In 2003, Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) released a tactical-RPG known as Disgaea: Hour of Darkness for the PS2. The title was a solid RPG, with a nice battle system and a silly off-beat plot. Although it flew under the radar, each new entry has seen the player base grow and grow. The producer of the franchise, Sohei Niikawa, impressed his superiors with the direction of the franchise so much that in 2009, he was appointed CEO of NIS. This was a position he held until he suddenly stepped down in 2022, citing ‘personal issues’. No reason for his departure was ever made public.
Fast forward to 2025, and I’m sitting in a room with Sohei Niikawa, talking about his reemergence, new company SuperNiche, and the first video game published, Etrange Overlord. He’s joined by Shaun Cox, a Senior Coordinator from NIS America who doubles up as his translator and travel companion throughout the press tour. It would seem that whatever reasons he had for leaving the company didn’t cause a Kojima-style falling out.
During our time together, we discussed numerous different topics, ranging from the game Niikawa was here to promote, his approach to game development and the stories he wants to tell, to what the future holds. We even discussed an annoying fire alarm test that managed to interrupt us on multiple occasions, but let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
What happened 2022-2025
After he decided to step down as CEO at Nippon Ichi Software, Sohei Niikawa disappeared off the map for a while, but rather than sit around on the couch playing video games, he decided to pick up a pen and start writing. In a few short months, under the pseudonym Roman Kitayama, he had come up with the manga Etrange Overlord. Which was picked up in Japan.
When asked if this was conceived during his time as CEO, Niikawa responded, “This was the first thing that I wrote after I started out on my own, after I had separated from NIS right after I went independent.” Etrange Overlord is a passion project for Niikawa, with him continuing, “the strategy [for Etrange Overlord] was, from the outset, to eventually take it from manga to make it a game.”
Etrange Overlord
So what is the game about? In Niikawa-san’s words, “The villainous genre has been pretty popular within Japan, and the way that these stories typically go is that you have someone who’s of High Society, who has a very abrasive personality, and people tend not to like her, and they end up getting executed. Sometimes, like time will rewind and go back to when they were a young child, kind of reflect on their previous life and say, Okay, well, this time I’m going to try and do better. And so I thought, okay, I’d like to make something in that vein, but with a very different approach. While I really liked the genre, there was one thing that always bothered me about it, which was that all of these women who were former villains, they would regret their actions and think they needed to change themselves. I just kind of thought, why? Can’t they just live however they want to live, but in hell?”
This approach comes across in the first 5 minutes of Etrange Overlord. After Etrange is executed, she dusts herself off and sets about her day like nothing had happened. From here, I could see where the humour of Niikawa’s past games, especially Disgaea, came from. Niikawa confirms with a smile, “She just wanted her sweets in hell to enjoy life.”
It’s not just about carrying on as though nothing had happened. There’s a deeper meaning to Etrange Overlord Niikawa-san wants players to understand, “And there’s also kind of a message built into it that I sort of want to connect with audiences, because I think there are a lot of people in the world that are kind of, you know, holding that part of themselves back a little bit. So I like the takeaway for players to be like, even if I’m not fully free and open to be myself right now, maybe I could be a little more free than what I am.”
It’s an interesting message to put out there, especially when some people might find they are having a crisis of identity. He relates this to his own time as CEO of NIS, “Three years ago, I actually quit working with Nippon Ichi Software. So right now for me, it’s like, I’m in her shoes as well, because I’m also starting kind of a second life for myself. A lot of my thoughts and feelings are kind of synchronised and poured into her as a character. Since this was also the first thing that I wrote after I started out on my own.” It’s an inspiring thought that a man who’s well-liked within the industry and has been the top dog at NIS for over a decade could up and quit to discover what he wants out of life.
I think there are a lot of people in the world that are kind of, you know, holding that part of themselves back a little bit.
Sohei Niikawa
After discussing the time between leaving NIS and coming back with Etrange Overlord (seen in the first part of this interview), we came back to the game itself. One of the key announcements was that it was a musical game. Each chapter that I played during the demo is punctuated with a regency-style track summerising what’s going on with the characters.
On this Niikawa said, “The musical aspect of it actually came after we had already sort of settled on the gameplay systems. I initially made the request [to the artists], I had said, Okay, I want to have about ten pieces of music, and one for each, each chapter. And then, working with the development staff, they kind of had their own ideas about, oh, maybe if we put it in the number, the musical number here, you know, this would be the most interesting place to add it. And so everybody had a lot of fun, kind of figuring out where we wanted to place those sequences.”
The gameplay is a departure from Disgaea, employing more of an action-RPG spin on things. Again, this was deliberately planned out, “with the gameplay itself, it is more of an action RPG than Disgaea, where it’s strategy. That was a conscious choice, and there are two reasons. The first reason is that Gem Drops (the co-developer of Etrange Overlord) is a company that’s very good at developing action games. The second reason is because I wanted to put a lot of importance on the tempo of the character. Because SRPGs can to be very time-consuming, you spend a lot of time moving one unit after the other, I wanted to do something to kind of speed up the process for the player, so that there’s a faster tempo to it.”
It makes sense; the opening levels are zippy, with minimal tutorials that let you get on with enjoying the game. SuperNiche expect the game to clock in at around 20-25 hours for a full run, but Niikawa was coy to lay everything, especially the 4 player mode, on the table.
The Future
Throughout the interview, Niikawa-san slid various cards towards me, games he was involved in developing. Etrange Overlord might be his own personal passion right now, but he’s not resting on his laurels, and his SuperNiche company is looking to make a splash in the game development world. In 2026, this new enterprise will aim to release three additional games: Demon’s Night Fever, Devil Reversi, and CosmicGalaxy Wars.
Today wasn’t the time to talk about these titles, rather a means to stress that Niikawa hasn’t been sitting at home for the last two years. With the support of NIS America still behind him, I got a sense that his creativity is no longer being held back by having to report sales figures back to investors. As we wrapped up the interview (Niikawa and Cox were off to catch a train to Paris for more press and better food), he made a request. He wanted to assure the people who have been following him for the last few decades that he is back and enjoying every moment of this next stage in his career.
Niikawa is one of those rare breed developers who creates a game exactly how he wants. “I’ve never really thought about making games from a stance of, you know, I’m trying to make this for a global audience, so much as I have something that I can personally bring to the table as a Japanese creator, that, and I want to make games around that.”
Despite two days of solid interviews, a language barrier, and the prospect of travelling to a different country, on British train tracks no less, Niikawa’s passion for video games and the stories he was creating came through in droves. The aura that he extruded was passionate and warm. It was hard to come away and not be excited for Etrange Overlord, or whatever SuperNiche cook up in the coming years.
The lovely folks at Reef Entertainment arranged the interview with Niikawa as part of a large press tour where folks were given a hands-on experience with Etrange Overlord. Although Reef Entertainment covered travel expenses, VGamingNews was not paid for any coverage (positive or otherwise).
