I'm Sohei Niikawa, president of Nippon Ichi Software and creator of Disgaea! AMA!

Now that Disgaea is on the Switch, are there any plans to make Disgaea Amiibo?

I'd love an Axel Amiibo!

We would love to make a Disgaea amiibo. Let's get a petition going! We'll 1 million signatures! Hopefully that will get Nintendo on board.

shovel knight devs have made a shovel knight amiibo without any petition

Oh really? Maybe, we need to push them harder. I would be really happy if we can make his happen.

Is there any plans for the next Disgaea game to be on the Switch?

Most likely...

Any chance more Disgaea games will come to steam soon, dood?

We would love to and we plan to! Thanks to all your support we should be able to continue with this.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Nikkawa.

Will there ever be a Disgaea title that comes from the Celestia perspective? In numerous titles, you've illustrated that Celestia isn't all perfect rainbows and unicorn farts - some corruption is inherent and there is some dissension in the ranks as far as Celestia's level of influence on the rest of creation.

Also, will we see Celestian Prinnies, Dood?

As this moment I haven't thought about it but that is a very interesting idea.

As for Celestian Prinnies, I think this would be a really cool idea? What color should they be? White?

Will Makai Wars ever be released?

Next year in July Nippon Ichi will have it's 25th anniversary. This may be her best opportunity...

Disgaea 6 and is it going to be on ps4 first or switch?

Let's see... We want as many people to play our games so we would love to release our games on as many platforms at the same time as possible.

Howdy! I'm a big fan of disgaea and I have a couple questions!

Can I pretend Fuka was right and everything was a dream?

Are you going to release more Disgaea on PC?

Who put the horse weiner in the game? That was so hilarious

Will I ever have a chance to get a Fuka's cap?

Thank you for making the best game ever <3 love you dood!

Can I pretend Fuka was right and everything was a dream? She can believe whatever she wants... but you can't deny the facts. On the contrary, this is what makes her strong. }

More Disgaea coming!

Me. It was my idea. I got in a little trouble with Sony... After we mastered up the game, they gave me a call but at that point it was kinda too late. I told them, "there is nothing wrong with horse weiner!" In the end, they gave in. So, "Thank you Sony-sama!"

We still have some in Japan, so if you try hard enough you can!

First I want to thank ya'll for the awesome version of Disgaea 5 on the Switch. Taking that game anywhere makes me love it even more.

Question: If you could put any character from any other game into Disgaea who would it be?

I really like the Switch too and of course I own one as well.

I feel that Disgaea is capable of accepting any character from any world as well as going into the world of other characters.

We have many collaborations with smartphone games in Japan, and almost on a monthly bases we are releasing Disgaea characters. I would love to be able to do this outside of Japan as well.

As for putting characters from a different company into Disgaea, I am a little reluctant to ask because I think the Disgaea world is a little too character. You may already know this but we have had light novel characters make appearances in Disgaea in the past. (such as during spells.)

Thanks for the insightful reply!

I figured with all of the "worlds" in Disgaea it might feel easier to have a character "visit" from another reality.

Hopefully with all of your collaborations we'll see a Disgaea character in a mobile game that's available in my region soon. My current faves are Fate GO, Shadowverse, and Final Fantasy BE. You know, in case you were looking for suggestions. :D

Not quite Disgaea, but Disgaea Artist Harada Takehito will be collabing with Fate GO, please look forward to it!

Hi Niikawa-san, dood! Who is your favorite Disgaea character, and why is it CAPTAIN GORDON, DEFENDER OF EARTH, dood?

Oh, and will Asagi ever get to be the main character?

He is one of my favorites... but he's not my number 1.

I like him because when I was writing the story, I wanted to added a really different element from the Netherworld. I thought that no one would expect him in Disgaea 1 from the chapter previews. I wanted people to think, "they wouldn't do this...", and that's exactly why I did it.

Eventually she should, as long as we have people like you ask about her. Maybe she's already a main character, in your heart.

Good Day to you Niikawa-san!

