Thank you for playing Fist of the North Star LEGENDS ReVIVE. I’m Iwamoto, the game’s producer.
Time has flown between our 1st Year Anniversary and the 1.5 Anniversary. In the past six months we concentrated on making a success of the Fist of the Blue Sky collaboration, which we are glad to see was positively received by fans and proved to be a motivation to many to come back to play LEGENDS ReVIVE. Currently we are preparing for the worldwide release of the Union Battle mode soon.
In this letter I’d like to share some information about the Union Battle mode and future updates up to the date of our 2nd Anniversary. However, since I cannot make all details public now, I’ll leave some of them to your imagination.
Currently the Union Battle mode is available to English speaking regions as we tune up the final details. We wish to thank users for their cooperation in the opening of this mode. It should be working properly and become available for all other regions by the end of March.
(Updated:March.24 at 5:30 UTC)
Different Unions can battle it out in the Union Battle mode under different themes (such as only being able to use certain characters) to see who can make it to the top. It is more important to get more victories than to get an overwhelming victory in any particular battle. At first you can only see your opponent’s party’s hand and you’ll have to foresee what sort of team and power level your opponent will come to battle, in what order, etc. To win, you will need to line up your strategy with your allies.
Up until now, LEGENDS ReVIVE was the sort of game you’d play on your own and level up at your own pace. However, with Union Battle, we hope to provide players with a new kind of experience that allows everyone to feel closer to other fans and the community in general. Hopefully you will enjoy gameplay further in the near future!
Each time Union Battle is open for play, it will feature three different themes. As part of this Producer’s Letter, I’ll share the coming themes so that you can prepare in advance and earn the best spot possible! The themes are:
A) Only Nanto Fighters
B) Only SR Fighters
C) Only 1 Character
Regarding the Character Lineup
We have received some comments about certain characters that fans might not remember as much as more popular choices. We want this to be part of the LEGENDS ReVIVE experience, providing a full, extensive cast of characters and live up to our name and mission of reliving the original Manga series.
Here are some of the upcoming characters in no particular order:
・Juza (New Version)
・Juda (New Version)
・Fudo (New Version)
Besides that, looking at comments we received in a Livestream, we decided to fulfill one of the requests we got the most and intend to implement a new surprise character. Because it’s a surprise I want to say I cannot delve into who it is or when they’ll be available, but I’ll come out and admit that... KOKUOH IS JOINING THE BATTLE!!!
Also, as I’ve said before, we are working on further sets of 2 characters as one for battling. We already proved it’s possible with the Han Brothers, but there are some technological issues we need to overcome to make a set available for the whole battle without crashing on less advanced mobile devices. We greatly appreciate your patience as we work on making this objective a reality.
We want to continue having collaborations with different IPs that match the world vision of Fist of the North Star, just as we recently did with Fist of the Blue Sky. I cannot share the full details of when the next collaboration is coming, but let me share with you that there are already 2 collaboration events confirmed. One is for this spring and the other is for summer.
・The Spring Collaboration:
This one came about from a desire by our team to spread LEGENDS ReVIVE further around the world.
This next collaboration is with a world-famous IP that will help us reach even more fans of Fist of the North Star and let them relive the original series.
・The Summer Collaboration:
After the end of the Fist of the Blue Sky collaboration, we know expectations have risen for some another certain collaboration we’ve already begun planning.
Perhaps it would be better to call it a “Joint Performance” rather than a “Collaboration”... Some of you will get what we mean, and I will say nothing further than that!
We would like to keep up a similar pace in collaborations after the 2nd Anniversary, but nothing has been set in stone yet. Of course, we want to continue the “reenactment” of Fist of the Blue Sky we started this year. Keep your expectations up!
Regarding Future Ranking Mergers
We are facing difficulties in English-speaking regions affecting the way the Dojo and Ranking events due to a shrinking active-player population in some servers. Because of this we are progressively working towards merging either servers or rankings so we can provide the experience we originally intended. We are sorry for creating confusion amongst our English-speaking players with the sudden Ranking Gacha merger we attempted recently. We will also look into other ways of obtaining characters besides Gacha. We also appreciate your understanding that a certain population of players is necessary for the proper gameplay environment to flourish, which is why we felt the need to implement mergers for some server related matters.
(Updated:March.24 at 5:30 UTC)
From now on I’ll be discussing the update plans we have set in motion for the 2nd Anniversary. To put it shortly, after implementing Union Battles worldwide, we intend to create more contents to make enhancing characters a more complete experience, add more Story chapters, and make some QOL improvements by the time we reach the 2nd Anniversary. Moving forward we’ll be concentrating deeply in further developing, so we appreciate your understanding if changes occur from now until then. (Keep in mind that English name translations of new features might change in the future)
April:
・A new event to obtain a Character
We are preparing an event that is a bit different from what we’ve seen so far to obtain a rather, premium (?) character.
This character is new, rest assured of that. Keep an eye out for who is joining the roster!
May:
・New Contents: Gate of Shura
By completing new missions, players will raise their “Gate of Shura” level, granting them new items according to the level they’re in.
We want to give more rewards for playing daily.
Rewards and missions will be reset on the first day of each month, so take your monthly chances to get multiple items.
・New Contents: Tower of Tenha
This feature will focus on advancing character strengthening.
As you fight to reach the top of the tower, the final challenge will be regularly renewed (meaning floors will be added) making you aim higher and higher towards the heavens.
You will need to defeat opponents in each floor according to its rules, netting you rewards.
Besides items to enhance characters, we are looking into making (All) Fighter Shards and Badges available too.
June:
・New Story Quests
・Adjustments to items needed to strengthen characters and improve QOL
July:
・New Contents (name TBD)
A new feature will be added to the Enhance Party section (along with Shrine, Retsuden, Warehouse and Resistance Requests)
・New Mini-game (name TBD)
August:
・Preparations for the 2nd Year Anniversary
September:
・New Story Quests
・2nd Anniversary Events
We want to show our appreciation to all fans who have kept playing with an event larger than the 1st Anniversary! September 13 is also the day of Fist of the North Star, so we are planning to celebrate big time.
Event details have not been fully decided yet, so I cannot go into detail, but I will let you know in future Producer Letters and game news.
(*September 13 marks the anniversary of the first chapter of the Fist of the North Star being published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1983. In 2018, the Japan Anniversary Association recognized the day as Fist of the North Star Day.)
While the tragedy of COVID-19 has no clear end in sight, we have already gone over a year in which we’ve had to accept and implement changes in our daily lives. A year has passed since new members joined the development team and some of us haven’t been able to meet yet face to face. New members are about to join us again (as is traditional in Japanese companies in spring) and it has made us feel the speed with which time is passing by.
During this period where we’ve been forced to live with COVID-19 and think of a world after it, we have witnessed the birth of a new set of ideals and felt the change of game development and our role in providing a distraction during difficult times. This is truly a time of change, but we hope that LEGENDS ReVIVE will stay available to you as a way to bring some light and enjoyment to all fans. We are thankful to be doing this and will keep on doing the best we can. Thank you once again for playing LEGENDS ReVIVE.
