Glory of Heracles Starts Slow in Japan on Nintendo DS Page 1

Glory of Heracles Starts Slow in Japan on Nintendo DS

25.05.2008

The first day sales for PAON-developed RPG for Nintendo DS, Glory of Heracles: Proof of Soul, are now available thanks to Japanese blogger sinobi. The Nintendo-published game is the fifth in the 'Glory of Heracles' series that was thought to have ended back in the 1994 on the Super Famicom.

The game originally went by the name of Eternal Chronicle, most likely due to licensing issues as when the original IP holder Data East closed, Gmode bought the company's back catalogue. However, it appears that PAON has now bought the rights to the Glory of Heracles name to give the title more of a chance at success. Whilst Donkey Kong: King of Swing (GBA) and Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber (NDS) were both great games, the company's Wii racing game featuring DK was rather more lacking in class and many were worried this RPG would suffer at the hands of the team. However, it seems PAON was doing nothing more than providing the rights to the name and organising the project as many of the original team have returned, including Kazushige Nojima as Scenario Writer (previously Nojima-san has worked on Final Fantasy VII, VIII, X, Kingdom Hearts and Super Smash Bros. Brawl) and Yoshitaka Hirota (Shadow Hearts 1 and 2).

Glory of Heracles: Proof of Soul (NDS, Nintendo)
Set in ancient Greece, the game is a traditional, turn-based RPG starring a young lad that has...wait for it...lost his memory and sets out to discover who he really is! Turns out that he is immortal, as are the new friends he meets on his adventure that leads him to Olympus to obtain the answers he seeks. Whilst that may not sound particularly original, the title comes highly rated, scoring 31/40 in Famitsu and has started moderately well in Japan with 12,000 copies sold on the first day. This equates to around 30% of the game's initial stock, though, which puts things into better perspective and sinobi's ear-to-the-ground gets the impression this is going to sell much more before the full chart next Thursday.

With A.S.H. (Archaic Sealed Heat) confirmed for the US recently, it looks like hopes could be high for this very Western-style RPG affair as well, along with the likes of other of Nintendo's DS RPG roster, such as Soma Bringer and Card Hero.