Sumioni: Demon Arts paints a picture on PS Vita next week

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Sumioni: Demon Arts paints a picture on PS Vita next week
Tom Lipschultz Localization Specialist, XSEED

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At long last, Europe, the fate of the world can rest in your brushes as well! It’s official: Acquire’s action-packed PS Vita platformer Sumioni: Demon Arts is slated for release in the European PlayStation Store on 16th January, for the entirely affordable price of €9.99/£7.99. Soon, the epic travels of the demon Agura, the lion god Shidou and the firebird goddess Yomihi through feudal Japan will brighten up those OLED screens all across the many countries of the EU!

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If you’re unfamiliar with this title, allow me to elaborate. Sumioni: Demon Arts is a side-scrolling platformer presented in the style of classic Japanese “sumi-e” ink prints. Agura can run, jump and swing his sword like any old platforming protagonist if you wish – or you can pause the action and trace designs on the screen in order to set your enemies (and their towers) ablaze.
If fire’s not your thing, you can also switch to the water brush and douse enemy projectiles. Or spawn lightning from the heavens. Or just draw your own platforms and pass right over your enemies unscathed!

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And when push comes to shove and you’re faced with a massive boss enemy, that’s when it’s time to summon Shidou or Yomihi. Tracing a specific design on the screen brings one of your followers out, and he/she remains at your side for quite some time, dealing massive damage to all enemies on screen and totally saving your bacon.
Some stages take a different approach to the action, requiring you to survive wave after wave of enemy troops for a set period of time, or outrun a massive creature that’s chasing you down (with intent to smush you flat under its gritty boot!).
Each stage you complete is rated based on your performance (how long it took, how many enemies you killed, how much damage you took, etc.), and this performance determines which path you take through the story. Ultimately, your adventure is concluded in one of six very different endings, ranging from total annihilation to eternal victory.

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With beautiful Japanese artistry, cleverly-conceived PS Vita-specific controls and frenetic platforming action all in one game, Sumioni: Demon Arts is sure to sate PS Vita fans looking for something fun and unique to play on the go. Be sure to pick up your copy on 16th January, and may the Inkgods rain their blessings down upon you all!

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93 Comments

  • kivi95
    January 11, 2013 at 2:01 pm PST

    FINALLY! :)

  • kivi95
    January 11, 2013 at 2:04 pm PST

    Oh and Great price!

  • Kuraio
    January 11, 2013 at 2:05 pm PST

    Finally!!

  • monoliet
    January 11, 2013 at 2:06 pm PST

    nice but canot convince me ,
    in once life ( if u buy al games onest ) u need to make choices
    games are not cheap .
    i have other games in mind ;) hope to see them soon

  • THE_FORCE
    January 11, 2013 at 2:09 pm PST

    This should pass the time till Ni No Kuni arrives on February 1st. Nice one! :)

  • claTorino
    January 11, 2013 at 2:12 pm PST

    1 year later…

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 7:11 pm PST

      Each new region and each new platform presents its own set of unique challenges. Although we’ve released a nice handful of PSN titles in Europe already, we’re still technically kind of new at this — and with Sumioni, we were also presented with a whole new platform and a whole new PSN store to work with. These things take time to figure out, and we’re a company of less than a dozen people with no physical European presence, so… yeah…
      I guess what I’m trying to say is, sorry it took so long! We’re getting better about that, but there are still lots of hurdles to overcome. Your patience is greatly appreciated, and I hope you’ll agree that this was worth the wait.

  • chrisboers
    January 11, 2013 at 2:23 pm PST

    That final image ‘coming spring 2012’ is a bit daft, but otherwise, it looks like a really interesting game. Who needs Wonderbook, if you have the same magic right on your Vita? And for that very reasonable price?
    Is there any information on the duration of this game? Are there levels, bosses?

    • Fred Dutton
      January 11, 2013 at 2:27 pm PST

      Sorry about that! I’m waiting for the XSEED team to send me the EU trailer – when they do I’ll swap it out. Old trailer > no trailer, right?

