Upon the game's official website going live, it was revealed that despite the game being developed by a new company, Felistella, a few key staff members from prior games were revealed to still be involved, including character designer Takeshi Iizuka and scenario writer Kei Miyakozuki. Summon Night 5 itself was first announced in an issue of V Jump magazine, with more details being revealed later in the month. In order to build up excitement and demand for the fifth entry, Bandai Namco would release Summon Night and Summon Night 2 as PlayStation Classics (playable on PSPs), and release Summon Night 3 and Summon Night 4 as enhanced remakes.
However, in July 2012, Bandai Namco Games announced that not only would they be re-releasing the first four titles in the main series of games, but also creating a fifth entry in the series, all on the PlayStation Portable. While the rights were transferred to Banpresto, which in turn transferred to Bandai Namco, the game's official community website proceeded to be taken off-line afterwards in 2011. In 2010, Summon Night series developer Flight-Plan closed down, leaving the future of the series in question. Each character is from each of one of the game's four worlds Pariet from the Phantom Beast World, Kagero is from the Ogre world, Spinel is from the Spirit World, and Dyth is from the Machine World. The player may also chose one of four "Cross characters" to partner their selected protagonist with, with different combinations leading to different weapons and abilities becoming available. The game follows one of two main protagonists, determined by the player's selection: Folth, the male character, who has a "gun-arm" that shoots out "energy-hands", or Arca, the female character, who uses a pole arm as a weapon. The game's story takes place 200 to 300 years after the events of Summon Night 3, in an alternate parallel dimension, and contains references to the past game's world and characters. Successfully completing brave conditions may also result in gaining "brave medals", which in turn can be used to purchase new attacks and abilities for characters to use in future battles. Conversely, by carrying out certain positive actions, such as fulfilling "brave conditions", such as being the first to initiate an attack, or defeating a certain number of a certain enemy type, results in gaining more brave points. When bad actions occur, such as a character of the player dying, brave points are lost, and if they drop to zero, the battle is over and lost.
A player's team contains a numerical "Brave Points" value that represents the team's morale for the fight. In addition to this general flow of battle, the game also uses the "Brave Battle System". Attacks take away from a character hit points, losing all hitpoints eliminate characters from battle, and the team without any characters left loses.
This is generally done by moving characters in certain positions to attack the opposing character. Īs in most tactical RPGs, the goal is for the player to strategically move their characters across the grid, to defeat the AI-controlled opponent's team of characters. Which combinations are selected affect both the dialogue and story progression, leading to eight separate paths to take through the game. At the beginning of the game, the player can choose to play as either a male or female protagonist, and chose from 4 separate "Cross" (partner) characters. The game involves the player moving characters in a turn based fashion across a large grid from an adjustable isometric perspective. Similar to the past main numbered entries in the series, the game is played as a tactical role-playing game with elements of a visual novel. The game was considered a success in English regions, with its sales being enough to warrant Gaijinworks to translate its sequel, Summon Night 6, which was released in 2017. It was released digitally in North America on December 15, 2015, and received a limited-edition physical release on April 7, 2016. Almost two years after its initial Japan release, in April 2015, Gaijinworks announced that they would publish the game in English in North America and Europe sometime in 2015. The game was released in Japan on for the PlayStation Portable.
It is the first and only original entry to be developed by Felistella and published by Bandai Namco Games, following original developer, Flight-Plan's, closure in 2010, and original publisher Banpresto being acquired by Bandai Namco. Summon Night 5 ( サモンナイト5, Samon Naito Faibu) is a tactical role-playing game in the long-running Summon Night series of video games.