At the time, we knew barely anything about it, but it’s since been released in Japan and now is on its way here, and the trailer has me intrigued.
The digital release is due out on August 16, but it’s also getting physical editions (standard, deluxe, and collector’s) on October 11.
It seems like Rear Sekai got a mixed reception in Japan, but I’m still curious about it. Are you interested in Rear Sekai – or rather, Elrentaros Wanderings?
Yesterday, our hopes and dreams for the past 13 years came true when the Nintendo Direct included the announcement of the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection.
This means that when that collection comes out on September 6, we’ll finally have an official localization of Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit.
And with an official localization… comes official names, which has been causing no end of both amusement and arguments among fans who got used to the names from the popular fan translation.
I spoke about this briefly in yesterday’s blog post, but now let’s take a look at all the names currently revealed from the official Ace Attorney Investigations 2 localization.
Hakari Mikagami, whom the fan translation called Justine Courtney, now has the official localized name of Verity Gavèlle. I like this one a lot. It’s an elegant-sounding name, and it plays on the same court meanings without being as overt.
Tateyuki Shigaraki, dubbed Raymond Shields by the fan translation, is now Eddie Fender. This is the one I’m having the hardest time getting used to. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because the “a defender” pun is so blatant. Maybe it’s because I keep thinking of Freddy Fender. But like it or not, Eddie Fender is what we’ve got.
Moving away from the the list of characters, the gallery section provides us with one more, the name change that’s received the most attention from fans. Yumihiko Ichiyanagi, who was called Sebastian Debeste in the fan translation, is now officially known as Eustace Winner. And honestly… it’s growing on me. “Winner” feels a bit too on-the-nose, but it turns out it’s actually a real surname, and I can see him being a Eustace. It’s an adjustment, but it’s growing on me.
Next we need to take a look at the reveal trailer. At 1:12, a demonstration of the dialogue history shows a line in which Edgeworth mentions Di-Jun Wang. That character’s Japanese name is Teikun Ō, and the fan translation called him Di-Jun Huang. According to the wiki, Di-Jun Wang is the Mandarin Chinese reading of his Japanese name, while the fan translation then changed “Wang” to “Huang” to add an additional play on the word for “emperor.” This explains why the official name for him is so similar to the fan translation name, compared to the others.
Those are the only four new names we currently know in full. However, we have pieces of three more.
The reveal trailer also includes a scene at 2:02 in which Edgeworth is talking to a character named Knight and mentions two other characters, Ms. Lloyd and Mr. Rook.
Knight is Manosuke Naitou, who was called Horace Knightly in the fan translation. We have no clue what they’ve gone with for his first name yet, but it’s interesting that they simply went with the surname “Knight.”
Similarly, Rook is Gai Tojiro, who was Ethan Rooke in the fan translation. From Rooke to Rook, another choice that’s so close it almost seems like they didn’t have to change it at all.
And the character referenced as Ms. Lloyd matches up with the young journalist Mikiko Hayami, called Nicole Swift in the fan translation. While we haven’t seen her first name yet, the popular theory is that it will be Tabitha or Tabby to make her full name a play on “tabloid.” If that’s true, that’s a brilliant choice. I love it.
Those are all the new names I’ve been able to find. If you’ve spotted one that I missed – from an official source, not just people editing the wiki – let me know. It’s certainly going to feel strange seeing these new names after I played the fan translation just last year, but I’m so, so excited that this is even a conversation we’re having at all.
After all these years, Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is being localized. How do you feels about the character names revealed so far?
And I’m not just talking about the obvious way that we “won” in this obsessed Ace Attorney fan’s eyes. Today’s Nintendo Direct was amazing from start to finish, and I’m still reeling over all the new games that were announced.
The Nintendo Direct started with, no joke, a new Mario & Luigi game. I’m stunned. After AlphaDream went bankrupt, I assumed the Mario & Luigi series was dead and gone. But Mario & Luigi: Brothership is due out on November 7.
First Super Mario RPG got a remake, then Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door got a remake, and now we’re getting a brand-new Mario & Luigi game?! Is this real life??
While I wasn’t crazy about the last game in the series, Paper Jam, this new one looks fantastic so far.
The next game shown was Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, and then a new Fairy Tail game. I wasn’t too interested in that until I saw it was Fairy Tail 2 from Koei Tecmo, which means it’s another game developed by Gust. I picked up the first Fairy Tail solely because I enjoy Gust’s turn-based JRPGs, so I’m interested in this one now.
