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Earlier this month, UDON Entertainment announced that they would be localizing the Dark Souls: Design Works art book; cue the Souls fans’ delight. Well, they certainly got some surprising news, but they will not be the only ones getting a sought-out item fans will come to appreciate. Nihon Falcom fans, or at least The Legend of Heroes fans, will get a kick out of this. Today, UDON announced that they will be localizing two art books for The Legend of Heroes that were released in Japan last year: The Legend of Heroes: The Illustrations and The Legend of Heroes: The Characters. You can check the preview pages below.
JUNE 24TH— UDON Entertainment is proud to announce that it will release two new art books this fall based on the venerable The Legend of Heroes franchise! With a dozen games released over the past 20 years, The Legend of Heroes is a mainstay of Japanese RPGs from pioneering game developer Nihon Falcom. The latest games in this series including Trails of Blue, Trails of Zero, and the Trails in the Sky trilogy, have inspired amazing love and dedication from fans around the world! This fall, UDON will bring the art books collecting materials from these fantastic games to the North American public with The Legend of Heroes: The Illustrations and The Legend of Heroes: The Characters.
The Legend of Heroes: The Illustrations weighs in at more than 272 pages, and is comprised entirely of gorgeous, fully-rendered artwork created for the games, including pin-ups, story artwork, advertising art, and much more. The Legend of Heroes: The Characters is also 272 pages, and is a character-designers dream come true! It’s full to the brim with character designs, costumes, facial expressions, rough concepts, and tons more! Both books have been completely translated into English, and the artwork contained within covers the games Trails of Blue, Trails of Zero, and the Trails in the Sky trilogy, as well as the “Trails” artworks from the spin-off game “Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga.”
“This isn’t the first time we’ve released an English-language edition of an art book based on a game that isn’t available in North America,” said UDON Marketing Director Christopher Butcher. “It won’t be the last, either. While traveling in Japan, UDON Chief Erik Ko and I came across these books and just loved them, even in the Japanese. Whether fans are only familiar with the Trails in the Sky anime that was recently released in North America, or are coming to this series for the first time, we feel that they will appreciate the strong character designs, beautifully rendered artwork, and the hints of the epic adventures contained in these books… even without the games in hand!”
The Legend of Heroes: The Characters and The Legend of Heroes: The Illustrations will be simultaneously released this November by UDON Entertainment. Look for these books in comic book stores, book stores, online, or wherever beautiful books are sold!
The two artbooks are set for release in the Fall (around November) of this year. This will be yet another art book for games that were not localized. UDON has done this before, like the recent release of the Valkyria Chronicles 3: Design Archive art book. While I know people will be disappointed, like I said back with the release of the aforementioned art book (and something you probably heard a billion times already), at least it’s better than nothing. Not the best way to put it, but it is what it is.
Thanks go out to UDON for localizing yet another art book that I and many others fans can acquire without having to import it, and be able to understand the text. With this, I do hope they will someday localize the Ys art book that was released a few months ago, as a majority of games in the Ys series have indeed been localized. It’s getting quite the audience in the West with XSEED continuously localizing any new material from Nihon Falcom, whether a new installment or a remake, so it makes sense.
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The Legend of Heroes art books and OVAs are available on Amazon:
