The twelfth in a series of articles I’m writing, looking at the output of a number of Vita-supporting companies from launch through to the present day. I’ll be examining what the games they released were; (if the data is available) how well they sold; (in cases of them being ports) how well they ran; as well as a brief look at games which perhaps should have come to the console either in the west or in general.

With each of my prior articles, I’ve looked at companies who have either developed or published games and some of these have also included subsidiaries who localize titles for western markets. Aksys are unique in this regard in that they’re not tied to any Japanese counterpart – meaning they’ve had to rely on building partnerships with content developers to bring titles to the west. Despite a shaky start, the studio has blossomed into one of the premier Vita supporters and they continue to champion the handheld well into 2018, making them unique even among similar studios.

Launch & 2012 – just a little bit

Like many localization houses, Aksys’ 2012 consisted of just a few titles as there was very little Japanese content to choose from – but what they did bring was of undoubtedly high quality.

They managed to show up for the console’s launch, where they leveraged a long-standing relationship with Japanese fighting game experts Arc System Works to bring the latest entry in their popular Blazblue franchise overseas – Continuum Shift Extend. The Vita version showcased brand new content including new characters; stories and game modes making it an excellent value proposition and a great entry into the handheld market from Aksys.

They also leapt at the chance to localize a sequel to one of their most surprisingly popular titles from the seventh generation when Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward landed in October. The visual novel/puzzle hybrid maintained a decent cult following and received a large amount of critical acclaim in the west – making it one of the most essential titles in Vita’s first year. In an even more surprising move, although the series went dormant for a few years after the game’s commercial failure in Japan, Aksys helped bankroll an eventual sequel in 2016 which also arrived on Vita.

While it was a quiet year on Vita as a whole for the company, they were off to a storming start in terms of quality with two titles that made brilliant addition’s to Vita’s library. They would maintain this momentum going into 2013, although it was subsequent years when things really started to take off.

2013 – an eclectic range of partners

Again, 2013 saw two releases on the handheld from Aksys – and this time around, one of them wasn’t of quite the same level of quality as their other games. What’s most interesting is the range of partnerships they’d built though – while 2012’s games were from Arc System Works and Spike Chunsoft; 2013’s were from Marvelous and Idea Factory, showing the variety of relationships the company had built.

Their Marvelous game was the critically beloved Muramasa Rebirth from developer Vanillaware, known for their beautiful hand-drawn artstyles. While the game only saw a physical release in the USA (due to Aksys having no retail presence in Europe), it made a great import and crucially they committed to bringing across all the DLC for the game which stretched into 2015 – a large undertaking for a team of this size but one that definitely paid off for fans (although it would’ve been nice to see a physical release with all of this included on the cart).

They also helped fill out Vita’s holiday season with a surprise localization of Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God from Compile Heart and developer ZeroDiv, although sadly this ended their run of bringing across games beloved by critics. The title received a bit of a beating for being too easy yet still grindy (it definitely wasn’t my cup of tea) although amusingly they released a limited edition that included both a curry plate and spoon in a nice little tie-in to the game’s themes.

While not specifically for Vita, the company also had a couple of surprises lined up in 2013 too. Like last week’s article about XSEED games, Aksys were also big supporters of PSP right through to the end – and during the year managed to release two titles (Ragnarok Tactics and Sweet Fuse) on the handheld, both of which were surprising pick-ups. As they were both compatible with Vita in the west, they made great additions to the console’s lineup as a strategy RPG and otome visual novel respectively; genres that Vita wouldn’t see any native versions of until later years.

Aksys had shown yet again a nice commitment to the handheld – not too much in its early years, but they’d managed to grab a number of games that were quite surprising localization choices that may not have come west from anyone else. This theme continued into 2014 which is also when their support begun to significantly ramp up, something which didn’t really stop even as of the date of this article as we head into 2018.

2014 – the start of something great

Overall 2014 was a great year for Aksys on Vita, as they released a large number of games ranging from big surprises to more predictable pick-ups. They didn’t all pan out, but overall it was fantastic to see the company experimenting with the handheld.

Undoubtedly their surprise of the year was Mind=0 from publisher Acquire and developer ZeroDiv (who worked on the previous year’s release Sorcery Saga)- a first-person dungeon-crawler heavily inspired by Atlus’ Persona series. Sadly, fans who played the game were disappointed by the title’s generic design and unfinished ending (suggesting the title was supposed to be part of a series before it under-performed in Japan) – critics agreed, and the title received a rather muted reception in the west.

The rest of the year was punctuated by the company continuing to deliver on their long-running partnership with Arc System Works. Clearly Blazblue had become a big franchise for them in the west so it was unsurprising to see the company grab Chronophantasma when it was available in the summer. They also added to their handheld fighting game roster by picking up Arcana Heart 3: Love Max from developer Examu, that was again published by ASW in Japan. Given the Vita’s ergonomics for fighting games (nice d-pad and face buttons), it was lovely to see Aksys providing content for fans of the genre.

