CAMPAIGN HUB - Renewed Hope for Digimon Games in the West

NOTE: This article is from the oprainfall Campaign Hub, written by an independent campaign, and hosted on the oprainfall website. The opinions herein may not represent the opinions of oprainfall.

Hello there, rainfallers!

It’s been a really long time since our last blog article, and a lot of things have happened. For starters, our petition (that recently celebrated its first year) just passed the 50.000 signatures milestone, which is absolutely amazing. We thank you from the bottom of our heart for your incredible support and dedication! We would have never reached such an incredible result without you all.

As some of you may already know, the goal of our petition changed a little, lately: it not only asks for the localization of Decode, now, but for EVERY Digimon game to make its return on the Western shores! We decided this in order to count in the latest announced game, Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth for PlayStation Vita, which is drawing the interests of many fans (and ours too, obviously).

The most important event, anyway, is that Bandai Namco finally gave us a real answer!

In this sense, we have first to make a little clarification: we have noticed that quite a few people have thought that reaching the 50.000 milestone would have meant an “automatic” announcement of localization for Decode and/or Cyber Sleuth. We have to clarify that it is not the case. The thing we have been asking is for Bandai Namco is to consider a localization of the games, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is a sure thing. We were saying that a minimum of 50.000 signatures was useful to try starting a discussion inside the company to decide the future of the Digimon franchise in the West. And Bandai Namco, in fact, seems to have heard our voices, and reading the following news will make you understand that they may already be considering.

About ten days ago, they announced a brand-new game in the franchise, named DIGIMON All-Star Rumble, exclusively for American, European and Australasian territories. The game is developed by the Japanese studio PROPE, founded by Sonic’s creator Yuji Naka who is already responsible for the Digimon Adventure anniversary game released on PSP two years ago in Japan. Saban Entertainment is also involved in the development. It is a party-arena brawling game, with a Powerstone-inspired 3D gameplay, presenting a roster of all-time loved digital monsters from the various animated series! It can be considered a new entry in the much-loved Digimon Rumble Arena series, which started way back in 2001 on the first PlayStation.

In their press release, they finally and officially acknowledged our fan movement, as you can tell by their words:

“There are few fan bases as passionate as Digimon’s. The fans’ campaigns haven’t gone unnoticed, and we’re truly amazed by the amount of support they continuously show to their favorite series. We couldn’t be more thankful. We’re very excited to announce today DIGIMON All-Star Rumble! We hope fans will enjoy this brand new adventure in the Digital World, sure to be highly nostalgic and full of familiar faces like Agumon, Gabumon and many others.”

Chris Gilbert, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Bandai Namco Games America, also added:

“We are especially pleased to see Digimon fans rallying support for future Digimon video games to be localized in the Americas. With DIGIMON All-Star Rumble, we look forward to delivering a battle arena game experience that Digimon fans can really be excited to get their hands on.”

This is exciting news!

With All-Star Rumble (which will be released on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next 11 November in America and sometime this fall in Europe/Australia, and more details about the game will be coming in the following weeks), Bandai Namco is probably going to test the waters for the future of Digimon franchise: they are aware of which games we want, but they need to see how big and how loyal the Digimon fanbase can really be, and to also reinvigorate the hype for the franchise (whose latest series, Digimon Fusion, is being aired in various parts of the world). Digimon have been absent from the market for 6-8 years, so localizing straight away a text-heavy game like Decode and/or Cyber Sleuth (which is still in development in Japan) would have been too risky without knowing how many people are actually going to buy it – a petition alone can’t give an exact estimate.

But if this is not enough for you, this article by Kevin Sanchez can give us another hope to see Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode localized in the West:

“We asked one of the Namco Bandai PR if this game [DIGIMON All-Star Rumble] was announced previously under the radar (since we thought we were living under a rock) but it was indeed a new title announced that day.

I was told that they were excited to finally announce a Digimon game but they were also very nervous since it wasn’t Digimon World Re:Digitize [Decode]. When we asked if they were aware of the petition they told us that they were aware and they were amazed that it has gotten so many supporters.

Although they still have nothing to announce for Digimon World Re:Digitize [Decode], there seems to still be some hope for it to come overseas.”

It’s possible that the final outcome of this situation will partly depend on the performance of All-Star Rumble, but if they are willing to release this new Digimon game in the West – a Japanese release is not planned, at the moment – it’s the proof that they may already be considering a localization of other games in the series. They just need the right motivation, which in this case is a large interest and satisfying sales.

That is why we encourage every Digimon fan out there, if the game inspires you even just a little bit and you have a PS3 or a X360 (or are planning to get either), to preorder or buy DIGIMON All-Star Rumble as soon as possible. Signing on the petition is important, but concrete support is even better. The best thing we can do right now to have Digimon games back in the West is to actively support the Digimon games they are currently able to offer us.

While it’s true that All-Star Rumble is not exactly the game we’ve been asking for – we didn’t even know it existed, before they announced it! – it sure is a step in the right direction. Most importantly, it does look promising and fun, and it kindles a new hope for the future of Digimon games in the West. But it’s not just for these reasons that we should support it, but especially because it’s been years since the last Digimon game we had: it’s a special occasion that we should all celebrate by having fun with our beloved digital monsters.

In the meantime, like always, I invite you to continue sharing our petition to people who are interested in those games! Let’s reach even higher numbers, that together with the sales of All-Star Rumble, will make our point on Decode and Cyber Sleuth even more stronger.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this news.

PS: just in case some of you still don’t know, Toei Animation announced a new Digimon animated series for next Spring in occasion of the 15th anniversary of the anime! It will apparently have the same characters from the very first, glorious series, but we’ll see them in their high school years! One of the most notable things is that Toei Animation published a trailer in English language, dedicated to “all DigiDestined in the world”! Could they be planning a triumphant worldwide comeback of the Digimon franchise?! That is something we all must wish and be excited for!