Disgaea Infinite comes out in North America tomorrow and you may have remembered we asked Siliconera readers to send over questions about the game. We got answers and a look at the story right here.
Let’s start by setting up the plot. Why is a Prinny possessing people?
Nao Zook, Marketing Coordinator: It was a very peaceful afternoon… BOOOOOM! (no peaceful afternoon in the Netherworld! You knew THAT, right?) Someone dared to try to assassinate Laharl! Furious Laharl orders the Prinny Squad to find the culprit, and if they can’t, Laharl promised to take away all the money the Prinnies have earned so far.
What can a powerless, useless Prinny do? Well, one lucky Prinny gets his hands on a mysterious clock, TickTock, which talks to and helps Prinny (you!) travel through time and possess people. By possessing people in the Netherworld castle, you can investigate their whereabouts at the time of the assassination attempt. So TickTock’s special powers give Prinny a huge advantage while looking for the suspect. However, how you use these potentially helpful and useful powers will determine whether you can successfully find the suspect or not.
How is Disgaea Infinite different from other visual novels?
Being a “Prinny,” time traveling, and possessing others… I think just that would make Disgaea Infinite very different from others. Many visual novels brought to the US so far have been grounded in some semblance of reality. Courtroom drama, missing persons, murder mysteries… these are all good adventure titles in their own ways.
Disgaea Infinite is different because it takes place in the Netherworld and lets players experience hilarious sequences that could not happen in visual novels grounded in reality. It also has animated sprites that will enhance the humor and the storyline, so you aren’t just looking at bust-ups 100% of the time!
How many decision branches and endings can players find in the game?
There are too many decision branches to count. There are 13 endings in Disgaea Infinite. Happy Possessing!
What kind of crazy things can players make the cast of Disgaea do when they are possessed?
You can possess other characters, and have them say or do stuff they normally wouldn’t say/do. Like, let’s say you possess Laharl, and have him preach about “LOVE” or try to pounce on a girl character like a real pervert. Creepy, right? There is tons of stuff like that, and the rest, I strongly recommend you find out yourself. :)
How long did it take to localize Disgaea Infinite and how did it compare to other NIS America titles?
I will ask our script writer/editor, Nick, answer this question!
Nick Doerr, Script Editor: Hi! From start to finish, that is the time the translator got her hands on the text to the time I finished the final edit after voice recording was about two months. This is really quick compared to other titles because it mainly had story-relevant text. Not pages upon pages of item names, descriptions, etc.
However, the debug and QA process was a different beast due to the nature of the story branches. Our game testers had to play extensively, answering every story branch in every order imaginable just to make sure the game was A-OK.
I enjoyed it, though. I really hope this title does well, so perhaps US publishers will see visual novel games DO have an audience here and more of these incredibly fun, engaging stories will be translated into English.
Some fans seemed concerned about bugs and text errors. Do you have anything you want to tell them?
ND: Like I mentioned with the debug and QA process, there’s a pretty extensive check that goes into this game and every game. This was also the first game I got to work on at NISA, so of course I was particularly careful about making sure the text was not only correct, but flowed well narratively-speaking so it can really pull out the character’s emotions for players and really engage them in the absurd happenings of the Netherworld.
Like with all things, practice makes perfect. The NISA of two years ago no longer exists, and neither does the NISA of yesterday. We’re constantly growing, we’re constantly improving (as are most other localization companies), and I hope people can see the blood, sweat, and tears we put into all of our games. Every fan’s devotion counts to me and all of NISA, and we want nothing more than to keep them smiling. I intend to do just that.
Does Disgaea Infinite have any new art assets like backgrounds or sprites?
NZ: There are definitely new sprites and art work. So even if they are the same characters from the Disgaea series, you will experience a brand new Disgaea world :)
Did you get the English voice actors to reprise their roles?
ND: You bet. Every single one.
It seems like many people are curious about this… will we get Japanese audio?
NZ: YES!! :)
There’s been some talk about this because of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker so have you thought about porting Disgaea Infinite to PS3 and releasing it as a download?
NZ: Actually, Disgaea Infinite will be available on PSN for download. However, there are no plans for porting it to PlayStation 3.
If Disgaea Infinite does well will NISA consider localizing more visual novels or perhaps a certain visual novel-like game with steampowered mechs that has the first two episodes on PSP?
Hmmm, well, we will just have to wait and see, won’t we? If only I had the power of TickTock! I would totally time travel to the future, and tell you the fate of our visual novel game. :p
Anyways, it’s been said that visual novel style games don’t do well in the North American market. But I hope our Disgaea Infinite can prove otherwise. At this moment, I cannot really tell if we would bring more visual novels, but the door has opened, so let’s see what’s coming through the door in the future :)
Thank you for this fun interview! I must say, Spencer has been very patient with me, and I really appreciate his support of NIS America! :)
