Today, game maker Granzella launched a website for R-Type Final 2. Today is April Fool’s Day. This is either an awful, mean joke or terrible timing.
The official website doesn’t look like a joke—unless the humor is so subtle that it has gone completely over my head.
“Granzella has started planning to bring out the latest work of the milestone in side-scrolling shooter games, R-Type, which went out into the world in 1987,” the official site states. “In this latest version of R-Type game, all the player fighters that appeared in R-Type Final, expressions of attacks, operability and the exhilarating feeling of the gameplay will be intensified.”
Not exactly side-splittingly hilarious, huh? R-Type Final was released in 2003, so maybe the joke is that this is a sequel to the “final”? I guess?
The site adds that the stages are being rebuilt from the ground up, and this will be the first R-Type with a 16:9 ratio.
Usually, April Fool’s jokes in Japan make a mention to the date—for example, saying whatever news is limited to April 1 or whatever.
But if you scroll down to the bottom of the official page and...
Planning to Launch a Crowdfunding Campaign
We are planning to run a crowdfunding campaign to elicit cooperation from R-TYPE fans for “Project R”—Granzella’s New R-TYPE production project.
The next update is scheduled around May. We kindly ask for your cooperation.
Yeah, this doesn’t seem like a joke. April Fool’s Day is very much a thing in Japan, especially online, so I’m not sure why they picked today.