Rising Star Games - Little King's Story still selling well

[Rhonin the wizard]

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

Yen Hau: 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.

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

Yen Hau: 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.

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