Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Welcome to the Experience Inc. community thread. This thread is dedicated to the Japanese developer Experience Inc. and all of their related titles. While for Western releases there are only 2 at the moment, we can hope for more in the future seeing how the DRPG genre has taken off once again in its country of origin the US. Feel free to ask any questions in regards to titles developed by Experience Inc. here.
Before becoming Experience Inc. the members from the company Chikami Hajime and Motoya Ataka who were part of Team Muramasa the dev team, were working at a company called Michaelsoft and produced the PS2 Wizardry XTH series.
After Chikami Hajime, Motoya Ataka left the company they went to form Experience Inc in April 2007. From there started on their first project on the PC which was the Generation XTH series as a new independent developer. There are a lot of design similarities between Wizardry XTH and Generation XTH itself. From there we lead up into what the company is today.
- Generation XTH -CODE HAZARD- 04/30/2008
- Generation XTH -CODE BREAKER- 11/30/2008
- Generation XTH -CODE REALIZE- 05/30/2009
Team Muramasa is the name for the development group within Experience Inc. Outside of that there is not exactly too much detailed information on them. From information avaliable the team consists of Chikami Hajime, Motoya Ataka, 一文字円 (Ichimoji Madoka)*Am unsure if this is 100% correct, Shin Hirowatari, Sakurako. Team Muramasa is responsible for the following titles listed below.
*Do imagine they worked on the PC / Vita versions also. This list is incomplete as thats all the data the JP site I pulled this from had. Though basically all Exp Inc titles include Team Muramasa is what I would imagine. Granted they do not seem to really use that name all that much anymore as Experience Inc. has taken over for the forefront name with their products and rightfully so considering it is the official company name.
Experience Inc. is a small PC / Consumer game development company located in Tokyo, Japan. Their main focus is the development of DRPG (Dungeon RPG / Wizardry-like) type of titles which are either self published or joint projects with larger publishers such as Kadokawa Games / MAGES / Bandai Namco.
The following below is a list of titles they have produced during their lifetime as a company. Left out dates on purpose, also games do not appear in chronological order of release.
The Generation Xth series is the very first series of games that Exp Inc. & Team Muramasa had produced as a small independent developer and were mostly sold out of doujin (indie) shops or online.
Generation XTH is set in a modern day setting and goes for a more "cyberpunk" type of angle with how your characters gain their abilities through technology, rather than magic. The reason why the series is broken up into 3 pieces, is due to each one being a "short" episode of the whole series which is based on Japan' school run on a trimester system. Therefore each game in the series represents the 1st, 2nd and 3rd term of the school year of your XTH team. Each of the games themselves were fairly short though as they were not full blown titles like Exp Inc. current stuff.
Unique features of Generation XTH would be first off the character avatar system, which allowed a fully customizable avatar via the use of various pieces which is can be adjusted during character creation. Also fully visible equipment on the avatar graphic. To put it into easier terms that folks may be able to understand imagine a paper doll system. Which is why all of the characters appear to have an odd post for their standard graphic. Its to allow for everything to be standardized with the equipment and such.
The other feature of the game would be the system involving item creation / breakdown and upgrading. In the game you will find a lot of unidentified items, from there they can become either actual usable equipment from the get go or be broken down components, which when combined at the lab become new pieces of equipment to use. From there the player can further upgrade the strength of their equipment by using resources which add the + numerical value to it. There are also plugins which can add effects to the weapons such as resistance, more damage to a particular enemy type etc. Finally already created items can be broken down into components to be used for making or upgrading other things.
The three titles in the series are titled as follows below. Also the remakes Operation Abyss and Babel are based off of the original 3 titles. Operation Abyss = Code Hazard and Code Breaker. Operation Babel = Code Realize. Clicking on any of the 3 images below will take you to the demo download page. Though it is in Japanese only.
Labyrinth Cross Blood takes place after the events of the first 3 games. This game also includes the use of the sub blood system which was introduced in Code Realize. Outside of that everything else is quite similar to the previous titles in the Generation XTH series.
Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy is a remake of the Generation XTH series. Op Abyss uses content from the first 2 Generation XTH games, Code Hazard and Code Breaker combining both into a single title. Also the character artwork has been redone by the same team behind Demon Gaze Tetsu Kurosawa and Oxiji yen the 2 main character artists. The music is also done by Naoaki Jinbo who had done the music for the original series too.
