Trivia / Solatorobo: Red the Hunter

• Acclaimed Flop: While the game is considered to be an Even Better Sequel compared to Tail Concerto, According to a Q&A session, Solatorobo only managed to push 100,000 units worldwide, in part thanks to the game being a very late release for the DS.
• Actor Allusion: Before Red (voiced by Tetsuya Kakihara) competes in the final round of the Duel Ship Rookie Tournament, he tells the receptionist "I'm fired up!".
• Executive Meddling:
  • Part of the reason the game spent ten years in development is because Tail Concerto didn't sell as well as hoped, so Namco Bandai insisted that anything remotely related be tightened up. Arguably, this is an example of Tropes Are Not Bad, because the result is gorgeous.
  • The reason behind Solatorobo's over-reliance of Forced Tutorials and Narrating the Obvious is due to Bandai Namco supplying the development team with playtesters that were in early elementary school.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: It took ten years for this game to come out following Tail Concerto's release, and half of that was spent trying to convince Bandai Namco to even greenlight Solatorobo at all.
• God Does Not Own This World: The Q&A session linked above has Hiroshi mention this as the main reason why they can't make a proper sequel, remake, or remaster of the game by themselves, since it would run afoul to Bandai Namco's ownership.
• Invisible Advertising: In Japan, this was zig-zagged, as they made over 100 advertisements for the game, each of them lasting no more than 15 seconds... but they were all dropped on the same day as the game's release, though Solatorobo had some pre-release content beforehand. In western territories, this was played straight, as the only form of advertisement this game got was a modest Nintendo Power article, maybe one trailer and that's it. Not helping is that both of them kept the second half of the game under wraps (as opposed to the Japanese version teasing its existence and the European version outright spoiling it), thus making many onlookers assume the worst about the game.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Due to its low sales, Solatorobo is considered to be one of the holy grails of DS game collecting. While European and Japanese copies are more common and thus cost less, the US version is notoriously expensive, where a loose copy can easily set you back nearly $300 USD. It's at the point where people are more likely to know Solatorobo for its rarity alone rather than the actual content within the game itself.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The Japanese version had a Collector's Edition that included a different cover sleeve, the game's soundtrack, and a Prelude disc that contains pre-release content and interviews. In America, certain versions of the game was packaged with a CD containing a set amount of songs from the game.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.":
  • This game marks Mamoru's first international appearance, as none of his exploits from Mamoru-Kun have ever been properly localized for western audiences.
  • Likewise, this also marks the first appearance of the Tail Concerto characters in the European region as a whole, as that game never made it to PAL territories beyond France (for some reason).
• Milestone Celebration: This game is considered to be CyberConnect2's 15th anniversary celebration, being a sequel to the very first game they developed.
• Model Dissonance:
  • Whenever the game transitions to real-time cutscenes, you get to see beautiful 3D models that takes full advantage of the area... for the backgrounds, robos and airships. Character "models" are simply segmented sprites textured onto flat polygons that are shaded to give each character a psuedo-3D look by abusing Cheated Angles. As such, they look weird when viewed with a free-camera.
  • Even Red's in-game model isn't immune to this, as the Red in the DAHAK is entirely different compared to Red on-foot, with his DAHAK model being meshed into the robo's gemoetry directly.
• No Export for You: Thankfully averted, both for Europe, and America. Unfortunately the artbooks and Red Data Children light novels remain untranslated officially.
  • Fans have translated several of these light novels in recent years, with a collection of English translations available on Tumblr, but official translations remain unforthcoming.
• Orphaned Reference: The gauge medallion that Chocolat wears was supposed to tie into a gameplay mechanic where you would have to micromanage the state of the Asmodeus ship. Though the feature was cut, the medallion remained, eventually being a key part of Chocolat's design.
• Referenced by...:
  • Parts of Red's design (his hat, goggles, and canine features) were incorporated into the character Cyberconnect2 in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, who is an amalgamation of the real CyberConnect2's other works, most dominantly .hack.
  • Red's hat and goggles (named "Hunter Goggles") can be obtained in Them's Fightin' Herds's virtual lobby. Though because it's a backer item, Mane6 legally cannot disclose the fact that it is a Solatorobo reference.
  • Savestate's logo font is intentionally inspired by Solatorobo, and Tim Weeks once drew Kade in Red's outfit◊.
  • likewise, Tom Fischbach, author of TwoKinds, sketched Natani and Keith dressed as Red and Elh respectively.
