Yesterday, the developers announced Chicken Police – Into the Hive.
The Hive is a location that was mentioned during the first Chicken Police, but never visited.
In this world of anthropomorphic animals, the Hive is where a lot of insects live. Tension with the Hive and prejudice against insects are part of Chicken Police’s backdrop, so it should be interesting to see what happens now that the sequel is taking us into the Hive.
(While playing the first game, I expected to go there because of how often it was referenced, but instead it was worldbuilding unrelated to the current mystery. It makes sense that it would take center stage for a sequel.)
According to the description on the game’s Steam page, Sonny and Marty investigate a new case that takes them into the Hive, where they come across a worldwide conspiracy. It also says they’ll “face the darkest reaches of their past.”
It’s currently set for 2024.
The first Chicken Police left me pleasantly surprised by how its bizarre premise of playing a chicken detective led to a believable world and compelling noir mystery. I’m looking forward to seeing what the sequel has in store.
The rush of showcases seemingly ended last week, but Nintendo decided to continue the rush of gaming news with a new Nintendo Direct. I’ll be covering the highlights that stood out to me, so be sure to watch the whole thing for more.
They started off with a bunch of different things, including the Pokémon Scarlet/Violet DLC and another look at Sonic Superstars. They also showed Persona 5 Tactica (but not Persona 3 Reload, so maybe the persistent rumors that it’s coming to the Switch after all are false).
After a few more things, they then showed a game we’ve been waiting on since 2019… the Detective Pikachu sequel!
Detective Pikachu Returns will be out on October 6. While there were some concerns when it was announced that it might be yet another expanded version of the original game, it appears from the trailer to be an all-new sequel. When I played Detective Pikachu last year, I found it to be pleasant enough to play a full sequel if that was what the new game turned out to be, so it looks like I’ll be playing Detective Pikachu Returns!
For me, the Direct had picked up tremendously at that point, and it continued with that momentum – because the next game announced was a remake of Super Mario RPG! I played Super Mario RPG back in 2016 and enjoyed it, although I felt the hype surrounding it was overblown.
The remake looks beautiful, though, so I’m tempted to get it nevertheless. It will be out on November 17.
They also teased a game starring Princess Peach. I assume they would have just said if it was a remake of Super Princess Peach, so it’s most likely a brand-new Peach game. The teaser was so short, I’m not even sure what type of game it is, but I’m looking forward to learning more about it. It will be out in 2024.
After that, they showed Luigi’s Mansion – but it’s just a remaster of Dark Moon. Dark Moon is my least favorite of the Luigi’s Mansion games, so I doubt I’ll get that.
The Batman Arkham Trilogy is also coming to the Switch, yet another reminder that I should play Arkham Knight someday.
Quite a few games I’m not interested in followed after that (as well as the DLC for Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, yet another series I still haven’t tried), but then it was time for another one that caught my eye – a new Dragon Quest Monsters game!
A new Dragon Quest Monsters was said to be in development back in May, and now it’s been officially unveiled as Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. It will be out on December 1.
I’ve never played a Dragon Quest Monsters game before, but it looks great! I’m excited to try it.
Pikmin 4 got a long segment, as well as the announcement of HD remasters of Pikmin 1 & 2, which are out now. Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 was also confirmed to be coming to the Switch, although the Switch version will require downloads. (It figures these Metal Gear Solid collections would start coming out after I bought the PS3 collection.)
After a few more game announcements and more Mario Kart 8 DLC, they revealed a game I’m pretty excited for that leaked a few days ago: Star Ocean: The Second Story R. Due out on November 2, this is a Star Ocean 2 remake that looks incredible!
While I had mixed feelings about First Departure R, the second game gets so much praise that I wanted them to at least port the original or its PSP remaster… so this is more than I ever hoped for.
(It’s also getting a $200 Collector’s Edition, but it doesn’t look worth it to me.)
Anyway, they announced a new WarioWare game and some other updates, and closed out the show with the announcement of a new 2D Mario game, Super Mario Bros Wonder. It will be out on October 20.
