Instead of stages it's like an open world kinda deal. You can just walk into areas.
But every layout is randomly generated. And they have like 5 different variations of tiles.
It honestly feels like every area is the same.
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News of Disgaea smartphone RPG reveals NIS is in financial hot water; not able to pay employees.
- Thread starter Sagadego17
- Start date
But every layout is randomly generated. And they have like 5 different variations of tiles.
It honestly feels like every area is the same.
Even the areas in the first game mostly look the same to me. Am I going to like the story?
Not sure how to answer that.
I do feel like it comes with a few interesting ideas (I do like how they treat the Hundred Knight as this actual powerful thing).
But it never fully builds on it's potential. But I'd say that to the first game anyway (Even though Metallia development was worth it)
NIS's problem is that they sort of just stopped leveraging what they were good at. I can understand wanting to branch out and try new things, but almost everything new they've worked on has felt really uninspired gameplay-wise. They've also managed to not leverage their western market which has historically been pretty strong for their TRPGs.
They used to be really good at creating new TRPGs and putting new spins on the game.
They used to be really good at creating new TRPGs and putting new spins on the game.
Honestly wouldn't have been shocked to read they went bankrupt anytime in the past few years. Their attempts at new stuff have just felt insanely safe and unambitious. Destiny Connect is honestly the only thing in a long while that's interested me.
Hope they can pay their employees and find a way to stay open, nonetheless.
Hope they can pay their employees and find a way to stay open, nonetheless.
I feel like they wanted to evolve the series further but end up taking the wrong ideas there.
Think they should reduce the amount of games they publish each year and focus on big franchises or unique projects. That way each game can get marketing and attention needed to hopefully raise sales. The shove as many as possible out and hope one does well is a bad way of running a business.
I really hope they can still make Disgaea 6, it's my favorite IP from them.
Remember the "Sony is not friendly with small publishers"
Porting and publishing costs are a big deal when the unit sales are so low. Not sure it would help them (even then, they have been porting a decent amount of stuff to both Switch and PC).
i agree. it's one of their problems though. i would do the following:
1. support disgaea. this means bringing back the prinny franchise, making crossovers with different things (like having laharl in a fighting game or adell in fire emblem heroes or something), and turning new ideas into disgaea games. they actually did this with infinite loop, a vn released in 2008, where they took the core idea and made disgaea infinite around it. and actually give a shit again when they do their ports/remakes. this used to be the case through 2014, but they stopped that, stranding disgaea d2 on the ps3, and not adding anything new to the steam releases or disgaea 5 on switch.
2. make sure other franchises are planned in advance and have support with regularity. this means making sure the sequel to the biggest game they had in years actually comes out somewhere when people would be excited about it and not four years later, and other older titles are supported when it counts (makai kingdom, soul nomad, phantom brave sequels, etc). they don't need to make a disgaea game every year, but they could rotate out franchises so that disgaea gets a new major release every three years while something else headlines the other two years.
3. keep the internal indies program going. this actually has been working out for them for the most part. i think it's the passion that goes into it that makes even mediocre games feel worthwhile. they've had some success come out of here like yomawari and the liar princess and the blind prince so this isn't really a problem.
4. stop doing low-effort games. no more vns unless they're going to be the next danganronpa (and i don't mean exile election). uta no prince-sama is the exception.
5. this is tied to point #4 and kinda #1 but plan out franchises better. the princess guide shouldn't exist. either the game was made during the development of penny-punching princess - and in this case why would you not just make a sequel to penny-punching princess - or, it was made after penny-punching princess had already released and bombed - in which case, why would you think the missing ingredient was... more characters and less streamlined gameplay?
6. actually support the markets that support them. this means the west and switch. don't release labyrinth of galleria for only ps4 and ps vita in japan in 2020 (this should be obvious). it also means actually figuring out mobile games if they really think japan is going to be there for them on the platform, and not going with the cheapest available option.
i just want more soul nomad, man.
Nooooo, I can hope they can make it.
I wonder IF/CH are close to being in a similar situation. All of their games seem to be bombing in Japan and now they're going DD-only for some outside of Japan.
If Disgaea RPG is to blame(it's probably not, at least not on its own) then it's arguably Sony's fault they are in trouble anyway.
I wonder IF/CH are close to being in a similar situation. All of their games seem to be bombing in Japan and now they're going DD-only for some outside of Japan.
If Disgaea RPG is to blame(it's probably not, at least not on its own) then it's arguably Sony's fault they are in trouble anyway.
You and I both. While I was happy they brought Gig to HD with Disgaea 4 and up, t'was a shame that Revya missed the cut. Also each cameo of Zetta and ilk makes me pine for more Makai Kingdom.
This feels as good a place as any to ask - is Yomawari actually a good horror game? I remember being quite excited for it before it released, then it dropped off my radar, and now suddenly there are two of them. How do they play?