• Saved from Development Hell: Finally released in Japan in 2010 and the rest of the world in 2011.
• Sequel Gap: Tail Concerto was released back in 1998, with Solatorobo launching in 2010/11.
• Sequel in Another Medium: Solatorobo has a bunch of stories written for CyberConnect2's Kemono magazines along with "Fanbooks" for the game in order to further flesh out the world, with "Red Data Children" being the most well-known. As mentioned above, these were never officially translated for an international audience.
  • Prequels: "Ragdoll Elegy", "Bitter Rain", "9071 Morning Sacrifice", "Red Data Children" and "Overture - Movement 0".
  • Sequels (and midquels): "A Captain's Final Adventure", "Forest of Healing", "Shepherd Report", "Warm Memories", "Hospitality At Nippon" and "Black and White Borderline". Also counting are "Onward - Bon Voyage!" and "Kadenz -Closing Melody-", which cross over with Tail Concerto, as well as the "Box Radio Whistle" audio drama.
  • There are also three non-canon stories: "From Now On, An Important Time To Live", "Double-Edge Sword", and "Summer at Shepherd Academy".
• Screwed by the Lawyers: CyberConnect2 has expressed time and time again that they would love to remake Solatorobo for modern consoles, but in order to do that, they would need clearance from Bandai Namco as they still own exclusive publishing rights over the game. Bandai Namco's partial ownership also prevented CyberConnect2 from directly referencing any of the game's characters in Fuga: Melodies of Steel. These factors may had influenced the decision to make Fuga a Stealth Prequel rather than a follow-up or side-story to Solatorobo, as it was easier for the staff to Write Around Trademarks rather than try and convince Bandai Namco to give the Little Tail Bronx series another shot.
• Screwed by the Network: Bandai Namco apparently had very little faith in the franchise selling outside of Japan. The publishing for the US version was handled by XSEED Games with Nintendo handling the European release themselves. Regardless, the game received little to no advertising within those regions, and the European box cover ended up spoiling a few major twists. Bandai Namco has an American and European publishing arm and could've published the game outside of Japan themselves instead if they were so inclined.
• What Could Have Been: Something to be expected for a game that spent nearly 10 years in development.
  • The project started life back in 1999 as a direct sequel to Tail Concerto titled Tail Capriccio ("Capriccio" meaning "Fantastical Music", keeping up with the theme naming of the first game), with both Panta and Cyan in the running for being Promoted to Playable. However, middling sales from the first game lead to Bandai (later Bandai Namco) rejecting the proposal. In 2004, the sequel was proposed again before being re-imagined as the Public Service Announcement game Mamoru-Kun, before finally being retooled into Solatorobo starting in 2007.
  • Many different prototype designs and plot ideas were revealed in the multiple Solatorobo art books titled "Bluesky", "Daybreak", and "Starlet". Some ideas include Red initially being younger and named Blue, and story ideas that would eventually morph into the tie-in novel series "Red Data Children."
    • The artbooks also had different designs proposed for the returning Waffle, Panta, Alicia, Flare, and Stair, suggesting that they would become Older and Wiser come Solatorobo. For reasons unknown, these designs went unused and they all reverted back to their original outfits in the final game.
  • Chocolat was originally designed as a Felineko before suddenly shifting into a Caninu late into production. Chocolat was also going to be the Token Human Action Girl partner to Red at one point.
  • Mervielle was going to be Killed Off for Real in the second half of the game, but the writers' attachment to the character prevented that from happening.
  • Opera was supposed to be Fool's daughter, before being morphed into her own independent character.
  • Flo was going to also serve as Mission Control, giving you hints and proverbs depending on the situation on the top half of the screen not unlike Mei Ling from Metal Gear Solid, before being delegated to a simple mission broker.
  • Cocona's Insert Song, "Sparkling Shooting Star", was supposed to be a lot longer, but had to be cut down to only the first verse due to them running out of space on the game's cartridge. Oddly enough, in spite of the soundtrack getting remastered and released on CD, "Sparkling Shooting Star" never got extended to its intended full length.
  • The three-way battle against Opera, Calua, and Gren was originally going to be much different, with the three revealing to have Combining Mecha that would then fight against Red.◊
  • There was going to be a mission where the Black Cats Gang would steal the DAHAK, forcing Red to borrow Waffle's Police Robo to get it back.
• Working Title: Was referred to as Project CODA for the longest time before finally gaining its retail name late in development.