NIS America in 2016: A Night Alone with Mandatory Happiness

Before the commemoration of NIS America’s annual conference this year, feelings of excitement and fear emanated from fans. The former is no surprise, considering they’re always willing to see new titles being prepared for localization, even if some previous conferences haven’t delivered as hard as others. But the fear came from the rumor I mentioned in my post about ClaDun Sengoku Sunday, which said the company is no longer localizing Vita-exclusive titles. This would have been a surprise given how Japanese publishers tend to stick with systems well past their supposed “death,” which could have hinted at poorer-than-expected sales of recent titles — even by Vita standards.

Given the games they announced, though, there might be no need to worry. There were no massive surprises (i.e. if you expected Danganronpa V3, your expectations were too high), but they announced titles fans will nonetheless enjoy.

It’s a pity the announcement of Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness leaked around nine hours before the conference began, considering it was one of the more unexpected titles .It’s a visual novel based on the anime series of the same name developed by 5pb., whose story occurs during its first season. Though some of its primary cast consists of new characters, familiar faces from the anime will also be involved. For the protagonist role, players will chose between either Takuma Tsurugi, a hothead who’s searching for his missing childhood friend, or Nadeshiko Kugatachi, a calm amnesiac inspector.

It follows the standard set by many other visual novels in involving the player making key decisions which will affect the story’s outcome, though whether those will drastically alter the course of the game’s plot is to be determined. I’m sure this could be answered through a thorough internet search, but there’s too high a chance of stumbling onto spoilers.

This game originally released for Xbox One in May last year in Japan, though its PS4 and Vita ports will hit that territory on March 24th. More importantly, it’s also receiving an English release for Asian territories next month. Since NISA knows what systems their audience owns, they’re only localizing the PS4 and Vita versions. Instead, NISA opted for a Steam version for the west. There’s no word on whether NISA will use the Asian version’s translation or give it a potentially more refined one from scratch, but they should clarify this soon if they’re afraid the Asian version could compromise their sales. The Asian translation will need a thorough polishing if the text is on par with the game’s description on 5pb.’s English site.

The game will release in western territories sometime this fall. If you’re interested, NISA also launched a website (which, incidentally, contains a polished version of the aforementioned grammatically-challenged description), which contains their first trailer.

In a way, it’s not surprising that NISA announced Yomawari: Night Alone for Vita for a western localization, since it’s a title from their Japanese arm which performed well in Japan. But its announcement was met with some jubilation thanks to it contradicting the aforementioned rumor about NISA skipping Vita-exclusives. Of course, it also helps that this title doesn’t have much text, according to those who’ve played the Japanese version.

Yomawari is the second indie-style title in recent memory from Nippon Ichi Software, following in the footsteps of htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary. It’s an isometric survival horror title starring a girl searching for her sister, who never returned after venturing outside to find her missing dog. It doesn’t take long for her to notice the mysterious darkness that’s enshrouded the town, and she soon realizes she’s the only human outside. She can’t fight them, so she’ll have to dodge and run around the bizarre entities that chase her. Considering the concept, it’s clear the intrigue surrounding this is appealing enough for anyone interested to look beyond its low-budget nature.

The game will release this fall, and I’m willing to bet that’s code for “October,” considering its themes. They wouldn’t do something silly like release it after that, right? Of course. There has to be a good reason why this is taking around a year to get localized, despite its minimal text. Like Firefly Diary, it will receive a limited physical release, so keep your eye on NISA’s store to secure a copy when preorders go live if you’re interested.

Of course, it’s possible NISA is only localizing Yomawari because they’ll have the chance to release it on Steam down the line. Case in point: Firefly Diary, which will release on PC on March 14th next month, to the surprise of few after it appeared on Steam’s database months ago. As a faux-indie game, this will be a fitting place to sell it. Following that will be Criminal Girls: Invite Only in April, a port of the enhanced Vita version. Whether it will restore some of the unsavory the content NISA removed from the previous localization remains to be confirmed. It’s clear that NISA won’t be stopping the PC port train, and apparently expects Disgaea PC to do well despite its underwhelming port.

Additionally, an announcement of Criminal Girls 2 was teased, which I forgot even existed. That’s something to watch out for, if you’re interested. I won’t judge you too much.

This final announcement was the most surprising of them all: Genso Rondo, a Touhou Project indie shoot ‘em up for PlayStation 4. It’s a, well, shoot ‘em up title (aka shmup) featuring a single-player story mode, local and online multiplayer, and a variety of bullet hell types that will assuredly be sadistic. This is the first time NISA is bringing over a Touhou Project game, though they’ll only have to refine the localization, since it recently received an English release in Hong Kong (though once again, the text has serious grammatical issues). Look for the title digitally sometime this summer.

NISA did a good job impressing those who kept their expectations in check. There’s plenty to look forward to from them, including titles recently dated like Grand Kingdom (June 21st) and Stranger of Sword City (April 26th — delayed from late-March). This especially applies since they’ve drastically cut down on the number of anime they’re bringing over — assuming they’re still bringing them at all. There’s a good chance this won’t be all they’re releasing this year, though you still shouldn’t get your hopes up for simultaneous Danganronpa V3 release, or anything on par with that.