Love to dabble here in there in the Disgaea Series. Thanks to you and the Teams responsible. :)

My Question(s?): Were there any big influences when first coming up with the visual Style and Gameplay Direction? And what is a Feature or Mechanic that you would love to see in a future Disgaea Game?

Have a great Day!

Not one thing stands out in terms of being a big influence. We went with "we'll do anything to make it fun" so we added a lot of different aspects to the game, hence the chaotic nature of the game.

We always want to add new features/mechanics to the game. We are always looking for more new ideas at NIS.

Who is best girl in all of Disgaea?

Etna is really easy for me to work with. It's easy for me to think of new stories for her. In terms of strength I think: Rozalin, Etna, Desco

I'm madly in love with disgaea 4, mainly Valvatorez and the others from the gang. Is there a possibility that the story will continue? Like it did with the d1 cast in disgaea d2?

Also thank you so much for all the laughs disgaea allready brought to me! Best wishes to you and your team!

There are many fans in Japan who also like Disgaea 4 the most. If the opportunity presents it self, I would love to consider doing a Disgaea 4 D2.

Thank you for your continued support!

Is Prinny 3 ever going to happen?

Never say never. If we think we can sell 100,000 copies of this game we will do it. Currently, it's really hard for us to see this. Let us hear your voices, Prinny fans.

I have a few questions:

• Are you satisfied/happy with the sales of the first two Disgaea games on PC? Can you tell us if we can expect more Disgaea games on the platform in the near future?

• Will Asagi ever get her own game?

• Have you ever had any significant struggles in developing Disgaea games? What was difficult about their development?

• What's your favorite side game related to the Disgaea series (i.e. Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, etc.)?

• Disgaea games used to have pixelart for the first few games. With D2, 4, and 5, the pixelart is HD and significantly more detailed. What made you decide to update the art for that?

We plan on releasing other Disgaea's on PC. Including Nintendo Switch, we have sold over 3 million Disgaea series games. PC is different from consoles in that many people own them, so therefore we believe that releasing a PC version will allow more people to play. We would like to expand into smartphone gaming and hopefully we can sell 10 million copies of Disgaea series game. If each and every one of you can spread the word out to 10 of your friends, we believe that this goal is achievable.

Asagi - Mayyybe?

The biggest concern always is "Is this better than the prequel, and can we satisfy our customers" In terms of development, debugging is always the hardest part.

This one is hard... I do like the Prinny games, I like action games. I would love to release Disgaea in the form of a different genre or maybe a non-Disgaea Netherworld game.

I wanted Takehito Harada's characters to move in a more high-res fashion.

thanks for producing some of my favorite games!

What kind of experiments have you done which never made it to the final product?

Will there be more "flat" girls in future games?... I'm asking for a friend

Most of the content that we wanted in the game has made it in our games. I mean come on, "Horse Weiner" made it in our games. One thing that made it in the game and has stuck with me is, in Disgaea 1 you could partially drink an item and allow other characters to finish off the drink. (You can have your characters kiss indirectly!)

Will we ever see sequels to the other Disgaea games? I thought D2 was a cool idea for a game and I think it'd be great if we saw more of Adell or Valvatorez.

Originally, when we created D2, it was for the 10 year anniversary for Disgaea. We wanted to create a precedent for potentially doing Disgaea titles like: D3 or 3D2 or 4D2 or 5D2. We may need to think of a new title for these though... LOL

We also think expanding on DLC is also option.

Hello Mr.Niikawa

Can we get a Disgaea Fighting game possibly handled by ArcSys Works? When I asked at a otakon a few years back with Nisa staff everyone in there was pretty excited at the idea but I don't know if it made it back to HQ.

Edit : I forget to ask also can we possibly get an Baal Origin story at some point before la pucelle tactics.

We actually get this request from all over the world all the time. I personally want this to happen too. What is hindering this right now is that we at NIS don't have the knowledge to do this so we would love for Arc System Works to work on a Disgaea fighting game. One day...

Hello, You guys haven't abandoned the PC ports have you not? The recent announcements were all console only somehow. I'm still hoping for Disgaea 3+ too... I look forward to more NIS games coming to Steam!