They then went one better though, and grabbed a game from a genre that at the time was massively under-represented on Vita and in the west in general. That genre was visual novels and the game itself was XBlaze Code: Embryo, a Blazblue prequel following a new protagonist and story. Aksys had often taken an interest in visual novels where other publishers had not – in particular on PSP where they released multiple Hakuouki games seemingly through pure love of the IP; meaning that XBlaze presented a great opportunity for them to try the genre again.

Now you may have noticed that I’ve yet to list any games which were skipped by the publisher that I feel should have come to Vita but didn’t, which is something I’ve always stressed in previous articles – the reason for this is that Aksys are in a unique position as they’re not a developer nor are they tied to any particular Japanese publisher, meaning they have little influence over the games made or the titles which are available to them. With that said, they did try their hand at development in 2014 with the critically panned Magus for PS3 – normally I’d suggest titles like this perhaps should’ve come to Vita, but judging how this one turned out it may be better that it didn’t.

From hereon out, Aksys’ support of Vita only got better – not only in terms of quantity, but quality of titles too (at least in my opinion). They’re the complete opposite of the majority of Vita publishers as they’ve only gotten stronger as the handheld’s life has gone on, meaning they’ve managed to cash in on the console’s dedicated audience and built a nice following.

2015 – the start of #otomearmada

Not only did Aksys keep up their work with visual novels and fighting games in 2015, but they also introduced a new subset of VN’s – otome titles (aimed at women, although often still enjoyable for everyone who likes a good story) that would become their bread and butter in the twilight years of Vita’s life.

The start of the year was dominated yet again by their Arc System Works publishing agreement. This time, they picked up something a little different – the visual novel/adventure hybrid Tokyo Twlight Ghost Hunters from developer Toybox Inc (founded by Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada). While they were working on Hometown Story for 3DS, they also created this ghost-hunting hybrid that was met with a mixed reception from critics – some loved it, while others thought the fun factor just wasn’t there. Still, it was nice to see the game making its way west.

They also followed up two of 2014’s games with expanded versions – the re-release of Chronophantasma entitled Extend did exactly what Continuum Shift had done previously – adding new stories; characters and scenarios. They also grabbed XBlaze Lost: Memories which expanded on XBlaze Code: Embryo‘s story while making a number of improvements to the core gameplay formula and acting as a pseudo-sequel.

In the latter months of the year, Aksys took a gamble that could have easily back-fired, but seemed to pay dividends for them. They picked up not one but two otome games from publisher Idea Factory in the form of Code Realize: Guardians of Rebirth and Norn9: Var Commons, that added to the company’s ever-expanding portfolio in the genre that included Hakuouki and Sweet Fuse on PSP. Both games were beloved by fans (though particularly Code Realize – something I agreed with) and Aksys were commended for servicing a particularly ignored but vocal fanbase in the west, although it was noted that both releases contained a number of translation errors (something that was a recurring problem going forward). No sales numbers are available, but it seems things worked out for them as the coming years would be filled with even more otome games to keep fans happy (plus, other publishers decided to start taking a look at the genre too).

2016 was a year that went quiet on that otome dream as they focused on other genres (something which I really commend them for, as a number of great titles were picked up) – although they did continue hitting Vita hard with otome titles from 2017 onwards.

2016 – a little bit of everything

For me, 2016 was Aksys’ best year ever on the handheld – they brought a range of titles in a variety of genres that were all pretty solid in their own right, meaning that everyone had something to love. And while their previous years had been dominated by fighting games and visual novels (although they did manage to represent the latter with an expanded version of Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters entitled Daybreak Special Gigs in 2016), their experimentation with new genres was much appreciated.

They kicked off the year by working with Acquire again – this time on their tower-defence hybrid Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault. As always with an Acquire developed game, the title was a mish-mash of brilliant ideas with slightly lacking execution, tasking you with managing a whole city against alien invaders by building structures then rotating the city to defend it. While the game bombed in Japan, sales for the western version are unknown.

Hopefully, their second title for the year performed a little better given its quality – after nearly 6 years of absence in the west, Aksys decided to localize the fifth Shiren the Wanderer game entitled The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate. Well-known in Japan for being a fun and challenging roguelike series which arguably popularised the genre, the fifth game provided the most refined take on the formula yet and led to extremely solid reviews from critics, This led to it being a success for its Japanese publisher, so hopefully the same can be said overseas.

They capped off their year of localizations with another Spike-Chunsoft pickup – this time it was Exist Archive from developer Tri-Ace – a spiritual successor to the cult-ly popular Valkyrie Profile series. A JRPG that mixed in a modern-day story and some fun turn-based mechanics as well as platforming, the game sadly came across with a number of bugs on Vita making the experience a bit of a disjointed one – given that the game has been heavily discounted on amazon.com since launch, it also suggests sales were slightly underwhelming.

