Disgaea was last year's surprise hit, La Pucelle came out last week to favorable reviews, and they've got Phantom Brave coming up later this year – not bad for a company whose debut game four years ago went (perhaps rightly) ignored by one and all. Nippon Ichi, the company in question, has just opened up a U.S. branch to capitalize on their success, and we spoke to them today about their plans for the future.

The main focus of Nippon Ichi Software's (NIS) small space (you couldn't call it a booth, exactly – since they just opened their offices four weeks ago, they're making do with a closet-sized area inside Atlus' space) was Phantom Brave, their first production. Their role on it is limited, since they're just getting started, and they'll only be publishing the game while Atlus handles the localization and distribution. Future games, however, will be localized internally as well.

The Japanese branch of Nippon Ichi is a small team, currently up to 37 from the 30 they had last year. Consequently, they only focus on one or two games every year, though NIS says they'd like to publish three or four. The difference will apparently be made up with other Japanese RPGs from non-Nippon Ichi developers, situating NIS with niche publishers like Mastiff and Natsume. They plan to stick with what they know best, and not deviating much from RPGs and strategy RPGs, though they're still looking for their first outside title to localize.

In the meantime, they're keeping busy with Phantom Brave and Makai Wars, Nippon Ichi's just-announced PSP game. We were fortunate enough to see early screenshots, which seem to hint at a sequel to Disgaea. Not only were there Prinnies clearly visible, but the name is another clue, since Makai Senki Disgaea was the full Japanese title. The graphical style was along the lines of pretty much every game Nippon Ichi's made so far – isomorphic polygonal backgrounds with sprites on top – though since it's currently running on emulated specs and not actual hardware, they're not ready to release the screens to the public yet. It's apparently set to be released shortly after the PSP launch in both Japan and the U.S., so we'll be keeping an eye out.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in 1UP.