We have not abandoned PC ports! We should have good news for you soon!

How come Disgaea D2 was never released on Vita?

Would you like to see Sony make another portable console?

Let's see... Maybe it was the market at the time. The Vita was only really succeeding in Japan so it was hard for us to see this do well world wide. I do have a strong desire to release this on a portable device in the future.

I would love to see a successor to the Vita. Let's get a petition going, dood!

Will there ever be a Prinny amiibo? :)

We really want one! Someone please start a petition. :D

Are there any non-NIS game series that you enjoy?

Fire Emblem Fates on 3DS. The old Neo Geo games on Switch.

Smartphone - Yggdrasil (in Japan) ゴシックは魔法乙女(Loosely translates to: Gothic is A Magical Maiden known as DeathGaruda in t he west) - It's a shooting game which probably takes most of my time out of the titles I mentioned.

it's an honor to meet you, Mr. Niikawa! O:

i only have two questions: 1.) are there any plans to localize/release the Disgaea light novels in english at some point in the future? 2.) are there any plans to do more PC ports of NIS's non-Disgaea titles like Makai Kingdom (possibly with the PSP content) and Soul Nomad alongside later Disgaea titles?

outside of that, thank you for creating such a fantastically funny and demonically creative series! i hope you're having a good day, and good luck to you in the future! c:

1) This is up to the publishing company of the Disgaea light novels, so you may have to get in contact with them.

2) We are always looking at all the options that we have, I can't give you a solid answer right now.

Will there be a port of Prinny games onto current gen consoles or any new Prinny games coming out dood?

Porting may be hard but... We do hear the voices of those asking for a Prinny 3. I think creating a game where Prinny is the main focus is good but I feel like Prinny making cameos in other games is also fun.

Hello Niikawa-san !

I'm a huge fan of Disgaea and I can't wait for the next one in the series. I know that the game has always stuck to the same wonderful formula with more content in each release.

That said, I also noticed a trend going on where certain series (Fire Emblem, Zelda, Dragon Quest, etc) are releasing as action game spinoffs.

Now my question(s): Would you consider this type of action spin off with the Disgaea series ? It's a perfect time! There are so many iconic characters and crazy moves that there's perfect material for an action game.

Also, can Disgaea characters fight on equal ground with Dragon Ball Z characters? Would Valvatorez's power level be over 9000 ?

I'm right behind you... If Koei-Tecmo calls us to do this, we're on board! If it was only up to us...

As for the DBZ comparison, I have never thought about this. Let's pray for there to be a Disgaea vs DBZ sometime in the future.

Frieza is 53K right? Let's see...(Thinking for a good 30 secs...) What do you think his power level should be?

What's your favorite RPG? (Besides Disgaea)

I always play the new Fire Emblem games!

What was the biggest inspiration in creating disgaea? Was it to change how SRPGS are made?

I wanted to created Disgaea because...

After I created La Pucelle I was thinking about what to make next... Keep in mind, back then we were only capable of creating one game... Therefore we gave it our all into one title per year. (if it tanked our company would go down under...)

I thought really really hard because I had peoples lives on the line... and the answer I came up with was... やべぇ分かんねぇ(Translation: Crap, I don't know)

So, I got together with the head game designer and head art director and decided on one thing: The game will be set in the Netherworld. I wanted a demon main character and by doing this we thought we would be allowed to do anything. (no morals, I guess)

Lastly, We combined our ideas that we thought would be fun and that's how Disgaea was created.

Also, we didn't really want to change the SRPG, we just wanted to do something different. We're a small company away from the city, so we couldn't compete with bigger companies in the city.

Glad to see you could give us the time of day! NIS is an amazing publisher and a lot of us are glad you produce such stellar games. My question for you today is whether the Disgaea Mobile game, said to be co-worked on by ForwardWorks, is still in early development or if we can expect news about it soon?

We would need to talk with ForwardWorks regarding this. This is kind of a touchy subject since we aren't the only ones involved in this project. As of right now this is all we can say.

