Game Freak Hopes to Release Harmo Knight Outside Japan

Good news for gamers outside Japan who are eager to get their hands on Rhythm Hunter Harmo Knight, the first full 3DS title by Pokémon developer Game Freak. In a recent IGN interview with Pokémon bigwig/Harmo Knight producer Junichi Masuda, he stated his desire to bring the game to North American and European audiences.

“In terms of a North American or European release, it's definitely something we'd like to do, but we're working out the details with Nintendo now and seeing what would be the best way to get that to players,” he said.

As for how this distinctly non-Pokemon game came to be, Masuda said it was conceived by James Turner, a British national who works at Game Freak. He and his team of 25 people have apparently been working on Harmo Knight for about a year and a half.

“Within Game Freak, we've implemented a kind of new system where employees can come up with original ideas for their games,” he said. “If they can find at least three co-workers to jump on the project and say they want to do it together, then they'll be able to proceed with that project.”

This company policy isn’t just to encourage the creation of cool, new IPs - it’s also meant to improve the quality of the Pokémon series. “One of the nice things about smaller projects like that is... since it's a project that you really wanted to do, you've kind of signed on to do that project. You're really interested in it,” he said. “There's also very few people and a short schedule, so everyone has to work on multiple aspects that they might not normally work with. So by doing that, you really build up experience, which translates back into the Pokémon games.”

For more from my interview with Masuda-san, as well as Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 director Takao Unno, head to this link. And, as always, stay tuned to IGN for all things 3DS.

Audrey Drake is an Associate Editor at IGN and a proud member of the IGN Nintendo team. She is also a lifelong gamer, a frequent banisher of evil and a wielder of various legendary blades. You can follow her wild adventures on her IGN blog and Twitter. Game on!

Source : ign[dot]com