Imageepoch’s Nintendo 3DS strategy RPG Stella Glow is receiving a demo in Japan. The announcement was recently made by way of SEGA, who will be publishing the game within Japan. The demo is coming out on May 20th and the full game will be publicly available for purchase on June 4th. This demo places players in the game’s prologue.
Imageepoch is now inoperative as a company, after having recently declared bankruptcy. Stella Glow will likely be Imageepoch’s last game, and it’s an unfortunate end for a company that considered itself on a mission to rejuvenate what they perceived to be stagnation in Japanese RPG’s. Imageepoch’s troubled status became more known particularly after CEO Ryoei Mikage made himself scarce in the public eye, deleting his Twitter and being generally difficult to contact even by others in the Japanese gaming industry. At this point, Imageepoch’s exit from gaming appeared distinctly plausible.
SEGA stepped in to publish the game after Imageepoch had shopped Stella Glow among publishing companies in Japan, unable to self-publish due to their mounting financial difficulties. The majority of Imageepoch’s games were not self-published to begin with. Coincidentally, Sega has also published some of their other games, including Sands of Destruction and the first 7th Dragon game.
Atlus is localizing the game for North America. There’s no specific release date set beyond confirmation that the Stella Glow will release this year, and there’s no word currently on whether or not this same demo will be available for North American gamers. Localization status for other regions like Europe and Australia is currently unknown.
