Operation Backlog Completion 2026

It’s the 10th Anniversary of The Great Ace Attorney!

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
Jul 092025
 

Today is the day. On July 9, 2015, The Great Ace Attorney first came out for the 3DS in Japan.

I remember when it was first announced. Initially, I was uncertain about an Ace Attorney game set in the past with a new cast of characters, but I quickly came around to being excited for it.

I remember my excitement and confusion over the reveal of Sherlock Holmes and Iris, and how I waited and waited for localization news…

…and waited and waited…

…and waited…

…until the glorious day when The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles was leaked and the even more glorious day when it was officially announced.

When The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles came out in 2021, I finally had my chance to play the games I had been waiting for. My impressions of The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures were favorable, but for the first time I thought its long-delayed localization might have been a good thing, since I was kinder to the game’s loose ends and unanswered questions knowing I had the second game right there waiting for me.

And The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve ended up being an amazing experience and possibly my favorite game of all time, so I’d say it was well worth the wait in the end.

Now here we are, just a few years later, celebrating the 10th anniversary. So far it looks like all they’re doing for the anniversary is releasing a variety of merchandise, but the merch is taking strange and unexpected forms, like kitchen appliances that talk to you in the characters’ voices.

They’ve also announced acrylic stands of every character, and I do mean every character. They’ve even gotten around spoilers by censoring certain characters’ names in the official list.

Click for major The Great Ace Attorney 2 spoilers
Which means yes, there are acrylic stands of Kazuma as a prosecutor and in western clothes, as well as one that includes Klint and Balmung.

The acrylic stands are tempting, but the sets are expensive.

Anyway, while there’s a good chance this is the big event for the anniversary, I still have my fingers crossed that they might announce a new game. They ended some of their social media posts by asking fans to continue supporting The Great Ace Attorney series, so maybe there’s some hope after all!

But whether we get a new game or not, I’m glad The Great Ace Attorney exists, and I’m glad I got to play it. What are your thoughts on The Great Ace Attorney’s 10th anniversary?

Let’s Talk About Shuten Order

 Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
Jul 072025
 

I can’t believe we haven’t talked about Shuten Order until now.

Shuten Order was announced back in May, while we were busy discussing mystery games, and it’s one of the upcoming games I’m most interested in.

It’s being developed by Too Kyo Games and Neilo, and what sets it apart the most is that it has 5 distinct genres depending on which route you’re playing.

Set near the end of the world, you play the reincarnation of the murdered Founder of the organization known as the Shuten Order. With your memories gone, you have four days to find and kill your murderer, with the five ministers of the Shuten Order as your suspects… and each minister has a route.

The Minister of Justice’s route is a mystery adventure, where you’ll investigate a crime by gathering evidence and questioning witnesses. The Minister of Health’s route is an escape game, where you’ll solve puzzles to escape a room and survive the death game. The Minister of Science’s route is a multi-perspective visual novel, with choices to make that affect the outcome. The Minister of Education’s route is a romance adventure, where you have to build affection with three heroines and confess your love. And the Ministry of Security’s route is a stealth horror game, where you have to solve puzzles while being pursued by a killer.

It’s such an interesting idea for a game, and I’m really intrigued by it.

Shuten Order will be out on September 5 for the Nintendo Switch and PC. (Will I even be done with Hundred Line by then? We can only hope…)

Unfortunately, it seems like Shuten Order is going to be a digital-only release in the west. Oddly enough, there is a special edition, but only for the PC version; it’s a handful of physical items alongside a Steam code.

It looks like Play-Asia has a multi-language edition of Shuten Order, so I might get that to have a physical copy.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on Shuten Order? Which route are you most interested in?

Aksys Showcase: Only One Otome, but Other Exciting Announcements

 Video games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jul 042025
 

As we discussed, Aksys held its Anime Expo showcase yesterday, with the promise of new announcements.

Now, let’s get it out of the way, they only announced one new otome game. That was a little disappointing.

But they had some other interesting announcements as well, so let’s take a look.

Although they didn’t stream their showcase, some people who were there in person were sharing updates as it went, so I kept track of the news that way. The first piece of information was the one I’d been anticipating, a release date for Mistonia no Kibou. With the official English title of Mistonia’s Hope: The Lost Delight, it will be out on November 13.

They also announced Path of Mystery: A Brush with Death, a murder mystery game that looks right up my alley.

The next few announcements didn’t interest me as much. There was Q Collection, a collection of three drawing-based puzzle games, Tristia: Chronicles, a bundle of two town/shop management games, and C.A.R.D.S. RPG: The Misty Battlefield, a card-based RPG. They also announced a Metroidvania called The Good Old Days that could be interesting.

Next up was the sole otome announcement, Otome Daoshi -Fighting for Love-, and while it sounds decently interesting, the reception to this one in Japan was pretty poor. It’s due out in 2026, but this is one I’ll probably wait on.

All right, so it’s rather frustrating that they had only a single new otome game announcement and it’s not a well-received title. I’ve seen a lot of fans wondering why they picked that one. (Maybe it’s because Idea Factory secretly has a huge lineup planned, but since they only announced two last time and one of those got delayed to 2026, I don’t know…)

Anyway, they finished with one final announcement, and… it’s one I’ve been following ever since it was announced three years ago, but I didn’t expect it to show up at an Aksys showcase! They’ll be handling the console release of Project Code M, the new game from the developer of The House in Fata Morgana.

(Judging by Novect’s follow-up posts, it’s still coming to PC as well.)

I was not expecting that at all, but it was a nice surprise to see Project Code M! It makes up for the disappointment of only getting a single otome announcement…

Which games from Aksys’s showcase stood out to you the most?

 Older Entries  Newer Entries