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 6:51 pm PST

      Sorry for the trailer confusion. We’re working on that.
      The game has 30 levels, I believe, with a boss at the end of most of them (survival and chase stages don’t get bosses: they just end when the timer runs out or you make it to the end without being squashed). Most bosses are actually buildings — giant pagodas full of enemies, often with booby traps and other quirks to keep the fight interesting — but some are enormous screen-filling demons that take quite a bit of strategy to eliminate.
      As for the game’s duration, one playthrough won’t take you very long, but getting every ending will probably take you a good 6-8 hours or more, and this is one of those titles that’s quite fun to replay, so you should get your money’s worth out of it. It’s quite enjoyable!

  • Karaeh
    January 11, 2013 at 2:25 pm PST

    oh yeah sweetness

  • GoddessYurlee
    January 11, 2013 at 2:27 pm PST

    sweet hope Deutshcland gets it tp T>T

  • Ants_Pai
    January 11, 2013 at 2:28 pm PST

    I can#t wait, I have over £8 in my wallet :3 This is perfect!!

  • monoliet
    January 11, 2013 at 2:35 pm PST

    9 GoddessYurlee
    no blood = i tink u wil have ( very not want to live in u contri whith al of u laws against freedom of gaming )

  • AAToSan
    January 11, 2013 at 2:40 pm PST

    What about Vita’s Wake-up Club in EU?

  • monoliet
    January 11, 2013 at 2:41 pm PST

    12 = not on topic :)

  • supersmith2500
    January 11, 2013 at 2:42 pm PST

    Make that 3 games the Vita is getting next week.

  • kivi95
    January 11, 2013 at 2:42 pm PST

    12# 6th February.

  • ShivaRpgN
    January 11, 2013 at 3:01 pm PST

    Fred, please tell me more about Dokuro and Ragnorak Odyssey.
    Also, very happy to know the Sumioni is coming and with an affordable price, it will be bought. Now that Wake Up Club is coming around February too, things are starting to shape up. Now all that’s missing would be an awesome, large and fat sale!

    • Fred Dutton
      January 11, 2013 at 3:12 pm PST

      The publishers of Dokuro and Ragnarok haven’t confirmed an EU date for either yet, however both are on their way. When they’re ready to make an announcement, we’ll ask them onto the Blog to break the news.
      A full Vita sale shouldn’t be too far off either.

  • Golwar
    January 11, 2013 at 3:12 pm PST

    An huge thank you for XSEED! Without them (or ATLAS) we’d have to trust on other publisher’s to release such wonderful games here in Europe.
    Considering how Square Enix doesn’t even manage to release their own PS1 Classics as Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, we can estimate pretty well how disturbingly poor our options would be. :(

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 6:55 pm PST

      We do our best. It’s tricky releasing in another region of the world, but we’ve enjoyed seeing all the rave reviews for our previous PSN releases from the European fanbase, and are more than happy to continue supporting you guys. I hope we’ll be able to release in other parts of the world sometime in the future as well.

  • Witcher70
    January 11, 2013 at 3:18 pm PST

    This is great ! love the price too…..instant buy and will keep me going until Ni No Kuni. Thank you XSEED. And Fred any clue on those vita games you say are coming :) x

  • KiiillRoy
    January 11, 2013 at 3:28 pm PST

    Hey Fred, can you tell me if Sumioni is multilanguages ? Thanks !

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 6:56 pm PST

      I’m afraid it’s English only. Sorry!

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 6:57 pm PST

      English only. We here at XSEED only really know English and Japanese, I’m afraid. But we’re very good at those two, at least! ;)

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 6:59 pm PST

      Sorry for the double comment. Weird internet issue seemed to have eaten my first, so I decided to try again and say a bit more the second time. And now my mistake is free for all the world to see. ;)

  • TrulyALie
    January 11, 2013 at 3:42 pm PST

    A 2D action platformer that looks like Okami? I’m so there. And for £8? Fantastic stuff.

