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Europe will plumb the depths of Etrian Odyssey Untold on May 2
Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl, the latest entry in Nippon Ichi Software's cult-favorite dungeon crawling series, will finally reach European shores on May 2. Like all Etrian Odyssey games, Untold sees players navigating a series of labyrinthine structures from a first-person perspective while battling fiends in turn-based fashion. Mechanically it's a very classic, arguably dated take on the roleplaying genre, but these archaic elements are countered by modern aesthetics, sound and the convenience of being able to map your surroundings directly on the 3DS touchscreen. Danny's review of the North American release awarded the game 4 of 5 stars, alternately describing Etrian Odyssey Untold as "an enjoyable nostalgia trip for Etrian Odyssey veterans" and "the best entry point in the series." Publisher NIS America Europe has yet to reveal a price point for the European release of Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl. [Image: NIS America]
Vita dungeon crawl Demon Gaze heads West on April 22
NIS America continues its plucky support of Sony's Vita handheld with Demon Gaze, a Japanese roleplaying game that will bring its diabolical creatures and moon-eyed heroines to the West on April 22. In Demon Gaze, players assume the role of Oz, an amnesiac in a mysterious realm full of dungeons and monsters. Helpfully, Oz is a "demon gazer," which allows him to capture defeated demons and later use their powers. Described as a "dungeon crawl," Demon Gaze is played from a classic, first-person perspective. Players move forward one square at a time and each step has a chance to prompt an enemy attack or other event. As you can see from the collection of screenshots below, these old-school game design concepts are mated with modern 2D, anime-styled graphics. If you're interested in pre-ordering Demon Gaze you should pay a to visit NIS America's online store. There you'll find the game in its Limited Edition form, which includes Demon Gaze, an art book, a soundtrack CD and a fancy box to store all of this swag. All of that can be yours for $50.
Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness lights up EU in September, NA in October
Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness will wing its way to PS3 in Europe on September 27, with a North American release following on October 8. The game reintroduces Laharl, Etna, and Flonne from the original Disgaea and casts them in a new adventure. During our brief look at the strategy RPG at E3, it appeared developer NIS is trying to recapture its audience by sticking very closely to Disgaea's original formula. A special edition is now available for pre-order for $84.99. It includes a collector's box, an artbook, 2-disc soundtrack CD, Etna and Flonne figurines, 5 art cards and, of course, the game. You can also order the special edition with an included strategy guide for $104.99. The standard edition is $49.99.%Gallery-179545%
Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland transmutes NA and EU in May
Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland, part three of Gust's Atelier trilogy, is currently being localized for western audiences and prepped for launch by NIS in North America and Europe this May. NIS also published the first and second entries in the series, Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland and Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland. As the artful trailer above explains, Atelier Meruru concerns the adventures of Princess Meruru and her quest to become an alchemist while simultaneously growing her kingdom of Arls to its full potential. "Development" is a primary aspect of the gameplay, with story progression changing based on how the player decides to expand and improve the kingdom. Personally, we had no idea that becoming a master alchemist involved so much sweeping.%Gallery-144698%
Phantom Brave takes PSP to The Hermuda Triangle in March
In case you missed out on the PS2 release of Phantom Brave, or the updated Wii port, NIS America has announced a more upgraded-er port, for PSP! Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle, out this March on UMD and PSN in North America, and on PSN in Europe. This version of the isometric tactical RPG features all the new content, including characters and the "Another Marona" campaign, added to the Wii release, Phantom Brave: We Meet Again. NIS has also added additional new characters from other NIS games, including Hero Prinny and the Unlosing Ranger (according to Siliconera). It's because those five characters make this a slightly different game that the box art can claim it as "Only on PlayStation." Apparently.
Prinny 2 coming to North America in January, doods!
Just in case you didn't get enough weird this week, NIS has you covered with its announcement that the sequel to its PSP action game Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? is coming to North America in January 2011 bearing the title Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! (No joking, dudes!) The side-scrolling, hack-n-slash game was released earlier this year in Japan under the name Prinny 2: Dawn of the Great Pantsu War (no "dood," dudes) and will arrive here in both UMD-based and PSN download form. Now, let's see if NIS America follows through and makes the Japanese release's 10 yen (12¢) daikon radish weapon DLC available Stateside, too.%Gallery-104666%
Holy trademark, NIS! 'Badman' games to be renamed [update]
What did I do to deserve this, my lord!? That is both the question on NIS America's mind and the new title of its series, once known as Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! The publisher announced that it's changing the name of the Acquire-developed action-strategy game in response to "a conflict of interest with an existing IP." We're guessing the trademark issue in question is with a certain comic book franchise owned by Warner Bros. -- Plastic Man, obviously. This week has not been kind to NIS. Just yesterday, the Japanese parent company reported a 95 percent drop in profits, and now the American branch has to change the name of one of its franchises midstream. May 4 is the new release date for what is now called What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!? 2. [Update: May is indeed a new release date for the game: it was originally slated for March.]
