The seventh in a series of articles I’m planning on writing, looking at the output of a number of Vita-supporting developers from launch through to the present day. I’ll be examining what their history in the games industry is, what the games they released on Vita were, how these titles performed, what games they could have released on Vita as well as an overall conclusion about their level of Vita support.

Experience started in the gaming industry as they meant to go on – developing first-person dungeon crawlers which rapidly became the genre they were synonymous with. Over the years, they’ve experimented with other ideas – most successfully, a series of horror-themed visual novels – but all their success stories have originated on Vita, which is undoubtedly the platform that propelled them to much higher levels of commercial success.

History – traditional genre, non-traditional platforms

Experience Inc were formed from the ashes of Michaelsoft, a Japanese developer most notable for creating two spin-offs to the popular Wizardry franchise known as the ‘Xth’ games.

After two entries that landed on PS2, the company went bankrupt, however this quickly led to the formation of Team Muramasa who eventually became Experience Inc. While they no longer had access to the Wizardry licence, they proceeded to make their own Xth series called Generation Xth which were developed for PC rather than consoles. Three titles were created – Code Hazard, Code Breaker and Code Realize, each one following the Xth squad, a team of high school students given the power to fight strange beings in dungeons. They were moderately successful, helping to get Experience Inc’s name on the map.

These were followed by two more PC dungeon crawlers – Labyrinth Cross Blood was the fourth entry in their Generation Xth series while Students of the Round was a brand new DRPG set in a fantasy world called Alda. Interestingly, this is why the company started to experiment with work on consoles – rather surprisingly they chose Xbox 360 as their machine of choice, forging a relationship with Microsoft that would endure going forward (more on this later in the article) although for now simply included expanded ports of both the above titles.

They capped of this period of their history with a port of Students of the Round to PSP – which proved to be their most successful release yet and ensured the direction of the next era.

Vita – the start of a new life

In January 2013, following a drought of software on Vita, Experience’s Demon Gaze landed and proved to be a fantastic example of ‘right place at right time’, quickly becoming their most successful title ever released.

Taking place in the same universe as Students of the Round, it places you as a man named Oz who can control demons as he found himself fighting evil forces from his home base of an Inn. While this doesn’t sound like much, it provided an accessible and compelling title and thanks to its anime graphics and major publisher backing alongside quiet release window in Vita’s life) it proved to be a major hit – selling more than 75k copies in Japan and shipping 200k units worldwide. For an incredibly niche genre (other than Atlus’ Etrian Odyssey), this was a major success for Experience and quickly made them change their plans to go all-in on the handheld.

Early on, this meant a quick port of Labyrinth Cross Blood subtitled Infinity which added a decent amount of extra content. Unfortunately, the game’s publisher (Cyberfront) went bankrupt at the end of 2013 which disrupted their plans for their next title – Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy, a remake of the first two entries in the Generation Xth series. Thankfully, publisher 5pb picked up the upcoming release and with it also re-release Labyrinth Cross Blood Infinity adding another subtitle (Ultimate) and even more content.

For Operation Abyss, Experience Inc took the foundation from their first two titles and mashed them together with a new graphical style (although you can revert to the original if you wish) and plenty of extra bells and whistles as you help the Xth Squad eliminate threats. It proved to be an obtuse but otherwise enjoyable game – not as beginner-friendly as Demon Gaze, but still worth checking out nonetheless, although sales notably dipped as a result.

Prequels, sequels, new ideas and more

Given their rousing success on Sony’s handheld so far, it wasn’t surprising to see Experience Inc to continue to build on their successes with their next batch of titles.

The first of these was Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy, a direct sequel to Abyss and remake of their earlier third entry in the Generation Xth series. Despite being a standalone title this time, it contained just as much content as its predecessor and was well-received by fans thanks to its improved systems. Conversely, the long-awaited Demon Gaze II landed in 2016 and didn’t seem to make the same impact as its predecessor despite making the same sweeping improvements as Babel – it was still a really enjoyable time, but its muted commercial performance in Japan seemed to put proposed plans for a trilogy on hold.