Will we ever get a Phantom Brave sequel?

This was a story that I originally did not have a sequel planned for. However, there are many people at NIS that have asked this same question and some that even join the company with desires of creating a sequel. I would love to see these people get together and perhaps create a Phantom Brave 2.

Hi there Nikawa-san! Would you guys at NIS like to make a third Prinny game or more spin offs that deviate from the mainline Disgaea?

Let's see... Disgaea spin-offs of Disgaea in the form of a different Genre game. Or maybe a DLC where Etna or Flonne are the main characters.

Any chance of a la pucelle tactics remaster or rerelease on ps4?

As for remaster, most likely not. These games are playable on the Playstation Archives. Remastering is a really strenuous process so we feel that creating something new would be better use of our time.

That being said, I love La Pucelle so I would love to do something similar to La Pucelle in terms of world and game play... one day.

Disgaea 6 human world with darker story?

Even I don't know the answer to that question right now. But... We want to provide something that none of our fans would expect! (In a good way, of course)

Greetings from Colombia! Any chance that more nippon Ichi games get anime adaptations? Specially Phantom Brave.

First of, we did do an anime adaptation of Disgaea in the past. If an animation studio ever wants to anime-ize our games, we would be more than happy to do so. In order to make this happen, we need to create a game that will attract anime studios.

As for Phantom Brave, since this isn't a series I would say it would be a little harder.

what was that embarrassing photo of laharl in disgaea 1 or will that always be a mystery?

This will be a secret eternally...

1. In Christo Really Seraph Lamington?
2. Is there an official timeline in the Disgaea Series or everything just kinda happens at the same time?
3. How do you have such awesome storytelling ideas? what's your inspiration?

1. I can't answer this.
2. 5 - 1 - 2 - D2 - 3 - 4. I thought of this right now... This isn't official...
3. Let's just say I love drinking my sake... I don't think my stories are awesome, yet. No one has contacted me from Hollywood.

I was wondering if you knew if the game Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 would be getting an English release?

Thank you for your time!

We should, most likely.

If you port Makai Kingdom to PC will it include the content from the PSP version?

I'm a huge fan of Disgaea, thank you for creating it!

We always plan to release the most up-to-date version on the PC so most likely yes.

Niikawa-sama, I had the pleasure of meeting you briefly this past weekend at Anime Expo and I was very honored! Thank you so much for the opportunity! (I was the Adol cosplayer!) What would you say is the biggest difficulty in localization for a western audience, and does your company keep those things in mind when designing games? i.e. we would like to do this certain thing, but a western audience may not understand, so you decide to leave it out of the game, etc...

Thank you for all the wonderful games and memories over the years!!!

From Niikawa - From the prospective as the Japanese Developer, we need to trust the publishers in the west to do their best job at localizing the text.

As for keeping things in mind for the western audience, no we don't in terms of game content. I don't say this to mean, "We don't care about the westerners". Instead, we create our content the way it was meant to be created. An example I'd like to use is people don't expect a Hollywood style movie when watching a Japanese movie; they expect a Japanese movie. The stance we take with our games is pretty much the same as this. What we do consider for the western audience is what console we release our games on.

From Toshi - Localizing Japanese text into English is always fun/hard because the culture is really different. I always have fun with idioms because if these were to be translated directly the text won't make sense 99% of the time. Also what is accepted in Japan vs the west can be very different so we do our best to maintain the message that is being presented while making it acceptable in the west.

Hello Niikawa! Hope you are having a wonderful day.

My question is: How does the creative team behind Disgaea manage to maintain a sense of balance in their games?

More specifically, every character by it's own has levels, stats and aptitude; all of which normally can be improved on by assembly or other means. Besides that every character can be equipped with any weapon type and there's the item world and specialists/innocents. And to end it all, each skill has it's own level and damage multiplier, as well as damage types (elemental, magical, and recently each weapon class is divided on resistances as well)

It has always been a wonder to me and a testament to good game design that all these variables are present in each and every game, but they don't need to be studied on or abused by the player to enjoy a "traditional" game experience in the main story, but give such deepness when you want to expand your game into the post-story content. And personally to this day I still wonder "how did they do that?", specially considering that each new installment adds on more crazy stuff to reinvigorate the game.

