Game Freak's Little Town Hero Physical Edition Delayed

Shame it’s a CD but I guess an LP would add to the bulk of the set. Great little soundtrack as well.

Really, the resources put into this game should have been put into improving the Sword and Shield quality, especially with how disappointing this game also turned out to be. Not gonna bother with this game at all.

Oh, great. Physical release.
But why does it still rated Rating Pending while the game has been released in digital format with rated Teen ?

I literally already preordered. Have a feeling this one will be a collector's item someday given how feelings change over time.

That's a pretty nice physical edition, glad I've held off on downloading this one.

This physical edition has a lot of cool stuff, too bad the game sucks.

@Anti-Matter it’s been a while since I did a rating, but it used to be that digital only games could get a rating for free (to help out the little guys, because ESRB rating could get expensive). If it was Physical and digital at same time, you’d pay for the rating. But now that the game is digital and are adding a physical version, they have to get the game re-rated. Plus it’s a different publisher now (at least for the physical version), so that might be a factor as well.

Is that game any good? Looks interesting and game freak made it. Also wow a CD I haven't used one of those in ages.

I've wanted to play the game for a while now, so I guess this is the way for me to buy it!

$49.99 for a glorified mobile game? Yeah, hard pass.

@nessisonett : The music is digitally mastered. It makes no sense at all to convert digitally-produced music to vinyl (though people still buy it, inexplicably).

This is one of those games that totally flew by my radar. It doesn't really look too interesting to me though.

I sorta want this. If it is still in stores come black friday. I’ll pick it up.

@Gravitron it’s certainly good. Whether it’s great or worth the price is another story. It’s essentially a card based RPG.

Pros:
-The game mechanics are pretty unique
-The strategy can be fairly complex
-The characters and game world is charming

Cons:
-The story isn’t very deep
-Progression is very linear (you keep the same cards through the entire game, just upgrading each one a couple times)
-There’s little variety in terms of the enemies (like barely into double digits)
-The game is short for an RPG
-Battles quickly become lengthy wars of attrition (and you need to fight the same bosses more than once to power up cards, which is important if you don’t want to fight them even more to try and get good RNG)
-Strategy quickly becomes tedious (despite being complex)
-Difficulty spikes pretty hard which teaches you to actually employ strategy, but ultimately as a card game a couple bad RNG moments can cost the entire battle (frustrating when you just spent 30+ minutes on the battle)

Despite listing more cons than pros, it isn’t a horrible game - I outright loved the mechanics. The real frustrations are the long drawn out battles, harsh difficulty spikes, and chance to be screwed by RNG at any moment (which mainly are bad because of the battle lengths). The lack of any real ability to edit your deck (aside from upgrading cards) and few new mechanics introduced to the player (while the enemies each gain at least one new gimmick) are more minor complaints, as they’re noticeable because of the bigger problems. It’s probably not a bad game to pick up on sale, but it overall feels unpolished and I wish Gamefreak spent some more time on it. I wouldn’t mind a sequel that improved on the ideas, but they don’t tend to make sequels outside of Pokémon. Maybe wait and hope for a big sale or discount. I ultimately wished I didn’t spend the money on it, despite enjoying it at first.

@Anti-Matter Apparently games are rated differently depending on digital or physical.
When Victor Ireland published the limited-edition physical run of the localized version of Summon Night 5 on PSP (I think it was the game), he said it got two ratings because he thought he could re-use the digital version but then found out he had to re-submit it for evaluation as a physical release and it somehow got a different rating. (not sure if digital is like a bot review based on information provided and physical gets human review, maybe)

I totally forgot this game existed and didn't even realize it came out at all.

@ShadJV I agree with all this. I was looking forward to it and the boss battle system out me off after a few hours in. It just took far too long to get anywhere and the dialogue was awful.

@spoondriver yeah, it’s really unfortunate, because like an hour in I was like, “This is great!” And a couple hours later I was already frustrated and fatigued from it. Honestly, they should’ve just taken out the heart system and entirely had it be about reducing their guts, cutting battle times into a third of the length. Problem is, then the game ends up like 3-4 hours long, so they’d need to add more content. Everything in the game was great ideas that were poorly executed. If they were to actually follow it up with a sequel, I would cautiously keep an eye on it though. I liked the battle system, it just was too slow and too long.

Oh and the attack animations were horribly lazy, even for Gamefreak. All of the main character’s attacks use the exact same animation. Making the battles even more tedious as there isn’t much to visually watch.

People still care about this game?

You know you're a crappy publisher (Game Freak) when you can't even released your own physical game the same day as the digital version. Even worst having a third party company (NIS America) published the game physically for you cause you can't finish the job the first time through.

@retro_player_22
Gamefreak isnt a publisher and has never published their own retail game.

What about Europe? There will be a physical release?

