great pricing! :D

  • saintaqua
    November 20, 2012 at 11:20 pm PST

    Hi,
    I’ve been trying for a few hours to upload my pics into the game on Vita but haven’t had any luck.
    Could someone confirm if this feature isn’t supported on Vita? If it’s not that makes me super sad since it was one of the main reasons I bought this game.
    I’ve already tried it in PNG and BMP files both and no luck.

  • promethean
    November 21, 2012 at 4:52 am PST

    @23 Wait, you mean dwarfs aren’t known for their amazing agility? :)

  • saintaqua
    November 21, 2012 at 11:02 am PST

    I appreciate you bringing this game over, but to anyone wondering, I can’t find a way to use the custom icons function on Vita, so if you care about that sort of thing you might want to skip over this game if you are like me and play on Vita.

  • saintaqua
    November 21, 2012 at 12:22 pm PST

    Thanks so much for your reply. I’ll be checking the blog for more news and any updates.
    Hope to see more rare games come over from you guys!

  • Duncanskull
    November 21, 2012 at 12:24 pm PST

    I noticed you changed the music. This is actually the music for Elminage 3. I hope this means you will bring Elminage 3 here, that one is the best of the series.

  • CrawfishFiesta
    November 21, 2012 at 3:42 pm PST

    A minor issue, but just in case you’re working on an update:

    The class abbreviations that appear in the character lists don’t coincide with the class names. I’m assuming this is just a localization issue. For example:

    The “Entertainer” class is abbreviated as “Bar”. I’m assuming there was some internal debate whether to translate the class as Entertainer or Bard.

    The “Hunter” class is abbreviated as “Ran”. Again, I’m assuming there was some disagreement whether to name the class Hunter or Ranger.

    The “Brawler” class is abbreviated as “Ber”. Once again, I’m assuming you were considering naming the class “Berserker”.

    The “Shaman” class is abbreviated as “KAN”, I think. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to stand for.

    Also, some of the abbreviations are in all-caps and others are not. No big deal, but it would be nice to clean up these minor localization issues from a polish perspective if you have the opportunity to patch the game.

    Also, I believe the manual has swapped the circle button and the “X” buttons. At least from what I can remember, every place in the manual that lists the circle button should really read “X” button and vice versa.

  • CrawfishFiesta
    November 21, 2012 at 4:14 pm PST

    Also, Andrew, if your team does have a chance to put out a patch, the localization could really use some love by a native English speaker.

    Menu options like “Friend is Call” and “It Uses” don’t make any sense and will scare away potential customers from what is probably a great game if the nonsensical translations can be ignored.

    I’m really hoping this game is a success, spurring you to localize the other games, as it’s my favorite genre. I worry that some of the poor quality translations are going to be a hindrance in accomplishing that, though, if you don’t patch it.

  • Ice-Nyne
    November 22, 2012 at 11:18 am PST

    I agree with CrawfishFiesta. While I am not too concerned with the way the translation looks, the issues in his second comment could be a problem when it comes to popularizing this title. For me, mixing up 4 races in the translation is a huge problem; as far as I can tell gnome should be called dwarf; hotlet should be called gnome; fairy should be called hotlet; and, dwarf should be called fairy.

    While I am grateful, and think any fan of the dungeon-crawling genre should buy this title, it would be nice to get a patch in the future.

  • EldarMark
    November 25, 2012 at 10:05 am PST

    “The “Shaman” class is abbreviated as “KAN”, I think. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to stand for.”

    Shaman gets – KAN (from the Japanese Kannagi, an alternate reading of the word 巫 — Miko, or “Shrine Maiden”, a Shinto Priestess.

    I think the biggest hiccup in the translation is the mixup with the race names:

    Human – 8/8/7/9/8/9
    Elf – 7/10/10/6/8/6
    Gnome (supposed to be Dwarf) – 10/6/10/11/6/7
    Hotlet (supposed to be Gnome) – 7/7/12/9/8/7
    Fairy (supposed to be Hotlet) – 6/6/5/7/12/15
    Dwarf (supposed to be Fairy) – 5/9/9/5/14/9
    Werebeast – 9/9/9/10/11/6
    Dragonewt – 12/7/5/12/6/7
    Devilish – 9/9/6/10/9/7

    If you notice, it looks like the Gnome / Hotlet / Fairy / Dwarf ones were rotated 1 off. This would be a super easy fix — it only affects the character creation and character status windows.

  • boalex123
    December 16, 2012 at 6:28 pm PST

    It would be awesome to have more psp games added. Plus another psp update because as of now I can not get online because the psp (3000) isn’t compatible with my security network on my modem.

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