NEW WII RPG Little King’s Story arrival on April 24th is a rare thing – a Japanese-developed game that launches in Europe before being released in its home territory.

Dubbed by the publisher as ‘one of the first new IPs of 2009’ the game is now being backed up with an extensive media campaign. Rising Star Games says the decision to release the game in the West first is a show of the faith by the game’s developers.

“For a title developed in Japan, this really highlights the growing importance of Europe to the gaming industry,” Rising Star’s product marketing assistant Yen Hau told MCV.

“It is a massive step to take considering the usual time it takes to fully localise a title for separate European languages.

“For Marvellous Entertainment to place such a strong faith in both the European market and Rising Star Games in particular demonstrates how important this is in the scheme of things.”

Rising Star hopes the game’s broad appeal ensures a target audience of ‘potentially anyone who owns a Wii’.

Hau said: “Along with the usual blitz over print and online advertising, we will also run a number of road shows, which will continue past the release date in mid-April
and culminate with our attendance at the London MCM Expo in May.

“The road shows are planned to continue past May so the opportunity to continue promoting Little King’s Story after this event is a possibility. To reach the mass audience, we are also planning several product demonstration days to non-specialist press.

“Then there are the in-store campaigns, in which we plan to include both national and indie retailers.”

Hau said: “We have planned a number of activities which we feel will effectively get the Little King’s Story message across and reinforce Rising Star as the ‘Home of Japanese Games’.”