Hopefully also aviable in Europe, or Amazon so I can buy it.

I haven't been holding back. I'm just not interested.

Doubling down on a digital product that bombed with a physical edition doesn't seem a sound idea.

Oh, that’s twice the price and probably already sold out... I would love Little Town Hero on physical. For digital I am waiting for a sale.

Thanks for posting, was holding off on this & just pre-ordered the physical! Glad the game isn't too long as i have some big RPGs to finish in the meantime xD

@westman98 In the eShop for the game (on this website), it clearly says that Game Freak was the publisher so stop trying to defend their reputation. No one other company was involve with this game, not Nintendo, not Sega, not Creatures Inc., not no one. Game Freak was close to Nintendo so there's no reason they can't release a physical retail version same day as the digital one.

@retro_player_22
Any developer can publish a game on the eShop (that's why there is so much shovelware on Switch).

Getting a retail release is much more difficult, and that is what most developers are unable to do without external assistance. The Pokemon games are published by TPC in Japan and by Nintendo elsewhere. Given that Little Town Hero is not Pokemon, TPC/Nintendo has no investment in that game and doesn't care much about it at all.

"GUYS PLEASE BUY OUR GARBAGE GAME, WE GAVE IT A BOX, GIVE IT ATTENTION, WE NEED MORE MONEY, PLEEEAAASSE"

Wow I didn't even knew this was out yet hahah. (Digital release that is.)

For me I get it from NISA since collectors items don't come around all the time either.

Was waiting for the digital edition to go on sale but hell I'd rather have physical now that it's an option.

Kind of a shame this came out since I already bought the digital version. It's not perfect, but it's really unique, and I'd love to have that art book for myself. I just wish Game Freak gave it more attention, in polish, and especially advertising (holding off on the launch until after Pokemon would have helped.)

That being said, if the art book ever gets sold separately, I'll grab it, though I'm more hopeful for a sequel.

Nisa Europe will have the game up for pre-order this Monday... I'll be buying one for sure!

hope i can just get the regular physical edition lol

Has anyone actually picked this up? I’ve watched a few gameplay videos on YouTube and it looks interesting,

@julesvel88 It's not a glorified mobile game because I'm not impressed with it. It's a glorified mobile game because it has bare minimum gameplay.

@julesvel88 It has nothing to do with whether or not I like the gameplay. The problem is there's not enough of it. A simplistic turn based RPG with a board game-esque setup and no overworld is MUCH less content than what is typically offered on a console game, even a cheaper digital console game. There are indie games with more effort and content put into them than this. Mobile games can be good or bad, yes (although they mainly trend towards bad), but the issue here isn't with the quality as much as the quantity. Extremely cheap and simplistic games like this are better suited for a mobile audience that wants that kind of experience, not a dedicated console capable of lengthy, high end experiences.

Oh? I just got the regular edition from Japan last week. I didn't care for all the NIS extras and it didn't look like they were going to release a regular edition.

Man, this game suuuucks.

@Yosher Seeing as how SwSh had the highest-selling launch of any Pokemon game ever, was met with rave reviews, and continues to have millions of players every day... you are in the loud minority of feeling disappointed. Move on with your life and let people enjoy things.

@Silly_G Must be why all of my video game soundtracks I have on vinyl sound fantastic on my audiophile setup. /s

What a disappointment... that entire game, I mean.

@bahooney People are absolutely 100% free to enjoy the game all they like. Doesn't mean I'm personally any less disappointed in the quality when their older games used to be so much more polished and whatnot. If other people are still able to enjoy it despite that though then more power to them, y'know?

Eh. Not gonna double dip, not even glad I single dipped. It wasn’t horrible but it was so bland that it wasn’t worth the money. The game quickly goes from fun and novel to tedious, and then from tedious to frustratingly hard (but still tedious, not even challenging in a good way). I would not recommend this but I mean, if others like it then to each their own. Just... think twice before purchasing this, especially on a limited gaming budget.

@Yosher
That is not the problem, I know that not all those who complain act as "blockers" to the people who want to play and enjoy these games; However, when there are topics or we want to "talk" about these games, there is never a lack of people who really become "Party Poopers", that is, we all know the "disaster" that these games are, but many of us are tired of listening to it in "every" time, in "every" moment, in "every" thing related to those games the ""same"" complaints ...

This is certainly not the game to double down with a collector's edition. Even Giga Wrecker looked more interesting. Your $50 is much better spent on Brigandine, which again, is mysteriously absent from any lick of coverage here on NintendoLife.

I've played mobile games with more depth than this dribble.

@SakuraHaruka To be fair this is an old thread that's been revived, I only spoke up here again after my initial comment from January because I was spoken to. I haven't commented on Pokémon SwSh news topics in a while outside of that.

Oh man where is my wallet! I'm going to burn some money on a lazy tech demo!