Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 57

The Nine Sols Demo is Out and Seems Promising!

Last week we talked about Nine Sols, the upcoming Taopunk action platformer from Red Candle Games, and how a demo was supposed to come out.

Well, the demo is out now on Steam, so I tried it out over the weekend.

I was surprised by how quickly I became interested in its story and characters. The demo seems to be the start of the game, with Yi living alongside a human child before a sinister ceremony causes him to embark on his mission.

Combat has a few different elements that took a bit of getting used to, but once I practiced with it, I liked it. In addition to your basic attack, you can deflect enemy attacks to build up energy and then unleash it in a special attack.

That attack is much more effective than simply hacking at enemies, which led to a rhythm of deflecting strikes and then attacking.

There are certain spots where you can rest, restoring your health and healing items and acting as a checkpoint. It doesn’t seem as though you’ll level up stats in that way, though. Instead, there are unlockable nodes on a skill tree to provide you with upgrades and benefits.

The demo lasts up through the first boss fight, but a second, more challenging boss is also accessible from the main menu afterwards.

I enjoyed the Nine Sols demo a lot, so I’m looking forward to the main game. The only concern I have is that combat could start to feel repetitive (especially long boss fights), but overall I liked what I saw in the demo and am interested in how it will progress.

I’ll probably back the Nine Sols crowdfunding campaign now, so be sure to take a look at the Nine Sols demo to see what you think.

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Amnesia: Later x Crowd and Other NGPX Highlights

Yesterday was the New Game Plus Expo, which you can watch here if you want to catch all the announcements.

The biggest news was probably that we’re getting the Switch port of Amnesia: Memories, along with Amnesia: Later x Crowd.

Amnesia is an otome visual novel we discussed last year, but Later x Crowd is a bundle of the two fandisks (Amnesia: Later and Amnesia: Crowd) that were never released outside of Japan.

So while seeing an Amnesia port wasn’t too exciting, seeing it followed by Later x Crowd was big news.

Now, I had mixed feelings when I finished Amnesia, but I’ll pick up Later x Crowd for the sake of the two love interests I really liked, and because apparently Later has part that focuses on Waka, the unromanceable side character I preferred to half the actual love interests.

It also looks like the limited edition will allow you to choose whether you want Amnesia: Memories, Later x Crowd, or both, so that’s cool.

Aside from the Amnesia news, Idea Factory also showed off the trailer and June 28 release date for Birushana, which would have been much more exciting if the trailer hadn’t accidentally gone live last week. It also turns out that Aksys is handling the Jack Jeanne localization, not IFI or PQube, and that was officially shown as well.

So does this mean Amnesia was the mysterious third otome title teased by Idea Factory last year? That’s unclear. It seems probable, but they haven’t actually said so yet.

(They also teased an unannounced game, with their hints being a black cat and a cauldron, which has added to the confusion since they didn’t specify if that’s otome or something else.)

Anyway, outside of the otome news, there wasn’t a lot at NGPX that caught my eye. Dusk Diver 2 localization had already been announced, but was featured prominently at the event, and that looks like it could be cool. The PS2 stealth game Kamizawa: Way of the Thief is also being remastered, so I’m curious about that. And even though NIS Classics Vol. 2 isn’t out yet, a third collection has now been announced, containing La Pucelle: Ragnarok (the La Pucelle remake that was never translated before) and Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (based on the PlayStation version).

None of the other games stood out to me as much, but let me know if I overlooked one that was a favorite for you!

Oh, and I’d just like to point out that Amnesia: Later originally came out in 2012. Amnesia: Crowd originally came out in 2013. After all this time, they definitely fit into the “that’s never getting localized!” category, so I’m adding it to the list of unexpected localizations. The Yakuza spin-offs are surely next (please).

Are you excited for any of the games announced or showcased at the New Game Plus Expo?

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Action Platformer Nine Sols is the Next Game from Red Candle Games

We’ve talked a few times about Red Candle Games, as they developed the excellent horror game Detention, as well as Devotion, which I finally got to play last year.

But their next game, Nine Sols, is something significantly different.

Nine Sols was first announced last December after being teased earlier in the year, and Red Candle Games recently started a crowdfunding campaign for it.

(They’re handling the campaign personally, which I wonder if is a response to the disaster that was Devotion’s delisting. I’ve seen a few sites say it’s being funded through Kickstarter, but either those writers are using “Kickstarter” in a generic sense or I missed something.)

