In followup to my post on November 16th, the localisation patch for Ar Nosurge finally hit the European PSN regions on Tuesday November 25th. Nearly two weeks “late”, thanks to SCEE’s usual overly-lengthy approval processes.

More importantly, it is two weekends after the American (read: original) release date for the patch. It also arrived here midweek and overnight. So just in time to go to work/school and be distracted all day waiting to go home and play.

To be fair to Koei Tecmo Europe, Sony Computer Entertainment (Europe) are rather notorious for messing around European gamers with shoddy timing. Where SCEA updates and DLC will come out almost immediately, the SCEE updates have a habit of coming late. Worse, the publishers don’t always know exactly when something will get released. I’ve even heard (unconfirmed) that this extends to digital-only releases of games.

It certainly does look as if games publishers (including but not limited to Koei Tecmo) don’t know until the last minute when things are going to get digitally released.

Unfortunately, even though this final hurdle is probably Sony’s, it ultimately still reflects badly on Koei Tecmo overall. The initial situation really was of their own doing. It is great that they and Gust made good and issued a patch to address the localisation but, here in Europe at least, the handling of the PR side really could have been better and the delayed update in our region just puts the icing on that particular cake.

Positive Result

If you like Japanese RPGs and haven’t got around to Ar Nosurge yet, though, now is the perfect time to jump on board. It is a good game and the patch genuinely addresses the main issues that were letting it down.