Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Jack Jeanne Localization Confirmed

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Mar 182022
 

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?

Capcom Filed an Apollo Justice Trademark

 Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Mar 162022
 

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?

(Update: I’ve seen a plausible suggestion, which is that it could be a port/remaster/collection with English included in the Japanese release, like they did for the Trilogy & Chronicles, so they’d need the English title trademarked in Japan.)

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!

Let’s Talk About Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet

 Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Mar 142022
 

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?

 Older Entries  Newer Entries