During this time, the company weren’t content to just iterate though – they continued to produce new dungeon crawlers such as Stranger of Sword City (originally The Stranger in Alda, linking it to Students of the Round), a tough-as-nails take on the genre featuring permadeath and a more mature artstyle. Originally released as an Xbox 360 exclusive (showing they were still on board with Microsoft ecosystem), it was quickly ported to Vita which also received an exclusive expansion subtitled Revisited which tweaked the systems making it undoubtedly the definitive version. Revisited would also be Experience’s first (and so far only) self-published title in the west, making it an oddity as they were regularly working with localization houses such as Nippon Ichi Software America at the time.

Perhaps the company’s most experimental title during this time was Ray Gigant, a collaboration with Bandai-Namco. Eschewing their usual first-person combat systems for a unique side perspective and featuring a brand new world to explore, the title didn’t set the sales charts on fire nor did it attract significant critical praise, but it did signal another accessible entry point into the DRPG genre.

A scary new direction

In 2017, following a decade of focusing exclusively on DRPG’s, Experience finally branched out into something new – visual novels.

Specifically, this was with the horror hybrid Spirit Hunter: Death Mark that follows an amnesiac man who helps to solve supernatural mysteries in Tokyo. The game received a large amount of critical acclaim for its tense atmosphere, engaging storytelling and clever mechanics showing the team had a brilliant knack for expanding beyond their comfort zone. Although originally released as a Vita exclusive in Japan, it was eventually ported to other platforms before it received an overseas release thanks to Aksys Games, who also managed to secure one of the final Western Vita physical releases.

They followed this up in a spiritual successor named Spirit Hunter: NG which included more anime influences but still contained the same gory horror roots that made Death Mark such a success. Again released first for Vita before coming to other platforms (alongside another western release on Vita, although digital-only this time), it received a less glowing reception in both reviews and sales but most of the criticism was levelled at the sometimes low-budget feel and reused elements, showing that with a bit more money, Experience clearly have all the pieces to make something truly special.

Sadly that doesn’t look likely with the third Spirit Hunter entry Shibito Magire, which was recently crowd funded for PS4 & Switch – suggesting it won’t have much of a budget either (nor a Vita version).

One last hurrah

In 2019, long after the majority of developers had given up on Vita, Experience had one final title on offer for fans that acted as a celebration for the fans.

This was Blue Winged Chevalier, a remake of their earlier Students of the Round exclusively for Sony’s handheld (at least as of the time of writing). It’s worth noting that this, Demon Gaze and Stranger of Sword City all take place in the same universe, only only thousands of years apart – making it nice to be able to see the whole saga through on one console. For this remake, the team implemented new character art alongside a customisation feature, as well as tweaks to the story and events, making it a brilliant new version even if it failed to make an impact in Japanese sales (and thus far has yet to be localized into English).

Aside from Shibito Magire, Experience’s future seems to be on Xbox One and Xbox Series X – despite the former being by some order of magnitude the worst selling piece of hardware in Japan last generation. They’ve already pledged Students of the Round 2 and Yomi wo Saku Hana to it, a pair of DRPG’s that seem to build on all their knowledge over the past decade on Vita. Sadly, both also seem to somewhat stuck in development hell (perhaps due to them having to shift priorities to make the most of the Vita audience while it was still active), but I’m sure they’ll surface in one form or another.

I’m certain we’ll also see further titles land on PS4 and Switch too, as the platforms that appear to have inherited Vita’s audience, with sequels to any future Demon Gaze and Generation Xth likely landing there.

Conclusion

A fantastic example of a developer who hit the jackpot on Vita, Experience went from niche Japanese DRPG developer to a respected player in the global market – seemingly all thanks to the runaway success of Demon Gaze. From there, they continued to release a string of high-quality RPG’s while diversifying into horror visual novel output, all the while staying loyal to their established fanbase on Vita. They gave a fantastic stream of titles to western localization houses too, meaning English-speaking gamers were rarely short of quality titles.

Their return to Xbox development after Vita’s demise demonstrates their loyalty to hardware but may also signal a return to obscurity – which would be a shame, given all their successes on Sony’s handheld. Still, that doesn’t detract from all the great games they released during the past six years that continue to be among the best DRPG’s (and visual novels) available on handhelds, catering to gamers of all abilities and tastes.