The Grimm Reapress and the Drearytale Monster Game Heads West

NIS America announced on Friday that it will release The Grimm Reapress and the Drearytale Monster ( Shinigami Hime to Ishokan no Kaibutsu ) game in the West for Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam in 2027. The company unveiled an announcement trailer:

The game launched on Switch, Switch 2, and PS5 in Japan on April 30.

The fantasy side-scrolling adventure game features a picture book aesthetic and storytelling style. The story centers on Mono (voiced by Rena Motomura ), the child of a family that runs an opera house. Mistreated and cast aside, she does chores for her family around the opera house, and lives in the attic, loved only by her beloved older sister ( Reina Kondo ), who teaches her of opera and dance. One day, her sister is infected with a virulent disease known as Paper Mortis (Shinigami-byō) that eventually turns all it infects into a picture book, and eventually into a horrific "paper monster." The disease seems to greatly affect teenage girls in particular. The state has given up on curing it, and instead confines patients into facilities known as Asylum Libraries, where they are allowed to waste away.

With her sister confined in one such facility, Mono sets out toward it, desperate to do the impossible: to find a way to reverse her sister's disease. Within the Asylum Library, she finds it overrun with paper monsters, and filled with strange warps in reality: manifestations of the picture books that patients have turned into, expanded into a bizarre realm that contains their memories and traumas. Mono encounters a legendary paper monster named Mär ( Makoto Koichi ), with whom Mono forges an uneasy alliance. Mär is keen on exacting revenge against the human race for a past grievance, but will protect Mono as she navigates the Asylum Library and the picture book worlds in search of her sister.

Kento Jobana ( Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero , Disgaea 7 ) directed and wrote the game. Illustrator Sayaka Oda ( The Cruel King and the Great Hero , The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince ) was the character designer and illustrator for the game. Takeshi Matsumoto ( The Cruel King and the Great Hero , The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince ) composed the music for the game. Akiko Shikata , known for her work in the Ar Tonelico series, performs the game's theme song. Shikata also performed songs for The Cruel King and the Great Hero and The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince .

Source: Press release