For a while now, I thought that some lower level office worker at what remains of Tecnosoft (now owned by a Japanese pachinko company from my understanding) was playing a cruel joke on Thunderforce fans.
For the past month or so, the Tecnosoft official website has stated that a new Thunderforce would be coming soon. As much as I wanted to believe, I wasn't willing to get my hopes up. It's far too easy to be played based on someone messing around with an expired domain name, and as a long time Thunderforce fan who has spent the last 10 years waiting for a sequel, I'm not sure if I could handle that sort of disappointment...
Fortunately for me, I'm not going to have to - according to the latest issue of Famitsu Weekly, Thunderforce 6 is coming and it doesn't look like it's going to be a simple cash-in on the franchise name.
Based on the information posted by duckroll over on NeoGaf and confirmed by several scans that I have stumbled across, Thunderforce 6 is being developed by a new team and published by Sega under license from Tecnosoft. The game is being directed by Tez Okano and will feature stages that have been inspired/remixed from earlier games in the series (I can't wait to see some of Thunderforce IV's stages revisioned in 3D).
From the scans that I've seen, Thunderforce VI is already looking impressive. The game is rendered in 3D, but will retain it's 2D horizontal gameplay. The screenshots also show off that most (if not all) of the classic Thunderforce 'weapons' will be returning.
Thunderforce VI is being set for release on the Playstation 2 later this October. The game is already up for pre-order over at
Play-Asia.com.
Scans can be found over at Videogamerx.
Happy days are here again? Now all I need is for Konami to finally get one with the development of Gradius VI...
