Original Rodea the Sky Soldier confirmed for America

If you haven’t heard, Yuji Naka’s Rodea the Sky Soldier is alive and set to release in Japan next month. Even better, it was recently announced that the game is coming to North America courtesy of NIS America.

So what took so long? Four years ago, Yuji Naka said the Wii version of Rodea was “complete,” and it was up to the Japanese publisher, Kadokawa Games, to figure out how to release it. With the Wii U looming on the horizon, Kadokawa found themselves trapped in an unenviable position, and the game remained out of sight. As it turns out, that’s because Kadokawa rebuilt the entire game from the ground up for the Wii U — the original Rodea heavily relied on the Wii remote pointer and motion controls, and those gameplay elements had to be reworked to function on the Wii U Gamepad.

On top of that, Yuji Naka was correct — Rodea the Sky Soldier for the Wii was indeed finished, and Kadokawa announced this finished Wii version would be included with the initial run of the Wii U version, free of charge. More recently, NIS America confirmed that North American gamers would also get a chance to own the original Wii version of Rodea, again free of charge with the first printing of the game. As for what’s different between the Wii and Wii U versions of Rodea, that’s anyone’s guess — but viewing the original announcement Rodea trailer, it appears the Wii version of the game might actually be a little bit faster. Siliconera reports that Prope (Yuji Naka’s studio) and Kadokawa butted heads frequently during the development of Rodea, so it’ll be interesting to see if there are any more major differences between Kadokawa’s Wii U version versus what Prope originally made for the Wii.

Rodea the Sky Soldier releases on April 2nd in Japan for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The North American release is scheduled for “Fall 2015.