Post by Nester the Lark on Jun 20, 2019 21:57:33 GMT -5
I already posted about the localization of Disaster Report 4 in the third-party news thread, but I wanted to talk about it a little more because it's kind of an interesting case.
So, the Zettai Zetsumei Toshi series (henceforth referred to as ZZT), is a series of adventure games in which you play as various characters trying to survive in the aftermath of a severe natural disaster. They were developed by Irem under producer and creator Kazuma Kujo. The first two games were released on the PS2, and were localized into English (rather poorly, as I understand) under the titles of "Disaster Report" and "Raw Danger," respectively. The third game was made for PSP, and only came out in Japan.
A fourth title was in development for PS3, and was rather ambitious in scope compared to the earlier games. It was scheduled to be released on March 10, 2011, but was delayed at the last minute for polish and optimization. However, as fate would have it, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11. Sensitivity towards the subject matter caused Irem to end up cancelling the game outright, despite requests from fans, including those in disaster zones, still wanting the game to be released. (Although, Irem was moving away from game development at the time, anyway, and was cancelling other projects as well, such as Kujo's sequel to his PS2 RPG Steambot Chronicles.)
Kujo subsequently left Irem and founded his own studio, Granzella, partially with the intent of developing a spiritual successor to the ZZT series. Ultimately, however, he was able to obtain the rights to ZZT from Irem in 2014, and continue the series proper.
It seems that Granzella's ZZT4 was remade from scratch, and was not built on the Irem version (which may have even been completely deleted).
EDIT: Here's an article in which Kujo talked about the difference between the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game:
You can see screenshots of the unreleased Irem version in this (highly outdated) article at Hardcore Gaming 101, as well as read several comments about the situation from Kujo. (It's a little funny to read the author lamenting that ZZT4 will never be released.) Comparing them to Granzella's version, it seems that Kujo stayed pretty close to the original.
And now, here we are, with ZZT4 being localized into English under the title Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories. Between this and Granzella's revival of R-Type, it makes me wonder if Kujo also has plans to revive his sequel to Steambot Chronicles.
So, the Zettai Zetsumei Toshi series (henceforth referred to as ZZT), is a series of adventure games in which you play as various characters trying to survive in the aftermath of a severe natural disaster. They were developed by Irem under producer and creator Kazuma Kujo. The first two games were released on the PS2, and were localized into English (rather poorly, as I understand) under the titles of "Disaster Report" and "Raw Danger," respectively. The third game was made for PSP, and only came out in Japan.
A fourth title was in development for PS3, and was rather ambitious in scope compared to the earlier games. It was scheduled to be released on March 10, 2011, but was delayed at the last minute for polish and optimization. However, as fate would have it, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11. Sensitivity towards the subject matter caused Irem to end up cancelling the game outright, despite requests from fans, including those in disaster zones, still wanting the game to be released. (Although, Irem was moving away from game development at the time, anyway, and was cancelling other projects as well, such as Kujo's sequel to his PS2 RPG Steambot Chronicles.)
Kujo subsequently left Irem and founded his own studio, Granzella, partially with the intent of developing a spiritual successor to the ZZT series. Ultimately, however, he was able to obtain the rights to ZZT from Irem in 2014, and continue the series proper.
It seems that Granzella's ZZT4 was remade from scratch, and was not built on the Irem version (which may have even been completely deleted).
EDIT: Here's an article in which Kujo talked about the difference between the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game:
When asked about the difficulty of remaking the game on PS4, Kujo answered that in fact he felt it was easier developing the PS4 version compared to the PS3 version. When rewatching videos of the original Disaster Report, Kujo remembers how troublesome it was to develop it, and compared to that, the PS4 game was comparatively easier to make.
What’s different compared to the PS3 version? The game mostly remains the same, but they added the disaster manual that was well-received in ZZT3, had to remake the main character’s phone from a feature phone to a smartphone, and also added support for PSVR.
You can see screenshots of the unreleased Irem version in this (highly outdated) article at Hardcore Gaming 101, as well as read several comments about the situation from Kujo. (It's a little funny to read the author lamenting that ZZT4 will never be released.) Comparing them to Granzella's version, it seems that Kujo stayed pretty close to the original.
And now, here we are, with ZZT4 being localized into English under the title Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories. Between this and Granzella's revival of R-Type, it makes me wonder if Kujo also has plans to revive his sequel to Steambot Chronicles.