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Level-5's Jiro Ishii working 'with Takumi-san' on Ace Attorney project
Jiro Ishii directed the "sound novel" 428 for Chunsoft, and is now at Level-5 working on Time Travelers. He's also working with Capcom, on one of the Level-5/Capcom collaborations teased by Keiji Inafune -- a new Ace Attorney game. "Huh? Ah, Gyakuten ○○. I'm working on it with Takumi-san," Ishii tweeted, as translated by Siliconera. "Gyakuten" ("Turnabout") is present in each game's title so far: "Gyakuten Saiban" (Turnabout Judgment) for the original Ace Attorney games, and "Gyakuten Kenji" (Turnabout Prosecutor) for the Investigations series. While it's interesting enough that an adventure game expert from Level-5 and Chunsoft would be working on an Ace Attorney game, there are two more parts of that tweet that we want to press. Ishii obscured the last half of the title, suggesting that it's not Ace Attorney Investigations 2, but rather something unannounced, with a new title. Furthermore, he said he's working with "Takumi-san," likely series creator Shu Takumi, who hasn't been directly involved with the games since Apollo Justice. Which also suggests it's a new game. We'll be in our office reviewing the case files until more evidence comes to light.
Nintendo releases budget line in Japan based on Nintendo Channel rankings
Nintendo of Japan just launched a line of budget Wii re-releases -- something that hasn't happened out of Nintendo in a long time. The Minna no Osusume Selection (Everyone's Recommendation Selection) is a series of third-party games marked down to ¥2,800 ($30.53), and given new box art that pretty much obscures the original image, making it really difficult to tell which game it is. Since the best-selling Wii games are all still selling at full price, Nintendo determined the titles to be released in this collection in a really smart way: with user recommendations from the Nintendo Channel. Each of the games is given a "medal" rank based on the user response, with the most recommended game on the list being Chunsoft's visual novel 428. Other titles in the collection include Muramasa, Arc Rise Fantasia, We Ski & Snowboard, and One Piece and Dragon Ball Z games. See the full list of initial releases after the break.
For Famitsu, 428 equals 40
The Famitsu 40/40 has lost some of its lustre in recent times. Since 1998, the magazine has awarded nine perfect scores, but three have come in 2008, including one for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.However, even we found the latest game to receive the honor surprising. 428: The World Doesn't Change Even So is a "visual novel," a graphical text adventure from roguelike kings Chunsoft that keeps player interaction to a minimum. In other words, it's very unlike any other game to receive a flawless Famitsu grade. In fact, it's unlike most other games, period.We haven't posted a great deal about 428. That's not because we don't find it interesting -- we definitely do. It's because, as Alisha has noted, a game of its ilk is almost entirely impenetrable to our western eyes. Suffice to say, it has now been instantly promoted from "intriguing curio" to "must-own import." Not that a release outside Japan will ever happen.%Gallery-27138%
Monster Hunter 3, two Sega games honored by TGS organizers
CESA announced their list of the best games of TGS 2008, known as the "Future" category of their Japan Game Awards. Of the twelve games given the award (in no specific order), three are on Wii. Of course Capcom's Monster Hunter 3 got a nod; nothing short of not calling it Monster Hunter 3 will keep this from being a ridiculous hit in Japan, and that held true at TGS as well, with the game commanding ridiculous lines. But the two other Wii winners may be more of a surprise: Chunsoft's Sega-published visual novel 428: The World Doesn't Change Even So, and Prope's experimental Let's Tap. Sega must be very happy right about now!For the sake of Nintendo fandom, we'll include the DS winners here as well: the Phoenix Wright spinoff Gyakuten Kenji and Dragon Quest IX, which wasn't even playable.%Gallery-27138%[Via Kotaku]
Nintendo conference screen mega-roundup!
Click for full-sized image Nintendo announced a lot of games last night at their Japanese conference. Many of them, like Punch-Out!! here, were brand new. Some, like Supan Smasher and Cosmic Walker, we still don't know anything about. But we've got screenshots. So many screenshots. After the break, you'll find galleries of all the new games, along with new screens of some upcoming games we've known about for a while. Of special interest to us: the previously-announced Oboro Muramasa Youtouden, coming to the US as Muramasa: The Demon Blade, because it looks super hot, Karaoke Joysound Wii, which appears to have art by Parappa creator Rodney Alan Greenblat, and Takuto of Magic (Wand of Magic), which appears to be a followup to Taito's LostMagic on the DS. %Gallery-33381%
Not quite 428 screens, but a few
Titles like 428 -- a clear member of the outstretched-hand club, even if it's not box art -- make us wish we had a Japanese Wii. Also, that we could understand Japanese. That's probably pretty important when it comes to Sound Novels, and from these shots from the suspenseful 428: The World Doesn't Change Even So, the story looks like it might be worth following.Y'know, if we could. Instead, we'll just have to sift through the images and try to reconstruct the surreal story they paint. And we'll have to be happy with that, since the chances that we'll see an English version are somewhere between negative 15% and a cold day in hell. Too bad -- we really wanted to know what was going on here.%Gallery-27138%[Via GoNintendo]
Chunsoft reveals a suspenseful non-game
In Japan, developer Chunsoft isn't just known for inventing the Mystery Dungeon subgenre of roguelike RPGs. They're also responsible for the development of the "visual novel" genre: graphical text adventures that focus on telling a story with very little player involvement. Chunsoft calls these Sound Novels, a name they have trademarked.The company has announced thier latest Sound Novel as a Wii release. Like most other Chunsoft Sound Novels, the "suspense drama" 428: The World Doesn't Change Even So uses real photographs as backgrounds for its text; while early releases featured silhouettes, the later Sound Novels now use real actors as well. Also like other Sound Novels, it has approximately 0% chance of being released outside of Japan.
