For the most part, otome titles have been ignored, which is why we’re interested in Aksys who has been localizing romance games for the West. We spoke with Ben Bateman to talk about Sweet Fuse and the state of the otome market.

While Agarest War Zero does have fanservice, it’s also a rather dramatic and occasionally comedic game that will require you to think ahead when taking part in battles.

We’re at Anime Expo and we’ll be liveblogging Aksys’ Anime Expo panel. Look forward to some “marvelous otome” news everyone!

Our Aksys roundtable interview continues with Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, specifically the ladder jokes. Later, we talk about BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II Plus and what games the team at Aksys were looking forward to at E3.

How do you pick games to localize? What would you change in 999? And what’s going on with Marvelous?

I was hoping to come back with a definite yes (or no), but that’s not the answer I received.

During E3 we’re going to meet up with some staff from Aksys for an interview. Is there anything you want to ask the company that localized Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and brought the BlazBlue games to North America?

Aksys will have S, M, L and XL sizes available when the t-shirts go up for sale tomorrow.

Of all people, Aksys Games happily obliged and sent in their submission for inclusion in the next Catherine trailer.

Aksys are putting a bunch of games on sale with 100% of the proceeds going toward Japan earthquake relief efforts.

Defense of the Middle Kingdom sounds like it could possibly be an Arc System Works DSiWare title. [Update: Game possibly identified as Romance of the Three Kingdoms Tower Defense]

Aksys has been stepping up when it comes to bringing portable games to North America. One of their new releases is a joyful little PSP game called Jikandia: The Timeless Land, where players explore side scrolling stages and assault bosses in an effort to stop time.

After the racy Record of Agarest War naughty edition, I thought Aksys would release another over the top collector’s package for Record of Agarest War Zero. But, you get any more squishy mousepads or giant pillowcases with the prequel to the Agarest series.

Did you know Japanese train commutes inspired Opus Studio’s second PSP game?