After the impressive success of Recettear and Chantelise, it was clear that indie localization team Carpe Fulgur were on to a good thing. Now, they’ve unveiled their third translated Japanese indie title – Fortune Summoners: Secret of The Elemental Stone, due for release on January 17th for $25. A steep price, even compared to their previous two releases – it’s going to be a hard sell.

While EasyGameStation (developer of Chantelise and Recettear) are busy working on their new game, Territoire, CF have signed a deal with Lizsoft to bring their platform/action/RPG (Metroidvania, really) hybrid Fortune Summoners to a global audience. The full release isn’t going to be for another couple of weeks, but a quite hefty playable demo is available now from Carpe Fulgur’s site, if you want to take an early look.

Humble beginnings: Welcome to the unfortunately named town of Tonkiness.

Regarding the game itself, I’ve heard nothing but praise for it from those who played it in it’s native Japanese. It’s a polished and detailed action RPG with the player having the option to switch between the three primary protagonists at will, using their spells and brawn to hack through a variety of monsters and bosses. Part Castlevania: SOTN, part The Lost Vikings, all cute squeaky-voiced little girls.

It’s definitely a good game, but it’s going to be tricky to market – it’s twee and girly even compared to Recettear, and the developer couldn’t be talked down lower than $25, despite CF wanting to go lower. It should be noted that the Japanese indie scene works very differently, with digital distribution taking a back-seat to direct sales via hobby stores and comic conventions for prices often upwards of $40.

The generic item shop that Arche's family call home.

Personal business concerns (which I do hope are unfounded) aside, it’s going to be interesting to see how this situation develops, and whether the game can shift anywhere near as many units as CF’s two games to date – Recettear and Chantelise have sold 170k and 50k copies each, respectively. Either way, I wish all involved the best of luck, and hope that a Steam sale or two might push down the price for more casual accessibility over time.

[Fortune Summoners]