Good question.

Number 1, gotta believe in miracles. Number 2, we also have a "balancing" team as well as our tester team.

First off. Love the games

Will the next Disgaea game be on PS4?

Finally, group of us love Soul Nomad but are really sad it seems to be forgotten by NIS. Is that likely to ever change?

We would like to release our games so it can reach as many people as possible.

We definitely remember Soul Nomad, it is not forgotten. We are definitely aware of and grateful of all our fans. I'm not sure if you know but we have released Gig DLCs in the past so I hope you were able to enjoy them.

How do you feel about Plenair she has allways been a bit of a mystery in the Disgaea universe? She is my favorite character

She is an original character of the character designed Takehito Harada. We got his permission to get her in our Disgaea games.

Actually, she is very mysterious to me as well. Maybe one day we will know who she truly is... or not, dood!

I greatly appreciated NIS publishing Birthdays the Beginning. We need more games with dinosaurs in them. Can we expect more dinosaur games in the future from NIS?

Dinosaur games huh...? Maybe not dinosaurs but we are working with other companies to create a "creation" style game. This game will be coming out 7/13 in Japan.

In Japan, Disgaea/NIS character sprites will be given out as a bonus.

Hey. Can i ask what did inspired Chelka from Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 and will it come other country's?

Well, that wasn't my idea so I can't really say but... The Director for the Witch and the Hundred Knight wanted to go above and beyond the original. I personally saw him working really hard on this.

I would love to get the Marl Kingdom series release in America. Was my first Nippon Ichi Game but we got only the first game. Any chance we can get the other games in the future? Maybe as some kind of virtual console on switch or a collection on PS4?

Unfortunately, we don't have a plans to release the rest of the series in America. However, I have personally been talking to Tenpei Satoh about potentially creating another musical RPG.

Can we at least get some references or a cameo thrown our way? We didn't get La Pucelle for the PSP so no Cornet DLC, Marjoly hasn't been in a Disgaea game since 3 and we never got the Hymn Princess of Antiphona game either. Hakoniwa has some Marl Kingdom DLC but pretty much everyone is getting represented there so it isn't quite as surprising.

I may have missed a more current references but the last one I remember seeing is Crea Rosenqueen advertising milk on the side of the cooler in the Rosenqueen shop in Disgaea 4.

DLCs are usually decided by our directors. I give them full power regarding what they want to do with their games/DLCs. Personally, if I could fully direct all our games I would throw in all the references and cameos that we can fit into all our games

thank you for this chance! i've always been curious to know why xenolith was never actually shown at the end of dd2, even though it was heavily implied etna was talking to him. is there a reason why, and why he wasn't later recruitable like most other recent disgaea antagonists?

also, if there are plans to potentially re-release dd2, would you ever consider adding new postgame content? such as how he's adjusting to life in the castle, or details about how he and etna got separated?

I feel that the scenario writer for DD2 decided on this. I wasn't actually involved too much in the story for DD2. My main involvement in this game was ordering my people to include Female Laharl!!!

If we do re-release DD2 in the future, we would definitely consider adding Xenolith on the playable roster.

hello! i've been a huge fan of NIS games ever since i played the first disgaea when i was a kid. disgaea 4 is my absolute favorite, and i have one question that i haven't been able to stop thinking about for the last 6+ years. where was fenrich during tyrant valvatorez's trip to the human world meeting artina? what was he doing? i have lots of theories and many other very specific questions regarding valvatorez and fenrich but this is the most important one to me, so i wanted to try asking. thank you so much for bringing us such wonderful games!!

In the PS3 version Disgaea 4, this was not revealed. However, if you ever get a chance to play the Vita version this may clear somethings up for you.

could you tell me more about laharl from disgaea?

Did you know his shorts got longer in DD2? You never know he might be wearing pants in DD3?

