Looking Back at the February 1 All Aksys Showcase

With our romance celebration underway, we never had a chance to discuss the All Aksys showcase held on February 1.

I was disappointed in the immediate aftermath… I’d gotten my hopes up for a show that would rival their 2022 Anime Expo showcase due to how long its been since the last one, but it was more in line with their regular showcases instead.

Once I had some time to think about it, however, I realized that it actually was quite a decent showcase.

So instead of lamenting what they didn’t announce, let’s take a look at what they did.

The showcase began with trailers for Death Mark II, Tengoku Struggle, and Blazing Strike, their previously-announced titles. Then it was onto new announcements, with quite a big surprise up first – the Switch port of Tokyo Xanadu eX+.

I’ve had Tokyo Xanadu on my list to play for a few years now (it even joined my specific completion goals this year and last year), but I couldn’t help but feel I’d be more likely to play if it I had it on the Switch instead of PC. Well, I’ll get my chance this year, because Aksys is bringing the Switch version west this summer with an improved translation.

Their next announcement was Despera Drops, an otome about a young woman who becomes a murder suspect and ends up on the run with six other fugitives. This one was a surprise, since it’s not by Otomate (the usual otome developer Aksys localizes for), but I remember seeing it when it was announced for Japan and hoping for a localization!

Unfortunately, Despera Drops won’t be out until 2025, so we’ve got a long wait.

They had another surprise in store with the (non-otome) visual novel Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch, about a boy who goes to a remote island to live with his grandfather and encounters a young witch. I’d never heard of it before, but it sounds interesting. It will be out this summer.

The final two announcements were the Radiant Tale fandisc, Radiant Tale -Fanfare-, also due out this summer, and the Virche Evermore fandisc, Virche Evermore -EpiC: Lycoris-, for this fall. I loved Radiant Tale, so I’ll be getting that one for sure, although due to my mixed feelings on Virche Evermore, I may skip that one.

So in the end, I really can’t complain. They announced 5 new games, 4 of which I’m interested in. I would have liked to see another non-fandisc otome localization, but we have so many otome games slated for this year already that I probably won’t even catch up on my backlog while waiting.

Anyway, this long after the fact you’ve probably long since watched or read about the Aksys showcase… but how do you feel about these upcoming games?