ESRB: NIS promotes 'Viral Survival' for Wii owners
An ESRB rating has revealed a new Wii game published by Disgaea creator NIS America, with the catchy title of "Viral Survival." The ratings board describes a game "in which players direct small 'cartoony' DNA-strand creatures around a game board," collecting other DNA strands and avoiding viruses. This sounds like peakvox escape virus, an obscure WiiWare title that snuck into Japan in June. That game involved chaining DNA creatures and navigating them between virus blobs, occasionally gaining the ability to destroy them with "immunity" missiles. NIS America seems to simply have an interest in picking up games about viruses, like the hilariously localized Puchi Puchi Virus.
PSA: NIS America's PSP re-releases half price on PSN
As we reported earlier this month, NIS America is making several of its previously UMD-only PSP games available for download from the US PlayStation Store late tonight / early tomorrow morning to coincide with the launch of PSP Go. For a period of one week, Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light, Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, Dragoneer's Aria, Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman!, Mana Khemia: Student Alliance and Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? will be available at 50% off their normal cost -- a welcome offer, given that many digital titles on the store are keeping pricing parity with their retail UMD equivalents.NIS is also asking visitors to the PlayStation Blog whether they want to see a UMD release of Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! by means of a poll that currently has the "ayes" and "nays" running nearly neck-and-neck.
Holy do-over, Badman! New Euro demo coming along with updated PSP firmware
Last week, a European demo of Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This? was released on PSN, requiring PSP firmware 5.55 to run. One minor issue: firmware 5.55 isn't available for download. That means that the Badman demo is effectively exclusive to people who bought Dissidia Final Fantasy or Soulcalibur Broken Destiny, two games that have the new firmware on the disc. What did Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! do to deserve this?NIS's Allison Walter outlined the company's plan to correct this unfortunate situation on the PlayStation Blog, inadvertently announcing the release of an upcoming firmware in the process. "We're going to re-release it next Thursday, 10 Sept," she said in response to user Killzone_Kid, "by which time Firmware 6.0 should have been released. Sorry for the wait!" You'll be repelling heroes from your subterranean lair in no time![Thanks, Kenneth]%Gallery-49507%
ESRB reveals localization plan for Let's Hitchhike
Let's Hitchhike from NIS (actually, Let's Zenryoku Hitchhike!!!!!!!!!, but we'll stick to Let's Hitchhike) is one of the weirdest games on WiiWare -- a board game with a hitchhiking mechanic and an angry restaurant owner as the primary antagonist. It might not be Muscle March weird, but it's quirky enough to get our attention.According to a new ESRB listing, NIS is planning to localize Let's Hitchhike as Full Blast Hitchhike. The content description offers two examples of the English version's "tongue in cheek humor": "What are the two sexiest farm animals? Brownchickenbrowncow!" and "Japanese girls are great! W-well...not as great as YOU, my pet." If you enjoyed those, be sure to give Full Blast Hitchhike a ride whenever it actually, you know, is announced and released for real.Also found via ESRB: the Wii version of Geon, now published by UFO Interactive and called Geon Cube -- not to be confused with Technos's Geom Cube.[Via GoNintendo]
Phantom Brave: We Meet the new release date
NIS sent out a brief note with the latest release date for the Wii version of Phantom Brave. The updated port of the PS2 strategy title will be out August 11, according to the new announcement. Not August 4, and (clearly) not June. We're hoping this actually makes this latest date and doesn't continue to slip, Puchi Puchi Virus-style. Phantom Brave: We Meet Again includes four new chapters and a new character not found in the PS2 game. NIS says that you'll be able to start right from the new material, for those of you who completed the original game. It'll come bundled with a disc featuring bonus artwork. In addition, the first 500 people to pre-order from NIS's Rosenqueen shop will receive a bonus soundtrack disc. %Gallery-63020%
Phantom Brave pushed out to August for Japanese voices
Brace yourselves. The upcoming port of Phantom Brave won't possess Wii consoles in June as expected. Now, assuming you survived that Prinny Bomb, NIS America says in its press release (PDF link) that the delay will allow the niche publisher to put the oft-requested Japanese voice-over track back into the game. It's a gift, however, that requires some "extra programming and debugging," and players looking forward to the moody strategy game will now have to wait until August 4 to get their grinding fix.