  • Golwar
    January 11, 2013 at 3:48 pm PST

    I wonder Fred, does SCEE actually force or “motivate” publishers to localize games into all those major European languages?
    It always baffles me why we don’t simply see games that got translated into English and that’s it. No further expensive translations necessary, reduced risks to import games. We could have so many more games here that way.

    • Fred Dutton
      January 11, 2013 at 3:53 pm PST

      I couldn’t speak about that with any real authority, as it’s not my department. Sorry Golwar!
      If a text-heavy game was released only in a language you didn’t speak – let’s say Swahili or something – would you be aggrieved? I know I would!

  • ShivaRpgN
    January 11, 2013 at 4:01 pm PST

    Thanks Fred, let’s hope we’ll hear more about them soon. And I’m looking forward to the sale as well :)

  • MaxiM_82
    January 11, 2013 at 4:04 pm PST

    I was waiting for this, but didn’t expect such a nice price. Count me in!

  • Izorpo
    January 11, 2013 at 4:07 pm PST

    YES FINALLY!!!\o/
    Now I won’t have to keep eyeing the Japanese version on ebay for over 20 quid.
    Still wanting to know when EDF 2017 is coming as I am still considering importing that from Japan (I have the other version on xbox in English).
    And Dokturo…also are there any plans for EU releases of Atelier Totori and Meruru Plus?

  • Golwar
    January 11, 2013 at 4:09 pm PST

    @Fred
    Well I would appreciate that a game is available in English only, rather than not being available at all. ;)
    And if there would be a clear “Import/English only” section in the PSN store, nobody could complain that he thought it would be localized. And with digital distribution only games, there’d be no risk in investing into physical copies either.
    Imho this would benefit everyone so much. Gamers, publishers and SCEE.
    Just those who don’t speak English, they’d have the same fate as now: Missing some great games.
    But on the other hand some publishers might reconsider a localization for those too, if enough people would buy the import version.

    • Fred Dutton
      January 11, 2013 at 4:41 pm PST

      Yes, you make a very valid argument. It’s clearly a tricky situation with no easy solution. Anyway, like I say, not my area of expertise, so I wont add too much – but be aware that there’s plenty of conversation around these sorts of issues. Hopefully we’ll see plenty of niche Japanese titles making it over in 2013. We’re off to a good start here, and there’s two more we’ll be discussing early next week too.

  • Stray84
    January 11, 2013 at 4:16 pm PST

    Finally, thank you.
    Don’t released games only in US, please.

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 7:01 pm PST

      We’re trying to expand to the rest of the world — it’s just not easy, since we have no physical presence anywhere but in the U.S. Hopefully, though, we can expand farther and farther over time!

  • LiquidSolid
    January 11, 2013 at 4:29 pm PST

    Oh great, it’s from XSEED, so there’s another game that won’t be released in Aus or NZ. Thanks for absolutely nothing.

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 7:04 pm PST

      Hey now, there’s no need to be mean! We’ve been looking into branching out to the Australia and New Zealand PSN stores, and we think we might be on the verge of a breakthrough. Keep your eyes open for news in the coming months — hopefully, we’ll be able to expand into that corner of the world as well before too long.
      We’re certainly trying our best!

  • mafayeu
    January 11, 2013 at 4:34 pm PST

    first great news of this year!! so exited!

  • KiiillRoy
    January 11, 2013 at 4:40 pm PST

    Fred, can you respond me please, thanks !

    • Fred Dutton
      January 11, 2013 at 4:42 pm PST

      That’s a question for XSEED unfortunately. I’ll see if I can coax Tom on here to answer some questions…

  • KiiillRoy
    January 11, 2013 at 4:49 pm PST

    THANK YOU !

  • SSJVEGETA2007
    January 11, 2013 at 5:08 pm PST

    Retro City and now Sumioni, spoiled for choice! Might just have to get both :D

  • Gary485
    January 11, 2013 at 5:34 pm PST

    Same comment as I put on Velocity Ultra. Will this have a trial?

