News: Ride to Victory Patched to Version 1.2

Amid the news scuffle last month surrounding BT13's announced release and Bushiroad's new franchise Future Card Buddyfight, one important subject flew under the radar. The Nintendo 3DS Cardfight!! Vanguard TCG simulator, Ride to Victory, was patched wirelessly from Version 1.1 to Version 1.2 through the online distribution of a special QR code. Alternatively, players could access the patch in the Nintendo eShop.

Released to answer problems with the game's original release, like 1.1 before it the Ver. 1.2 update fixed a notorious bug that caused the game to freeze on startup, but in addition to that it fixed a different bug that caused the game to crash when finalizing deck customizations, and typographical errors in the game text. While the changes in the 1.2 patch are relatively minor, the implications of Bushiroad being both willing and able to distribute game patches of this kind are exciting.

Ride to Victory is not the first 3DS game to receive game patches, although it is among the first to receive multiple patches in sequence. Mario Kart 7 had that honor, followed by Tomodachi Collection: New Life in Japan, and while it never materialized it was suggested for some time that Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition would receive a patch to bring it up to date with its arcade and home console iterations. The technology and precedent is there, but as in the SSIV example, the main obstacles toward patching a 3DS game is convincing the companies involved that it's worth the effort--something that Bushiroad Inc. and FuRyu Corporation have visibly demonstrated with the 1.2 update. The most appealing use of this in the eyes of cardfighters is to update the game's card pool by adding more booster sets, as Ride to Victory currently stops at VG-BT09: Clash of the Knights and Dragons, but through more serious updates, it could potentially go all the way up to BT11: Seal Dragons Unleashed and EB06: Dazzling Divas. The problem faced by going beyond these sets is that while break ride mechanics can be easily handled by the game, it's currently unknown if Ride to Victory would be able to handle Link Joker's Lock mechanic with just a patch. Ver. 1.2's removal of game-stopping bugs suggests that the sky is the limit for these patches, but the impetus to fix release errors in a game is much greater than for an update that effectively serves to add more characters and would require a bigger workload.

Players that made the jump to 1.2 were able to retain their save data, although the update required that the 3DS itself be version 4.1 or higher, and an SD card was necessary to complete the update.

News: Fighters Clamor for Ride to Victory's International Release, Bushiroad Responds

The Nintendo 3DS card battle game Cardfight!! Vanguard Ride to Victory was released in Japan today, garnering a wave of enthusiasm from English-speaking cardfighters across the globe. Focusing their attention toward the official Facebook page, the requests for the game to be localized have not gone unnoticed. Bushiroad responded by uploading the Japanese commercial for the game and an official video of the gameplay, apparently testing the waters for what kind of reception Ride to Victory would have with westerners.

While the task of translating and localizing a video game for an English-language release is daunting, a third party specialist with interest in Ride to Victory may be able to answer the fans' cries; publishers like XSEED Games and Atlus have built their force in the market localizing niche products, and Cardfight's multimedia appeal has been known to sweep in consumers. Ride to Victory in its current state is like a genie in a bottle not yet opened. The question right now is which company, if any, gets to it first, as they will be in line to localize future Cardfight games as well. It is definitely still possible that Bushiroad will publish it themselves, as while their other branches have never taken on the task before, domestically the company is the publisher for the Tantei Opera Milky Holmes visual novels.

The 3DS has been a runaway success in both Japan and in the States, with the XL redesign alone selling a combined 7.05 million units in the first six months of its release, more than three times as many as the PSP Vita's global sales in its first nine months. As each unit's sale represents a potential Ride to Victory sale and another person's entry point into the rest of the franchise, Ride to Victory may have a promising future in the west. Ride to Victory was rated B by the CERO, the Japanese equivalent to the ESRB's E10+ rating in the US, allegedly for containing sexual content. Famitsu magazine rated the game 8/8/8/7 for an aggregate score of 31/40, on par with the 3DS release of Tales of the Abyss.