Cognition Dissemination: NIS America’s Software Slate Shows How Much Atlus USA Has Scaled down Their Work

NIS America showcased most of the games they plan to release within the next year on Monday, showing how they’re the busiest localization company around. In addition to previewing six previously-announced games, three more titles were revealed: The Alliance Allive HD Remastered, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen, and Destiny Connect: Tick-Tock Travelers. Of those new titles, only Destiny Connect is a localization of a title from their parent company Nippon Ichi Software, showing how NISA still has enough resources to localize several titles from other publishers.

Hopefully those resources are vast enough for them to avoid mistakes and rushed localizations for each title. They can’t afford to have another fiasco like Ys VIII, where the localization was so notably mediocre that they had to patch in text and voice acting fixes. Fans have already noticed a localization continuity error through the info NISA has provided for Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen, where the main character’s name is spelled differently compared to previous title localizations. They should pace themselves if they’re taking on too much.

The Alliance Alive’s remaster and the Utawarerumono remake are also notable for another key reason: The original version of the former game and the latter’s predecessors were handled by Atlus USA. NISA also released The Caligula Effect: Overdose yesterday, an updated console port of the original version originally released by — you guessed it — Atlus USA. This begs the question of why Atlus USA isn’t handling these releases themselves, but I realized something else upon doing a little research: They haven’t handled a title from another publisher in nearly a year, nor do they have any in their pipeline. We could be seeing the end of an era.

Atlus USA could be trusted to handle titles from their parent company and those from other publishers that would otherwise be left behind in Japan for decades, across multiple platforms. This started during the PSOne era, where they handled titles like Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen and the original Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. But the trend took off during the PlayStation 2 era, and continued into subsequent generations on consoles and handhelds. That time appears to be concluding, which is especially evident when they can’t even handle updated ports of these same titles.

The last game they handled from another publisher was the aforementioned original The Alliance Alive for 3DS, released nearly a year ago in late March 2018. Prior to that, they were releasing several titles from other publishers alongside their games, like two Utawarerumono games (Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth), Rock of Ages II, and the original The Caligula Effect, all of which released in 2017. But they’ve focused on their own games since TAA, like Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, two Etrian Odyssey games (V and Nexus), and the Persona 3 and 5 Dancing games. Their upcoming lineup consists of Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth (which releases in June), Catherine: Full Body (which releases in September), and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, all from their parent company.

This is at least partly happening because Atlus’ localization team has been assisting with translating Sega’s games in addition to handling their own. These include all the recently-released text-heavy Yakuza games (they’ve released four in a little over the last two years), in addition to titles like Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise and Valkyria Chronicles 4. But this shouldn’t stop them from dedicating smaller resources to enhanced ports like The Caligula Effect: Overdose (though this also includes a new short scenario) and especially The Alliance Alive HD Remastered.

Additionally, the Japanese publishers of some games they’ve handled have opened western arms, some of which are also handling games from other publishers. Spike Chunsoft and Arc System Works are the most recent examples here, who’ve opened their own subsidiaries in California within the last two years. But those examples have affected other localization companies (especially Aksys Games) more than Atlus USA recently.

It’s a shame to see these types of localizations winding down, because Atlus USA is one of the best in the business when it comes to them. Their localization teams know how to strike a balance between merely translating and localizing text better than other companies, to ensure that the meaning of the original Japanese text is conveyed well and make sure it’s also readable to native English speakers. They’ve had their stumbles lately, with Persona 5’s issues and recent Etrian Odyssey games having dry writing compared to their predecessors, but their other work is still spectacular. At least we’ll still see this work applied in Atlus’ own games and future Sega titles.

Speaking of those, the slate of future Atlus and Sega titles aren’t lightening up. Along with the aforementioned titles from the former company, they’re also assisting with Judgment’s localization — though that might run into unforeseen issues now. It will be great if all the other companies improved their work in the meantime, and if the newer localization companies release titles with quality work.

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