Well, it finally happened – 2018 is the year that the wind finally came out of Vita’s sails in its journey beyond everyone’s expectations. Between the announcement of the discontinuation of physical carts in the west, the reveal that hardware production would be stopping worldwide in 2019 and the confirmation that PS+ games would no longer be offered for Vita from March, it’s been somewhat of a disappointing year thanks to a large chunk of bad news, pretty much all of it coming from Sony themselves.

That’s meant that its future (and the future of this series of articles) has been left somewhat in limbo, with the likelihood being that things will wind down significantly in the coming year as the console reaches the end of its life. We’d already seen signs of its impending demise in recent years, with things like consoles disappearing from store shelves in Europe, publishers skipping localizations of the Vita ports of their titles and Nintendo’s Switch coming out of the gates all guns blazing to take the crown in the high-end handheld market.

Still, in spite of all the doom and gloom, it certainly doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to look at with Vita – thanks to a spree of great titles releasing throughout the year in 2018 and plenty to still look forward to in 2019 too, Vita may be reaching its end, but it’s certainly not going down quietly.

Highlights of 2018 – physical release overdrive!

In one of the most bizarre aspects of Vita’s admittedly unconventional life, the amount of English physical releases seems to have increased tenfold as the console reaches the end of production (rather than decrease as is common for pretty much every other machine out there) – only these titles are no longer available from store shelves and instead have to be bought directly from online distributors. The main culprit for this is Limited Run Games (the company who arguably started the limited indie revolution and put out more than 30 titles between January and December) with key releases including Bastion, Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee HD, Phantom Breaker and Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit.

Other publishers have really stepped up their game in 2018 too – for example, eastasiasoft (who did their first ever physical release with LRG) put out a tonne of stuff exclusively through the retailer Play-Asia including classics like Reverie, Severed and Sir Eatsalot (as well as an ongoing partnership with Ratalaika Games with titles such as Devious Dungeon), while companies like Signature Edition Games released The Count Lucanor and The Long Reach.

Yet just as prominent this year were newcomers to the market – in spite of the news that western physical cart production was stopping (in fact, it seems some of these popped up to ‘get a last few orders in’ before the window closed entirely). These included Red Art Games – who have announced four titles so far (The Bard’s Tale, Bit Dungeon+, Demetrios and Ice Cream Surfer) and Strictly Limited Games, who somehow managed to land Sayonara Umihara Kawase+ (as well as two Japanese indies in Bunny Must Die and Gundemoniums).

Some companies even took things into their own hands – Arcade Distillery, developers of Mecho Wars and Plague Road revealed that they’d be running a pre-order campaign through Indiegogo for their next two titles, Mecho Wars: Desert Ashes and War Theatre, which would be among the final western physical titles on the handheld. It seems that the market for physical indies is continuing to go from strength to strength, despite Sony cutting it off at the source.

Highlights of 2018 – Vita’s true localization friends are still here

Inevitably as Vita’s hardware sales have dwindled in the west, publishers have pulled support with companies like Koei-Tecmo skipping releases of things like Atelier Lydie & Suelle and Warriors All-Stars while others like Spike-Chunsoft never even got started by ignoring Vita for titles such as Steins;Gate Elite and Zanki Zero (which hit the console in Japan). That’s just made it all the more special that other companies have stayed on board, ensuring that Vita’s 2018 has been filled with new and awesome stuff to play.

The most notable of these for me is Aksys Games – a company who has been there since the console’s western launch in February 2012 and seemingly never lost love for it, bringing a host of titles throughout 2018. Among these were their ‘Summer of Mystery’ otome lineup that included 7’Scarlet, Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly and Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk, alongside the well-received horror visual novel Death Mark and beloved fighting game Under Night In-birth Exe:Late[st]. PQube also delivered the goods with Muv-Luv and Punchline, although seeing Omega Labyrinth Z get completely banned followed by them skipping Our World is Ended was a one-two punch of disappointment.