On topic, this news really is quite sad to me - Disgaea 4's probably one of my favourite PS3 games, and for a few years I was really into a lot of the things they made (the Prinny games, ZHP, all the Disgaea PSP and Vita ports.) I kinda fell off them for the same reason a lot seem to have done, their recent titles never really grabbed me and they all kinda blend into one past a certain point. I wanted to enjoy Labyrinth of Refrain, but playing the demo after just I really started to get into Etrian Odyssey just set me up for disappointment. None of the recent Disgaea games grabbed me the same way 4 did, although I'm sure they're still very good.
Edit: oh shit I forgot about Cladun! That game was fucking great, I loved being able to make my own characters completely from scratch and it was actually really fun to play. I *think* I might have gotten X2 at some point, but the sengoku theme for the latest one didn't really gel with me tbh
On topic, this news really is quite sad to me - Disgaea 4's probably one of my favourite PS3 games, and for a few years I was really into a lot of the things they made (the Prinny games, ZHP, all the Disgaea PSP and Vita ports.) I kinda fell off them for the same reason a lot seem to have done, their recent titles never really grabbed me and they all kinda blend into one past a certain point. I wanted to enjoy Labyrinth of Refrain, but playing the demo after just I really started to get into Etrian Odyssey just set me up for disappointment. None of the recent Disgaea games grabbed me the same way 4 did, although I'm sure they're still very good.
Edit: oh shit I forgot about Cladun! That game was fucking great, I loved being able to make my own characters completely from scratch and it was actually really fun to play. I *think* I might have gotten X2 at some point, but the sengoku theme for the latest one didn't really gel with me tbh
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Well, NISA have certainly been successful at something this generation - there's quite a few people posting in this thread who I don't think would've been that fussed with NIS' financial situation ~5 years ago, so they've done a good job at attracting a new audience (and seemingly keeping their old audience, because people like me are still posting in here).
I hope they stay on their feet and keep going - they've been a unique part of the Japanese market and have plenty of employees who I wouldn't want to see out of a job (although if they're not even being paid at the moment, is it worth sticking around in a company like this?).
Having said that, and this is probably going to sound very harsh, but looking at their output, I'm not sure they've ever developed anything I've truly loved. Sure, I enjoy Disgaea, liked ZHP/Guided Fate, had some fun with Cladun etc. But they've never made anything that's blown me away - their games have just sort of been there, good things to spend time with but never mindblowing (admittedly I'm not a Disgaea superfan like I know a lot of people are).
Conversely, NISA have published a catalogue of stuff I adore. From their work on the Atelier games way back before Koei-Tecmo took them in-house, to giving DanganRonpa a shot when no-one else would, to little one-off bits of excitement like picking up a Sakura Wars title or the Demon Gaze duo. I'd hope they could continue in some capacity.
But I guess like Ani says, the localization market seems bigger these days than ever before and there's plenty more companies now to fill in and pick up the slack (even my two favourite NISA series named above - Atelier and DanganRonpa - are no longer handled by them).
It was hard not to see this one coming with the often-abysmal sales they'd see for one-off titles through the PS3/Vita period for them that seems to have only gotten worse on PS4/Switch, so I hope something shifts up for them. Either way, I hope they pull through.
I hope they stay on their feet and keep going - they've been a unique part of the Japanese market and have plenty of employees who I wouldn't want to see out of a job (although if they're not even being paid at the moment, is it worth sticking around in a company like this?).
Having said that, and this is probably going to sound very harsh, but looking at their output, I'm not sure they've ever developed anything I've truly loved. Sure, I enjoy Disgaea, liked ZHP/Guided Fate, had some fun with Cladun etc. But they've never made anything that's blown me away - their games have just sort of been there, good things to spend time with but never mindblowing (admittedly I'm not a Disgaea superfan like I know a lot of people are).
Conversely, NISA have published a catalogue of stuff I adore. From their work on the Atelier games way back before Koei-Tecmo took them in-house, to giving DanganRonpa a shot when no-one else would, to little one-off bits of excitement like picking up a Sakura Wars title or the Demon Gaze duo. I'd hope they could continue in some capacity.
But I guess like Ani says, the localization market seems bigger these days than ever before and there's plenty more companies now to fill in and pick up the slack (even my two favourite NISA series named above - Atelier and DanganRonpa - are no longer handled by them).
It was hard not to see this one coming with the often-abysmal sales they'd see for one-off titles through the PS3/Vita period for them that seems to have only gotten worse on PS4/Switch, so I hope something shifts up for them. Either way, I hope they pull through.
While I don't personally care for Nis or any of their crappy games it's never good to see a company in trouble or their employees not getting paid/losing jobs so hopefully they can pull their way out of this.
I remember hearing about the launch of this mobile game being quite a disaster to where they had to reboot the launch and then later delay it due to the large volume of traffic, but if it's a gacha game that takes down this company, I have to wonder how long they were on thin ice.
Again, their games are very simple on a tecnological side. No heavy 3D engines to be ported over, most probably publishing on PC and Xbox too would not cost that much.
And if it costs a lot, then there's something EXTREMELY wrong in the way they develop games (and in their "engines"), as very small indie teams manage to publish on a wide array of platforms without issues.
What is a MS warrant? I tried to google it, but couldn't really find what it is.