Hi, I was wondering what inspired the creation of the prinny. Also will desco ever be the final boss of a game? And will asagi be the main character?

Prinny - I asked Takehito Harada to create a cute mascot character for us. At first people didn't know about Prinny but it makes me really happy the people are recognizing Prinny more. He's developed into the mascot character of NIS. Now we just need to beat Pikachu and Mickey!

Desco - Desco is the last boss in everyone's hearts.

Asagi - We shall see...

I may be late, but I just want to say that Disgaea is one of my favorite games and one that really helped me strive towards being a game designer. The quarkiness and deep mechanics and replayability have always been so attractive to me. So thank you!

My best question, I suppose, would be if you had any advice for me as a novice game designer?

Also, Rozalin is best girl!

There are many different approaches but...

Establish the concept of what it is that you want to show. Try to make this as simple as possible. Check to see if people are into this concept. Do they want it? Do they like it?

Once you find a concept that fits the above criteria create it and see where that takes you.

Good luck!

How on earth did RosenQueen shops end up in the Netherworlds? Etoile RosenQueen expanded the shops after the first Marl Kingdom game but they are everywhere in Disgaea. How did a human do that and is she still the head of the company?

It's just a testament how amazing the RosenQueen Shops are.

Are we going to get some disgaea mobile game someday?

In terms of social games - We announced last year in Japan that we will be releasing a game on mobile.

In terms of releasing maybe Disgaea 1 port, it is something that we can definitely look into .

Heya Niikawa! 1. Will Axel have another main character role in any other games? I would love to see his interactions with the group! 2. Judge Nemo is underappreciated and it makes me sad.

Axel huh...? I have not really thought about it lol I feel like he's established a nice position for himself. He will have his opportunities.

You're the first person to say such a nice thing about Nemo. I'm sure he is very happy about this.

I feel like many people want a Disgaea 4 D2 so hopefully he will see his light day in that game.

What is your favorite part of writing Makai/Netherworlds as a setting? It must be interesting to work conflict into stories with characters who don't age or die the way we humans do. Thank you, I love Disgaea!

I like the idea that there are multiple Netherworlds. Thanks to this I'm able to create multiple Disgaeas in multiple Netherworlds. I must be a genius... I don't get appreciation. cry

As for your second question, I haven't really thought about that. Whether it's demons, angels, or penguins, what is important is human drama and the growth of the hearts of the characters. So to answer your question, age doesn't really matter to my story writing. Just consider the first two or three digits of the characters' age. (Laharl is 1316 in D2 but he's basically a 13 year old boy)

Hello Niikawa-san. Huge fan of your company games.

I noticed that "Hakoniwa Company Works" is powered by Unreal Engine 4. What were the challenges that came from changing from Phyreengine (Or whatever other was currently used) to UE4?

Also, your company has developed quite a number of more experimental titles like Hakoniwa, Punny-Punching Princess and Yomawari. How do you approach these projects? In a way that feels different from your "traditional" games, but still appeal to your current fanbase.

Thanks in advance!

It was a engine that we we're new to so our development staff had a really hard time with UE4. We were able to get a lot of support from Epic Games and we were able to pull through with our games.

We have an annual Game concept competition at NIS. Anyone at our company is free to pitch their idea. Not just the actual developers, but accountants, PR person, HR... ANYONE.

This is our fifth year doing this and we have over 50 pitches for new titles. Yomawari and Penny-Punching Princess was chosen from this competition. For Hakoniwa, Director Furuya was actually the winner of the first competition for Firefly Diary htoL#NiQ. We felt that he did a good job and after also directing A Rose in the Twilight he started working on Hakoniwa Company Works.

We want to unearth the talent that have yet to be discovered at our company.

For each title we make sure to imagine the fans that will enjoy the concept and promoted the games in way that will fuel their attention to these "non-traditional" games. As a result we feel that we can gain new fans by doing this.

Hi yes hello! Like many others, I'm a big fan of the Disgaea series but I'm also a fan of NIS's witch themed titles like The Witch and the Hundred Knight and Coven and Labyrinth of Refrain. Are you interested in making more witch games in the future?

