Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Chaos;Head Noah and Chaos;Child Bundle Announced for Japan

 Video Games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
Nov 122021
 

When I played and reviewed the visual novel Chaos;Head this October, I mentioned how unfortunate it is that there is no completed fan translation for the updated re-release, Chaos;Head Noah.

Well, maybe we shouldn’t rule out the possibility of an official translation just yet.

In an interview with Dengeki, translated here by Gematsu, Makoto Asada from MAGES. spoke about three things.

Anonymous;Code has been delayed to 2022, Mystereet is being ported while its sequel is put on hold indefinitely, and Chaos;Head Noah will be bundled together with Chaos;Child in a new release set for February 2022.

That last one definitely caught my attention.

Since Chaos;Head Noah isn’t available on modern systems, they decided a package containing it and its sequel would be the best way to make it available to more players.

Of course, this is just for Japan. There’s no reason to believe this means they’ll finally translate Chaos;Head. However, if you had asked me a week ago, I would have said chances of Chaos;Head Noah being localized were next to nothing, because they wouldn’t devote resources to translating a game available on nothing more modern than a Vita, even though the creator said in 2018 it was possible.

But now, with a new release coming for modern platforms? This is the best chance we have of getting Chaos;Head Noah in English. Do you think it will happen?

Yo-kai Watch Spin-Off Y School Heroes Trademarked in the West

 Video Games  1 Response »  Tagged with: , ,
Nov 102021
 

You know what name we haven’t said much around here lately? Yo-kai Watch.

This is partly because I still haven’t played Yo-kai Watch 2 or 3, but also because there’s still no sign of Yo-kai Watch 4 localization, the Switch port of the first game was never localized, and the big anniversary news turned out to just be a mobile port.

But there’s still hope for the series here after all!

Sometime after Yo-kai Watch 4, in 2020, Level-5 released a spin-off called Yo-kai Watch Jam: Yo-kai Academy Y – Waiwai Gakuen Seikatsu, based on their Yo-kai Academy Y anime and follows a student investigating mysteries at the academy.

It seemed unlikely that they’d localized Yo-kai Academy Y ahead of Yo-kai Watch 4, but Level-5 apparently referred to Yo-kai Academy Y by the localized title of Y School Heroes: Bustlin’ School Life during its TGS 2020 presentation, although I wasn’t able to find a video of the presentation itself. That’s beside the point, though, because now we have even more cause for hope.

The other day, fans noticed a new trademark registered by Level-5 for “Y School Heroes” in the west.

Level-5 hasn’t localized anything in a long time, and there were reports of its North American branch being shut down, so a sudden Yo-kai Watch trademark in the west is quite a surprise. Of course, a trademark doesn’t always lead to an announcement (I’m still waiting on Baten Kaitos news), but it’s a good sign. Here’s hoping we’ll not only get Y School Heroes, but eventually Yo-kai Watch 4 as well!

Do you think this trademark news means anything?

Cartagra: Twisted Murders and Romantic Encounters

 Reviews, Video Games  1 Response »  Tagged with: , ,
Nov 082021
 

Going into this October, I had one visual novel already lined up for Celebrating All Things Spooky.

I’ve heard great things about the mystery visual novel Kara no Shojo, and earlier this year I picked up a bundle that included it and its predecessor, Cartagra (warning, link is NSFW).

Cartagra is often described not only as a murder mystery, but also horror. It’s an eroge, as well, so I expected a murder mystery horror story with occasional sex scenes.

You’ll notice it didn’t make the cut for Celebrating All Things Spooky. Let’s take a look.

In Cartagra, you play a former police detective turned private detective who has been asked to look into the disappearance of a young woman. Yet as he investigates, he becomes increasingly embroiled in the bizarre serial killings terrifying the city, even though it isn’t officially his case.

It is a dark story, that’s for sure. The murders are pretty gruesome, not to mention the bad endings that the visual novel describes in detail. Some parts were pretty unsettling to read.

But what surprised me was how big a role the protagonist’s relationships played. Even though only one character’s route actually runs to the end of the mystery (and most of the others are bad endings), the detective practically has a harem. Everyone wants him, and your choices will determine who he has sex with, often enough that it can’t be dismissed as just an additional aspect of the story.

So what I expected was a murder mystery horror story with occasional sex scenes, but what I got was a murder mystery romance story with lots of sex scenes and occasional horror elements.

Now, don’t take that to mean I disliked Cartagra. It was an exciting story with unexpected twists, likeable characters, and some interesting ideas. It just wasn’t what I expected, and it definitely didn’t fit in with spooky games month.

(Since I started Higurashi as an emergency replacement, I’d say it was a win all around.)

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