Namco and Telenet create new company

[NeoZeedeater]

http://www.the-magicbox.com/gaming.htm

Namco and Telenet are establishing a new company called Namco Tales Studios.

I'm hoping this will somehow result in the resurrection of old Telenet franchises like Valis. It's a long shot though.

[Ex Ranza]

Valis was great, but I'm holding out for a Gaiares sequel. I can dream, I suppose.

At any rate, I had no idea Telenet was still around.

[Frogacuda]

Presumably this is because telenet owns Wolfteam, who have made every Tales game except for Narikiri Dungeons 2 (which was made by Alfa system, oddly enough). I really hope this is mostly going to be Wolfteam staff under new ownership.

[skelly]

Valis games suck.

I base that on having played 1-3 on a friend's Duo recently. Talk about not aging well... yuck.

[NeoZeedeater]

I don't see why it wouldn't be mostly Wolfteam staff. Telenet's other teams don't make too many games anymore except for Pachinko games.

BenT, Valis 1 and 2 do kind of suck but 3 and 4 were pretty good.

[Frogacuda]

Yeah, I expect it will mostly be a corporate reformation of Wolfteam, since Wolfteam hasn't made a non-Tales game in a very very long time. As long as that's the case, I have no real problem with this. I suppose it does show a continuing intrest in pumping out far too many of these games, but so far the quality hasn't been slipping so I can't complain (but my wallet can!).

[NeoZeedeater]

Maybe this is Namco's way of assuring they don't lose Wolfteam to another company. Between this new company and the formation of Monolith Soft., it seems as though they're trying to strengthen their RPG presence.

[gameoverDude]

Originally posted by Ex Ranza
Valis was great, but I'm holding out for a Gaiares sequel. I can dream, I suppose.

At any rate, I had no idea Telenet was still around.

I was thinking the same thing about Gaiares. I'll also take a Granada 2... with Namco being the developers of Assault, G2 could be the bomb.

[Frogacuda]

Originally posted by NeoZeedeater
Maybe this is Namco's way of assuring they don't lose Wolfteam to another company. Between this new company and the formation of Monolith Soft., it seems as though they're trying to strengthen their RPG presence.

If only they would bring them to the US. And preferably not butcher the hell out of them.

[Melf]

I'll take sequels to:

- Gaiares
- Arrow Flash
- Arcus Odyssey
- El Viento

...as well as a new Valis. A new Gain Ground would be cool too.

[NeoZeedeater]

I'm not the only Arrow Flash fan in the world?

Sega actually developed it. Renovation just published it in North America.

[thray-walsh]

Originally posted by BenT
Valis games suck.

I base that on having played 1-3 on a friend's Duo recently. Talk about not aging well... yuck.

The remake of Valis on on Super CD sucks a lot less...
But to appreciate Valis in general, you really had to be there. "There" being a magical time when a barely animated anime cutscene was the third coming of christ.

[Frogacuda]

Why does the exodus of Wolfteam's staff to a Namco controlled subsidiary devoted to the Tales series somehow increase the chances of sequels to old telenet/renovations properties?

[NeoZeedeater]

It probably won't increase the chance of that happening. It was just wishful thinking on my part, hoping that the new company might expand(due to Namco's money) and resurrect some franchises.

[soundwave]

Telenet is great--they help me access my UNIX account.

[ferricide]

this is 100% about tales, if the tales studio name didn't give that away. =P

tales 2 (PS2) sold so well i imagine they don't want to let there be any possibility wolfteam could slip from their grasp. for some reason i didn't think telenet still controlled wolfteam, but i figured namco did already. apparently not.

i doubt we're ever going to see any old telenet franchises resurrected. the main branch isn't interested, obviously, and wolfteam is too busy cranking out tales games for namco. pity.

and valis rulz you drool, ben.