TouchDetective
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Site recalls worst boxart of 2007, DS titles dominate
Games Radar's choices for the worst examples of boxart in 2007 don't necessarily coincide with our own, though even we would be hard pushed to dispute the inclusion of the above travesty in this hall of shame. Of the fifteen titles listed by GR, five are to be found on the DS, with OMG 26: Our Mini Games (#2), Julie Finds a Way (#4), John Deere: Harvest in the Heartland (#6), Touch Detective 2½ (#11), and Etrian Odyssey (#14) all charting.Jump past the break for more boxart that only a mother could love. Just remember that DS boxart can also be hella awesome.
Put Funghi all over your face
Just in time for Halloween, Atlus has added something to the download section of the Touch Detective 2 1/2 website: masks! Now you can make your own paper representation of one of the game's iconic characters. We can hardly think of anything more unsettling when it comes to cheap Halloween getups. Skip past the jump to see how the masks look in versions far smaller than your face.However, the masks will probably not be enough to win you one of the prizes in the Atlus Halloween Costume Contest being held on their official forums.
WRUP: Elementary, my dear Watson edition
This week's releases mark a sequel to the first Touch Detective game from Atlus. Aside from Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck, it's the highest profile title on the list, for us at least. In fact, we're feeling like we're in the mood to solve a mystery, but with so many games coming out in the next few months, we're not sure if our budget will allow it. In fact, we should probably go check our finances right now.While we're doing that, why not let us know what you folks will be playing this weekend?
DS releases for the week of October 8th
Don't relax just yet, fanfolk -- that wallet isn't getting a break any time soon. Just when you thought you might get a chance to recover from buying Phantom Hourglass, a bevy of new and interesting releases is coming our way. You want action? Check. You want humor? Check and check again. There's a good set this week, and we're not even up to the holidays yet. Bleach: The Blade of Fate The Cheetah Girls: Pop Star Sensations Flipper Critters FIFA Soccer 08 Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck Touch Detective 2 1/2 To see what's happening in the rest of the world, slip past the break.
Touch Detective 2 1/2 site goes live
Oh, Mackenzie. We can't help but love you, with your quirky little face and even quirkier cast of extras. And thanks to the brand new site for Touch Detective 21⁄2, we can wallow in new screenshots, character profiles, and more. The best part? The site is filled to the brim with the two things that are best about this burgeoning franchise: the art design and the humor. Also, if anything was ever great avatar material, it is Space Salmon. Someone slap a Mario hat on that guy and use him on Joystiq.
Touch Detective 2 1/2 trailer
Game|Life did some investigating (possibly involving touching something-- at least a keyboard) and came across a new trailer for the US version of Touch Detective 2 1/2. This trailer is impressively fast-paced and exciting, and is doing a pretty good job of getting us interested in the sequel to a not-that-great game! We really want to root for it, because of the adventure-ness and the bizarre art style, but then, we felt the same way about the first game. The trailer is relatively light on the Funghi, so you can watch this at work with impunity. That is, unless you want to look like you're working.
DS Daily: So about those new Atlus games ...
With yesterday's announcement of three all-new (well, one is only half-new) games for the US from Atlus, we thought it might be a good time to ask which one sounds the most interesting to you. Do you want to do a little detecting with Mackenzie and her suspiciously-shaped sidekick? Are you more the type to get down with the rhythm, particularly when it looks inspired by Jet Grind Radio? Or do you want to be a Grapping superstar?So what'll it be? Ontamarama, Draglade, or Touch Detective 2½?
Atlus USA announces new games for E3
Quirky game champion, Atlus USA, today announced several new games to be shown during the E3 media summit. Featuring medical professionals, touchy-feely detectives and gyrating combatants (sadly not in the same game), the lineup focuses primarily on the Nintendo DS. Draglade (Nintendo DS)It's a beat 'em up, you see, where "it's not just about how hard you hit or fast you move, it's also how well you can groove." Released in Japan earlier this year, Draglade features clashing combatants equipped with "glades," weapons that emit distinct sounds when struck against something -- preferably your opponent's head. With the sounds of battle forming a symphony of destruction, we're half expecting a playable Pied Piper character.
Touch Detective sequel continues to taunt us with fungus
Before Touch Detective hit shelves, we were obsessed with it -- the dark, unique look, the intriguing characters ... we couldn't get enough! The game itself, however, didn't really deliver; there was too much going on to enjoy Mackenzie's wackiness on the top screen, and the puzzles were less-than-optimal.And yet ... faced with a sequel ... we're back on the love train. We can't help it. It must be the rapidly multiplying shape of Mackenzie's sidekick, Funghi, shown in the opening movie. He's hypnotic and we're powerless before him. We love the music, we love the wacky parade of characters, and when the localized sequel lands near us, we'll probably pick it up again and hope for the best.Sometimes, even knowing better just doesn't matter in the face of pretty, pretty art.