While Detention was a 2D side-scrolling horror game and Devotion was a first-person horror game, Nine Sols is a 2D action platformer set in a “Taopunk” world, with gameplay inspired by Sekiro, Hollow Knight, and Katana Zero.

You’ll play as Yi, a forgotten hero on a quest for revenge against the 9 Sols that rule over the land. It features an interconnected world made up of multiple regions, a leveling system with skills and upgrades to unlock, and deflection-based combat, among other details explained on the crowdfunding page.

It looks pretty good, and normally I would have said I’d absolutely back their next game, but I’m a little unsure since it’s so different from their previous games, especially since I haven’t played any of the listed inspirations (yet). However, GamesRadar reported that a demo is coming next week, so if so, I’ll be sure to check that out.

Anyway, the crowdfunding campaign is doing quite well, as they already made it well past their initial goal and are working toward the first stretch goal.

If you’re interested in Nine Sols, be sure to check out the crowdfunding page. How do you think this intriguing departure will compare to their past games?

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Ace Attorney Mobile Trilogy to be Replaced By the Better Version

There’s a good chance you thought the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy was the same across all its various releases, but that’s not quite true.

The mobile version in particular had several problems and was considered the worst of the available versions.

(The mobile port of the first game alone, which is actually what got me into the series and was much better, was taken down in favor of that, too.)

Anyway, Capcom announced that the mobile version of the Phoenix Wright Trilogy is being discontinued on June 9.

However, it will be replaced by a port of the Phoenix Wright Trilogy that has been released on everything else.

Save data won’t carry over, but in short, soon the mobile trilogy will match the better version available on other systems. Considering the problems the mobile version had, I’m surprised it took them this long.

The announcement has only been made for Japan so far, but I assume the same will happen globally.

Okay, so this isn’t quite the exciting Ace Attorney news we’ve been hoping to see, but anything that makes it easier for people to play the games is a good thing! I’m still holding out hope for something to come of that mysterious Apollo Justice trademark.

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Toree 3D is Like the Creepypasta Version of a Colorful Platformer

Another game that caught my eye when I picked it up in a bundle is Toree 3D, a colorful 3D platformer with a low poly aesthetic.

You play as a duck trying to get back his stolen ice cream, but that’s not especially important. It’s just an excuse to get you platforming through 9 stages.

It’s a short, basic 3D platformer. You can walk, run, and jump (and double jump). Each level has a number of stars for you to collect on your way to the goal.

I was a little disappointed to see it didn’t have much exploration, since exploration-based 3D platformers are my favorite, but it’s fun enough for what it is. Each level is very short, roughly 5 minutes or less depending on how well you do. It times you, and gives you a rank at the end.

So all in all, it ends up being a short game, although there are two additional characters you can unlock. Its biggest appeal is probably to people who want to replay levels for faster times.

But there’s another odd layer to Toree 3D, and that’s its horror elements. Occasionally, the sound glitches out, the music gets distorted, the happy faces in the background turn creepy… it becomes a twisted version of itself, for no clear reason, before reverting back to its bright, colorful style.

I was hoping the horror elements were building up to something, but they weren’t, as far as I can tell. They’re just there.

It feels like the creepypasta version of a 3D platformer. You know, like somewhere out there would be normal copies of Toree 3D, but you got the one where weird stuff starts happening.

That’s an interesting style to intentionally emulate, although I still wish the game did more with it. While reading about it afterwards to see if I had missed something, I also came across the Super Mario 64 Iceberg and the personalization meme, which was so entertaining to read through, I wonder if any game has tried to more closely mimic that yet.

(Reading about that made me realize that something in Super Mario 64 scared me as a kid, and I feel as though I might have had a Super Mario 64 related nightmare within the past few years, which is… strange. This has also made me nostalgically want to revisit Super Mario 64.)

Anyway, Toree 3D was cute and short. I wish it had done more with its creepy elements, but it was fun to spend a little time with.

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Let’s Talk About the Kaito Files

Back ahead of Lost Judgment’s launch, we talked a bit about its DLC.

I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of side content being locked behind DLC, especially when that includes side cases as part of the day-one DLC.

But the one piece of DLC I had no problem with was final piece, a story expansion DLC set for spring 2022 called the Kaito Files.

Spring is here, and the Kaito Files has had its release date announced: March 28.

