I am sure it hasn't been reported officially in any media channels but its widely rumored that Xseed is the one that is going to localize the game and could be out as soon as May.

Now that the soundtrack is out on gamemp3s, I can say that I am starting to miss Michiko Naruke's work. I loved a lot of Kouda's songs in Wild Arms 4, and while Vth Vanguard's OST is far from bad, it's not very catchy. Noriyasu Agematsu's stuff is all right, but it doesn't particularly compel me. At least Justice to Believe is really nice still :)

It's only a rumor right now because they do not have a contract. We all know they're interested (they expressed this last year), but all parties involved have not agreed to a localization deal yet, and no winning bidder has emerged.

And boom, XSeed announced it has procured the North American publishing rights (along with a couple other shitty games no one will remember).

Clicky

Suits me just fine. XSeed's done a pretty good job, so far. I just hope they're a little more careful about selecting voice actors. Hard to get into a game when you keep hoping the main character will fall down a well, y'know?

Hello quality artbook. It will be packed in free with all copies of Wild Arms 5.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/7...packfp1.th.jpg

All copies!? Or first 100 or so?
That's almost too sweet of a deal.

Actually the wording over at XSeed is 'all launch units' so who knows how many that covers. It's an 80 page artbook though that covers the entire Wild Arms series.

http://www.xseedgames.com/news.php?id=25

That's a pretty sweet deal! I might actually have to pick up a copy of this at launch. (It would also lengthen the life-span of my PS2 until the PS4 comes out at the rate I complete games lol...)

http://rpgland.com/content/?p=1186
^ 12 movies and 14 screens.

Samples:
http://www.rpgland.com/content/media.../wa5a22_13.JPG http://www.rpgland.com/content/media.../wa5a22_11.JPG
http://www.rpgland.com/content/media.../wa5a22_03.JPG http://www.rpgland.com/content/media.../wa5a22_10.JPG

I was gonna pass on this game (which is truly a shame -- I've purchased every game in the series thus far), but the awesome stuff the actual games comes with warrants a purchase. I think it comes with an artbook covering the whole series.

I really wish the series would return to something like Wild Arms 3, cel-shaded and back to that battle system. The HEX system is a little unnerving and they just haven't been able to pull off a really nice 3D look -- everything seems exceptionally blocky. They'd be able to convey so much more if the developers went back and did some cel-shading instead.

Thank you for that excellent lesson on how a goddamn IP works. Now get the fuck out.

lol

Yeah I wrote that one down. Who says you can't learn anything from video games?

Well the cheesiness of Wild Arms is part of its charm I guess.

Oh god it's out tomorrow, i still haven't finished Romancing SaGa, Persona 3, Suikoden V, Pokemon, and .hack GU 2

Oh well just another game to make space for on my memory card!

I'm ready for it, kind of. Pokemon's on the back burner while I chip away at Persona 3, but I'm kind of losing motivation after I read what we're missing out on with Fes.

I played the import months back, and it was pretty darn good. I wanna see how they handled the opening's fucking ridiculous engrish.

I'll take the blocky 3D models, myself. The cel-shading in WA3 was hideous. I love that game to death, but the graphics looked like ass.

Agreement on the hex battle system, though. They're supposed to have been revamping it considerably in the 5th game, but I'll be quite disappointed if it's as slap-dash as WA4.

The promise of a free art book is all kinds of sexy. I'll have to jump on this one fast.

I'm hoping it's not last-minute delayed or anything since I've been waiting all month and longer for this, being a Wild ARMs junkie and all! Went to EB today to check just for the slim possibility they got it on the ship date. My only disappointment going into it is how Justice to Believe will sound in Englsh *shudder*

Nah, it was confirmed in an interview somewhere (RPGLand maybe?) that they kept the Japanese version for the opening this time.

I just picked up Wild Arms 5 (Last and/or only copy at that Gamestop), and suddenly a surprise 80 page series art book out of nowhere. I had no idea they bundled extras with it, so that was a very nice surprise.

I haven't gotten a chance to play yet, though, since one of my roommates picked up Dynasty Warriors: Gundam and will be monopolizing the TV with that for quite some time.

Edit: Got a chance to hijack the TV and play through the intro. Extremely satisfied thus far with the game. There's no japanese voice track, so purists are out of luck, but I find the english voices very fitting. Dean's voiced by Yuri Lowenthal (Arnaud from WA4, Luke from Tales of the Abyss) and Rebecca by Wendee Lee (Raquel from WA4, countless other roles).

My only gripes so far are that the battles feel a bit slower than WA4's due to the game positioning attacking characters at the edge of the hex they're attacking from before playing the attack animations. Also it seems to take a bit longer to load than WA4 in terms of transferring from the field screen to the battle screen. I also found Jude's "Juuump!" voice in WA4 hilarious, and Dean doesn't have his own "Juuump!" to speak of :(

Minor gripes of an otherwise extremely fun game.

Edit2: Also confirming that Justice to Believe remains in Japanese. I didn't think they'd let the localization team grab an English vocalist after paying big bucks for an out-of-house performer like Nana Mizuki.

And you probably won't ever finish it.

And nothing of value will be lost.

Additional Spam:
Damn, that's beautiful. I am so sold. I wonder if the art book, being only 80 pages, is taken from this art book which was released with 256 pages? Anyway, I'm not much of a fan of 3D RPGs, but I'm definitely getting it since I'm a Limited Edition whore.

What are you talking about? I enjoy Romancing Saga immensely. One of the most fun games i've played in a while. Speaking of games i won't finish in a while, Grim Grimoire is going to be covered in dust while i play WA5.

And WA5 is fun. Though the dub is pretty bad. I never played WA4 so this hex thing is pretty new to me. I like it a lot, especially the elemental hex thing, makes positioning a bit important.

QFMFT

Yeah WA5 is definitely a good buy. Good battles, fun dungeons (at least after the first 10 hours or so), solid overworld exploration, nice graphics and music. Could've used better voice acting (here's looking at you, Carol) and a bit of a lower encounter rate in the overworld, but oh well. Very good game.

The encounter rate in the first dungeon truly annoyed me

Until i found that crystal thing that lets you TURN OFF ENCOUNTERS

Jesus Christ. So awesome.

Yay, other people who enjoy Minstrel Song too. We are truly a rare breed. One of the rare RPGs I beat and then had an overwhelming sensation to replay and beat a second time.

I'm not sure if I want to start on Wild Arms yet, or finish Persona 3 first. At the rate I'm going I may not finish it for awhile, so maybe I should just go ahead and play both intermittently. :'(