On August 31, 2007, 17 years ago, a cult JRPG made with pixel art and created over the course of months by a single developer, Noa, was released. Elona became such a success that it allowed fans to create their own maps and versions. In fact, you can now find hundreds of versions of the game on the Internet. The problem is… not all of them are legal.
The cursed sequel
The fans of the original game were overjoyed when Hong Kong Kunpan Culture Entertainment, another independent developer from Noa, announced the highly anticipated Elona 2~Pixel Art x Isekai x Adventure RPG because it was assumed that its original creator would be fully involved in its development. Nothing could be further from the truth: they have stolen it without any scruples.
On Twitter, he wrote “As I am an individual developer, I don’t have the resilience to fight against them, but I would like to state that Elona 2 is not a sequel to Elona and that when they proposed me to use the title Elona 2 I rejected the offer”. Obviously, the public has sided with him and fans have promised to ignore the sirens’ songs.
But things get complicated because the Hong Kong study has clarified that, indeed, it is not the sequel to Elona, but to Elona Mobile, a version made by the developer Digital Dog, who did have permission to make the game and therefore to license it. So the producer who made a version of Elona has pocketed money for selling it to another, but the original creator won’t receive a single dollar. All very fair.
On the other hand, Noa continues her journey creating a real prequel to Elona titled Elin, for which she raised around $420,000 on Kickstarter and will have its Early Access on November 1st on Steam. All’s well that ends well.