The Kaito Files begins with Kaito watching over the agency alone while Yagami is on a business trip, when he accepts a missing persons case that ends up tying into his own past. Several tweets have shown off new characters, Kaito’s combat, and more. Apparently he can also look, listen, and… sniff for clues.

Leave the fancy detective gadgets at home, Kaito's strong senses and investigative instincts are all he needs. Tap into his Primal Focus to literally sniff out clues, identify suspects and crack the case. #TheKaitoFiles #LostJudgment pic.twitter.com/BwkHxUMpua

— RGG Studio (@RGGStudio) March 21, 2022

All of this sounds great, and plenty of screenshots have been shown off as well.

Now, it seems that the Kaito Files will cost $29.99 on its own, in addition to being included in the Season Pass. The Season Pass costs $34.99, though, so it almost seems like it’s not worth getting on its own when you could get all that other extra content for $5 more.

Since I’ve had mixed feelings about the other DLC content from the start, that makes me wonder if it’s a ploy to get more people to buy the Season Pass.

More importantly, at that price, it costs half what the full game did when it first came out. So will the Kaito Files provide half a Lost Judgment’s worth of content? Back when it was first announced, it was said to be 10 hours long. That’s a hefty amount of playtime for DLC, but perhaps not for DLC that costs half as much as the whole game. On the other hand, maybe it’ll have its own side content that expands it further.

By the time I’m ready to even consider playing the Kaito Files, I’m sure I’ll have answers to all these questions. There’s a reason we haven’t talked about Lost Judgment yet despite how hyped I was for it when it was announced, and for once it’s not just that I didn’t get to it yet.

No, it’s because I decided to finish the main Yakuza series first, to avoid spoilers. So I have 3 whole games to go before starting Lost Judgment, let alone its DLC.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on the Kaito Files?

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Eternia: Pet Whisperer is a Strange Little Game

On the weekend, I decided to take a short break from dying incessantly in the Lands Between to instead play a bite-sized visual novel called Eternia: Pet Whisperer.

It was described as being inspired by Hatoful Boyfriend, a favorite of mine, and I got it as part of a bundle, so why not?

You have decided to adopt a pet, so you head to a special animal sanctuary, and the animals living there start talking to you.

I felt like this could have been expanded a bit more, since it seemed to me I went from the protagonist denying the possibility of animals speaking, to happily wondering what a koala will enjoy talking about, without anything in between to bridge it.

Anyway, the visual novel takes place over a series of days. Each day, you can pick an animal to talk to from the animals that are currently around. Once you’ve talked to an animal enough times, they’ll start showing up more and more, until the possibility of adoption comes up.

Once you adopt an animal, it’s effectively the end of the route, but you’re given an option to loop back to the start.

The loop being built into the game if you choose to take it means you don’t have to skip through dialogue you’ve already seen, because only the new conversations are available for you to choose from. That’s convenient, although it does make subsequent routes feel shorter and shorter.

Each animal has their own little story, although the stories are nothing exceptional. I also wished the ending had a bit more content, since it felt abrupt even for what it was. Eternia: Pet Whisperer is a short (less than 30 minutes for me) game about talking animals with some wacky humor. I don’t necessarily recommend you rush out and buy it, but if you do end up getting it, it should bring a few smiles.

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Jack Jeanne Localization Confirmed

We have yet more unexpected localization news to discuss!

Yesterday, during the game’s 1st anniversary live stream, Broccoli announced that Jack Jeanne will be translated into English and Traditional Chinese.

Jack Jeanne (which I’ve also seen written as JackJeanne) is a Nintendo Switch game that comes up quite a bit in discussions of otome games people want localized, and now it’s finally happening.

There’s been some disagreement about whether or not Jack Jeanne is an otome game. As far as I can tell from what I’ve read, it is, just one where the romance is lighter and starts as friendship that grows into love. That, together with the developer not marketing it as otome to try to draw in a larger audience, seems to be where the confusion comes from.

(This brings to mind my personal “Is Steins;Gate a galge?” debate while I was tagging posts. I concluded it is.)

Anyway, Jack Jeanne is a visual novel about a young woman who gets permission to attend a prestigious men’s-only opera school on the condition that she star in the final performance of the year and hide the fact that she’s a woman.

In addition to the visual novel gameplay, it also has some form of stat-building as well as rhythm game segments during performances. Stat-building elements in visual novels aren’t my favorite thing, but I don’t mind them if the game sounds interesting enough, and this one definitely does.