Other companies have been more hit and miss – take NIS America for example, who continued to release a last few holdovers such as Penny Punching Princess, The Longest Five Minutes and The Lost Child (all of which are, by some miracle, getting physical versions in 2019) but skipped other things like Coven and the Labyrinth of Refrain, Metal Max Xeno and The Princess Guide. XSEED Games also managed to sneak London Detective Mysteria in before the year was up, but have skipped other titles such as Uppers.

We’ve also seen the last remnants of support from bigger companies – Atlus gave us Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, Bandai-Namco brought Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Hacker’s Memory and Super Robot Wars X in Asia (although unfortunately skipped over Gintama Rumble) and Square-Enix released Secret of Mana in February. I wouldn’t expect to see anything similar in 2019 aside from possibly Romancing Saga 3 if the stars align, so it was nice to enjoy a final blowout this year.

Highlights of 2018 – a few indie surprises

The indie onslaught which has been a key part of Vita’s life since launch has definitely contracted in 2018, with many developers changing their plans to focus on more successful platforms including new-kid-on-the-block Nintendo Switch. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been some great titles throughout the year though, possibly the final year there will be such an impressive selection available.

By far the most high-profile is Stardew Valley, the laid-back farming sim that took Steam by storm – although the Vita port didn’t include the recent multi-player content, it was otherwise a solid way to play on the go. Other notable releases included Cosmic Star Heroine, the throwback turn-based RPG from Zeboyd Games, Iconoclasts, a brilliant action-platformer from genre heavyweight Konjak and Reverie, a charming New Zealand-based Zelda-clone.

There were some nice surprises along the way too – games which were announced years ago suddenly reappeared about of the blue, such as Chasm, Roundabout and 2064: Read Only Memories, while brand new titles came out of the woodwork to continue to bring variety to the handheld’s library, such as Deadbolt, Fast Striker and Neurovoider. Vita also got some old classics revived (such as King of Fighters ’97: Global Match and Night Trap: 25th Anniversary Edition) as well as a whole host of ports from Ratalaika Games.

I couldn’t complete this section without mentioning some of the disappointing cancellations we’ve seen this year, the most significant by far being Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the Kickstarted Castlevania spiritual successor (although we did at least get the retro prequel Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon as a constellation prize). Another Kickstarter which failed to follow through on its promises was Crossing Souls despite picking up Devolver Digital as a publisher, with the developer denying that they ever promised a Vita port in their original campaign.

Thoughts on 2019 – Japan says goodbye

Vita’s strongest market has always been Japan, where handhelds continue to be the desired way to play and games aren’t necessarily made with AAA budgets that require high-end hardware. This has ensured that the console has received significant support throughout its life through a steady stream of releases, but it seems likely that 2019 will be the final year that it sees significant output as developers finally transition over to PS4 & Switch.

Key franchises which helped define Vita’s life on the market have now moved on – take for example Atelier which saw a veritable mountain of releases on Sony’s handheld, but the latest entry (and fourth in the Arland sub-series entitled Atelier Lulua) is targeting PS4 & Switch instead (although amusingly, a final Atelier game will be hitting Vita in 2019 thanks to Atelier Nelke being delayed). This is similar to what happened to Digimon: Survive and Super Robot Wars T, the latest entries in franchises which had flourished on Vita but have now moved on to other platforms, despite them seeming possible from a tech point of view.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t still things to look forward to – Japanese Vita games are still being developed including a few potentially import-friendly titles linked to anime (DanMachi and KonoSuba), a remaster of Romancing Saga 3 as well as a brand new Pro Yakyuu Spirits game, the first since 2015 (and there may be a handful more announced in the early months of next year). Otherwise I wouldn’t expect much to tide you over going forward, as key Japanese publishers like Bandai-Namco, Nihon Falcom and SEGA have seemingly moved on.

The big exception to this is Catherine: Full Body, the final Vita release from Atlus and an expanded remake of their well-received puzzle visual novel from 2011. It’ll be hitting Vita in Japan in February and although signs aren’t promising that it’ll be seeing an English handheld version, it still provides a potentially stonkingly good title to look forward to next year (that I’ll be importing if I can’t grab a western Vita port).