  • Tenchuwoh
    January 11, 2013 at 6:12 pm PST

    Finally!
    I am gonna get this game day one!”Go Tenchu Developers”,now bring Tenchu 1 & 2 as PSone classics on Playstation Store C:

  • Silent_Gig
    January 11, 2013 at 6:17 pm PST

    This is great news and the price is even better!
    While im glad all these games are coming at once, im still gunna be broke after i buy em all. lol

  • FatMachismo
    January 11, 2013 at 7:09 pm PST

    Absolutely fantastic news to hear, this is one of those games where I keep hearing it’s fantastic. I believe Kotaku are always raving about it.
    XSEED being the ABSOLUTE STARS that they are as usual! :)
    Day one for me!

  • artopand
    January 11, 2013 at 7:14 pm PST

    YES YES YES!!!!

  • Nazar_Ops
    January 11, 2013 at 8:55 pm PST

    1 YEAR LATER! No thanks, been waiting for this at launch. Never came, until now. Hell no, take your game back.

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 10:07 pm PST

      Why so mean? :( It’s not like we didn’t TRY to release the game sooner. We’re just extremely tiny and have no European presence, so it took a long time to work things out. As mentioned in another comment, whenever you deal with a new region or a new platform, there will always be delays, and this is the first Vita game we’ve ever released in Europe. The delay was a long one, but we persevered, and soon it will be available at long last. Isn’t it better to get it a bit late than not at all?

  • winkelwagentje
    January 11, 2013 at 9:55 pm PST

    Hooray! Thank you XSEED. Will buy this next week, what a nice suprise! :D

  • supersmith2500
    January 11, 2013 at 10:18 pm PST

    @Nazar_Ops:
    Dude, be thankful the devs they brought this game to us. Look at RCR, that game is made by one person and it took 3 months to release for European PSN and WiiWare. Just be thankful XSEED took all that hard-earned time to release it for Europe. The later the better.

  • THE_FORCE
    January 11, 2013 at 10:19 pm PST

    Tom ignore the dissers. The game looks great and there’s loads of us that will be recompensing you for your hard work. Jeez I wish I had your talent (and, I bet, so do the whingers ;) ).

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 10:25 pm PST

      Thanks for the kind words. We do feel bad about the long delay, though, so I understand where Nazar is coming from. We didn’t like it any more than he/she did, and we do offer our apologies to the fans for making them wait so long.
      We also very much hope you all enjoy the game, however, and that you feel in the end that it was worth the wait! ;)

  • supersmith2500
    January 11, 2013 at 10:22 pm PST

    @Nazar_Ops:
    Oh and by the way in case you wondering, many other games had long delays too like we waited ages for Dyad, we finally got it, we waited ages for Auditorium HD, we finally got it, we waited for Spyro trilogy to come for PSone classics we finally got them too and there’s more and now you’re skipping buying it because of that long delay? Seesh.

  • cowbanana
    January 11, 2013 at 10:51 pm PST

    This looks nice.
    Don’t listen to the naysayers. I appreciate everything you manage to bring to the EU store. I have a few digital PSP titles from XSEED that I certainly appreciate.
    I do hope you can manage to bring EU releases closer in line with the US releases though. Everything you do to make that happen will be greatly appreciated.
    I only game in English, so that’s really the only language I care about, even if it isn’t my native tongue. I wouldn’t even touch other localizations with a ten foot pole, espcially any kind of local translation. Japanese voice with English text is also perfectly fine with me – I wish there wasn’t so much bureaucracy surrounding publishing and localization. “Just” translate to English and ship the game. That would satisfy most people I should think. But noooo…. we have to deal with the lowest common denominator in the entire European Union. No wonder things sometimes move at a glacial speed.