Hardboiled detective title coming to the DS, but not the US
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Tantei Jinguuji Saburou's (Detective Saburo Jinguji) debut on the Famicom Disk System, WorkJam plans to bring the adventure game series to the DS. Despite appearing on a multitude of consoles ranging from mobile phones to the PS2, the chain-smoking sleuth's bebop-jazz-filled murder mysteries haven't yet been localized for the US audience.Given the success of Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk in the states, both of them also being adventure titles, perhaps we'll finally see an English translation for this one? Come on Atlus, we can cross Touch Detective 2 off the possible-projects list and bring this gumshoe game over instead, right?Players investigate their cases through menu-based interrogations and actions, piecing together clues found at crime scenes while taking Saburo through Shinjuku's tough streets. Bring your magnifying glass and deerstalker hat past the post break for screenshots of the stylish DS title and a gameplay trailer from the series' GBA release, Detective Saburo Jinguji: The Woman With the White Shadow.
DS Fanboy Favorites: Alisha's top five
All this week, the DS Fanboy staff is letting you in on a few of their favorite titles. Each day, a different member of the staff will present their personal top five DS games along with a snapshot of their gaming paraphernalia and habits, in an effort to provide our readers with a little more information on the tastes and personalities of our writers.If there's anything that can be said about my life -- and that includes my gaming life -- it's that it's messy. I'm messy. I have all this organizational garbage that's supposed to make it easier to store and find all my stuff, but see, I keep accumulating more stuff, and so I need more organizational items ... it's a vicious cycle, and it's part of why I love cartridges. I know where the box is for Clubhouse Games. It's about three feet away as I type this. I could get it, but why? Clubhouse Games goes in and out of my beloved handheld so often, I usually just leave it here on my desk along with the other games I'm interested in at the moment, and I don't have to worry about it getting all scratched up because it isn't delicate like some pansy disc. This makes me happy. I have to be more careful with CDs and DVDs ... but that doesn't mean there aren't a few stacks of discs around my workspace. Believe me, if it's at all stackable, I'm gonna stack it, and to hell with the consequences.Of course, the problem with the size of DS carts means that sometimes I lose my Clubhouse for a while, and that makes me unhappy to the extreme. Luckily, there are other games that can distract me ....
A few Touch Detective Season 2 1/2 screens, and one creepy wallpaper
More news from Success today! Famitsu posted a few screens of Touch Detective Season 2 1/2 (Osawari Tantei Ozawa Rina Season 2/12). It turns out that the "Season" appelation is not just being clever; the game looks identical to its predecessor, meaning that the new content is limited to story, rather than graphics or gameplay. This is fine! We can appreciate restraint.Also, over at the Japanese home page, a "download" section has popped up with a weird, weird March calendar wallpaper. Feel free to browse around the home page and read the developer blog if you can. Just in case you don't feel like messing around with kanji or Flash, we've provided the wallpaper, and the Famitsu screens, after the break.
Touch Detective toys, because touching is good
Really, these Touch Detective figures speak for themselves. In fact, they even serve as a great review for the game: cute, yet more than a little creepy, and weirdly enigmatic. They repel us, and yet we want them. We're willing to bet that Mackenzie's gaze follows you wherever you go ....
Touch Detective sequel on the way
We thought it would happen and now we have confirmation that a sequel for Touch Detective, which is being called Touch Detective 2 1/2, is on the way (to Japan, at least). Of course, with the lukewarm review scores the critics gave the game, there's a possibility that Atlus might not bring it over to the states and other territories. Personally, we'd be disappointed, because even if the puzzles were a bit frustrating, the characters in the game were a riot.[Via Game Front]
Touch Detective 2 on the way?
