Support NeoGAF

[cj_iwakura]

• Developer: Namco-Bandai / Flightplan (RIP)
• Publisher: Working Designs Gaijinworks
• Platforms: PSP & PSV / PSTV(compatible)
• Genre: Strategy RPG
• Distribution: Download via PSN / UMD (preorder only)
• Price: $30.99 [US] |

Summon Night 5™ is an award-winning tactical role-playing game for Sony’s PSP™ handheld game system. Its protagonists are the Eucross, a group of Summoners who maintain order and balance between parallel worlds bathed in magic that ebbs and flows based on the phase of the moon.

The playable characters are Arca (a female Summoner) and Folth (male). Both are Eucross rookies, but their preternatural skills and charisma allow them to “Cross” successfully with any of four different partners: Dyth, Kagerou, Spinel and Pariet. Players can experience as many as 8 different variations of the story and over 14 different endings through repeated playthroughs, with different story arcs and Cross abilities determined by their choice of playable character and partner.

Also of note is Kouhaku Kuroboshi's art, the long-running Summon Night character designer.

When worlds collide and everything is turned upside-down, a new order must be created to keep chaos at bay. BandaiNamco’s Summon Night 5 is the continuing story of that order-keeping society, the Eucross, and the adventures their Summoners have keeping their world and the disparate races from the Otherworlds in balance.

Players can choose to experience the story as rookie Summoners Folth or Arca, and one of four possible partners (their “Cross&#8221, giving the game’s dialogue and feel a unique flavor on up to eight different playthroughs. What players see, and how the characters react depends on what characters are chosen at the beginning of each playthrough. But whatever choices a player makes, they’re in for a charming and sometimes tense Strategy-RPG adventure as they gradually unravel a plot that threatens the balance the Eucross is sworn to protect. The game features beautiful 2D and 3D art with battles presented in user-adjustable isometric perspective, and gorgeous animation that is a hallmark of Bandai Namco productions.

Hardcore Gamer (4/5)

Summon Night 5 is an SRPG that needs to be played by anyone who likes the genre. It’s a love letter to fans of a somewhat bygone era of Japanese roleplaying games and manages to deliver on nearly all fronts, be it story, characterization, gameplay or presentation. 2015 has been kind to the strategy-RPG genre and there are plenty of great titles out there vying for players’ time, but do yourself a favor and play Summon Night 5 before nearly all of those. It feels uniquely magical and unlike most other games on the market right now.

Opening Animation

Gameplay Preview

Special Thanks

Victor Ireland, you crazy diamond.
Tauke for graphics.
and you, for going to 11 and supporting PSP games in 2015.

 

[Ingueferroque]

Special shout out to the Sony Official Blog team for not mentioning this game in their latest Store Update.

 

[tauke]

Will wait for my physical copy to arrived before I can play it!

Also the banner should have transparency. I'll check my Dropbox folder later.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

 

[bomblord1]

I just have one question.

How does it look on the PSTV?

 

[NeOak]

I just have one question.

How does it look on the PSTV?

Can someone confirm it works?

The errors can change depending on if you're doing it through the system or from the PC.

Hopefully we'll hear back from Sony. There's nothing we can do but wait with you since it's all handled on their side.

I will say, however, that if you have one of the OLED Vitas, you're in for a treat. The game looks GREAT on the VITA. I'm assuming the colors are extra-saturated because of the OLED, but it looks awesome.

It's ok, I will live with the superior microUSB port.

 

[flohen95]

In. I'll just have to wait until my physical copy arrives next year, since I don't want to fiddle around with the account settings on my Vita at the moment and my PSP isn't connected to the PSN (because I don't want to risk my account by using it on CFW). Also, I'm not even sure if I'm going to get a code since I ordered via VGP (last I heard those orders include codes now too, but I'm not completely up to date.
Anyway, it's just crazy to believe that I will soon own a physical PSP game released in 2016. And it's an SRPG too, which is pretty much my favourite genre. Really looking forward to this.

 

[Hubb]

Can someone confirm it works?

Need the codes to work first.

 

[Dandy Crocodile]

Having it live on PSN and a nonfunctional code is annoying.
Soon, dear Summon Night. I've been wanting to play a mainline game since I played the GBA spinoffs.

 

[NeOak]

Need the codes to work first.

Oh right, I haven't tried my codes.

On another note, release info added to Wikipedia.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Invalid code here too.

 

[Damaniel]

Can someone confirm it works?.

The email with the code they sent said that they haven't received final certification for PSTV, but they were expecting it shortly.

 

[MaximumSpider]

Forgot this was out this week. Ah well, I'll buy it next week.

 

[SarusGray]

Very excited, I hope gaijinwork does well. Thanks vic for showing PSP/Vita love, can't wait to play this game!

