Battle Fantasia Coming to Playstation 3 This Fall

After skipping out on a retail release last year, Battle Fantasia is heading to the Playstation 3 in North America this fall. Instead of the Blu-ray format, however, the fighting game is going to be exclusively a digital release on the Playstation Network.

Arc System Works is the developer behind Battle Fantasia. Founded in 1988, the Japanese video game software development company was previously responsible of the much respected 2D stylish fighting series, Guilty Gear.

Battle Fantasia is styled similarly to the Guilty Gear series in that it is a 2D fighting game. Unlike the 2D sprite-based series, however, the new game uses 3D polygons. Battle Fantasia also simplifies the hardcore gameplay from Guilty Gear in order to cater more to the casual players. With all the changes, Battle Fantasia received good review scores with a 70 metascore for the Xbox 360 version at metacritic.com.

The arcade version came out first on April 26, 2007 in Japan only. Battle Fantasia then arrived on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 simultaneously in Japan on May 29, 2008. While the Japanese version of the game was self-published by Arc System Works, the rights have to be outsourced in other regions. Thus, Aksys Games was responsible for bringing the Japanese title to North America.

They chose to only release the Xbox 360 version in North America, however. While no official reasons were given, many speculate that the cancellation of the Playstation 3 version in North America has to do with Sony's strict policy regarding translating games from Japan on their platforms. Therefore, only the Xbox 360 version of Battle Fantasia was released on September 16, 2008.

History has shown that Sony usually blocks games from entering the United States unless it features an English dub of the Japanese voice-acting. This policy has prevented games like Yakuza 2 from coming to the Playstation 2 until the restrictions were lifted at the end of the system's life span. Unfortunately, the Playstation 3 is another story. Because of this translation policy games like Battle Fantasia and the two Yakuza Playstation 3 games are being blocked.

Fortunately, Aksys Games found a way to get the Playstation 3 version of Battle Fantasia to North America. While it is unknown if they included the required voice acting, the publisher is limiting the release as a digital download on the Playstation Store. This move was done to cut costs and maximize profits as Battle Fantasia was never known to be a big seller.

Even though it is download-only, Playstation 3 fans in North America should be happy to have another quality title this fall with Battle Fantasia.