We would like to establish the witch theme here at NIS. So far it may be small but we would like to expand on this.

To expand on you question I'm also thinking about an alternate netherworld different from Disgaea as well.

If all 5 disgaea MC's got into a fight who wins?

I think this question is better left unanswered. Whoever you think will win, will win, in your heart.

Hello, and I apologize if I'm late to this. I love the Disgaea series, even though I have only been able to play 1 and 5. Here are a few questions:

1. What's your favorite generic and monster classes?
2. How do you decide which classes make it into the game? I'm sure it must be difficult seeing as how every class is loved by someone.

Thank you for reading this and I hope your future games do well.

1. Female Samurai, Female Archer, Female Magic Knight, Cat Sabre, Cat Girl, Succubus... Yes I like cute characters.

Whats some of your favorite things to do outside of work?

Bonus question, whats your biggest gaming prediction over the next year outside of NIS related games?

Thanks for doing the AmA and creating such a great series!

Number 1, Manga. I've been reading a lot of "One Punch Man" lately. I always love the Manga by Kazuhiro Fujita and Yokusaru Shibata.

Number 2, Movies. I like action and horror movies. Out of the movies I saw recently, I likeed "John Wick: Chapter 2" and "Kong: Skull Island" I'm looking forward to the Kingsman sequal. I would love to see a Deadpool sequal too!

I can't predict anything... Since I can't we are always working on many different things (such as expanding overseas and releasing games on PC). We do many things because we have no idea what is going to happen.

I regretted missing you at Anime Expo! The line was about 5 hours long (no joke), and by the time we got in you were gone.

I very recently got into the Disgaea series on my Switch, but quickly became a fan and logged over 60 hours into it in just a few weeks.

My question for you is: Have you ever considered expanding on ideas for multiplayer? I think the Netherworld sharing in D5 is great, but would love to see more features that allow friends and I to challenge and compete against each other.

We did have PVP function in the original Disgaea, actually. It was hard for me to see if this was a success or not. Disgaea was made for the single player experience and in order to make it a good multiplayer game, we may have to change the genre.

There are many people asking for a Disgaea fighting game but maybe something like Mariokart or Smash Brothers will be really cool too.

Which Disgaea is your personal favorite?

I can say this is my favorite but I invested thee most into the first Disgaea.

Any chance we can get Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 on Nintendo Switch?

We always want to explore all the options, so yes there is a chance.

What's your favorite color?

Red You may have thought blue but outside of all the events... I'm always wearing red.

What is your favorite game to come out this year?

Let's see... Number 1 is "Disgaea 5 Switch" :D

But... Number 2 "Danganronpa V3"

Number 3 is "NieR:Automata", although I haven't played it yet...

I don't have too much time to play games in general so I am blessed to have staff that are experts at games. Instead I spend a lot of time reading manga and watching movies because my staff doesn't have time to do that. :D

What Disgaea game would you recommend for a new player like me? I remember going hands on with D5C at a hands on event and was intrigued by the series.

How do you feel about the response to NIS's expansion to the PC market, especially in Japan where the market is very small?

Would you ever consider localising visual novels published by NIS in Japan? I would love to play the upcoming Iwaihime: Matsuri in English for example and really hope that is a firm candidate for localisation. Maybe port the older VNs to PC such as titles by Fog?

Many thanks for your time! ^{_^}

Disgaea 1 and Disgaea 5

Disgaea 1 because it was where it all started. If you prefer playing series in order this would be the obvious choice. Disgaea 5 because it has all the bells in whistles in terms of Disgaea games.

Since the stories are maybe loosely related starting with D5C is not an issue at all.

will we hear about flonne's backstory since we heard about laharl's and etna's?

If we do a Disgaea D3, she is next in line! Oh, good question by the way.

To myself: I wonder what would happen if Disgaea D3 is centered around Gordon...

what secret or easter egg have you hidden in a game that has not yet been discovered?