 

[vireland]

Special shout out to the Sony Official Blog team for not mentioning this game in their latest Store Update.

I think that was due to some latent back-end issue that almost torpedoed the launch today. Just getting the game on the store was a victory after the way today started. Hopefully we get some love in the coming days.

 

[vireland]

I just have one question.

How does it look on the PSTV?

Looks good, but not whitelisted yet. It's coming, but might be a couple weeks. PSP and PS Vita are a go right now.

EDIT: Just tried it and it works on PSTV now. No waiting for the whitelist, we got it at launch. The game looks better on the OLED PS Vita, though.

 

[SarusGray]

I think that was due to some latent back-end issue that almost torpedoed the launch today. Just getting the game on the store was a victory after the way today started. Hopefully we get some love in the coming days.

I'll be spamming their comment boards.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Looks good, but not whitelisted yet. It's coming, but might be a couple weeks. PSP and PS Vita are a go right now.

Ironically, people who are buying it outright get first dibs.

 

[NeOak]

The email with the code they sent said that they haven't received final certification for PSTV, but they were expecting it shortly.

Yeah, now I read it when I went to look for one to gift to a friend.

Looks good, but not whitelisted yet. It's coming, but might be a couple weeks. PSP and PS Vita are a go right now.

Welp, time to fire up my 3.32 PSTV and install the hack so I can try it out... after the code works

 

[xzeldax3]

I forgot how great PSP games can look, wow!

 

[pancakesandsex]

Vic, are the Japanese voices left in or is it just silent like Growlanser 4 was? That blurb about unspoken dialog in the localization notes isn't clear.

 

[NeOak]

Vic, are the Japanese voices left in or is it just silent like Growlanser 4 was? That blurb about unspoken dialog in the localization notes isn't clear.

He had posted in the other thread:

Here's 25 minutes of english gameplay, and it at least has VO for special attacks and stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIPJkr2Bths

I hope that was kept in at least. It's unfortunate but not a huge issue. If it really bothers me I guess I could play a patched version in an emulator or something

That article has a weirdly adversarial headline. There's no secret at all that there was no budget for VO or licensed voices in this release. We didn't have them for Class of Heroes 2 or 2G, and won't have them for CoH3. For SN5, it's been clear from the beginning, we answered it whenever it was asked, and it was clear in the videos we released, most notably the 25 minute unedited slice of the game that shows the game events and the battles. If you were following the game at all, it was very hard to miss.

Expecting full VO localization in a ~$42 game with 40k lines of dialogue when the initial sales of the physical version were less than 5,000 units on a "dead" platform is a bit much. Can we do it? Yes. But we need to sell a reasonable amount of copies to have the budget for that. And that means 25k units and up. It will get easier as we move to platforms with a larger and more active base, but we just need to keep growing the fanbase to get to the point where we can make it happen.

Here's 25 minutes of english gameplay, and it at least has VO for special attacks and stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIPJkr2Bths

I hope that was kept in at least. It's unfortunate but not a huge issue. If it really bothers me I guess I could play a patched version in an emulator or something

What you see in the video is exactly what you will get. Battle voices and some spot voice is still there, but the dialogue in conversations is text only. There was just too much to do or license for a project with sales this small. The VO license for the Japanese would have almost cost more than the gross of the game. Literally. Just not do-able. Atlus couldn't do it for their OWN GAME when they brought over the PSP Growlanser IV, so people who think we somehow should when we are paying for the game licensing itself are a little bonkers. At least they'll get an enjoyable localization with Summon Night 5. That's more than GL IV delivered.

I really didn't want to make big deal out of it, I was just surprised. I definitely followed the game and I probably just missed it. The VO for the special attacks like in the footage I posted above are still in though? Or not?

Yes, it will be exactly as you see in that unedited chunk of the game. We fixed up a little text here and there, but the battle voices are still in, and when you're exploring the town you may get a brief Japanese greeting voiced here and there.

 

[Avallon]

When will the codes work? What's the estimate?

 

[Clive]

So close yet so far away. My code is invalid too. Not too upset though since I'm not even halfway through Yakuza 5 and I need to finish that one before fully dedicating myself to this.

Hope it will sell OK, both for the future of the series and Gaijinworks. JRPGs of any kind with decent budgets are rare these days.

 

[NeOak]

When will the codes work? What's the estimate?

See:

Radio silence from Sony, so I guess tomorrow it is for the vouchers.

 

[pancakesandsex]

He had posted in the other thread:

Ah rats. That's really unfortunate. Hopefully the hooks are all still there so someone can put it back in eventually using other means. Guess I'll still hunt down a copy of the Japanese version eventually too to go with my copies of 1-4.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

So is this available for us Euro peasant or am I shit out of luck?

