Operation Backlog Completion 2025
Feb 102025
 

I love collecting Nendoroids, and for a while now I’ve been hoping for one specific thing: Great Ace Attorney Nendoroids.

They’ve already made a few Nendoroids for the main Ace Attorney series – Phoenix, Edgeworth, Apollo, and Maya – and every time they make announcements, I’ve hoped for more.

This time, it finally happened.

Good Smile has announced Nendoroids of Ryunosuke Naruhodo and Kazuma Asogi, and while I was really hoping for a Barok van Zieks Nendoroid, I’ll absolutely be getting these.

(And then I’ll hope for more.)

Their full selection also includes Nendoroid Dolls for Phoenix and Edgeworth and the first look at the Nendoroid Kei Okazaki from Collar x Malice, among others. And although they aren’t on that page, they also shared new images of the Yakuza Nendoroids (Kiryu, Majima, and Ichiban), which I’ll also want to pick up.

Now, recently there have been concerns about data breaches through Good Smile, and it’s not clear if they ever fixed the problem or not, so we’ll have to be cautious. I’m just happy that the Great Ace Attorney Nendoroids I’ve been hoping for will finally exist!

(Fingers crossed we get Van Zieks next.)

Jan 062025
 

Since we had all of our end-of-year / start-of-year posts to go through, I held off on discussing this until now, but it’s been on my mind ever since I saw it.

Each December, many video game developers and publishers make a short statement about what they have planned for the next year. These are often vague, but sometimes they offer intriguing hints about upcoming announcements.

From this year’s messages, translated here by Gematsu, there was one in particular that caught my eye.

You see, 2025 is the 10th anniversary of The Great Ace Attorney.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole 10 years since The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures first came out in Japan on the 3DS. We had to wait all the way until 2021 to finally get an official localization! Now the second game in particular has become one of my all-time favorites, and there’s nothing I’d like to see more than more Great Ace Attorney games.

Anyway, Kei Hashimoto, a programmer with Capcom, said that they’re “making preparations to ensure everyone can enjoy the 10th anniversary” of The Great Ace Attorney.

That statement doesn’t necessarily mean they’re making a new game. It could be anything. It could just be merchandise, or even a special event in Japan. It’s too early to get excited.

On the other hand, we still don’t have a satisfactory explanation for the mysterious Van Zieks captions, and I still hope they were misplaced dialogue from a Great Ace Attorney Investigations game. Between the captions, the 10th anniversary, and this statement about celebrating, I can’t help but feel a little more optimistic.

Click for major The Great Ace Attorney 2 spoilers
Also, 2025 is the Year of the Snake, and Kazuma’s prosecutor design has snake inspirations/motifs, so basically this would be the perfect year for a game with him as a central character.

I remain hopeful that a new Ace Attorney game will be announced this year. I’d assumed it would be Ace Attorney 7, but if we get a new Great Ace Attorney game instead, I certainly won’t complain.

How do you think Capcom intends to celebrate the 10th anniversary?

Dec 182024
 

The biggest surprise of the Game Awards for me was Capcom reviving both Onimusha and Okami, two series that looked like they’d never return.

Onimusha’s last full entry was in 2006, a whole 18 years ago. Only a browser game and a VR experience came out since then. The remaster of the first game was followed by rumors that subsequent remasters had been cancelled.

As for Okami, it also came out in 2006, with a spiritual successor called Okamiden coming out in 2010 and a remaster of the first game in 2012 (with ports in subsequent years).

So it’s been quite a while since Onimusha and Okami saw any love, much less a brand-new entry for each both being announced at the same even. We Ace Attorney fans think we’ve got it bad, but it’s only been 7 years since the last one – hardly any time at all in comparison.

But what makes this even more exciting is that an official press release from Capcom says they’re “focusing on re-activating dormant IPs that haven’t had a new title launch recently.” That opens up the doors for more than just Onimusha and Okami to return.

I’ve believed for a while now that a new Ace Attorney game is coming sooner rather than later, but what else could they revive? Dino Crisis has been dormant since 2003. Breath of Fire’s last entry was in 2002 (all right, technically Breath of Fire 6 came out in 2016, but let’s try not to think about that). Is it finally their time to shine again?

Moving aside from Capcom, this week also saw some interesting news from Bandai Namco. After Tales of Graces f Remastered was announced, we learned that they intended to remaster more Tales games as well. Now they’ve doubled down. In a new message translated here by Gematsu, producer Yusuke Tomizawa said there’s now a dedicated development line for Tales remasters and that they’re planned to be released “fairly consistently” and “as much as possible.”

This is exciting news, and it gives me hope that it will be more than just a handful of the newer games in the series. My hopes that we’ll get some of the untranslated games officially released are renewed!

In short, we could have a lot of good stuff coming. What dormant Capcom franchises do you hope to see revived, and what Tales remasters would you like to have follow Graces?