Also worth considering, so much so I can't believe none of us thought of it sooner... Never underestimate the power of sex... Anyone remember the game Forsaken? You probably don't, I had to go searching through a couple old Computer Gaming World issues to find the name of the game... It was a pretty bad late 90's game (i hear) that tried to hide its crap 3D engine behind a whole lot of advertisements featuring this one particular... quite nice looking woman... I'll post an example, feel free to delete it if you think it's too much for the forum.
And that's one of the more modest ones. The one I always think of actually shows off a bit of visible nipple. Now do you remember Forsaken? haha. I think anyone that picked up a PC magazine in the late 90's remembers Forsaken! Did they buy it? No idea. I remember an early meme talking about "Overused lighting effects but LOOK BOOBS!"
You see a bombshell in a near impossible frame sporting some large naturals along with a horror styled game... Who cares if they didn't know who she was? Who cares if the U.K. had little interest in RPGs... They won't even know it's an RPG until they've already bought the game, boobs and gore! While I doubt it's a slam dunk for the younger European audience, I also don't see it as a risk. The same box in America with the older audience probably produced some rolled eyes thinking it was a joke. Though luckily it was reviewed rather well from my recollections.
And if it did kind of introduce her to the other side of the pond, looks to be a bet that paid off. That woman is adored to this very day! And if the other info is true about her owning all rights to that character (even back then?), then she's not only a beautiful bombshell that has aged quite gracefully, she's also a business woman to be admired.
Truth be told it's that while I like to say that you design for the market you're in, and you deal with the others after the fact... When it comes to the Amiga, for BETTER it was truly thought of at the time as a worldwide seller. As early as 1988 the Atari ST was pretty much toast in America, and I've seen editorials from back in the day commenting on how a game on the Amiga has a higher world wide sales potential than one on the ST, and when you look deep into things, the Amiga was very much in 2nd place right behind DOS going into 1994. I've seen UK magazines note the ST as outselling the Amiga into 1990, but them also stating it's all good because over in America it's the opposite. And perhaps going later into the 90's it shifted a bit, but the Amiga was still looked at as a world seller, not a European seller like the ST, not an American seller like DOS, but a combined one.
With that in mind, it really doesn't matter where a game was designed (I'm not speaking of artistic presentation, in that case it very much does matter and more people need to consider it), when it came to the Amiga the thought was always at least in the back of their heads regarding the other market. Micro Systems, the American company who designed Excellence, the entire worldwide market was very much important to them. Most application type software was being made in America, but if you do read interviews with anyone behind those teams, they'll all tell you they were thinking of Europe. No shortage of 320x200 games made in PAL lands which have no technical reasons for using that mode when they have 56 extra pixels available to them... Unless they're thinking easy to throw it over to America.
Of course it drives us crazy because we've got to figure out what graphic modes and what aspect ratios this stuff was being created on... But it probably didn't matter to all that many individual companies where the stuff was coming from. And while various countries did tend to have their bias' on other countries...French stuff was all looks, no gameplay in America and the UK, in America UK stuff was adolescent, lacking depth, "awful programming" because they often used boot loaders bypassing the operating system, not taking advantage of the system. In the UK the American stuff was looked at as too dense, who needs a 100 page manual? "Awful programming" because American's played by the rules of the operating system, who has a hard drive anyway? not taking advantage of the system! - You see these stereotypes pop up at the time, you still see them from many people today. But you better believe it, if the game was "good" it mattered not where the hell it came from to any magazine. It mattered not to anyone at home just as long as it ran!
Going back to Arkanoid, ported to the Amiga by Discovery, American company... Despite success and a perfect port Taito would not go back to them, instead opting for the British software house Imagine for the sequel, Revenge of Doh. Taito is a Japanese company who also had an American division, they went with a British company for most of the Arkanoid ports. Why? All kinds of reasons I would bet... Probably got a good deal, Imagine knew how to program for all kinds of systems... Probably respected Taito a bit more, unlike Discovery who advertised Arkanoid with their other products... Perhaps a history of other arcade ports, I don't know... In the end the Revenge of Doh port to the Amiga was straight from the ST. In America it took advantage of the Amiga, but not in the UK. Ya never know, a different game may have been done on the Amiga in America but was from DOS, perhaps it was good, perhaps not... Revenge of Doh was not bad, but it was not excellent. And for most people wanting their Arkanoid kick, I'm betting they really didn't care.
