For me Koudelka is a bit of odd one.
It was published by SNK (in Japan) developed by Sacnoth but later when SNK went into money problems they were bought out by Aruze but then later SNK Playmore bought back most of its ip back except for Koudelka (I assume) since later Aruze published the Shadow Hearts games as Shadow Hearts was already in development prior to Aruze purchasing their ip.
Main reason why Aruze bought SNK was because of its ip and that they wanted to use them for slot machines etc... They never really nor supported videogames despite them having access to some reasonably successful franchises, so when they done more Shadow Hearts games it was kind of a strange one. For more info check an article by gamespot : here
What was strange was that Koudelka was originally meant to have been a a series of its own so... which is weird as with after the first Shadow Hearts game it really distanced itself from Koudelka with her never featuring again (Only Roger Bacon whom has featured in all games, and a very small tribute of Koudelka). Koudelka did receive a mini manga series which is not canon to the Shadow Hearts series. Also ending of SH 1 had Koudelka and son Halley going to America to find Edward and yet they were never featured in From The New World despite its setting in America.
Koudelka was the foundation of Shadow Hearts with very strong links but... from Covenant and in From The New World you would not really know that Koudelka ever existed and what started SH.
The main guy behind Koudelka was Hiroki Kikuta and he actually left Sacnoth shortly after its release but Shadow Hearts would have been already in development at that time. The torch was passed from Hiroki Kikuta to Machida Matsuzo whom was the art director of Koudelka.
Characters appearing in other games is not uncommon like Chaos Wars which featured a lot of Shadow Hearts characters.
Even if Sacnoth did at one point own the license but once it was absorbed into Universal Entertainment they would hold the rights. I doubt that SNK would although they sued Aruze for using SNK ip property despite SNK buying them back but from what it seems just involved slot machines. Seems that Koudelka is completely abandoned. So sadly probably SNK aren't the ones to contact in hopes for any revival.
What makes the whole thing even weirder that apparently Koudelka could have been ported to Steam which would have been published by Console Classics http://www.consoleclassics.co/?games=koudelka Not a lot of info about the company but they have been almost non existent since 2015 (except for two bass pro games last being in 2017) most likely due to the their games on steam having open sourced emulator files and that was negatively received which might have been the reason why Koudelka never made to steam or something else entirely. Will update as I learn more. I have contacted Console Classics via email and twitter. You can find their steam games: here
I have looked at what ConsoleClassics had published on steam which almost all were originally ps1 games. They used an opened sourced emulator pcsx r and adapt it with a loader settings and maybe other changes then have it as a package on steam. It is legal for them to do this, as long as they release the source code for each game they published which they have. It is strange they just stopped doing this because surely releasing games like Koudelka, D and more would make money especially if they have the ips or the very least have deals to do so. It just seemed strange they released games like Actua Golf 3... okay... Not saying not to release games like that but maybe start with ones that need a steam release.
Console Classics despite having announced a lot of games (even ones that did not get released) there aren't many variations from original publishers, Infogrames published Koudelka outside of Japan. A lot of games CC had on their site are involved with Infogrames in some way. But it is strange because SNK was the original publisher in Japan and with all what I mentioned above, it is a bit head scratching!
*Important Update*
From what I have read Urbanscan are behind consoleclassics they bought various ip from companies whom may have bought ip from other companies! XD So they wanted to make money from the ip they own hence console classics but the links seem to be to Infogrames which is confusing.
All this brings the question do Urbanscan / ConsoleClassics own Koudelka?
(Or some deal was done to allow them to publish Koudelka on steam.)
Koudelka is still listed on their site as one of their games, just never released.
ConsoleClassics updated their trademark and Urbanscan is still active as a company.
Sadly I do not see a way to contact Urbanscan directly but I have tried to contact ConsoleClassics.
The status of Koudelka ip could actually be unknown.
One thing for sure this is a bit confusing!
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