According to a developer interview published by Nintendo, the idea for a new Glory of Heracles game on the Nintendo DS came about due to the company's desire to release a traditional RPG on the system, and they originally planned to develop it in-house. While studying candidates, they narrowed down their options to titles that would be fun to both first-time players, and those who played RPGs on the NES and SNES. In the end, they decided on Glory of Heracles due to its originality compared to other RPGs, feeling that the series' uniqueness would be a good fit for the unique features of the DS. However, as the series is not owned by Nintendo, they had to reach out to copyright holder Paon and their production head Toshinobu Kondō (who would go on to direct the game) to collaborate on making the game. According to Kondō, the team was honored to be approached due to many of the staff members being fans of the series.