Most Microprose games were first done on the C64, and later in the 90's that changed to DOS. Either way Microprose made excellent ports to the Amiga. Sometimes they did that in house in America, like Pirates, and other times they would have their UK division do the Amiga port, like Railroad Tycoon I believe. Who cares, it got done, and as long as it was a good game, people enjoyed it. The only questions at that point are how best to show it off today, FYI Railroad Tycoon despite the UK port to the Amiga, is best viewed in 4:3 NTSC.
Getting back to Elviria, if this design company indeed had that connection to her, then that very much makes sense. Kind of like Arkanoid and Discovery actually... Discovery had done zero Amiga games at that point, were loved/hated for a disk copying program, but just went right up to Taito at the CES and wouldn't you know it, it worked! Not surprising to me that a company in such an underdog type of situation like that would end up making something special, in both Arkanoid's case as well as with Elviria. Awesome to see an Amiga original RPG of that caliber, period. Unfortunately you wouldn't see many original RPGs to the Amiga, not in America or Europe. Plenty of Amiga RPGs, it's just they were usually ported from another system, for better or worse. And those ports are some of my favorite all time Amiga games, but even if you make it best on the Amiga, say Might and Magic II, you're always constrained by the original system, in that case the Apple II. They made it look very pretty, great colors, still has an awful auto map, thank the Apple II. Might and Magic III is a marked improvement in terms of game engine, with a good auto map, but that one was done on DOS first... Okay port to the Amiga by New World, though not excellent, so you've got a game that is both better and worse than the previous one in terms of the Amiga. Is might and magic III the better game? Highly debatable, they're all awesome, but it certainly offers many ease of use upgrades... but it's also using the exact same 32 colors from 256 color DOS, and the palette never changes except for the end sequence. Still an awesome game, great it's on the Amiga, top games of '92 from Amiga World I believe, but all things considered Might and Magic II is technically the better "Amiga" Might and Magic game because it blew everyone else away. It made things better.
I often wonder how much better would the Gold Box games have been treated by anal reviewers such as Scorpia if only she had an Amiga, and she reviewed those versions... Even into the early 90's the Gold Box games had a Commodore 64 origin, a step up from the Apple II, but I do wonder how much of the snarky attitude some people gave those games had to do with the EGA DOS ports they were playing. In 1988 Pool of Radiance not so great looking in EGA, nothing is all that great looking in EGA... The Amiga version, though coming out in 1990, blew them all away when the newer Gold Box DOS titles were still using EGA! Something tells me the Gold Box games would have been treated better by the critics if they were reviewing on the Amiga... And the best way to ensure that they review a game on the Amiga is to make sure it's designed there! Only a couple magazines would bother taking a 2nd look at a game they already covered for another system, regardless of how much better it was. It's pretty cool to see Elviria and get a glimpse at a fairly well known RPG created on the system. While I care deeply for artistic reasons and playability reasons what country the stuff was coming from, I'm always more glad just to see that it first came on the Amiga.
I'm no expert at Elviria, not a game I had back in the day, I do kind of remember the box on the shelf though... hahah... "Hey! What are you looking at?!" -my dad - in his unique way that was a warning, also him being proud, and inviting you to hand the box over to him. I've fooled around with the game in minor ways. It does not appear perfect, seems clunky, difficult in the wrong ways, but it's great looking, full musical score I believe, there's the power of the Amiga right there! The Amiga could have done that crap to any RPG in the 80's but it didn't, because nobody thought of music for DOS, no reason to think of it for a port. The character it's about is kind of laughable but it surprises you with how well it's done. Horror RPG, needed more of those.
Anyway, looking forward to what you uncover in your digging, any new info your social skills might get out of anyone associated with it. Should be a fun look.