All in all, this was a pretty good Nintendo Direct. Detective Pikachu Returns, Super Mario RPG, the Princess Peach game, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, and Star Ocean: The Second Story R are all new announcements that have my attention, plus the already-announced Persona 5 Tactica. And while I’m not the biggest fan of 2D Mario, the new game looks interesting enough for me to consider. The end of 2023 is already stacked for me!
Hey, maybe if the Super Mario RPG remake sells well enough, the constant Thousand-Year Door rumors will finally come true.
How did you like the new Nintendo Direct? What games stood out to you the most?
As you can probably guess, the absolute highlight of the recent showcases for me was Capcom’s, because it included the announcement of the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy.
If you didn’t catch the news, the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy is a new collection of Ace Attorney games that bundles the 4th, 5th, and 6th mainline games: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.
(For some reason, the official website includes a beautiful image of the games’ art… in the wrong play order, as seen here, but that’s probably because Spirit of Justice’s art looks best as a centerpiece.)
It will be out in early 2024 for Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Even though I’ve already played all three games, I’m delighted by the news, not only because it means more people can play them, but also because I believe it’s another sign that Ace Attorney’s future is brighter than ever.
We’ve been waiting for Ace Attorney 7 for a very long time. Remember back in 2017, when rumors claimed Ace Attorney 7 was coming in 2018? That obviously didn’t happen. There hasn’t been a brand-new Ace Attorney game since 2017, when The Great Ace Attorney 2 first came out in Japan, so it’s no surprise that hopes for the series were starting to dim.
I’d started to give up hope that we’d ever even see the unlocalized entries in the series, which at the time were Investigations 2 and the two Great Ace Attorney games.
All that changed in 2021 with the release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. Capcom had decided that the two historical spin-offs (which hadn’t sold well) were worthy of being remastered, bundled, and translated for the first time. Chronicles even got a physical release on the Switch in North America, despite the last two mainline entries being digital-only. That was enough to make me believe in Ace Attorney’s future again, especially when Chronicles blasted past sales expectations (according to the leak, their sales expectations for Chronicles were 300k copies by 2025).
Yet with no sign of Ace Attorney 7 despite the leaks saying it was in development, many fans once again started to say the series was dead.
But what about now?
In the leaks that revealed The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and claimed Ace Attorney 7 was also in development, the prospect of a collection containing Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice was mentioned only tentatively, to be decided based on the sales of the other games. Many fans went so far as to say it was confirmed to not be happening due to the expenses required to translate Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice into all the languages Apollo Justice had been available in.
Well, it seems that’s not the case after all, because the Apollo Justice collection is on its way, in 7 different languages, with Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice being translated into other languages for the first time (previously, Japanese and English were the only languages for those two).
Since Capcom is willing to give Ace Attorney games new translations, I’m more optimistic than ever for Ace Attorney Investigations 2’s chances of being localized.
And between The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and the Apollo Justice Trilogy, it looks like we’re finally free from the worry that Capcom believed an Ace Attorney game would only sell if Phoenix’s name was in the title. Could we see an Ace Attorney Investigations Duology in the years ahead?
Most important of all, the biggest hurdle to a 7th mainline game was the fact that only half of the mainline series was available on current platforms. With the 3DS eShop having been shut down, the 4th, 5th, and 6th games were only available on mobile devices, and even those were unavailable for a lot of new phones.
With all 6 mainline Ace Attorney games on modern platforms, Capcom willing to go the extra step to translate entries that hadn’t been translated before, and the series seeing excellent sales (enough for them to use “from the creator of Ace Attorney” in the hopes of boosting Ghost Trick’s sales, too), I don’t see anything standing in the way of Ace Attorney 7 now.
Yes, there’s a good chance it’ll have a new director if Shu Takumi no longer wants to work on mainline Ace Attorney, since Takeshi Yamazaki left Capcom a few years ago, but there’s no reason to think Capcom couldn’t put someone else in charge – and no reason to assume the new director wouldn’t understand the series, either.
This isn’t the time for Ace Attorney doom and gloom! With The Great Ace Attorney translated and the Apollo Justice Trilogy coming next year, I say Ace Attorney optimism should be at an all-time high.
How do you feel about the current state of the Ace Attorney series and its future prospects?
It seems I had good timing when I decided to play Chicken Police – Paint in RED back in May as part of our mystery game celebration, because a sequel is on the way!
