Imageepoch first announced Stella Glow for an “early winter 2015″ on 3DS in Japan back in October, but until the game’s June 6 release date announcement yesterday, there haven’t been any follow-up reports.
Speaking with Famitsu this week, Stella Glow producer Hideyuki Mizutani clarified a bit about the game’s delay.
When the game was announced in October, development was nearly complete, and by the end of November, development had been finalized. But a few sales-related problems—not game development issues—had surfaced, which delayed the game from its planned winter release. This resulted in Imageepoch consulting with Sega, a company it worked with in the past on the 7th Dragon 2020 series, which picked up the game for publishing.
Gary Green said: Imageepoch Inc. was a game developer based in Tokyo, Japan. It was owned by esteemed JRPG mastermind Ryoei Mikage and founded on June 9th, 2005. Other key personnel are Senior Director Kazuya Niinou and Director Hiroyuki Kanemaru. As of January 2009, the studio had over 120 employees.
Mikage would gain fame in the industry for his passion for grand stories and quirky characters. His earlier work on the production of Grandia III and Beat Down for the PlayStation 2 would bring many supporters to his cause. Running his own studio would allow the eccentric Mikage to be more experimental with his own unique twists on the JRPG genre.
The studio would develop exclusively for the Nintendo DS before alternating games with PlayStation Portable releases, plus others in the following years. Their first release was the Nintendo DS tactical role-playing game, Luminous Arc, which blossomed into a reasonably well-received property for Imageepoch.
Ryoei Mikage, the former president and CEO of Imageepoch, which went bankrupt in 2015, established a new company called Mikage LLC. in February 2017 and will announce a new title on February 9, 2019.
Wait didn't he go missing? I'm glad to hear he's alive and well. Imageepoch made some underrated gems last gen.
"Amazon has added new game deals for October 12th. Deals include The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Edition $40, Stella Glow $40, GalGun: Double Peace $50, Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault $13 and lots more!"