    • Tom Lipschultz
      January 11, 2013 at 11:17 pm PST

      We are trying, and it looks like Corpse Party: Book of Shadows’ European debut will be *very* close to its North American release. Hopefully, that’s a trend we can continue as time goes on, too!

  • Stray84
    January 11, 2013 at 11:02 pm PST

    Sorry for my mistake.
    I meant “release” no “released” in my previous post (n.26). 8P
    Thanks for the reply anyway.
    I’m looking forward to corpse party 2, either.

  • mattybwbafc
    January 12, 2013 at 12:56 am PST

    This game looks brilliant and very similar style to Murasama the demon blade which i loved. Cant wait to play it, but i would like to know the difficulty of this game as i don’t want it to be too easy but hope its not frustratingly hard either.
    Also if i may be cheeky, may i ask if europe will ever see unchained blades as that game looks amazing and would sell well over here. Cant you just put the US version on the european playstation store :).
    Finally Thank You and keep up the good work.

  • VerizonPayphone
    January 12, 2013 at 1:06 am PST

    Absolutely delighted with this. its a positive sign for the store. great games get missed out on just because I reside in ireland. always seemed like we got the short end of the stick. but with this, it imbues hope that I will get to see games through a different point of view instead of first person (if you catch my drift). As its my first time posting id like to say three thanks.
    To fred, thank you for providing us with the weekly heads-up.
    To Xseed, thanks for giving me hope for the stores less popular games being released.
    To whom it may concern, thank you for castlevania symphony of the night.

  • Raziel-chan
    January 12, 2013 at 2:06 am PST

    Yes, finally!
    I kept visiting your forums and site and wondering if we’d ever get it. Thanks!
    While waiting sucks, I still appreciate that you DO release games overseas as well. Because of that even though I imported the physical collector’s editions for YS I&II Chronicles, YS: Oath in Felghana, YS Seven and Legend of Heroes: Trails in the sky from the US before there was even any talk of their European release, I later bought most of them again on EU PSN. Gonna buy this one and the new Corpse Party as well.
    And don’t mind the naysayers, some people are just mean for the sake of being mean.
    I’ve seen some interesting comments here, especially about an English-only import section. Hell, we already have one for PSOne classics. Maybe someone could pass a word about that to Sony higher ups? I mean, that would incredibly simplify the process of releasing games here – if the publisher has no time/money for full translations, just release it in English. It’s the lingua franca anyway.
    cya
    Raziel-chan

  • LiquidSolid
    January 12, 2013 at 2:48 am PST

    I think my complaints about your company are pretty understandable, seeing as it doesn’t even seem like you ever even tried to bother with us. I mean, the NZ OFLC will classify, FOR FREE, any game that’s rated under 15 by the BBFC or MA15 by the ACB (Australia Classification Board). And Australia has something similar in place, if I recall correctly. So why haven’t we seen a single thing? Because you don’t care.
    Good to see things might change sometime soon though. Hopefully you’ll go through your entire catalogue, cause there are some older games that I’d like to own (like Corpse Party) but won’t be able to unless you bring them here or Sony implements gifting.

  • unggoyy
    January 12, 2013 at 3:31 am PST

    does this game have a platinum trophy?

  • VerizonPayphone
    January 12, 2013 at 3:32 am PST

    liquidsolid, its very easy to use google and think that you have the solution to all lifes little problems. Have you personally had first hand experience in localising games? I sure as hell havent. it may be easy or it may be difficult. but if everything was as simple as you put it, the store would be like a warehouse. take behind the scenes factors into account instead of just the obvious (manpower, consumer base, contacts, time and effort) the people at xseed are doing what they can to bring games here that will have a small fanbase. Even if they have only brought a handfull of quality titles, isnt that more than your google filled waffle has brought? show some respect or dont bother posting.

  • R_a_z_i_e_l
    January 12, 2013 at 4:40 am PST

    Sorry pretty stubborn when it comes to these sort of things won’t ever be playing this game it becomes free on PS+ or revives a huge Discount.

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