Inti Creates Aim To Release Azure Striker Gunvolt In North America Soon

Inti Creates are aiming to release Azure Striker Gunvolt in both Japan and North America soon, the developer said to Siliconera via e-mail. Japan will see the game on August 20th, and its North American release will follow in the weeks that follow, if all goes as planned.

Inti Creates also said that the game’s European release is being discussed as well, and is currently still in the process of being worked out. While the American version of the game will only feature English text, a multilingual release is being considered for Europe.

I took the opportunity to ask Inti Creates CEO Takuya Aizu why the game was only going to have partial voice-acting in North America. In the North American release of Gunvolt, voices will only play during the action portions, and not conversations, “just like the Mega Man Zero series,” Aizu said. (Mega Man Zero also being an Inti Creates game.)

Aizu offered to explain the situation in a little more detail after I told him that fans would probably like to know why the change was made.

“In the Japanese version of Gunvolt, most conversations are modelled on Japanese subculture, so we had to modify the content of these conversations while localizing the game into English,” Aizu said. “If you were to combine the Japanese voices with English sentences, it would cause a great gap between them. Therefore, we will not be using these voices in the English version.”

Azure Striker Gunvolt is Inti-Creates’ first completely self-funded and self-published title, so they’re learning about the intricacies of publishing in different regions as they go along. In fact, Aizu recently stated over Twitter that Inti Creates didn’t even have a Taxpayer Identification Number in the U.S. until very recently. Self-publishing is a new process for them.

Aizu said to me, “We believe this is the best way for us to approach this. I apologize for the inconvenience, but please inform the community that is looking forward to Gunvolt.”

Additionally, Aizu pointed out one other fact about the game that should actually make English-language players happy: Azure Striker Gunvolt will now feature eight pieces of Lumen’s song, as opposed to just two.

As previously reported, Lumen’s songs play within the game under specific circumstances. Originally, Inti Creates felt they would only be able to include two songs in the game, as Nintendo of America’s lotcheck deadline was sooner than Japan’s; however, they were ultimately able to include all planned eight pieces of Lumen’s song in the game. These will be included in the game’s European release, too.