http://p.twipple.jp/6nL6A
Japanese speakers, does this say anything interesting?
Okay, I am very out of the loop with Neo-Geo and all the companies/people involved here, so bear with me, but I registered so I can maybe add some clarification and info here.
This (very hard to read)
Neo Geo Freak article is interviewing a "Kengo Asai" from Face. It initially touches on
Money Idol Exchanger, or I guess Money Puzzle Exchanger in the west. What may be important here though, is that it continues on to ask about his next planned Neo Geo projects, to which he answers that he may start work on a sequel to
Exchanger, but that it's not a sure thing. He continues on and says that, besides for that, there is one more project which he is in fact working on, describing it as a "Fighter-ish" title. He explains that it's a fighter, but that it's tough to call it simply a fighter since it has more story-driven elements.
The second key point is that he mentions that while it is the first fighting game for them as a company, that he himself has previous experience both in design and production on
Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, and that the other staff there have also worked on fighters. He also says that while Gowcaizer "certainly wasn't a perfect fighter," that there were many things they weren't able to do with it, that might be nice to work into this new "Fighter-ish" game. He says that they'd have something tangible to show off perhaps by the summer vacation, with a release planned for the end of the year.
If I'm understanding the implications correctly, this is a definitive confirmation that:
a.) There was a large flow of staff from the Gowcaizer project to Face, and
b.) During the time period in question, Face was most assuredly in production on an out-of-the-box fighter that could be the prototype in question.
As I said I'm woefully uninformed about all of the pieces to this puzzle, I'm only going by what I've been able to skim from Japanese twitter users, but with the ties to Exchanger, Gowcaizer and Face, it seems like this article ties some things together and hopefully more informed users here will find this info helpful.