They probably expected to make quick money from the mobile game, gacha and stuff, but the technical disaster only made it worse. I remember waiting ages until it let me log in and then the constant delays and promises. I can't say I care much about NIS's output outside of Disgaea and Phantom Brave but they absolutely don't deserve to go down like this.
From my googling, it sounds like some kind of convertible bond to finance the company.
Fuuuuuuuck, knew this would happen. Been following Japanese sales for years now and pretty much everything they've put out has bombed; minus Disgaea, although that hasnt been amazing either financially. It's a big shame too since they've put out some really good stuff past few years.
Hopefully Nintendo might come in a buy them, they do have a good relationship after all and I seem to remember an interview a while back where the CEO said he'd be open to a merger with them.
Hopefully Nintendo might come in a buy them, they do have a good relationship after all and I seem to remember an interview a while back where the CEO said he'd be open to a merger with them.
Sad, i mean, i haven't bought that many of their games, Cladun on the PSP dissapointed me so i didn't buy the sequels, The Longest Five Minutes seems like a really short indie game that is not worth 19 bucks and their Ys port to PC wasn't that great, but they still did Disgaea, Labyrinth Of Refrain, Yomawari, Silver Case and others that i bought or at least look genuinely interesting.
I wonder if it has to do with them picking some niche genres and not advertising the games that much while having high prices compared to many other games in the genre, i mean, i bought Labyrinth Of Refrain, but it seems many people aren't willing to pay 40 bucks for a dungeon crawler game, at the same time, it does have story, two sets of voice actors and more stuff that would take a lot of money so it's hard to say they could have made it cheaper.
I wonder if it has to do with them picking some niche genres and not advertising the games that much while having high prices compared to many other games in the genre, i mean, i bought Labyrinth Of Refrain, but it seems many people aren't willing to pay 40 bucks for a dungeon crawler game, at the same time, it does have story, two sets of voice actors and more stuff that would take a lot of money so it's hard to say they could have made it cheaper.
Nintendo wouldn't buy them, that's a pipe dream.
The only publisher I could possibly see being big enough to buy them but small enough to care about NIS sized stuff is Koei Tecmo.
O_o WOAH! Could you imagine? I assume that was Niikawa who said that? NISA DID localize Culdcept Revolt funny enough. If Niikawa is open to NIS being bought by Nintendo, hopefully he's been making some visits to their HQ lately.
Iwata was the one who said he was against buyouts due to talent possibly leaving. Well if the head of one wants it to happen...
Huh - I was just incidentally wondering about a lack of Disgaea 6 news the other day, considering how long it's been since D5 originally hit.
Sucks to hear, but NIS has indeed always punched out way too many games that never seemed to capture a lot of interest (outside of Disgaea). Hope they can turn it around, though for the employees sake, if nothing else.
Sucks to hear, but NIS has indeed always punched out way too many games that never seemed to capture a lot of interest (outside of Disgaea). Hope they can turn it around, though for the employees sake, if nothing else.
I guess that's true, but I also don't really see the downside to buying considering they're likely gonna sell for a cheap price.
It would be cool to see, though it would also require a big change in how Nintendo has typically operated the past 20 years.
We'll see what happens 0m0
NIS had a bad financial year, but they still made a small profit. From their last earnings release (which was published on 10 May and covers Q1 2019), their cash and cash equivalents as of 31 March 2019 are 2,046 million yen (~$18.6 million), compared to 1,596 million yen (~$14.5 million) as of 31 March 2018. According to the company overview on their website, they have 319 employees (or is it just the 198 on that page?). If you need to pay office space, software/hardware, wages, etc for all those people, they don't have that much in the safehouse if one of their big projects fails. However, I don't see how they're running out of money very soon. I don't think they're in a Starbreeze level of bad shape yet. Maybe I'm missing something tho?
I understand the focused efforts on Disgaea RPG, as one big mobile success story would probably be enough to keep things afloat.
Hoping for the best. I really love Disgaea.
Hoping for the best. I really love Disgaea.
God i thought i was the only ZHP fan. It and Makai Wars not getting followups hurt my soul
Trillion: God of Destruction actually had some of the key staff from Disgaea.
If they ever do make a Disgaea 6, I sure hope they return to the absurd, almost Pratchett-esque style of the original. The fifth game feels like a focus tested trashfire of charmless cliches thrown together out of fear anything less predictable might alienate people :/
Izumi not coming back for the sequel was a major letdown. He went to work on Refrain instead, which was even better.
ZHP is one of my favorite NIS games. It was so absurd and fun.
I keep getting emails from NIS about pre-orders for upcoming games and how they're always selling out of stock quick. I assumed they were in a decent position.
Well, can't say that NIS aren't reaping what they sowed.
Pay your employees, damn it.
Warrants (not to be confused with a criminal warrant) are a type of security. Basically, if you're in possession of one, it lets you buy stock of the company that issued it at the exercise price. There's a wikipedia article here that goes into a lot more detail, though it doesn't clarify what a "moving strike" warrant is.
Yeah, I know about warrants (they're very similar to stock options) but that "moving strike" thing leaves me completely dumbfounded.
The game was a such a mess that it's been taken off stores and they said it would take 3 months of work to fix it and relaunch it