One of the key people behind the game is Sui Ishida, the creator of Tokyo Ghoul, so that has drawn a lot of attention to it as well.

No release date has been given for Jack Jeanne yet, so we’ll have to wait and see. We don’t know who is handling the localization yet, either, so it’s up in the air as to whether or not this could be IFI’s mystery announcement or what PQube was teasing.

Meanwhile, apparently this is a big deal because no game developed by Broccoli has ever been localized before, so I’m adding this to the list of games no one thought would be localized that are being localized. Kenzan and Ishin must be next.

Are you looking forward to Jack Jeanne?

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Capcom Filed an Apollo Justice Trademark

With the Phoenix Wright Trilogy and the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles available on just about every platform, fans have been hoping the other games will follow suit.

Especially in light of the upcoming closure of the 3DS eShop, a port would be welcome news, since once the 3DS store is gone, Apollo Justice will only be available on the DS and mobile devices, and Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice will be on mobile alone.

(Investigations is already only available on DS or mobile. It didn’t even earn a 3DS port.)

I want to hear about Ace Attorney 7 as much as anyone, but I’ve been hoping for a collection of 4-6 in the meantime, so that all of the games leading up to 7 are more readily available.

Well, maybe there’s a chance. People watching for new game trademarks noticed that Capcom recently filed a trademark for Apollo Justice. You can read the details of the trademark here, although it’s mainly just a long list of concepts related to video games.

One puzzling thing is that it’s a Japanese trademark, but it’s for “Apollo Justice,” not Gyakuten Saiban 4. So… what do we take from that? Did they file a trademark specifically for the western release? Or for something related to the character, but using his English name?

I took a look at Capcom’s other recent trademarks, which include the Capcom Fighting Collection, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, and some hunting trademarks that seem related to Monster Hunter, among others. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to when trademarks are filed compared to when the games were announced, though, but seeing an Apollo Justice trademark among all of these gives me hope!

Trademarking only Apollo Justice might suggest they’re going to port the games separately, but maybe not. Right now, this trademark is more puzzling than anything else.

Of course, trademarks don’t always mean anything. I’m still patiently waiting for Baten Kaitos news after those promising trademarks.

Ideally, I’d like this to lead to a collection of Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice, followed by an Investigations duology with Investigations 2 getting an official western release, and then of course Ace Attorney 7. …Okay, I would trade away most of these for a Great Ace Attorney Investigations. I need that to exist. Please.

In the meantime, Capcom has all of their 3DS games on sale, with Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice at $5 each, which is ridiculously good.

So what do you think is up with this mysterious Apollo Justice trademark? Is it for a port? A collection? Something entirely different? Random chance?? Let me know what you think!

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Let’s Talk About Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet

There’s one more big announcement from the end of February that we should discuss, and that’s the reveal of the next Pokémon generation, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

Scarlet and Violet were announced at the end of the Pokémon Day live stream, which otherwise didn’t show too much of note.

The announcement trailer started out with a live action scene that made me think it might be the Detective Pikachu sequel. However, even though that was recently confirmed to still be in development, the stream came and went without a trace of Detective Pikachu.

No, it shifted into the reveal of Pokémon Gen 9, with gameplay environments, the player characters, and the starters being revealed.

My first takeaway from this trailer was that it looks beautiful. I might be in the minority there, but the trailer left me excited to see this new Pokémon world.

However, my excitement did diminish upon learning that it’s an open world game.

There’s no room for doubt this time; the Pokémon Scarlet/Violet website clearly describes it as “a richly expressed open world” where “various towns blend seamlessly into the wilderness with no borders.”

Some players have dismissively said the same claim was made about Pokémon Legends: Arceus, but Legends was never officially described as open world. People looked at the trailer and started describing it that way themselves.

(Speaking of which, I’ve been playing Legends: Arceus and enjoying it!)

Open world doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker for me. I’ve been enjoying my time with Elden Ring so far, and you know I never miss a chance to praise Xenoblade Chronicles X. However, it does have to be pretty compelling to convince me. Since I skipped Pokémon Sword/Shield and BDSP, Scarlet and Violet will need to look fantastic to get me to go for an open world Pokémon game.

What are your thoughts on Pokémon Scarlet/Violet? Are you excited for open world Pokémon and Gen 9, or do you have doubts?

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