NIS reveals Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! for PSP
Oh, so this is what that bizarre trademark was about. NIS has just revealed a new PSP game called Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This? via the PlayStation.Blog. This is a heavily localized version of Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida, a mix between Dig Dug and Dungeon Keeper. You must protect the villain, Badman, from the approaching do-gooders who want him dead. In order to do this you'll need to dig around, create monsters and keep balanced the delicate Demon Ecosystem. Sounds intriguing to us!We're not sure we're going to truly understand the game until we see it in action, but until then you can check out a bunch of confusingly mysterious screenshots in our gallery. It sounds like it won't be too long before the game is out, with a demo being made available on the PSN Store "soon." Check out the PlayStation.Blog for more information, as well as instructions on how to enter the Holy Hidden Codes, Badman online contest.%Gallery-49507%
Puchi Puchi Virus may come out in May
We get a feeling of nostalgia from talking about Puchi Puchi Virus. After all, we first encountered the puzzler two years ago, back when Japanese publisher Jaleco was still around. In November 2007, NIS announced plans to localize it with a fun, pop-culture-laden translation. After a few delays, NIS sent out a press release announcing a May release date! The delays have only served to make us ravenously interested in what was once something we casually appreciated (along with its preorder bonus). We've got tons of new screens and character art in our gallery.You can even try Puchi Puchi Virus right now, and maybe even win something for the privilege. The official website features a downloadable demo, which, if you score highly enough, enters you into a drawing for an Enamel Navy DS Lite.%Gallery-27958%
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Phantom Brave haunting Wii in North America this June
NIS America confirmed that the niche game hub will bring its Wii port of Phantom Brave to North America this June. The decidedly morose turn-based strategy game was first released for the PS2 in 2004, and shares much in common with other NIS titles like Disgaea or La Pucelle Tactics. Titled Phantom Brave: We Meet Again, the port will feature a few tweaks over the original, including improved graphics (though judging by the above shot we're not so sure), a redesigned interface, and more items, skills and characters. An expanded story is also promised, though unlike other titles in the NIS catalog, this one's narrative is more apt to leave you grabbing for a fistful of Zoloft than cracking a smile.
DS Daily: Publisher of the year
The DS was host to a large selection of extremely awesome games in 2008. Who brought you the most, either in terms of what you bought, or just what you liked? Was it one of the big guys (Nintendo, EA, Activision)? A company with a more specialized catalog, like Square Enix or Atlus? An even more specialized company, like Atlus's distribution partner NIS, or Square Enix's subsidiary Taito?Of all the companies putting DS games into stores, who impressed you the most? And just to get that much more thought out of you, no Ubisoft jokes. That topic was a couple of days ago.
Who doesn't want an overacted Prinny trailer?
Some cheese can be good. Especially on a cracker. However, the cheese offered by this Prinny trailer is of a different, slightly nuttier variety. The fine folks at NIS are bringing Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero over to the States, and they're bringing it in the usual over-the-top Disgaea style. Somehow, NIS is not only able to get away with terrible voice acting, but manages to turn it into an art. Check out the video, after the break.
Nippon Ichi signs up for Wii, Disgaea a tantalizing possibility
We already knew that Nippon Ichi would have some kind of presence on the Wii (news of an NIS WiiWare game, Let's Hitchhike, was leaked last month), but now Nippon Ichi and Nintendo's platform are a super official couple, because the publisher has signed up as a Wiiware and Wii developer.It's the "and Wii developer" bit which is significant here. Naturally, the first property which springs to mind where Nippon Ichi is concerned is Disgaea. The company has been only too happy to spread the series across multiple formats (some would say it's been spread too thinly), so the world's best-selling home console seems like a logical next stop. Make it happen, NIS![Via Siliconera]
PSP Fanboy hands-on: Prinny: Is It Okay If I am the Main Character?
Disgaea fans probably jumped in excitement upon hearing the news that Prinnies would be getting their own game for PSP. Prinny: Is It Okay If I Am The Main Character? is the aptly cute pseudo-2D side-scroller which is also being released in North America. While fans may be squealing in delight over that, here's one more tidbit that's going to make your day: you can play the game now off a demo on the Japanese PS Store. If you can't download it or just plain old stuck at work and can't get to it until you're at home, then we're providing our very own impressions for your convenience. Getting right into it, the demo was a short, one-level adventure taking us through scenery we've seen in screenshots previously (namely the one posted above). As you can see, the environmental objects are 3D models and there will be times when certain actions will cause the camera to shift into this 3D perspective; however, the game is mostly in the 2D perspective, side-scrolling from left to right. Before you start the level you'll be given two optional difficulties: either a "one-hit you're dead" game or a "three-hit chance." The number of hits you can take will be displayed by icons placed in the upper left corner of the screen. If you die, you'll use up a life point which are all displayed in the bottom left.%Gallery-31250%
