AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series where Operation Rainfall will be briefly covering publishers that specialise in localising niche-market titles into the West. Fans of niche gaming should pay close attention to each of these publishers, and the best way to support them is by purchasing the titles they localise. As the saying goes, “put your money where your mouth is”… Without further ado, we present this month’s publisher:
Aksys Games was founded in 2006 by Akibo Shieh with the purpose of translating, localising and then publishing Japanese games so those of us in the West could play them. The first game ever published by Aksys Games was Eagle Eye Golf for the PlayStation 2 which was released in 2006 and developed by Telenet Japan. But don’t worry; since then, they have brought over much better games than their first.
Aksys have been responsible for recent localisations of the Guilty Gear series of fighting games; maybe you’ve heard of them? Guilty Gear is a series developed by Arc System Works, a long-time partner of Aksys, and a company Aksys has had many dealings with. Aksys have so far published Accent Core and Accent Core Plus for the PS2, Wii and PSP as well as Overture for the Xbox 360.
If you’ve played a BlazBlue game, then you’ve played an Aksys game. Every BlazBlue game that has been released in America has been wonderfully handled by the staff at Aksys Games, and with a little luck, they might decide to bring over Chrono Phantasma for the PlayStation 3 as well.
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Bit Trip is a much-loved series developed by Gaijin Games that Aksys have brought to American home consoles. The Bit Trip games are a series of rhythm-based titles which are all available for digital download via the Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and WiiWare.
999: Nine Persons, Nine Hours, Nine Doors is a well-known DS game developed by Chunsoft. Aksys Games is the publisher responsible for its American release, and it is because of them that its sequel, Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward for the 3DS, hit American stores a couple of days ago. Fans of Ragnarok Online have a lot to thank Aksys for as well, as the handheld spin-off, Ragnarok Tactics, will be hitting American PSPs in less than a month as a result of their localisation efforts.
Other notable titles and series’ to be localised and published by Aksys include all three Record of Agarest games. They also released Arcana Hearts 3 (PS3), which is, as the number implies, is the third game in the series, but also the first to be released in English. From the Abyss, Hoshigami and Theresia are other, very niche Japanese titles you may recognise that Aksys has brought to America.
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Aksys Games are a relatively new Japanese publishing company that have released quite a few niche titles in their short time on the market. If you want to hear more about Aksys and desire more niche games from them, buy what they’ve already released, and keep an eye on their movements using social media via the links below!
Follow Aksys Games online:
Website: http://www.aksysgames.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aksysgames
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AksysGames
