NIS America's workload for the rest of 2008 is greater than we initially thought. Not only are there localizations of Disgaea and Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure to take care of, but the company is developing an entirely new ARPG, A Witch's Tale.
Due in October, the game tells the story of a tribe of witches who lived beneath the world's surface, practicing rune magic. One day, they set out to invade the surface world, but are stopped by a mysterious figure by the name of Alice, who seals the witches underground again with their own magic. The trailer above is the only media of the title released thus far, and features no gameplay sections (though Siliconera reveals that players must draw runes on the touchscreen to attack enemies), but we like what we're seeing so far: there's a fairly charming gothic fairytale vibe to proceedings.
Since Doki Doki Majo Shinpan Duo is risqué in its essence, we're not surprised that the boxart would also be rather ... bold. The blue bar that wraps its way around the cover lets perusers of the box see through the girls' clothes, hence the assaulted looks on their faces.
The girl on the left used quick reflexes to cover herself up, while the girl on the right only had a sliver of indecency exposed. The girl in the middle, though? Not so lucky -- not even because her breasts were displayed for gaming consumers to see, but because she has no nipples. Maybe she's related to the guys in Duel Love? Or, maybe that's how you go about proving she's a witch.
In all seriousness, we don't expect SNK to put nipples on the front of the box. Maybe they should have gone with a different design, though, so that the girls wouldn't look like ... well, freaks. Still, we know most guys aren't too picky when it comes to this kind of thing, and will enjoy the opportunity to stylus-poke the ladies of the game nonetheless. Oh, and the little pointing hand in the bottom right says "touch," lest your forget your task.
The website for Doki Doki Majo Shinpan Duo is open, and it really reflects the first game's success. While the website for the original game had an intentionally low-budget look (which had the nice bonus of being low-budget), this one has navigational graphics and everything.
In addition to screens (which we've seen before) you can read (Japanese or machine-translated) character bios, and listen to short audio messages from each character. There's also downloadable character art, if ... you need a fairly high-resolution image of a Doki Doki Majo Shinpan Duo character. You can browse all the screens and portraits in our handy gallery.
Two unused buttons remain in the navigation, so we look forward to uncomfortably salacious surprises in the near future!
Good to see that the official Doki Doki Majo Shinpanmanga, which has been collected into trade paperback form, stays true to the series' hallmarks. It is in fact a manga about a guy compelled by an angel-thing to go poke girls until they reveal themselves as witches.
It's significantly more unsettling in the manga, because, while it lacks the agency of the games (you're watching girls get poked instead of taking part), the ways in which these poor girls get messed with falls outside of the limitations of the game. One girl is stuck in a gigantic spider web, for example, and another has her Neo Geo Pocket knocked out of her hands by her own breasts when Lulu the "angel" begins harrassing her.
For those who place little value in the chase, that exhilarating, flirtatious period when nothing is guaranteed, actually playing through Doki Doki Majo Shinpan is secondary to groping its adolescent witches. Rather than have you labor through the text-heavy release's dialogue and plot setup, Stage Clear has posted artwork wrested from the Japanese game, enabling you to skip the journey and get right to your depraved destination.
While none of the shots are scandalous enough to land you a ten-year stay in a federal prison, we wouldn't say that they're safe for work viewing either. The wiccan nymphets are depicted in poses that would leave Humbert Humbert dizzy with delight ("the king crying for joy, the trumpets blaring, the nurse drunk"), their faces reacting to the taps and strokes of an unseen stylus. Scurry shamefully past the post break for a couple of those images.
If you've been following Doki Doki Majo Shinpan with the same level of interest as we somehow have developed, then you probably saw our first video footage of the game, taken from a store demo. But that was in a noisy store, shot with a handheld camera, and not really the ideal presentation for game video.
Well, this is significantly more ideal. It's a Windows Media stream of that same video, in much better quality. The only problem-- like we said, it's a Windows Media stream. Expect to wait a bit.
Who would have guessed that our little witch-hunting game, Doki Doki Majo Shinpan, would explode like this? Now it's a ridiculously blatant preorder bonus offered at selected retailers. What goes perfectly with adventure games about witches? That's right: phone cards. It was so obvious that we're surprised we didn't think of it ourselves.
We're starting to wonder if the witches are even bad witches -- they look kinda sweet (and top heavy) to us. Maybe the hero is hunting them to see who he should take to the beach. Got a "witch crest?" Great, grab your bikini and get in the van!