 

[SarusGray]

Solo is this available for us Euro peasant or am I shit out of luck?

comes out later in jan I think?

 

[Shizuka]

Solo is this available for us Euro peasant or am I shit out of luck?

Shit out of luck.

 

[Steel]

Hmmm. Unfortunate for those of you with codes. In the meantime, I just started playing. Presentation is pretty nice.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

comes out later in jan I think?

Shit out of luck.

Great, I'm going to wait then, thanks.

 

[vireland]

Vic, are the Japanese voices left in or is it just silent like Growlanser 4 was? That blurb about unspoken dialog in the localization notes isn't clear.

Silent, except for little bits here and there and battle voices. Dubbing and licensing the Japanese voice were way out of the question for this game's budget. The Japanese voice license would have been almost as much as the physical+digital presale grossed. We need to get to sales in the 25k range for voices to be a viable option. We'll work for cheap in the service of the fans, but we won't work for free.

 

[SarusGray]

Silent, except for little bits here and there and battle voices. Dubbing and licensing the Japanese voice were way out of the question for this game's budget. The Japanese voice license would have been almost as much as the physical+digital presale grossed. We need to get to sales in the 25k range for voices to be a viable option. We'll work for cheap in the service of the fans, but we won't work for free.

Understandable, I mean your business needs to be running and not in debt.

 

[vireland]

Ah rats. That's really unfortunate. Hopefully the hooks are all still there so someone can put it back in eventually using other means. Guess I'll still hunt down a copy of the Japanese version eventually too to go with my copies of 1-4.

Given the way it was put together, I'm not sure it would be possible for someone to patch it back in.

 

[Kirie]

Very nice OT!

My best friend bought me this as an early birthday present, so I'm super excited to get started tomorrow! We're both going into it pretty much completely blind, so it'll be fun to experience

 

[pancakesandsex]

Given the way it was put together, I'm not sure it would be possible for someone to patch it back in.

Can't say I'm not disappointed, but like with Growlanser I'll take what I can get in this case. Hopefully the codes start working soon.

 

[NeoHorizon]

Nice job with the OT. Will start playing tomorrow since its my last day of class.

 

[pancakesandsex]

Vic. Additional question, what are you actually missing from the summon night 3-4 costume extras? Is it the assets themselves? Would the actual DLC data from the Japanese versions do anything for you? Because I have these....

 

[vireland]

Vic. Additional question, what are you actually missing from the summon night 3-4 costume extras? Is it the assets themselves? Would the actual DLC data from the Japanese versions do anything for you? Because I have these....

The assets were missing an also some of the code for that didn't appear to be final. It was very dicey to try to hack it back to life, and very few people would have been able to do it anyway, so we just left it out.

Fun fact: there was what appeared to be disabled trophy support in the code, too. We have no idea why.

 

[Eusis]

The assets were missing an also some of the code for that didn't appear to be final. It was very dicey to try to hack it back to life, and very few people would have been able to do it anyway, so we just left it out.

Fun fact: there was what appeared to be disabled trophy support in the code, too. We have no idea why.

Given the release date AND announce date I wonder if they toyed with the idea of making it either cross platform (PSP/Vita) or just throwing it on Vita entirely before either existing PSP sales or sheer madness compelled them to keep it on PSP anyway.

 

[vireland]

Nice job with the OT. Will start playing tomorrow since its my last day of class.

Yes, very nice OT!

 

[TRI Mike]

Are codes still not working¿

 

[PumpkinSpice]

Might buy this tonight. We have Summon Night 1-4 on PS1/2 and my wife really loves these games but I've never given them a shot. I just need to not make her too jealous or I might have my Vita stolen.

 

[18-Volt]

Finally, I'm about to play a main series from Summon Night franchise. Wonder why Namco didn't let Atlus to localize the main series.

I'll buy two just to increase chances of 6th game coming over.

 

[YianGaruga]

Why am I still not playing this

Sony are the worst

 

[bomblord1]

Looks good, but not whitelisted yet. It's coming, but might be a couple weeks. PSP and PS Vita are a go right now.

EDIT: Just tried it and it works on PSTV now. No waiting for the whitelist, we got it at launch. The game looks better on the OLED PS Vita, though.

So it upscales fairly well? That's good to hear I might get it then.

 

[Kaibutsu]

Understandable about the voices but it still doesn't make it hurt any less Wish the games sold better...

edit: yes i've purchased every gaijinworks physical & digital release so this is no different, waiting on code to work

 

[Tizoc]

Wasn't there a twitter thing where retweeting would reduce the price?

 

[Dandy Crocodile]

Wasn't there a twitter thing where retweeting would reduce the price?

Yes! Hence the reduced price of $30.99.

 

[Shizuka]

Any news? I have one week until Cold Steel comes out, come on!