However, 2016 wasn’t marked most by Aksys’ localization efforts – more by their own development efforts in a bizarre twist on the norm for companies such as this. While 2014’s Magus had seemed like a one-off, it transpired that the company had a hand in funding the development of Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma, the final entry in the fan-favourite visual novel/adventure series. The game itself saw a high level of acclaim as with its predecessors, but fans themselves were mixed on the success of tying up loose ends of the series and concluding everything as a whole. Still, it was great to see Aksys not only localizing games for Vita in 2016, but making them too.

2017 & 2018 – Vita’s biggest supporter?

So with such a strong 2016 out of the way, where did that leave Aksys with Vita going forward? Well surprisingly, their support has remained as strong as ever through 2017 – and they even have multiple titles lined up for 2018 already so much like Nippon Ichi Software America, they remain among the handheld’s premier champions at this stage in its life.

In 2017 games, they managed to surprise everyone by announcing that they were bringing Tokyo Xanadu to the west for Vita. This was a shock on multiple levels – developer Falcom had long maintained a relationship with rival localization studio XSEED Games, therefore another publisher picking it up was surprising – but it was also a shock given that an enhanced PS4 version had been announced in Japan (Tokyo Xanadu eX+) yet Aksys fully committed to bringing the Vita version across – even going as far as to put it out into the wild it earlier than the later PS4/PC release. While it was pulled down by some translation errors and the like, it remained among the key western releases for the handheld in 2017 alongside other pillars like DanganRonpa and Ys.

They also managed to grab Drive Girls for its North American release, after previously a European version was handled by Rising Star Games. While the title’s questionable quality meant it didn’t earn a sea of fans overseas, it was nice to see the company bring the game to an audience that might not have access to it otherwise. In another surprise move, they also picked up Ninja Usagimaru: Two Tails of Adventure, a unique 2D platformer from Japan that received a digital release overseas.

By far their biggest commitment of 2017 was the further expansion of their otome catalogue, though. All titles continued their partnership with Otomate, Japan’s leading otome publisher (and subsidiary of Idea Factory) – first up was the Sword Art Online-inspired Period Cube: Shackles of Amadeus, a rough around the edges title but given the two-year drought of the genre on Vita in the west, was likely lapped up by fans. They followed this up with the much more well received Collar x Malice that had been Otomate’s flagship title in Japan in 2016 and had a quick turnaround for western release; before finally capping off the year with the Angel Beats-inspired Bad Apple Wars. All these games received physical releases, showing just how on-board with the niche Vita fanbase Aksys are. Again, the titles featured a few more translation errors than I would have liked, but I was personally just happy they were coming over at all.

And yet the support doesn’t stop there. During Anime Expo 2017 in July, Aksys impressed fans yet again by announcing three more otome Vita games for release in 2018 – including the incredible-looking Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly that I had written at length about in the past, suggesting a localization was sorely needed. They also picked up its sequel (Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk), as well as the intriguing 7’Scarlet meaning fans of the genre are having an incredible couple of years on the Vita (not only thanks to Aksys, but also the support of Idea Factory International who committed to bringing across Hakuouki). It seems that both companies have a small number of cheerleaders for otome helping these releases to happen, which is something I’m very thankful for.

As a final parting shot to this article, it’s worth noting that Aksys are continuing to work with their bread-and-butter fighting games by localizing Under Night In-Birth EXE:Late[ST] and have just revealed that it will be launching in the west in February 2018. Given this plus all their other titles announced for the year, it’s safe to assume that if there are other viable games to be localized in the next 12 months, Aksys will continue to bring them – hopefully with physical releases too, making them one of the few publishers left on the handheld doing this. If they can continue to leverage relationships with existing publishers, we could be seeing late-in-life Vita games like Black Wolves Saga or Zanki Zero come overseas that wouldn’t otherwise.

Conclusion

A localization company who have been there for Vita since day one and are arguably stronger at supporting it now than they ever were, Aksys are an anomaly in terms of releases for the platform yet that makes them brilliant for an article like this. Despite a focus on visual novels and fighting games, they’ve brought a variety of software to the west ranging from action-RPG’s to roguelikes and nearly all of it is of fantastic quality aside from a few blips.

Their lack of formal ties to a Japanese developer has meant they’ve had to focus on building strong relationships with multiple partners and this broad range has led to some brilliant variety in output. They’ve also turned their hand to development and funding their own projects too, which Vita has very much benefited from thanks to releases such as Zero Time Dilemma.

While it’s inevitable that support will dry up at some point, thanks to the seeming team of cheerleaders within the company I’m hopeful that otome releases may continue to happen even beyond the currently announced batch (especially with the genre going from strength to strength on Japanese Vitas) – but even if not and their output finished tomorrow, they’d still be among the handheld’s strongest supporters and with brilliant titles like Exist Archive; Muramasa and Tokyo Xanadu under their belt I am very grateful for this.

(Plus, they’re one of the only companies to still tweet about Vita – props to whoever it is who runs their Twitter account! #GanbareVitaKun!)