In Operation Abyss, the player is able to select classic mode which allows the players to use the classic customizable avatars for their player characters.
Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy continues on with the story of Operation Abyss, though this time you are starting off as a brand new XTH Special Operations Team. This title was based off of the third Generation XTH game Code Realize. In Op Babel the Sub-Blood system is introduced which is basically the ability to add a sub blood (job) to your character, though at the price of reduced exp gain for both bloods due to exp being divided. Also the ability to use skills / spells from other blood codes by equipping specific items.
As with Operation Abyss, Operation Babel also has classic mode available for those who want to use the fully customizable avatars for their player characters.
Students of Round was Exp Inc's first major retail PC title. The game takes place in a fantasy setting and is the first game they did with a full pre-set cast that is more narrative heavy. Also started the whole system of specific preset points on the map for encounters with enemies that award the player with loot after the battle. Though in this particular game the "trap points" needed to be baited with food items that the monsters of the specific area preferred. After the bait was set, player moves away and comes back later to see if a monster was caught, then when the player touches the icon battle starts. This title also had a system to raise trust with the students under your care by having dinner with them or having conversations with them. Also taking them out in combat raises the trust rating, though if combat goes poorly or they fall in combat the trust rating will also drop. Can also be raised or lowered by story related events. Narrative wise was one of the better games in their series.
The world that this title is set in is the same one as Stranger of Sword City and Demon Gaze. Mainly with the races that populate the game world itself, Human, Elf, Migmy, Ney, Dwarf.
While it is not directly stated as a continuation of Students of Round, due to plot related things in the game there most def is a connection between Students of Round and Stranger of Sword City. Its why some fans call it Students of Round 2. Though the title differes in how the player party is all characters created by the player vs. the pre-set party characters that Students of Round had, but the title is very much narrative driven also and has multiple endings depending on choices made in the game. The story setting is a bit different too in the sense of the main characters of the story are inhabitants of Earth who for whatever reason wound up in the world of Escalio.
*Have confirmed with Chikami-san that this title is connected to Students of Round.
This games unique feature is it has perma death for your characters if they lose all of their life points. Life points are governed by the age you set your characters. The older the characters the higher potential starting bonus roll you can get, but your life points will be lower. Once all life points are lost your character is lost permanently. It is possible to recover lifepoints but it takes either a good amount of time to heal for free or you can pay a high price to recover it instantly. Items are also available but quite rare.
Asides from the perma death, there is also a more flexible customization system which consists of each of your characters are able to class change up to 5 times. During that period of leveling a specific class, there are certain skills and perks that will become able to be equipped after reaching the level reqs. Along with opening up more skill slots to allow for more skills to be equipped. So basically you have the ability to mix and max traits to make your own customized characters. By far the most flexible and interesting character progression system Exp Inc. has done out of all their titles. As with Students of Round and Demon Gaze, this game is populated by the same Humans, Elves, Migmy, Ney and Dwarves.
Click on the image below to go to the Japanese PC demo download page.
One of the first titles that Exp Inc. released on the Vita and best seller so far out of all the series they have made. This was the title that brought the company out into the spotlight in the West for those who play DRPGs. Supposedly its set in the same world as Students of Round, same races etc, though there is pretty much no connection to that story or series. Same goes for being connected to Stranger of Sword City. Outside of the races and general classes there really is nothing else that ties them together. This title also was the one that made the artwork by Tetsu Kurosawa and Oxiji yen quite popular for the character design & character portraits. Japan also got a rerelease of the US version called the "Global Edition" which included the exact same dual audio content as the US localized version.
The unique features about Demon Gaze would be the Demon System, which allows the player to summon any demon that they have defeated who show up as a 6th party member and is controlled by the AI. The other thing unique to the game is the summoning circles, where players use gems that determine what type of treasure will be gained after victorious in combat. This system is basically a simplified version of the bait & trap system found in the Students of Round series, though instead of a bonus being given for finding all the trap points, its an actual gameplay mechanic where the player has to suppress all of the summoning circles before being able to fight the demon of that particular dungeon.
Demon Gaze also had 2 spinoff mangas, which were published by Kadokawa. The way they did the characterization was quite different from the main game and things progressed slightly differently also. Highly unfortunate that the manga ended with the 2nd book, as the writing was quite good and it actually gave personalities to the first 3 demons of the game too. Though would consider it to be spoiler territory therefore do not go purchasing the manga if you have not played the game before. Im curious who was responsible for the writing in the manga as would like them to do the writing for Demon Gaze 2. Think the game could highly benefit from it in terms of story and characters.
