Exist Archive

Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky
Developer(s)	Spike Chunsoft tri-Ace[1]
Publisher(s)	JP: Spike Chunsoft[1] WW: Aksys Games[2]
Director(s)	Masaki Norimoto
Producer(s)	Yuichiro Saito Shingo Mukaitoge
Programmer(s)	Yoshiharu Gotanda
Artist(s)	Mino Taro
Writer(s)	Masaki Norimoto Kentaro Kagami
Composer(s)	Motoi Sakuraba
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
Release	JP: December 17, 2015 WW: October 18, 2016
Genre(s)	Role-playing[1]
Mode(s)	Single-player

Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky^[3] is a role-playing video game developed and published by Spike Chunsoft, with assistance from tri-Ace, for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 video game consoles. It was released in Japan in December 2015 and worldwide in October 2016.^[2]

The game is a side scrolling role-playing video game. Many journalists considered it a spiritual sequel to the Valkyrie Profile series of games also by tri-Ace.^[4][5][6]

The player follows twelve youths who are killed by an explosion in modern-day Tokyo^[7] and find themselves on the fantasy-like planet of Protolexa.^[5] There are three different endings, based on the player's actions over the course of the game, and some actions affect the game's new game plus mode.^[8]

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.^[9] The game was 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.^[6] 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.^[9][10][11] Although it was originally scheduled for release on November 26, 2015,^[4] the game was delayed to its final release date, December 17.^[7] Shortly after the game's Japanese release, Spike Chunsoft began downloadable content collaborations with some of tri-Ace's other games, including Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean 5 games.^[12] 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.^[13]

Until April 2016, no information had been announced in regards to an English language release of the game.^[12][13] 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.^[6] Aksys Games acquired the rights to localize Exist Archive and released it in North America on October 18, 2016.^[2] Aksys Games released the game in Europe as a digital-only release on September 8.^[14]

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.^[17] 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.^[18]

• Official website