Thoughts on 2019 – the last physical push

As detailed above, the end of production of physical Vita carts was announced this year – but the cut-off date is March 2019, meaning there’s likely to be a big final push from the companies that are still in the market. We already know Limited Run Games have a tonne of titles coming (I believe around 25+) – some of which are already announced like Iconoclasts, Spelunky and YIIK, while others are potential surprises (although I’d bet money on Deadbolt and more Kemco games being among them). There’s also their marquee localization The House in Fata Morgana, which I’m expecting to get a pretty big print run.

Other western publishers have stuff lined up too – Strictly Limited Games are releasing Hardcore, their revival of the long-cancelled DICE-developed SEGA Mega Drive classic, while newcomer Red Art Games have promised new announcements coming soon including a potential tease for the surprisingly enjoyable twin-stick shooter Riddled Corpses EX. I wouldn’t expect others such as Signature Edition Games to have anything left, although there’s a chance Special Reserve Games might finally release that Vita print they’ve been hinting at since 2017.

It’s also worth noting that physical cart production is only finishing in the west, meaning Asia and Japan will be able to produce physical Vita games for another year or so. This means eastasiasoft, a publisher based in Hong Kong who have made a name for themselves releasing indie games in partnership with Play-Asia, will become pretty much the only place for devs to go if they want to put out a hard copy of their titles. We already know they have “plenty” coming in 2019 having just opened pre-orders for I am the Hero and Super Destronaut DX.

Japanese physical releases will continue too and although I’m not expecting anything noteworthy there (see above section), there’s a possibility of situations like Darkest Dungeon where a cart will include English subtitles, making them an attractive pickup for importers such as myself.

Thoughts on 2019 – expect more cancellations, but a handful of surprises too

As the brilliant Vita YouTuber 2 Old For Gaming said in his 2018 review video, the word of the year for Vita this year seemed to be “cancelled”. Between PS+, the hardware and western carts, there were also a large amount of games cancelled including the gorgeous looking 13 Sentinels from Vanillaware and the highly anticipated Kickstarted indie game Bloodstained. That’s only counting games that were “officially” cancelled too – it’s highly likely that there’s more going on behind the scenes with developers silently dropping Vita from their plans but not announcing it (I’ve received hints from a couple of devs regarding this already).

I would only expect more of this in 2019, both in terms of official cancellations and silently dropping plans too. For example, the tough-as-nails platformer Rain World was announced for Vita way back in 2014, but with the PS4, PC and now even a surprise Nintendo Switch port out of the way yet complete radio silence from the devs about their original plans, it seems highly likely this one is gone – and we’ll never hear about it again. Conversely, Sekai Project keep dangling the carrot about their Vita ports including Fault Milestone, Narcissu and World End Economica, but I expect them to be formally announced as not coming early next year.

While I think there’s going to be plenty more bad news on the way next year, I still don’t think Vita will be completely done – I do expect a handful of nice surprises along the way. Take this month for example, where Atari Flashback Classics appeared out of the blue because Code Mystics decided to port it in their spare time as a “parting gift” to the community. We’ve also had recent reveals of things like Scintillatron 4096 that I had no idea were in the works for Vita, showing how things can keep ticking over behind the scenes.

Obviously, it’s difficult to predict what surprises we’ll get – possibly a new SNK port (although seems unlikely given Code Mystics’ “parting gift” comment) or random anime tie-in. One thing you can bet on right now is Ratalaika Games though, who have indicated on more than one occasion that they still have plenty lined up for Vita in 2019 – a lot of which they have yet to announce!

Conclusion

I can’t finish my article this year on quite as positive a note as I did previously, as although Vita still has a lot to look forward to in 2019, it very much feels like this is the final wave and that support is going to stop at some point during the year. Still, that’s nothing to be too sad about – the handheld has had a run far beyond what I’m sure many people expected, lasting more than 7 years in the market despite never really taking off.

My advice for the next year is just to make sure to buy, play and enjoy anything you’re interested in – the devs working on Vita at this point aren’t really doing so out of commercial drive, but more because of love for the platform. It’s lovely as a fan to see companies continue to support the handheld well into its twilight years, meaning that I’ve (personally) got a lot to play for the next 12 months.