Assault Suits series

The Assault Suits series is a series of futuristic robotic war video games developed by NCS featuring soldiers manning gigantic humanoid mecha dubbed Assault Suits. Spanning the course of 15 years and beyond, the games would be cross-distributed, cross-published and developed between the U.S. and Japan. It would be known as one of the most challenging series to follow due to the drastic changes from game to game. The original Assault Suit Leynos and the direct sequel used the term "Assault Suit" while the Valken series used the plural "Assault Suits".

Timeline

Japan Name US Name EU Name Release Dates Game system Developer JP Publisher US Publisher EU Publisher
Assault Suit Leynos Target Earth N/A JP March 16, 1990 / US 1990 / No EU release Sega Genesis NCS Masaya DreamWorks N/A
Assault Suits Valken Cybernator Cybernator JP Dec 18, 1992 / US April 1993 / EU 1993 SNES NCS Masaya Konami Palcom
Assault Suits Leynos II N/A N/A JP February 17, 1997 / No US release / No EU release Sega Saturn NCS Masaya N/A N/A
Assault Suits Valken II N/A N/A JP July 26, 1999 / No US release / No EU Release PlayStation NCS Masaya N/A N/A
Assault Suits Valken N/A Assault Suits Valken JP August 26, 2004 / No US Release / EU June 2005 PlayStation 2 NCS Masaya N/A 505 Game Street

The Series

Target Earth / Assault Suit Leynos

Target Earth, the first game in the series. Released for the Sega Genesis.

One scene, where a comrade who doesn't make it back to the ship burns up in the atmosphere, was removed.

Cybernator / Assault Suits Valken

The success of the first Assault Suits game in Japan would spawn another game on the Super Famicom. The artwork style, assault armor concepts, as well as the dialogue engine would remain similar to that of Target Earth/Assault Suits Leynos, but with major graphical improvements. The US name Cybernator added confusion to American gamers and disconnected many of the fans from the Target Earth roots. This game was actually a prequel to Assault Suit Leynos, taking place nearly a decade before.

Cybernator was the subject of censorship during its localization. The Japanese version features written dialog accompanied by a portrait of the speaker, but for some reason, these portraits were removed during localization. There is also a scene absent in which the president of the enemy forces, after realizing that his nation has been defeated, commits suicide.[1] It is unknown whether Konami or Nintendo took action on these censorships.

An enhanced remake was released for the PS2 in 2004.

Assault Suit Leynos II

This game would arrive on the Sega Saturn as the true sequel to Assault Suits Leynos, but was released only in Japan.

Assault Suits Valken II

The sequel to the SNES title in the series released on the PlayStation. It differed from the rest of the series, as it was a Strategy/RPG, unlike the rest, all being Action/Shooter/Platform titles. After the release in 1999, the same game would be reprinted by the company Four Winds on August 30, 2001. This game was never released outside Japan either.

Assault Suits Leynos

A new Assault Suits game for the PlayStation 4 being developed by Gunhound EX developer Dracule Software. Originally set to launch in late 2014 or early 2015, the game has been delayed to May 2015 to allow the team to implement a cooperative mode as well as multiple endings.[2]

See also

References

External links