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Mystery Visual Novel Kindaichi Mystery Series: The Honjin Murders Announced

Mar 072025

A new mystery visual novel has been announced by the Japanese developer Coly.

Kindaichi Mystery Series: The Honjin Murders is a visual novel based on Seishi Yokomizo’s 1946 mystery novel The Honjin Murders, the first in a series of detective stories starring a detective named Kosuke Kindaichi.

I was unfamiliar with the books, but apparently they started getting English translations in 2020.

This visual novel will have the player connect testimonies and clues to piece together the truth of the murder. (It reminds me a little of the Logic gameplay mechanic in Ace Attorney Investigations, except with longer sections of dialogue that need to be connected.)

It will be out on Steam on March 20 with Japanese, English, and Chinese language options, with a Switch version to follow near the end of March.

The announcement page says it will cost 1500 yen, so although the dollar price hasn’t been revealed yet, it should be fairly inexpensive. I wonder if that means it’s going to be a short game. The nature of the title makes me think they want to turn it into a series with subsequent games based on the other Kosuke Kindaichi stories.

Now, I was curious about the developer since I hadn’t heard of them before, so I looked around their website. When I looked at their past games, I still didn’t recognize any… except for Stand My Heroes, a Japanese-only mobile otome game I know only because it has an Ace Attorney collaboration back in 2022. That wasn’t a title I expected to see while researching a new mystery game!

All in all, Kindaichi Mystery Series: The Honjin Murders is a game I’ll want to keep an eye on. What do you think about it so far?

Suikoden Anime and Mobile Game Announced

Video games 3 Responses » Tagged with: rpg, suikoden

Mar 052025

The Suikoden I & II HD Remaster is out tomorrow, and Konami held a special Suikoden broadcast on Monday to celebrate.

It was hard not to hope they’d announce a remaster of Suikoden III or a brand-new game, especially when they said the Suikoden I & II remaster was only the first step of their Suikoden plans.

Then they announced Step 2…… which turned out to be an anime.

Suikoden: The Anime is an anime adaptation of Suikoden II and will be produced by Konami Animation. It’s not the news I was hoping for, but it was neat to see.

After that, they said the anime was only the first part of Step 2. Step 2 also includes a new game… for mobile devices.

All right, that was the part that hurt, especially because Suikoden: Star Leap actually looks beautiful. If this was a regular game, I’d be excited for it without question. But it’s going to be a mobile gacha game, and even though they claimed the gacha is just an additional aspect that you don’t have to worry about, I’m too skeptical to accept it that easily.

Is there a chance I’ll give Star Leap a chance? Sure, if it comes out and people say the gacha really is non-intrusive, I might give it a try after all. I would much rather see a regular, non-gacha game come out, though.

They also announced a stage play as the final part of Step 2.

Well, this does leave the door open for a “Step 3” that could include more remasters or a new (non-mobile) game, but it was a little disappointing (if funny) to watch them keep announcing other things instead.

For my part, though, I’m still at the very start of the series. I played and enjoyed Suikoden back in 2016, but I never got around to starting Suikoden II before the remasters were announced. I’ll probably play the remaster, since it seems to be well-received. Maybe by then, it’ll be time for Step 3?

What do you think about the latest Suikoden announcements?

New Details About Fantasy Life i’s Development

Video games 2 Responses » Tagged with: fantasy life, rpg

Mar 032025

You know I’ve had some concerns about Fantasy Life i despite my initial excitement when it was announced, both due to the increased scope and its several delays.

Well, thanks to a new Level-5 blog post, we’ve gotten some insights into what happened during Fantasy Life i’s development.

The biggest revelation is that Keiji Inafune left Level-5 last year.

In case you’re unfamiliar with how things went, Inafune’s studio Comcept was acquired by Level-5 in 2017 and became Level-5 Comcept, and they were in charge of developing Fantasy Life i. According to this blog post, his departure meant they had to “reassess and restructure” the game.

This included “adding open-world exploration and parkour-style actions, restructuring the system’s progression flow, improving the core mechanics, and refining the scenario to be even more emotionally impactful.”

Knowing this makes me feel better about the game’s expanded scope. At the time, it had me worried they were making it bigger just for the sake of being bigger, but now that I know it happened as part of the project being overhauled after the producer left, it makes a lot more sense. Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino took over as producer, and since he was the producer of the first game, that makes me more confident too.

Meanwhile, the blog post goes on to mention that Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road might be delayed again due to all the trouble with Fantasy Life i. That poor game’s been delayed so many times it’s almost funny. More information about Inazuma Eleven will be coming in a showcase on April 11.

It’s funny to read a blog post about troubled development and delays and come out feeling more optimistic about the game, but this look at what was going on with Fantasy Life i did clear some things up. I’m looking forward to Fantasy Life i when it launches later this year – hopefully without any further delays.

What do you think about the latest Fantasy Life i news?

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