13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Launches In the West September 8

Sega, Atlus West and Vanillaware has finally revealed a release date for the western version of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. The game will be launching on PS4 on September 8, 2020. The announcement came via IGN’s Summer of Gaming.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is fully voiced. Due to Covid-19, the western version will only feature Japanese voices at launch, and add English ones in a free update. Subtitles include English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is a big departure from past Vanillaware games. Exiting fantasy, the intrigue takes place in the modern world, through multiple eras. Thirteen protagonists try to save the world from an alien invasion. The game is sci-fi themed, with mecha (the titular Sentinels), Kaiju, time-travel, nanomachines, and more. The story is complex, but never overly complicated. Players constantly get new answers, and new mysteries to ponder on, as they play the game at their own pace. Selecting which protagonist’s story to progress.

This new masterpiece directed and written by George Kamitani is also a big change gameplay-wise. The game is faithful to the beautiful 2D environments and animations of Vanillaware. However, 13 Sentinels isn’t an Action RPG but an ADV (Adventure) game. The gameplay doesn’t invovle swinging a sword around but talking with the game’s characters.

As for the battle system. The 13 protagonists fight the Kaiju with their Sentinels, in an original mix of tactical RPG and tower defense. Each protagonist pilots one out of 4 different types of Sentinels. We have All-Purposes types, Close-Ranged types, Long-Ranged type, and Flying types. Each character and Sentinel has its specific weapons and skills you can customize.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Western Release Trailer

13 Sentinels is held in high regard by NieR Automata‘s Yoko Taro, Super Smash Bros Ultimate’s Masahiro Sakurai, and many other Japanese personalities, who have praised the game. The sci-fi adventure was also nominated for Game of the Year and won Best Scenario Award at the Famitsu Dengeki Game Awards 2019 held in April 2020. The game sold quite poorly at launch in Japan, but managed to sell slightly more and more thanks to its reputation. The latest official sales figure in Japan is 130k copies sold, physically and digitally, as announced by Atlus on April 24, 2020. Considering an Asian version with Chinese subtitles released on march 19, 2020, the worldwide sales figure should be slightly higher.

「第51回星雲賞」の「メディア部門」に『十三機兵防衛圏』がノミネートされました！
日本のSF及び周辺ジャンルのアワードとしては最も長い歴史を誇る「星雲賞」に候補作として挙げて頂き、大変光栄です。
星雲賞公式サイト⇒ https://t.co/judZSi23Ud #星雲賞 #十三機兵防衛圏 pic.twitter.com/xNR34XOk8D

— アトラス公式アカウント (@Atlus_jp) May 10, 2020

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim was also nominated for the Media category of the for 51st Seiun Award in May 2020, a prestigious Japanese award rewarding sci-fi works. Gunparade March is the only game which won the Media category of the Seiun Awardn in 2001. If 13 Sentinels wins, and it has a pretty good shot, it’ll be the first game to win in 19 years. Voting is on from May 7 to July 5, and the results will be announced at the Japanese SF convention, F-CON, on March 13, 14, 2021.

Check out our translated Let’s Play of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

DualShockers does a live translation let’s play of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. I’ve covered around 1/5 of the game so far. While the project is currently on hiatus, it will restart soon.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim launched in Japan on November 28, exclusively on PS4. Vanillaware announced 13 Sentinels on September 2015, for PS4 and PS Vita. However, it was teased in 2013, when the artwork seen above was published on Vanillaware’s official site. Celebrating 2013 New Years. This artwork, later on, turned to be related to the game.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim‘s western release was announced at E3 2017. This is the first time we’re having official word on the western release since then.

Vanillaware President George Kamitani and a lot of his staff used to work at Atlus. Over there, they most notably made Princess Crown on Sega Saturn. And it never released outside Japan. In fact, first print copies of 13 Sentinels in Japan included a PS4 digital port of Princess Crown.

In February 2020, George Kamitani confirmed Vanillaware is already working on its next game, and we’ve seen a short teaser as well. George Kamitani and Kinoko Nasu also did an interview together in the Fate/stay night 15th anniversary artbook.