The team working on Touhou Genso Wanderer: Lotus Labyrinth at Aquastyle for the Nintendo Switch and PS4 made a video livestream explaining why the game has been delayed from April 25th, 2019 to at some point in the summer of 2019. Well, technically they want to release the game before summer vacation arrives.
Gematsu picked up the news after noticing the delay over on Amazon Japan.
The article on Siliconera doesn’t get into the nitty gritty of the delay, but there is a post made over on the Hasanii blog that details the reasons for the delay. It’s not as nefarious as some gamers may have expected and doesn’t appear to be in response to Sony’s censorship policy.
It started with a tweet by Aqua Style on December 13th, 2018, where the developers mentioned that dealing with the 140 characters featured in the game is what caused the hangup.
ここから１０ツイートにもなる経緯など書いてたので１４０文字に調整するのに膨大な時間をかけてしまったのと上手に説明できる気配がなかったため説明の放送枠を設けました。既存ユーザー向けの説明となりますのでどうぞよろしくお願いします。
２３時から開始です。https://t.co/m7Mc8z264i
— AQUASTYLE@ふし幻TODR Steamで配信中 (@_AQUASTYLE) December 13, 2018
According to the blog, and in a livestream that Aqua Style posted on Nico Video, the team talked about how many characters had to be developed, written out, and optimized, as well as dealing with the complex task of implementing all of the voice acting lines.
In the blog they mention that the script for the character development was “scarcely insufficient”. So they’ve been working on building it out and developing it so that the characters are properly fleshed out. It’s also going to be one of the biggest Touhou Project games yet, with all new voice lines and a large cast of voice actors.
All of the logistics behind bringing this to life turned out to be a little more work than what the team expected, and so they’re working through it to get it finished in time for a summer, 2019 release.
There are also a number of new gameplay systems being implemented, and the team is working to get those systems completed by the beginning of 2019. It’s reiterated, though, that the increased volume of voice lines and the quality of the voice acting is what has contributed to the delay as well, so it’s something they wanted to get right for the release.
They’re also focusing solely on the Japanese version of the game for the Nintendo Switch and PS4 before even dealing with any other localized language versions. So while, yes, the game is delayed, Tohou Genso Wanderer: Lotus Labyrinth will also be one of the biggest Touhou Project games out there. Also, it should be a sigh of relief that the game wasn’t delayed because they had to censor a lot of content.
(Thanks for the news tip zac za)
