Back during May Mystery Game Madness, we discussed the upcoming new adventure game from NOVECT in which you play as both murderer and detective.
Now NOVECT is at BitSummit and has revealed a new trailer for the game that highlights the detective and daily life parts.
It’s still using the code name “M,” but that won’t be its official title.
The trailer shows its investigation gameplay as well as some conversations with a couple of new characters wearing gas masks. I can’t follow what’s going on, since it’s in Japanese, so maybe someone could help us out with that.
Since the game has a demo at BitSummit, maybe we’ll soon see impressions of it, as well.
I find the trailer interesting. Something about Marianne’s movements feel strange to me, but since the other characters have similar ways of moving without the same effect, I think it’s mainly her coat.
Anyway, I look forward to learning more about “M” (and getting an official title for it). What did you think of the new trailer?
Over the weekend, our cluster of game showcases concluded with the panels at Anime Expo 2022.
Bandai Namco’s contained nothing new beyond the announcement that Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher, which we discussed last week, will get an official release in the west.
That left Aksys and Spike Chunsoft, and both turned out to be well worth watching.
Aksys Games
Aksys Games did not stream their showcase, but a fan in attendance streamed it, so I was able to tune in and see the announcements live. I didn’t expect much to be announced, but I hoped we’d get either a new otome announcement or Shibito Magire localization news.
They began with an overview of their upcoming games (including the release date of Piofiore: Episodio 1926 being moved up from September 22 to September 8) and soundtrack CDs available with some of them.
Update: the September 8 release date was a mistake; it’s still set for September 22.
Then they got into the announcements. The first game shown was Pups & Purrs Pet Shop, which I thought had been already announced, but apparently this is a series and I was probably thinking of the previous Pups & Purrs game.
The second game announced was Inescapable, a “social thriller” coming to all major platforms next year. It seems to have a death game sort of premise, and I’ve seen it described as Danganronpa-inspired. So that’s definitely something I’m interested in.
Then it was otome time!
Norn9 is coming west for the Switch. I played Norn9 on the Vita and found it to be enjoyable, though I disliked the incomplete feel of the story and said I’d pick up its fandisc Last Era if it was ever released in English, since Last Era is supposed to fix a lot of those issues.
…and sure enough, yes, they followed the Norn9 trailer with a trailer for Norn9: Last Era, which is being translated at last.
Yes, they’re separate releases instead of a dual pack, but I’m just happy that we’re getting Last Era.
Then they showed another trailer, for another otome, Radiant Tale. This one is about a girl becoming the producer for a circus troupe in a fantasy world, and what stands out to me the most is how beautiful and colorful it looks.
The next game was also otome, one I’ve seen a lot of people hoping would be localized, Shuuen no Virche ~Error:Salvation, which is on the other end of the spectrum in that it appears to be about death and darkness and despair.
(I’m intrigued.)
Then the final trailer began, and when I saw “Shibito Magire” appear on the screen, I nearly screamed.
Yes, the third Spirit Hunter game is being localized under the title Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II. …Which I’m sure will cause no confusion whatsoever with the second game in the series, NG.
That was the last of the announcements, and they spent the rest of the showcase providing more details about the announced games. I went into it hoping for at least one otome or Shibito Magire, and I got four otome announcements AND Shibito Magire.
In short, 2023 is already packed for me with games to look forward to, and I’ll play NG soon.
Spike Chunsoft
Spike Chunsoft also didn’t stream their showcase, and again it was streamed by a fan who was there.
Their showcase also had one other announcement: Anonymous;Code localization. Yes, the newest entry in the Science Adventure series is coming west in 2023 for Switch, PS4, and PC.
I’m excited to play Chaos;Head Noah and Chaos; Child, and I’m looking forward to Anonymous;Code as well… although I still need to get Robotics;Notes in the meantime!
Miscellaneous
Apparently Sekai Project had a ton of visual novel announcements at Anime Expo, including Nekopara After and the Nekopara spin-off Inapura: Dog’s Paradise. Type-Moon was also there and confirmed that Witch on the Holy Night is not only getting an English translation (which we discussed) but also a western release on December 8.
And there were plenty of other announcements of visual novels I’m less familiar with. In short, as a visual novel fan, this was a crazy weekend for announcements. The upcoming lineup from Aksys alone already has my backlog crying out in pain.
What do you think of the games that were announced at Anime Expo 2022?
Today is the last day of May, bringing our mystery game celebration to an end! This post should have gone up yesterday, but Internet trouble got in the way.
(Apologies for any formatting strangeness; I’ll fix it as soon as I have proper Internet again. Update: fixed.)
I’ve heard good things about this one and intended to check it out for a while, especially since the sequel is coming out soon.
You play as Kaname Date, a detective who is part of a special division that makes use of advanced technology to enter people’s minds in a dream world called Somnium. A murder soon puts him on the trail of a killer who gouges out the victim’s left eye.
Date’s own eye is also missing, but it’s been replaced by AI-Ball, or Aiba, an artificial intelligence that acts as your partner and also gives him special skills to use in his investigation.
While everything is conducted in a 3D space, the majority of AI: The Somnium Files has a lot in common with visual novels. You spend a lot of time talking to characters. You also can investigate by inspecting objects in the room. Sometimes it’s completely unnecessary, but it’s well worth it for the funny dialogue, which is often so off-the-wall I never knew what to expect.
Despite that humorous side, it’s a fairly dark story overall, with grim murders and a twisted mystery that keeps piling on more layers.
The Somniums, which I mentioned earlier, provide more gameplay-focused segments. You enter a character’s dream world as Aiba and search for a way to unlock the subject’s mental locks to see the secrets they’re hiding. It gives you a clue about what to do, and you need to figure out how, using the strange logic of the characters’ dreams.
There’s a 6 minute time limit in these sections, but don’t panic. Time only passes while you’re moving or performing an action.
Each action takes a set amount of time to complete, and you can gain optional “timies” that let you reduce the time used, so the time limit really just turns it into a puzzle. How can you manage your actions and timies to bypass the mental locks without running out of time? (And if your final action would go over the time limit, it lets that slide.)
Believe me, I was worried when I first saw that timer appeared, but I ended up enjoying the Somniums.
I was less crazy about the other gameplay segment, occasional action sequences that have you perform QTEs or line up a shot within the time limit. I could have done without those.
The game also has a flow chart, which immediately brought to mind the Zero Escape series, since it’s from the same creator. However, the flow chart is much more straightforward here. Some Somniums have branching paths that lead to different routes, and certain routes are locked until you’ve made progress on others (I only encountered two locks, but I don’t know if that’s because of the order I went in).
Each route leads to different discoveries and pieces of the truth, which makes the story confusing at times, but it’s once the pieces finally start to come together, everything that didn’t make sense before falls into place.
I loved AI: The Somnium Files. The story was fantastic, the oddball humor was a good way to temper the dark mystery, and the Somnium gameplay was pretty clever. I hope the sequel is as good as this one, because now I can’t wait to play it!
Back during May Mystery Game Madness, we discussed the upcoming new adventure game from NOVECT in which you play as both murderer and detective.
