Gnosia highlights the power of Vita

Last year I wrote a couple of pieces on Gnosia, a sci-fi visual novel from a tiny Japanese studio. The game is still Japan-only but almost a year on is now arriving on Switch. The original launched picked up a 10/10 from IGN Japan, won Famitsu's best indie game award, and lots of interest from Nintendo which is why its landing on Switch now.



The all-too-clear message, Vita was/is a good place to get noticed, as highlighted in this new Bloomberg article. While it is too late to do any good for the Vita, hopefully Sony will realise that handheld still has value, not everything has to played on a 50-inch screen and smaller platforms can deliver the next generation of studios, hopefully it won't dump its next device that doesn't sell in the 100s of millions.

More importantly, now that Gnosia (JP PSN page) is getting plenty of kudos and good vibes, someone will pick up the Vita version for a western port. And perhaps a few more developers will realise that having a stab at the Vita is a good way to get noticed, even though there is no money in it.

I also wonder if someone at Sony's partner studios isn't tinkering with the idea of bringing Soul Sacrifice or Freedom Wars to the Switch, as there is plenty of mileage in both games. What other Vita games are yet to make a break for cross-platform freedom?

Gnosia isn't a bad parting gift from the Vita, along with all the other publishers who broke ground on the handheld when the majors went away and are now growing up into bigger, better things. Remember their names next time someone associates the Vita with failure.