Nintendo To Give Forever Entertainment "Significant Financial Support" In New Publishing Deal

Why is a shovelware publisher getting funds from Nintendo?

Star Fox 64 HD Remix Dx inbound!!

Sounds promising. I hope Nintendo also help them with quality.

Aren't they responsible for the upcoming House Of The Dead remake?

Of all the publishers I would expect Nintendo to partner with Forever is almost the very last. Then again it would make a nice rags to riches story further down the line if they actually pulled this off and went from shovelware developer to respected company a la Ubisoft.

I'm getting the "stay tuned, but keep expectations in check" vibe from this.

I like their games and hope they do well. I also enjoy their recent Sega remakes they brought to the Switch and can't wait to see how they'll handle The House of the Dead remake.

@bluemage1989 Nintendo doing the unexpected is... the most expected thing in a lot of ways. They always seem to make random choices.

@Vapeguy Yes they are. If it means we're getting a physical release without being Limited then count me in.

It seems I was wrong about the relative importance of this studio.

I'm not very familiar with their work. Can anyone who has played a number of their games give an opinion here?

I didn't mind the Panzer Dragoon remake, especially after the updates they pushed. I just hope they still have time to finish remaking Zwei.

They doing HOTD?
Maybe they will get some retro remakes to publish like wave racer & 1080?

Bizarre AND surprising. Panzer Dragoon is the only game of theirs I've played and I thought it was majorly underwhelming and unpolished. First Sega trust these guys with their IP and now Nintendo gives them a cash boost so they can fart more games onto the eShop.

@wanghosom what's wrong with you?

Why them? Panzer was awful.

Ah, it's these guys. After looking through their catalog of games I can see why they attracted Nintendo's attention. They released stuff like phantom doctrine, hard west, thief simulator, cooking sim and a whole bunch of other games that you routinely see for $2 on sale on the e shop. They sell a lot of games at that price I'll bet and I'm sure Nintendo would want to keep them around so they can keep pushing out these bargain bin games. If nothing else I doubt anyone has supported the switch more than these guys.

Just bizarre. I was surprised to see SEGA licensing their stuff out to such a small publisher, this is even weirder.

Panzer Dragoon is the only thing I played from them. It was OK. If this is Nintendo lending their IP or having them handle some remakes for them I’m sure they’ll be more heavy handed in quality control.

With Nintendo funding their development, things are going to progress smoothly.....

Is this why the House of the Dead remake appears to be a Switch exclusive?

That "Thief Simulator" game always seems to be in the UK eShop charts.

If they can develop a good Panzer Dragoon Saga remake then i’ll forgive their sins

@Clyde_Radcliffe Probably just going to be a time exclusive like Panzer Dragoon. Zwei will also be a time exclusive as well. It'll only be on Switch for the first two quarters and then on the other platforms later in the year. My only hope is that if they could release the game with a bluetooth gun accessory or something so we could play it similar to a light gun like the original.

Very interesting! Panzer Dragoon Zwei och Panzer Dragoon Saga remakes exclusive to Switch would be amazing! I really enjoyed their first remake, especially after it was patched. Got a physical version on pre-order now.

Hopefully, they will be good games!

They will be given something worthy of their talents - a remake of Pokémon Channel.

I don't know why people think this is surprising. This company looks fairly successful with a lot of resources at its disposal.

I’ll trust Nintendo’s judgement on this, despite Forever’s shoddy history. Stranger things have happened, such as when Nintendo assigned the developers of Funky Barn to remake Twilight Princess.

Qualtiy > Quantity.

I was already confused as to why Sega was working with this dev...don't feel great about this news, especially if Nintendo is licensing out their own IP to Forever as well.

@Kyloctopus To be fair, Tantalus/Straight Right also launched the Mass Effect 3 port for Wii U on the same day as Funky Barn and also ported Deus Ex to Wii U later on so it wasn’t too shocking to see them tasked with TPHD

@larryisanassman Besides, Twilight Princess HD by Tantalus is a better remaster than Nintendo's own The Wind Waker HD.

Panzer Dragoon was pretty decent after the updates, still ran far better on PS4 though.

Honestly, as long as Nintendo keep an eye on the quality control of whatever these guys are trusted with, I think everyone will be happy. The Panzer Dragoon ports were at least competent, but seemed to lack proper polish. I'm assuming that they'll be handling remakes of titles given their history, so if they're given proper direction, I can see everyone benefitting from Forever taking some of the workload off of Forever.

It does make me wonder what games they'll be working on, but we probably won't see the fruits of this deal come until later on.

Why THIS company?

Won't start getting too ahead of myself. But it would be nice if this was Nintendo's road to bringing back some long dormant franchises

Following the updates to Panzer Dragoon, it’s a solid remake of the original. Haters gonna hate, though.

@Dang69 - Assuming we are talking publishing duties, seems like an agreement to gain more traction with timed or completely exclusive publishing deals with Nintendo systems without Nintendo themselves stretching too thin.

@wanghosom maybe to stop being a shovelware company and work on a actual new Nintendo title? Maybe ? Remember Nintendo isn’t afraid to pull the plug on games if they are not going as planned and they usually have eyes, ears and hands in projects from other companies they are funding.

Interesting, I wonder what they have in the pipeline to interest Nintendo. Also are Nintendo are going to be support other indies?

No idea what this could be but the more the merrier.

This is really interesting. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they did something related to Star Fox or Sin and Punishment at this point, considering what feels like Forever's quest to singlehandedly revive the rail shooter.

