Platinum’s ‘Very Sorry Stream’ announces delay of Sol Cresta

PlatinumGames has delayed its retro-inspired shoot ‘em up Sol Cresta from December to an unspecified date.

The news was shared during a live stream on Tuesday, when creative director Hideki Kamiya said that the December target had become “not possible” due to unspecified “quality” and “schedule” issues.

“Of course a lot of things come up that you want to do during development and getting those things made, polishing them up and making sure that they’re of the quality that we need is a difficult endeavour,” Kamiya said.

“We really do apologise for delaying the game, but there are some schedule and quality issues that we want to focus on and make sure that everything is right.”

Producer Takahito Washisaka added in the stream: “When we started working on Sol Cresta, originally we envisioned a more simple game… with this new entry in the series we wanted to make sure it was at a level of quality for a modern game.

“It hurts us as well: we don’t want to delay it. But we need to make sure that these elements are high quality because we want to make Sol Cresta the game that we want it to be. So we’re asking for a bit more of your time and patience.”

Sol Cresta is the sequel to 1980 arcade game Moon Cresta and its 1985 successor Terra Cresta.

It was originally ‘announced’ last year on April Fool’s Day 2020, leading many to believe it was a joke announcement rather than an actual game. However, PlatinumGames then confirmed a year later that the game was indeed a real product, and is the first part in a planned series.

“This game will also be the first title in PlatinumGames’ new brand, the Neo-Classic Arcade series,” Platinum confirmed in April. “Stay tuned for more games in the series, in which the essential fun and spirit of classic games will be polished with modern technology and skill.”

Speaking to VGC in a PlatinumGames interview published in September, Kamiya said Sol Cresta was just the first game in the studio’s planned Neo-Classic Arcade line.

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“The idea behind it is not looking at a specific IP or game, but taking that feel of those older games of the 8-bit and 16-bit era and bring back the days where you really had to find the fun and didn’t have all the bells and whistles that we have these days,” he explained.

“We have the technology now to improve on some of those ideas or maybe realise some pillars that weren’t possible back then, but you still have the gameplay and core mechanics.

“So you have the classic game and add ‘neo’ elements. We might look at side-scrolling shooting, beat-em-ups and other older genres and incorporate those new ideas.”