Demon Gaze 2 is currently in production also with Kadokawa Games.
New IP which is a joint project between Experience Inc and Bandai Namco. Due to reaching the character limit for this post please refer to the following 2 links below that contain information about the title. 1 from Dengeki interview video and the other from my own hands on with the game itself at a demo event in Tokyo.
Dengeki Video Interview Summary
Demo Event Impressions
Visit the following Gematsu links below for more translated information.
Gematsu Link 1
Gematsu Link 2
Gematsu Link 3
Videos
Trailer 1
Trailer 2
Also Ray Gigant has been confirmed for the West as a Digital Download title. So good news for those who were waiting!
During a Cross News broadcast Experience Inc. also announced a new title for the Students of Round series, though it the setting will have to do with Samurai. Xbox One is going to be the current platform for development. It is still in the planning process and no actual development has started yet. So we can imagine it will be a good ways out before there will be any sort of visual materials for promotion of the title made.
As mentioned in the Demon Gaze section, Demon Gaze 2 is currently in production with Kadokawa and Experience Inc.
The 2 titles that we do have localized for the West are done by Nippon Ichi Software America. With that being said as mentioned in the FAQ. Can imagine that next down the line will be Stranger of Sword City along with Operation Babel after that.
#0:
A: Right now I would imagine NISA will be doing Stranger of Sword City next, then from there Operation Babel. Bandai Namco would do Ray Gigant themselves if they decide to publish it in the West. Seeing as how they are trying to expand their library. But we will not know for sure since the game does not come out in Japan till July 30th.
#1:
A: For something easier to play and if you do not mind fanservice Demon Gaze would be a good start. If you would prefer something without fanservice for the most part Operation Abyss. If you want a bit more of a narrative heavy title Students of Round is also very good and personally for me outranks Demon Gaze and Abyss / Babel. Though the trap mechanic might be a bit of a pain for some players.
If you do not mind a bit more of a challenge I would suggest checking out Stranger of Sword City as that is a title which has a fantastic character customization system with how the class change / skill equipping system works. Though the game is the most difficult in the series, plus you have permadeath to worry about. But the title overall is very well done. Fantastic soundtrack also.
#2:
A: Operation Abyss comes out next month and Demon Gaze is currently out and released. The main question here is do you mind fanservice or not? Since Demon Gaze has some story scenes which consist of "fanservice" type of scenes. The whole game does not revolve around fanservice though, so apart from those specific scenes you do not really have to worry too much. If you do not mind that aspect of the title, it is a good place to start and the gameplay mechanics are fairly straight forward same with dungeon progression.
If you want something without fanservice scenes for the most part, Operation Abyss would be the title to consider. Though since it is based off of their first series produced, it will feel dated in some ways in comparison to Demon Gaze, but offers a solid gameplay experience. Also for those who enjoy finding loot and such Id have to say that Operation Abyss has Demon Gaze beat in that aspect.
#3:
A: In terms of difficulty, the only one that stands out more than the others is Stranger of Sword City, but that more has to do with the permadeath system. Overall their games are quite approachable for most users. Though one thing to keep in mind is that for more "hardcore" fans who are looking for something like the more traditional Wizardry / Elminage type of experience might be a little let down in general as the games do not follow that type of design. For the average user who just enjoys DRPGs in general should find the titles enjoyable once.
#4:
A: It depends on the games, a lot of their older stuff its harder to find the OST still for sale, newer titles though you should be able to get it from the JP amazon for example or maybe CD Japan and such.
#5:
A: Experience Inc. is still a fairly small company, which is why to help reduce costs resources are reused in situations where it fits.
Import
AmiAmi
Nippon-Yasan
CD Japan
HMV Japan
US
Nippon Ichi Software America Storefront
Amazon US
EU
Nippon Ichi Software Europe Storefront
Amazon UK
*Disclaimer: Neither GAF nor myself has any sort of affiliation with the following sites above. These are just the most common ones members frequently speak of when it comes to online import shops and these links are for the convenience of the members who are still interested in importing the Japanese version of the game or getting the localized version from their regional outlets. Mods if you feel this is inappropriate let me know and will remove this section.
Thanks goes out to Experience Inc. for the resources used to make up the graphics.
Also special thanks to the various JP sites where information was collected.
