Exist Archive

The game is a side scrolling Japanese role-playing video game, similar to tri-Ace's previous Valkyrie Profile series of games.[3][4] Many journalists considered it a spiritual sequel to Valkyrie Profile.[3][5]

The game involves the player following twelve youths who are killed by an explosion in modern-day Tokyo.[6] After their deaths, they find themselves on the fantasy-like planet of "Protolexa".[4] There are three different endings, based on the players actions over the course of the game, and some actions affect the game's new game plus mode as well.[7]

The game was first announced in July 2015, as a collaboration between Spike Chunsoft and tri-Ace in a fourteen-page article in Weekly Famitsu.[8] The game will be developed by much of the same tri-Ace staff that had worked on the first Valkyrie Profile game, with assistance from Spike Chunsoft staff as well.[5] Other key staff for the game include character designer Mino Taro of Konami's Love Plus series, and music composer Motoi Sakuraba, composer for tri-Ace's Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean series.[8] A trailer for the game was shown at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2015.[9] Trailers for each of the game's characters were released over time through Famitsu's YouTube channel.[10] The game was first announced to be released on November 26, 2015,[3] before being delayed to its final release date, December 17, 2015.[6] Shortly after the game's Japanese release, Spike Chunsoft announced that there would be downloadable content collaborations some of tri-Ace's other games, including Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean 5 games.[11] The collaborations, released in March 2016, consisted of character costumes based on character's from the two aforementioned titles, along with a costume to dress up as Monokuma, the primary antagonist from Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa series of video games.[12]

Until April 2016, no information had been announced in regards to an English language release of the game.[11][12] NIS America, a frequent publisher for Spike Chunsoft games in English (Danganronpa 1, Danganronpa 2, Danganronpa Another Episode), gave a "no comment" response when asked about localizing the title.[5] On April 25, 2016, Aksys Games announced that they would be localizing Exist Archive for release in North America on October 18, 2016.[2] On September 8, Aksys Games confirmed that it would be released in Europe on the same day as a digital-only release.[13]

Famitsu gave both the Vita and PS4 versions of the game a 33/40 rating, with the four reviewers giving the title scores of 8/8/8/9.[14] The game sold 37,398 copies in its opening week in Japan, with 17,414 copies sold for PlayStation 4 and 19,984 copies sold for PlayStation Vita.[15]

• Official website