We can't resist posting this gallery of advertisements for our favorite witch-groping game, Doki Doki Majo Shinpan. Like pretty much everything else about the game, these ads show a brazen sexuality that we aren't used to. Sure, American ads have plenty of scantily-dressed women, but they don't have Shift-JIS mascots pointing at those womens' chests and exclaiming "Breasts! Breasts!"
We aren't going to turn this into a debate about decency. We just want to enjoy this game and these ads, which display the website's "Are you a bad person?" entry question, on the level of pure hilarity. This game doesn't make us want to discuss society's issues. It makes us want to giggle.
At least, we hope that the new English version of the Doki Doki Majo Shinpan site means we might see it in this part of the world sometime in the distant future. Though the site still only lists a Japanese date, there are at least two translated versions -- Chinese and this rough new English site -- so we'll keep our eyes peeled for any signs of a non-Japanese release.
We've just updated our gallery of screenshots and art from SNK's Doki Doki Majo Shinpan. As is the norm for this game, there's a lot of weird stuff to enjoy.
We'd like to point out the character seen here, who is a retro game freak and therefore totally not a witch so leave her alone. Oh, wait ... is that Athena? Hmm. Either she is a witch and she uses awful games as weapons, or she's proudly displaying a copy of Athena and something is terribly wrong with her. In either case, should you encounter this character in the game, just put your DS on the ground and run away from it until you pass out.
There's also a boy witch, apparently. Good to know SNK is providing equal opportunity for everyone, regardless of sex or sexual orientation, to be uncomfortable. Gotta grope 'em all!
SNK's Doki Doki Majo Shinpan has been doing great business in preorder, and seems to be getting a lot of attention. Now it looks like SNK is responding to this success by marketing the game in ... China! A new translated version of the website has appeared, offering the same content in Chinese. No, it doesn't help us any, but at least they're thinking about some international marketing. That's one baby step closer to an English localization, right?
The Japanese page has been updated too, with the screen cleaner shown above (which some Japan-based reader should really think about securing for us) and new screens of the first-person Magic Battle Mode. Apparently, somehow, you can do something to upset the girls. Just touch the "Read" button to determine if it's a witch check out the screens.
SNK's Doki Doki Majo Shinpan, the already-infamous adventure game about examining young girls for evidence of witchery, seems to have gotten Japanese gamers' hearts beating. The preorder listing for DDMS is now the top-listed video game on Amazon.com's Japan store.
It's currently ahead of the Final Fantasy Tactics PSP remake, Vanillaware's rather delicious-looking Odin Sphere, and even Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. We have to admit, we're happy to see SNK experiencing such success, though it's weird that we think of SNK as underdogs now when they used to charge people $300+ for their games.
We've talkedat length about SNK's suggestive Doki Doki Majo Saiban before, mostly about the controversy involved in the game. We've discussed the most obvious feature of the game, which is the witch-hunting mode that has players investigating young girls with the touch screen to determine witchery.
Well, we'll focus on the other part of the game today. As self-avowed adventure game freaks, we feel that we should focus on that part of Doki Doki Majo Saiban at least once; we've chosen new screenshots to that effect. We are interested in the adventure aspects of the game. We like SNK, and to be honest, if there's real puzzle solving and item collecting to be found, then we'll actually be interested in Doki Doki Majo Saiban. If it's just a matter of walking from location to location trying to find the right girl to talk to, then we aren't as thrilled. The fact that the main character keeps a log is promising, indicating that there is stuff worth keeping track of.
We've been surprised by DS games before. Remember the comedy game about murder trials? That turned out okay. If the gameplay's there, we might even be able to see past the questionable content. With a C rating, the game shouldn't be too out of control. There's always the chance, too, that the game is actually satirical and pokes fun at the assumed perv audience. The website supports that theory.
Whew. The official Doki Doki Majo Saiban website has been updated, and it looks like SNK's troubling game isn't as troubling as it ... could be. CERO, Japan's equivalent to the ESRB, rated its content a C, which means it is appropriate for ages 15 and up. At least we know it's definitely not full-on pornography, and that following the development of this game is somewhat less like watching a train wreck in slow motion than it was when we thought it was going to get a Z rating (18 and up).
The website also corroborates our idea of the story and gameplay; the player, as a high-school boy, is compelled by an "angel" called Lulu to hunt witches by staring and prodding at girls to make their hearts beat quickly; their facial expressions and the background indicate their level of tension.
The website for 
For those who place little value in the chase, that exhilarating, flirtatious period when nothing is guaranteed, actually playing through 
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We've just updated our gallery of screenshots and art from SNK's 