@Purgatorium Many of their games look like shovelware and Panzer Dragoon was an unpolished nightmare when it released. Even after several patches, it still felt like it was off in several areas, along with the very annoying fact that when you load a level or even if you die and restart a level, it takes something like a full minute or so to load.

Maybe they released a patch that improved loading times since I stopped playing, but I gave the devs several chances (i.e. patches) to improve that and they barely did anything noticeable. PS1 games can load faster on a PS1...

Had I known the game would turn out like this, I might've bought it on a 90% off sale, but I instead put faith into them and now regret paying full price. If they ever come out with PD Zwei, I'm definitely waiting for a big sale because they lost my trust.

@wanghosom because Nintendo feels like giving them money, and Nintendo usually has the money to do what Nintendo wants. Although I'm sure they listen to all of our takes on business and creative decisions as well - those make for decent sauna anecdotes now and then.

@COVIDberry as someone with a lot of their published works in my library, I might not get done by tomorrow, and that's without a lot of the stuff that's still hanging in my backlog. Even among the comparatively smaller titles, some like Frederic and the Bad Dream dilogy are among my fondest Switch memories (besides the yet unfinished but already impressive ones like Goetia) - but they also boast stuff like Hard West and Phantom Doctrine, Green Hell and Seeds of Resilience, Thief Simulator and Agony... oh wait, I forgot the latter is fashionable to bark at.😄 Aforementioned Panzer Dragoon, too. I owe a lot of entertainment to their "shovelware".

I feel like Forever gets a bad rap. I don't have all their games, but the ones I DO have are pretty great, even the Panzer Dragoon Remake. But I'm not a hardcore gamer, so maybe it's a question of perspective and expectation rather than quality.

Could be a similar situation to Wayforward working on Advance Wars, with Nintendo giving this studio an IP that is currently collecting dust and letting them bring it back.

Hopefully Nintendo’s funds help Forever Entertainment bring in more talent because they could definitely use it if Panzer Dragoon is anything to go off of.

Panzer is good now, House of the Dead is looking good, and the Square series might be the Saga series which I believe is supposed to keep coming out, or maybe console ports of the FF pixel remasters…?

Nintendo can make something of this lot yet! Hopefully they stay in the vintage games space too!

@Kilroy OK?

@Purgatorium You said you don't know why people think this is surprising. I responded with my view on why. OK?

A Sin & Punishment remake would definitely be welcome IF they manage to do the orignal justice.

Wayforward remaking Advance Wars
Mages remade Famicom Detective Club
MercurySteam remade Metroid II and is resurrecting Dread from vaporware status.

Now partnering with the Panzer Dragoon and House of the Dead remakes studio.

Seems very much like Nintendo is making a push to revive their dormant or lukewarm selling IP and they're using outside studios to help them do it. I'm pretty excited.

@Kilroy It reads to me like you responded with a review of Panzer Dragoon. I mean I get what you're saying but it seems tangential.

People are asking "why them?" just keep in mind some of the other developers Nintendo works with tend to produce games of varying lesser quality when not working with Nintendo. Next Level, N Space, MercurySteam, etc.

@nhSnork Yeah, exactly. They put out a lot of games, and they aren't all winners, but to call them a shovelware company is a bit harsh. There's good stuff in their catalogue.

It's interesting how Nintendo are working with all these devs

@wanghosom Panzer Dragoon's remake is one of my favorite games released this year, incredibly happy experience for me. So lovingly made! I think it's a disservice to call them a shovelware publisher, that would be like saying Wayforward is known for making decent licensed games.

When panzer dragoon remake first released it had some problems but have since been fixed through updates. Unfortunately all the reviews on it are mediocre because they were all written before the updates. While it's a good game now, it goes to show first impressions stick, so get it right the first time because now no one wants to check it out.

I can't understand Nintendo.
Forever made pure trash like HOLLOW, the worst 1-euro purchase I ever made.

They obviously have the talent, they just need help with direction and quality. Nintendo knows how to identify a worthy studio when they see one, and as long as Nintendo provides some form of quality assurance, I can only see this as a net positive.

@wanghosom : More or less my first thought. I couldn't even name one of their games from the top of my head as their output is so painfully forgettable and mediocre (often dirt cheap though, so you can't really accuse them of ripping anybody off).

Perhaps Nintendo sees potential in their development pool and might get them to work on some of their smaller scale eShop exclusive projects.

@wanghosom my thoughts exactly, everytime I read thet Forever entretainment gets hold of an IP to remake I shiver.

@Vapeguy yeah, and Panzer Dragoon Zwei.

Btw, the Panzer Dragoon remake got some updates and made it far better.

@Radpal MercurySteam has improved. I have a dozen criticisms against Samus Returns, but it has enough good content for me to overlook most of it. AM2R is better, no question about that. Now if MS had made SR in the same way they completely butchered Castlevania, then yeah, I'd be very worried about Metroid 5. Right now, I'm just concerned about the melee counter and if it's functionally required. You can get through SR without using it, so there is hope, both for MS and (to get back on topic) Forever.

@NeonPizza I never played the original, but even watching videos of it, it looked like the devs coded with passion and soul. The remake looks/plays like for-hire work.

@NeonPizza I have to agree. The first game in the series was over rated. I didn't mind the remake tbh.

@NeonPizza Seems fair lol

@Imerion Where did you find a physical copy? I checked Limited Runs site and like everything from them, it looks like its already out of print.

@vio They publish it themselves now under the Forever Limited label: https://forever-limited.com/

@vio Best Buy
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/panzer-dragoon-remake-nintendo-switch/6439059.p?skuId=6439059

@Magician @Imerion Thank you kindly!