Rising Star Games Interview

Written by Kevin Leathers on 11 Jan 2010

Rising Star Games is well known for bringing the best in Japanese video games to Europe. We've seen hits such as No More Heroes, Little King's Story and Muramasa: The Demon Blade, titles that if left in the wilderness would have been unlikely to ever see a European release. So, we've tracked down Rising Star's Product Manager Yen Hau as he talks to us about the company and the reception their more unique games receive in Europe.

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions, so let’s get straight into it. First off, Rising Star Games is well known as one of the main publishers for importing Japanese titles to Europe since 2004, what do you believe has been the secret to Rising Star’s success?

We are very fortunate to have a well respected Japanese publisher as one half of our parent holding, Marvelous Entertainment.  Throughout the years, we have seen a line of titles from Japan filter down to us from Marvelous so we have always had a core Japanese line-up available.  However, we are not dependant on Marvelous for releases and do take into consideration games offered by other Japanese developers. 

The biggest factor to ultimately decide which titles we bring to Europe rests with our small but dedicated team here at RSG.  We’re all otaku here - we love anime, manga, basically all things Japanese.   As a result, we know exactly what our core audience wants and can react quickly when we see a game that we like.

Are there any particular titles that surpassed expectations when released in the UK?

When Harvest Moon was released on the Nintendo DS a couple of years ago, that totally surpassed our expectations and really gave us the footing to be able to bring the more ‘interesting’ titles over.  We always knew the Harvest Moon brand was strong, but until the first DS version was released we didn’t know how successful it would be.  As a result, Harvest Moon DS2 was released to similar acclaim last year and is followed by DS3 sometime in 2010. 

With the exception of No More Heroes, which we know all about, I think the biggest surprise for us was the critical feedback for Little King’s Story this year.  Everyone, and I really do mean everyone, that we showed the game to fell in love with it.  The reviews were all in the high 80s or low 90s and it was praised by both critics and gamers alike.  It was a real pleasure to work on and the game is still selling well to this day, something which doesn’t happen often to videogames.

No More Heroes was a cult hit especially within anime fandom, were you expecting the game to be received so well?

We were quietly confident when we first saw No More Heroes that it would be a success, especially as you say within the anime fandom.  It has a look and feel to it that really reflects the youth of Japan today, particularly those identified within the Shibuya region of Tokyo.  Travis’ dress style, his attitude and interests are all qualities that can be easily transferred to an anime character if required.  Also, at the time it came out (and even possibly to this day) there wasn’t a game like this for the Wii owner - it was one of the first games on the Wii which could realistically bridge the gap between casual and core players.

Europe will be seeing the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 ports of No More Heroes, is this simply for people who have not tried the Wii version or will we see some new features?

Sorry, I can’t comment on this at the moment.

The company recently celebrated its 50th release, Muramasa: The Demon Blade - has the game performed as well as expected with critics and in retail?

The 50th release was actually JU-ON: The Grudge, which performed within expectations considering it was targeted at the Halloween and holidays market.  Muramasa, on the other hand, has performed well so far. The critical response has been fantastic for the game, garnering average review scores in the high 80s.  The lush, hand-drawn, feudal Japanese artwork is the main talking point for this game, and is something that we have played upon highly during our promotional campaigns.  It has been nominated as one of the best looking games of the year on the Wii with many publications and has even had its own gallery viewing in Tokyo during the summer.