Not really... We have put in easter eggs in the past but most have been found much earlier than we expected. :(

Hello Mr. Niikawa! I'm a huge Disgaea fan, I got so excited to hear about you doing an AMA that I drew something in celebration! Please accept my overflowing Disgaea spirit! http://imgur.com/a/ebNkw

As for the question, would you ever consider doing another Disgaea anime? If so, would you do Disgaea 1 over again, or animate another story, like Disgaea 4? Also, would you ever consider holding another voting contest for DLC characters in future games? I'd love to play as Revya again!

Thank you for the drawing! Very cute Axel and Cat Sabre.

We would love to a Disgaea anime! Animation studios we are open to do a Disgaea anime! If we were to do a Disgaea anime... I may do something like an original story where all the main characters come out or a story not covered in the games.

Ufotable did the animation for 2 and 3 but I would love to work on an Disgaea anime with them!

How do you come up with the options for the random name generators?

Also, one of my favorite things about the series is how quality the gameplay and stories are, mixed with that sense of "eh, to hell with it." How do you keep up that sense of balance with it?

I try to think of names that are fairly "standard" as well as names I feel are fun. In recent Disgaea's we ask for our fans to create some names.

Personally, I like using the random name function and wait for name that makes me laugh.

Thank you for the AMA, I love Disgaea since Disgaea Hour of Darkness! So in every disgaea game we are able to enter into any item and person (item world and chara worlds). Will we ever be able to enter into innocents and have something like an innocent world where we can boost the innocent similar to an item world?

That's an interesting idea. In the world of Disgaea anything is possible. Maybe there will be an infinite innocent world loop.

Hi Niikawa-san! What do you think are the big differences marketing these games to the U.S. market and the Japanese market?

That's a hard one...

I feel that marketing in Japan for the Japanese people and marketing in the US for Americans is very different.

You always need to consider what is the norm in the respective areas and market the game accordingly.

Do you ever create a non-story character after yourself or friends? If so, what class do you pick for yourself? I always enjoy naming my party members after my friends and making them look like their real life counterparts as much as possible. I love the Disgaea series, thank you for all of the hard work that went into making it amazing!!

I don't ever create characters based off of myself or friends. I would maybe make requests like, "can you make this person look more like a certain celebrity". For Disgaea, I want all my characters to be original.

Not a specific person in particular but Gordon was based on my bias about what the American hero, heroine and the sidekick robot would look like.

My class is the Prinny President!

Hello Niikawa-san, it is a pleasure to participate in this AMA.

Do you have any plans to create new installments to the Disgaea franchise? (Noticed your answer to a previous post, thank you very much!)

And if i may ask a second question, would there be any plans for a port or remaster of Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome (ファントム・キングダム) in the East, since the previous port was only in Japan on the PSP system.

Thank you for your continued hard work in one of my favorite game companies!

Since it's an older title, it may be a little harder. I would count the Nintendo Switch out, though. As well as, PC (Steam).

That being said, I'm not guaranteeing anything.

Hi Niikawa-san! I've been a long time fan of Disgaea since Disgaea: Hour of Darkness on PS2 and has long since become my favorite tactics game - thank you for all of you and your team's hard work on putting out such fun and entertaining games!

I had one question, but after seeing your verification photo, I now have two. Where can I get that prinny hat?! I love it! My main question is when will Prinnies get their own exclusive game? I absolutely love the Disgaea humor and prinnies are some of my absolute favorite characters ever - they deserve the spotlight too, dood!

We have released an action game called Prinny and Prinny 2 in the past, if that's what you're asking. In the future... I can't say for sure but Prinny has become the company mascot and depending on your perspective, isn't that a bigger accomplishment than having your own game?

I know Sardines are the best thing ever but what's the second best to Sardines?

If your asking about Valvatorez, there is no second best to Sardines. As for me (Niikawa), I like eating eel during the summer time.

Most Disgaea games have one romance going on (like AdellxRozalin, AlmazxSaphire, KilliaxLiezerota) Do you have a favorite couple? (I'll always be rooting for Valvatorez and Artina)

Let's see... The first "couple" I think of is AdellxRozalin. I hope there will be more fun couples in the future!