The Switch and PlayStation releases of classic Saturn sidescrolling shooter Assault Suit Leynos 2 are being delayed in the West as a new company steps in to handle their physical releases, the game’s Japanese publisher announced today.
City Connection said on X, formerly Twitter, that the Western release of Leynos 2 will be published by Clear River Games. But that appears to be the case only for the Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions, as City Connection posted on Tuesday that the “digital and physical versions available on the Japanese Nintendo/PS Store are only in Japanese. If you wish to play in English, purchase the Xbox/Steam versions, or wait for more information on the European/American release of the game.”
The official website lists an April 25 release date, as the company announced in December, for the Switch and PlayStation in Japan and Asia as well as on Xbox and Steam with no region mentioned. Below that, the site says the Switch and PlayStation versions in North America and Europe have a release date of “TBA.”
Clear River Games is a Swedish video game publisher established in 2020 and owned by Embracer Group. It’s recently published physical versions of Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, Under Night In-Birth Sys:Celes and Frogun Deluxe Edition, among others, in Europe. It’s published five Switch games in North America, the most recent being Gimmick! Special Edition last July. The distributor it lists on its website is Game Outlet Europe but it’s worked with City Connection and Limited Run Games as well.
On their official website, Clear River says about itself:
“Our vision is to bring the joy of experiencing vintage retro games and revived classic game franchises to players all over the world.
We focus on publishing high-quality classic game franchises, modern retro and pixel art games and indie games that inspire gamers and bring back great memories of the past or discover new great games. With physical editions distributed online and in retail stores, we want to make great and unique games accessible to retro game fans around the world.”
— Clear River Games
The company has yet to mention anything about Assault Suit Leynos 2 aside from reposting City Connection’s delay announcement Tuesday with a pair of eyes emoji.
A collector’s edition of Leynos 2 is set to release in Japan next month, but it’s unclear whether it — or a different collector’s edition — will make it to the West.
Even the languages that the game will be translated to are up in the air. The game’s official site says that Switch and PlayStation will vary “depending on sales region” while the Xbox and Steam versions will be in Japanese, English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and the Korean alphabet, Hangul.
The fact that it’s coming out in any other language is notable — the game originally is entirely in Japanese, but when City Connection announced last year that Leynos 2 would be the next in its Saturn Tribute line, it said it would localize the game into other languages. That would be a first for the company after selling 14 Saturn games whose languages had been untouched.
Saturn Tribute games are the Saturn originals running on what City Connection calls the Zebra Engine, which dataminers have found appears to be a modified version of the SSF emulator. City Connection appears to use the “S-Tribute” label for the Saturn games from Taito that it’s handling, while games like Cotton 2 and Suchie-Pie are from other publishers and sport the “Saturn Tribute” label. It used a “Saturn Tribute Boosted” label for Batsugun last year, denoting extra features that aren’t in their other Saturn efforts.
That emulator gives players features like rewind, quick save and quick load.
So far, 14 games have been released under the three labels: Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang and Guardian Force, which came out in 2021; Layer Section & Galactic Attack, Cleopatra Fortune, Elevator Action Returns and the four games in the Suchie-Pai collection, which came out 2022; and Metal Black, Bust-a-Move 2: Arcade Edition & Bust-a-Move 3 and Batsugun, which came out in 2023.
Assault Suit Leynos 2 is a 2D mecha run-n-gun that was originally developed by NCS and published by Masaya on the Saturn in February 1997 exclusively in Japan. It’s a sequel to Genesis game Assault Suit Leynos, aka Target Earth in North America, and Super Nintendo game Assault Suit Valken, aka Cybernator in North America and Europe.
Danthrax is a contributor to the Shiro Media Group, writing stories for the website when Saturn news breaks. While he was a Sega Genesis kid in the ’90s, he didn’t get a Saturn until 2018. It didn’t take him long to fall in love with the console’s library as well as the fan translation and homebrew scene. He contributed heavily to the Bulk Slash and Stellar Assault SS fan localizations, and has helped as an editor on several other Saturn and Dreamcast fan projects such as Cotton 2, Rainbow Cotton and Sakura Wars Columns 2.
Clear River games published Huntdown standard edition on the switch in the US, if my understanding is correct. Their logo is on the box along with the ESRB logo.
So it has! Thank you for pointing that out. After scouring their website game by game, it looks like they’ve published five Switch games in North America, actually, so I’ve updated my story to reflect that.