Why MonkeyPaw And Gaijinworks Picked Class Of Heroes 2 As JRPG’s Love Letter

The $500,000 Kickstarter page for Class of Heroes 2 is live and Gaijinworks founder Victor Ireland says more is on the line than a deluxe edition. He’s asking fans of JRPGs to support the genre as a whole by funding Class of Heroes 2.

"We went after Class of Heroes 2 because we like the game, the series has built a strong following in Japan as it progresses and we plan to add much to the localization to bring the game to Western tastes," John Greiner, President of MonkeyPaw Games, said in an e-mail to Siliconera. Class of Heroes is on its fourth PSP game now with Class of Heroes Final: Her Majesty the Freshman with ports also available on PlayStation 3 and a 3DS game. Atlus released the original Class of Heroes back in 2009, but passed on picking up later games in the series.

"The original game didn’t get this treatment and didn’t have much marketing support as well. Victor Ireland has an excellent track record on localizations as fans of Lunar, Growlanser, Alundra, and Arc the Lad, will attest. We feel the series will be widely acclaimed once we have polished the game for consumption here."

Whether the Kickstarter campaign reaches its goal or not, Class of Heroes 2 will be released as a digital download for PSP. If the Kickstarter campaign reaches its goal, a limited run of a deluxe pack with a physical copy of the game and unspecified bonus items will be produced for people who pledge $59 or more. In addition to creating a UMD release, Kickstarter funding will be used to increase the scope of localization for the digital and disc versions of Class of Heroes 2.

While Kickstarter campaigns have generated much discussion after Tim Schafer raised money for a DoubleFine adventure game and Brian Fargo pitched Wasteland 2 to fans, Greiner said to Siliconera this campaign has been in the works for over six months.

Rewards for backers start with a $5 pledge which gets you a thank you e-mail and your name in the game (but not the credits!) to $50,000 which makes you a character in the game. The Class of Heroes 2 campaign ends on April 27. Head here if you want to back it.