And then they announced… Fantasian! Yes! Ever since Fantasian appeared on SteamDB, I’ve been (im)patiently waiting for news of a port, and now it’s finally coming to PC and consoles this winter as Fantasian Neo Dimension!
I started it on Apple Arcade and enjoyed what I played, but I didn’t get very far since I don’t like playing games on a tablet as much. Its release is set for this winter, so I’m looking forward to that for sure!
(Mistwalker also filed a trademark for “Fantasian Dark Edge,” which has me wondering if that’s related to this or if it’s something new.)
Basketball was added to Nintendo Switch Sports, they revealed a beautiful metroidvania called MIO: Memories in Orbit, and announced new content for Disney Illusion Island. Next up was Hello Kitty Island Adventure (which actually looks cute enough to be tempting), Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports, and an update for Among Us.
The next game shown was Farmagia, so my criticism from the Marvelous Game Showcase that I still had no idea what sort of game it is has now been settled. It’s a farming game… where you farm monsters and lead them as an army?? I’m not sure if I’d enjoy it, but it’s unique enough that I’m intrigued.
Donkey Kong Country Returns is getting a new release on Switch as Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, and then we finally, finally got to see the HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest III again!
It looks absolutely beautiful, it’s due out on November 14, and they revealed at the end that Dragon Quest I & II are also being remade in HD-2D next year!
By this point, it was already an amazing Direct, but it could still get even better. Because after the announcement of a Funko Pop game called Funko Fusion and a new trailer for Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, they moved on to… Denpa Men???
I never thought I’d see the name Denpa Men again. Years ago, I tried a demo for a weird little game called The Denpa Men on the 3DS, in which you scanned QR codes or picked up wi-fi signals to recruit new characters. I enjoyed it enough that I intended to play the games, but I never got around to them. Nevertheless, I picked up The Denpa Men 3 before the eShop shut down. Now The New Denpa Men has been announced for July 22.
I’m a little nervous since it’s free-to-play, but I’m still so excited that of all things, The Denpa Men is back!
I was still buzzing about that when they showed Metal Slug Attack Reloaded and a new trailer for Darkest Dungeon II (which looks great, by the way), as well as new games coming to Nintendo Switch Online.
Then they announced Phantom Brave… no, not another re-release, but an all-new sequel called Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero planned for 2025! I have the first game as part of a collection, so I should really give it a try.
Classic games are being released in Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, we’ve got a brand-new Mario Party on the way called Super Mario Party Jamboree set for October 17, and the next Legend of Zelda game isn’t anything I would have predicted!
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is coming out on September 26. It features chibi graphics, and the main character is actually Zelda. And instead of traditional gameplay, you learn how to copy different objects (or monsters!) and spawn them in the environment to solve puzzles and fight enemies. I was mildly interested at first, but the more they showed of the gameplay, the more interested I got. This looks really cool!
I was afraid the Breath of the Wild style would be the only style of Zelda game we’d get from now on, so I’m really excited to see this.
The next few games didn’t interest me as much: Just Dance 2025 Edition, Lego Horizon Adventures, Stray (though I do love cats, so I might play it one of these days), and Tales of the Shire, but then…
It was time.
Ace Attorney Investigations… and Ace Attorney Investigations 2, with a translation for the first time… are coming to modern platforms in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection!
This is a momentous occasion. The third blog post I ever wrote, all the way back in 2012, was a my long and rambling attempt to muster up support for an Investigations 2 localization. I’ve had it on my list of E3 pipe dreams for years. After waiting over a decade, I finally gave up last year and played the fan translation, and now it’s finally, finally seeing an official release.
Now, they aren’t using the names from the fan translation, so this might take a bit getting used to. Eddie Fender and Eustace Winner are difficult for me to accept, although I actually like Verity Gavelle quite a bit.
Oh, and it’s coming out on September 6. September 6. That’s… really close, considering the Apollo Justice Trilogy just came out earlier this year. I expected them to space them out more than that. Maybe they do have Ace Attorney 7 ready to announce soon after all…?
Anyway, the next game shown was The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a game from the creators of Danganronpa and Zero Escape that looks very Danganronpa-esque aside from being a strategy RPG. In short, it looks pretty cool.
A full remake of Romancing SaGa 2 was announced, and then they closed out the Nintendo Direct with a new trailer for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. It just has a 2025 release window, but maybe by then I’ll have played the other Metroid Prime games.
So, this was an amazing Nintendo Direct. There were several “I can’t believe this is happening” announcements for me, along with a bunch of other great-looking games. Which announcements from the Nintendo Direct stood out to you the most?