Saint Seiya fans were vindicated by
the success of Tencent’s mobile game.released for PlayStation and PC in 2015, developed
by Osaka-based studio Dimps, with licensing and
publishing provided by Bandai Namco.
Soldiers’ Soul was beset with issues from day
one on PC, with the developers only releasing a
single patch shortly after release to fix a bug that
prevented offline play. Beyond that, there was no
new content, no balance changes, and essentially
no communication from either Dimps or Bandai
Namco. Online play was buggy, laggy, and generally
unstable, and the game ran poorly, even on high-
end hardware due to bad optimization.
One active member of the Saint Seiya gaming
community, going by the handle ‘Mu the Guardian’,
published their own in-depth guide to combat the
debilitating network lag and instability in Soldiers’
Soul, including advice on router port forwarding,
adding code strings to the game’s Steam launch
options, and modifying settings in the game’s Config
file to improve performance. Mu is also involved
in the running of local unofficial tournaments in
Canada and Italy, where players can compete
without fear of connection issues.GUARDIAN GAMES
Mu expresses frustration with Bandai Namco for
its lack of communication regarding the poor state
of Soldiers’ Soul, a sentiment echoed by other
members of the community. DrNoD10 claims that
‘Bandai just launches [Saint Seiya games] and does
nothing, no updates, no new content, nothing’, while
XionShinah says, ‘Bandai needs to improve its game
support system’, noting that it is nigh-impossible to
get help from the publisher with these issues.
Everyone agrees that a new Saint Seiya game
on PC and consoles would be well-received by its
small but dedicated fanbase, who have petitioned
Bandai Namco and original license holder Toei
Animation for a new game on change.org. They say
that a working re-release of Soldiers’ Soul would
be sufficient, but even that seems unlikely, with
Bandai Namco’s license to produce Saint Seiyagames expiring in 2021, following the shutdown of
its mobile title Saint Seiya: Shining Soldiers. Bandai
Namco did not respond to our request for comment.
Still, all hope is not lost. Publisher Tencent
released free-to-play game Saint Seiya: Awakening
for mobile devices in 2017, and it went on to achieve
over five million downloads worldwide, proving
that interest in Saint Seiya games is still alive.
Mu says fans have requested that Tencent begins
development on a new mainline game for PC and
consoles, with Tencent reportedly ‘open to the idea’.TOWNSHIP HARDSHIPS
An older game that suffered from a lack of developer
support was Towns, released during Steam’s surge
of popularity in the early 2010s. Billed as a town-
builder in the vein of Dwarf Fortress, Towns saw
players assembling a settlement and catering to
roving adventurers. It was one of the first games
to be approved for sale through Steam Greenlight
(later Steam Direct), a system that enabled players
to vote on which games they’d like to see supported
on Valve’s digital storefront, creating self-contained
crowdfunding campaigns for indie studios.
Greenlight’s decision to allow developers to
publish beta builds drew criticism from gamers,Towns sold more than 200,000 copies
on Steam in its unfinished beta state.Legal issues
between Jason’s
original creators
led to Friday the
13th: The Game
being essentially
abandoned.JUN 2022 MAXIMU MPC 43
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