How do we fix them?

When is their Megaton Musashi game coming out?

Dark Cloud remake

Not OP, but I see two main issues with Level 5. First off, they as a company are too merchandise-driven. They always design their self-published games as multimedia franchises meant to be heavily marketed and serialized, and this always causes their popularity to wane quickly due to overexposure. Secondly, their more recent troubles with HD development, which they've been forced into now that there are no sub-HD systems left. It seems they aren't prepared for it which led to lots of delays and quality issues with Ni no Kuni 2, Yokai Watch 4, Inazuma Eleven Ares, Ushiro and who knows what else.

Don't forget Megaton Musashi, which was revealed in 2016... and hasn't had much else to it.

The sad part then is they were working to fix this a few years back and then tripped on themselves which lead to never following through. Opened localization offices in NA/EU to speed up self-published localization, and then didn't have the funds to carry it out and ended up having to work with someone else to reach a global market. This then reduces their potential to spread out and ends up focusing on milking what works to fund things as publishers take cuts of profits you were expecting. Sure mismanagement is a huge part here by lacking the follow through and foresight, but it wasn't a terrible idea.

They really were stupid with Yokai Watch though. Over saturated that way too fast and now it's all tumbling down. Of course the IPs people know them for are held hostage in some way or another making it difficult to actually change. They could experiment, but then they could also go broke fast as seen by some of their attempts to branch out lately.

To answer the main point I would say trying to get back to basics wouldn't hurt. Toning down the milking and returning to experimenting again with reasonable ambition would go far. I'm sure Ni no Kuni 2 would have been amazing had they the foresight to reduce the scale and flesh things out better. As you play it it feels like the budget runs dry halfway in and it coasts on fumes, where as the original didn't feel like that at all. I admire their attempts to change the game formula in the sequel and being more polished would have done it better.

The multi-media thing for sure, they're too focused on the milking which I agree with. It's cute at first, then goes overboard. Was especially a problem when trying to globalize Yokai Watch which then went fucking nowhere. Was localized too late, and too many games came over at once. The toys and anime being a mess with sub-par handling making the games even less appealing.

I partly blame Nintendo here, feels like they wanted to milk every penny of the games. It was especially noticeable in Fantasy Life with the DLC on cart. The version they localized having been released in Japan for a year already at a discounted price, etc. Level-5 not forcing a cheaper localized version (so not all blame on Nintendo) and fragmenting the online did a number on sales I imagine, and then magically localizations and sequels for that franchise dried up too. Focused on money over the customer base which they spent years building with the Layton games which are now dead as well.

As for HD development, that's not a huge excuse. Ni no Kuni 1 was ages ago and they did that well enough. Sure it was turning a DS game into an HD 3D game so pacing and details were well established, but they did it well in a short time. At best they can't milk franchises like they used to with needing more resources, but they know what they're doing even if it slows down. I can't fault them there. The complaints that hold water about this just refer back to your first issue of milking what sold already, which feeds back into them just needing to sell something to keep the doors open which I tried to suggest here.

I've heard Level-5 abby (NA localization office) is not a good place to work. I mean, Glassdoor reviews are one thing, but the fact they don't have anyone manning their social media pages says a lot. Their Inazuma Eleven Twitter no longer updates even though it's still airing new episodes.

You're right, cutting back on the franchises is a big thing. We don't know need a Yo-kai Watch every year, take some time off and make people forget/miss it. Then come back with a fresh new take. That seems to be working for IE Ares... when it eventually comes out.

Also the disaster of Snack World. I think it was made for American audiences in mind since the main character looks so much like Finn from Adventure Time. Except it came out in Japan in 2017 when AT was no longer popular, and it's finally coming out in NA next year even though AT isn't even on the air. A complete mishandling in every way.

I'm not excusing them for HD development, that they're having so many issues with it right now is really strange. I don't know why Inazuma Eleven Ares has now been delayed by over two years for instance, it doesn't make much sense.

Hire a fucking director and game designer worth a shit.
They're great at asset creation and coming up with ideas but they always bungle them because they don't understand what makes a game fun.

>That game stifled them creatively for years as that's all they could ever keep making.
God, I wish. Even DQ9 was a step down and everything else they made was sitting in its shadow, trying to differentiate itself by being an ARPG with tons of gimmicks.

Forbid them from making any games with RPG elements entirely.
Their JRPGs are always garbage with all the same flaws (piss poor difficulty, incredibly limited character development design, pacing issues, grind issues) all over again.

>incredibly limited character development design
Combine this with the game proposing that you have SO MUCH DEEP CUSTOMIZATION POTENTIAL.
Dark Cloud, DQ8, Rogue Galaxy, WKC, NNK, it's all the same. They give you tons of little things to act like it differentiates your character, but it's really just a shitload of grinding that barely changes anything.

Is Snack World even still coming? There was a comment about localization, but nothing firm about it and knowing video games it can easily be a cancelled project because the market shifted or other random reasons. Either way the franchise seems dead considering it existed to sell gacha crap and that went over so poorly the Switch version dropped it, but the sales didn't really wow anyone and it's heavily discounted these days.

Wonder how well it might have done if they focused on the game first and merchandise after being a success?

They announced it is coming at Anime Expo. Even showed a trailer for the anime. Though they haven't released it officially for reasons I don't know. The game might show up at the Direct today.

White Knight Chronicles 3