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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.
Level-5 working on 'Time Travelers' for new hardware
This week's Famitsu (via Andriasang) outs a new project from Professor Layton and Dragon Quest IX developer Level-5: "Time Travelers," the first game out of Level-5's Tokyo office. The project is a collaboration between producer Akihiro Hino and Jiro Ishii, who directed "sound novels," like the acclaimed 428 for Chunsoft. Little is known about the game. The single piece of art featured in the magazine depicts a girl looking out over a ruined city from a clock tower. As translated, Ishii explained that the game has "the theme of the calamity that has become a trauma within me." Ishii is from Nishinomiya, a city affected by the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995. As mysterious as Time Travelers may be, even less is known about the platform its being developed for. Hino said that the game is "centered on hardware that's not yet in this world; [and] it will expand to other hardware." It does seem appropriate that a game about time travel would be announced for a platform that doesn't exist yet. Considering Level-5's success on the DS, we'd guess Time Travelers is in development for 3DS, though it could also be designed for Project Natal or PlayStation Move --- or even a platform that's yet to be revealed. How great would a 3D game called Time Travelers be, though?
