During Tokyo Game Show last month, Nippon Ichi Software America hosted a meeting with some of the developers/producers of their games for those who were attending the show. Obviously I wasn’t able to go, however NISA remedied that by allowing those who couldn’t go to send in interview questions for them to answer. The questions that I submitted have finally came back and I would like to share them with you all. The second one is with Disgaea series producer/writer, president of Nippon Ichi Software and overall cool dood, Takuya Yamanaka. Please enjoy.
Mike V:First off, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer a couple of question. So let’s just get right into it with the first question:
This past January marked the 15th anniversary of the Disgaea series. How does it feel to have the series last this long on various consoles throughout many console generations?
Souhei Niikiawa: I’m very surprised. When we made Disgaea 1, we didn’t know what would sell. All we knew was that we had to make one game a year or we would go bankrupt. For Disgaea 1, we decided to give it our all and put everything into it.
Fortunately, that worked and it performed well in Japan. When we heard that people wanted to bring it to the West, I thought that it would never sell, because when we made it, we had only Japanese gamers in mind. We made it for Japanese gamers – for otaku. It had lots of parodies from manga and anime and we thought these would be unknown to fans in the West. However, when it went on sale, it actually sold more than in Japan! I was then able to go abroad and meet fans who loved Disgaea. I realized that they actually knew the parodies. I realized that otaku were the same all over the world and were companions. From then, we started to release our games in the West.
So we believe that this series’ success over the last 15 years has been really thanks to the fans and looking back on it, we are extremely filled with gratitude to them.
MV: What is it about the Disgaea series that keeps fans coming back for more?
SN: I actually don’t know! Many users tell us they love the game systems. Other players love meeting the new cast in each game.
The gameplay isn’t the same every time; we make sure to add new elements in each game. Some of those we carry over to the next game. I think this what keeps them coming back. However, no matter how good something is, people will get tired of it after a while or just get used to it. We are always thinking of how we can give players a truly “new” Disgaea each time. We’ve now made 5 main series titles, and we need to keep coming up with new fun elements to surprise players, which is what we’re really focusing on for 6.
MV: In the past few years NIS titles have been showing up on Steam. What are your thoughts on the platform? How does it feel to finally be bringing these games to PC gamers?
SN: We are really looking forward to its growth as a new platform. PCs are by far one of the devices in most homes all over the world. So, we want all of those people to experience the joy of our games as well. We want to continue to put as many of games on STEAM as possible to reach as many countries and as many people as possible.
MV: Disgaea 1 complete is coming to the Nintendo Switch next month. What are your thoughts about the Switch? Will we see its sequels on the system in the future?
SN: I think it is a wonderful piece of game hardware. You can play it on the big screen in your living room or you can play it on the go thanks to its portable functionality. This makes it a great machine.
MV: Sony announced a few months back that they will stop production of Vita games for the West next year. With the system being most well known in the West as the best place to experience JRPGs, will NIS and NISA continue to release Vita games digitally in the West?
SN: All the titles that we have released thus far on Vita will continue to be offered on PSN. There is still one title in development for Vita, however new titles will be focused on PS4 and NSW.
MV: What’s next for NIS going forward? Any new surprises in store for fans?
SN: Yes, of course! Please wait for our upcoming announcements on the edge of your seats and with bated breath!
MV: And the most important question of all: Will Asagi Asagiri ever be the protagonist of her own game, dood?
SN: You mean Makai Wars. Thank you so much for keeping Asagi in your mind. Actually, in Japan there is a free to play mobile game called Makai Wars that stars Asagi as the main character that is running right now. I would love for Asagi to get her own Makai Wars game for console someday as well.
I would like to say thank you to Souhei Niikiawa-san for taking time out to answer these questions. It has been a great privilege to be able to do this. I would also like to thank Travis Shrodes for setting up the interview. You rock dood!
