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Frontwing Cancels Sharin no Kuni Game's PS Vita Version

Frontwing announced on the Kickstarter campaign page for its localization and release of AKABEi SOFT2's visual novel Sharin no Kuni ~The Girl Among the Sunflowers~ (Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shōjo) that it has canceled the PlayStation Vita release for the game. The company is offering refunds or the PC version of the game to those who backed the campaign for the PS Vita version.

Frontwing explained that development of the PS Vita version by an outsourced development company had fallen drastically behind schedule, with the game's master version not making the expected October 2020 delivery date. It added that, until November, the PS Vita version still had a number of fatal bugs that prevented Frontwing from sending the game data for pressing to PS Vita discs. In addition, the developer was unable to commit to a definitive deadline for the master. Frontwing clarified that despite the development problems, the "final responsibility of the situation" lay with "the project team, or to be more precise, Frontwing."

Frontwing had previously launched a Kickstarter campaign for the visual novel's English PC release in April 2016 with the title Wheel Country, Sunflower Girl, but later canceled the project. It later relaunched in November later that year, and it met its goal, and it later met a stretch goal for the PS Vita port.

The visual novel's story is set in an unnamed "wheel country," where those who are considered criminals are given "obligations" to fulfill before re-entering society. These obligations take the form of absolute rules, and violation of these rules results in the person's transfer to a forced-labor camp. The individuals who can hand down these obligations are "Special High Class Individuals," a distinct stratum of society. The game's protagonist, Kenichi Morita, is undergoing his final examination to be a "Special High Class Individual," which entails that he return to his hometown and rehabilitate three former classmates, reconnecting him with a past that he had left behind.

AKABEi SOFT2 released the game on the PC in 2005, before releasing it on Xbox 360 in 2010, on PlayStation Portable in 2012, and on PlayStation 3 in 2013. Usami Wataru published a manga adaptation of the game in Kadokawa and ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Daioh magazine from 2008 to 2011. Kadokawa published three compiled book volumes for the manga.

Source: Sharin no Kuni's Kickstarter page (backer-only update) via Gematsu