We can't decide if this is surprising or not, but from the new page at the Success site, it looks like Mackenzie will be back (with her funny-shaped pal) for another round of quirky mysteries. Considering the mixed reviews, we can't say we expected another Touch Detective game immediately, but hey! What fun would it be if the industry didn't offer up a few surprises here and there, amirite?For now, we'll hope that they focus on the things they got right with the first installment -- like the humor, art style, and characters -- and work a little on the opaque mysteries that were, at times, somewhat like pounding one's face with a sledgehammer. [Via 4cr]
Metareview: Touch Detective
Color us disappointed. Touch Detective looks so fascinating, from the unusual art style to the story to the eyebrow-raisingly strange sidekick Funghi. We were looking forward to it, and still are ... just with less fervor. It's interesting to note that while the game is often compared in reviews to Trace Memory (and, of course, our beloved Phoenix Wright), due to the gameplay and style, the way reviewers refer to Trace Memory is quite varied (it's terrible! it's great! it's so-so!), so it's probably not surprising that some love Touch Detective and others think the developers should probably be beaten. Most of the reviews have one thing in common, however -- the gameplay aspect of Touch Detective, well, it isn't so good. GameSpy - 40%: Touch Detective may have the weirdest, driest sense of humor I've ever encountered in a game. It's rarely if ever laugh-out-loud funny, but it did make me smile a bunch, particularly when reading Mackenzie's secret thoughts on the top screen. The localized script is very capably written. Despite all this, the storylines are just not very intriguing. Worse, the game isn't very engaging to play. The puzzles are a weird combination of simple yet obtuse; there's generally not a lot of items you can get at any one time, yet the way you use them is often weird enough that the solution's not very obvious. Sometimes I'd seem to run out of options, which led to much frustrated back-tracking through the game's decidedly small number of environments. The problem often turned out to be that I simply hadn't clicked in the right place on a certain screen; for example, in a store, it transpired that only one of the items was purchasable, and it took me several trips there (and a lucky tap) to figure out I could get the item I knew I wanted. That's the epitome of very annoying game design.
A quartet of new Touch Detective videos touch our heart
When we aren't busy touching our DS (and Joystiq isn't busy touching on disgusting topics during interviews), we like to casually daydream about Touch Detective. Atlus always does such a bang-up job on their localizations, we feel compelled to seek out their projects and make them our own. Touch Detective is no exception.It brings us great amounts of joy to report that IGN has put up 4 new videos of the game. You may find them all conveniently located right here.
A touching talk with Touch Detective's Jamie Ortiz
Joystiq's Ludwig Kietzmann sat down recently with Touch Detective's project lead, Jamie Ortiz, for a little hands-on. Or more likely just discussion, since we're pretty sure there's a court order floating around that keeps Ludwig at least twenty feet from everyone in the industry. Among other topics, they discussed the challenges involved in translating a story-heavy game from Japanese into English and the changes that had to be made -- and how they tackled those challenges while remaining true to the original characters. They spent a little time exploring the art style as well, and Ortiz mentioned that the style is often compared to Tim Burton's work, but we prefer the comparison one of our readers here at DS Fanboy drew -- the style looks influenced by the work of Jhonen Vasquez, the brilliant and twisted mind behind Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee!, and Invader Zim.And it seems we're not the only ones who think Funghi is somewhat questionable in shape, though the esteemed Mr. Ortiz did not seem to share our opinion. We'll leave it up to you to decide.
Joystiq interviews Touch Detective's Jamie Ortiz
If the adventure genre truly is dead, it's the kind of dead you find mulling about in a shoestring budget zombie flick. All visible signs point to a loss of life, but the supposed corpse is still surprisingly animated, shambling towards you in search of an exposed brain. Before you know it, you've been surrounded and your only choices concern the order in which you lose vital body parts. While Atlus' Touch Detective is likely a good deal more fun than being eaten alive by a snarling, undead force (that quote coming to a review soon!), it forms a firm part of the genre's inability to stay beneath the ground. A traditional adventure game in almost every sense, Touch Detective joins Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Trace Memory on the portable platform that seems to have been made for pointing and clicking. Or rather, touching. The DS lends itself well to typical adventure gameplay mechanics, though a functional interface does not a good game make. The story, the characters and the puzzles are the elements you'll remember as being stellar or awful. Touch Detective promises to lump itself into the former and largely preferable category as it follows the adventures of a young sleuth searching for answers, culprits and stolen dreams. Using our finely attuned detective and e-mailing skills, we grilled the game's project lead, Jamie Ortiz, about the game, localization and questionably shaped mushrooms:
Touch Detective's sinister boxart
Touch Detective leaves us a little speechless around the DS Fanboy offices. The game looks great, but there's just something about the art style that seems ... well ... sinister. Creepy, even. Sure, the game will be a blast. It's the new Phoenix Wright -- offbeat and interesting story and touchscreen-centric gameplay. But just look at the characters! We can handle the robot butler, though with that beaky nose, he resembles some sort of evil muppet refugee from the '80s. But Mackenzie, the heroine, looks perpetually terrified and it makes us wonder if she's just traumatized by the death of her father or if maybe that little phallic mushroom guy is exploiting her offscreen.Or maybe we just have too much time on our hands. Touch Detective will be available for a little hands-on next month.
