Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Ghost Trick, Baten Kaitos, AND the Return of Professor Layton?!

 Video games  8 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,
Feb 102023
 

As I predicted, we’re talking a break from our romance celebration today because the Nintendo Direct on Wednesday was too exciting not to cover!

I won’t go over every game that was shown, but you can watch the entire Nintendo Direct here.

I went into the Nintendo Direct hoping for at least one of three things: the rumored Ghost Trick remaster, the rumored Baten Kaitos remaster, or Ace Attorney news.

Well, there hasn’t been Ace Attorney news yet, but otherwise the Nintendo Direct delivered more than I ever expected.

The first thing to catch my attention was the announcement of a February 15 release date for the third piece of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 DLC, along with a teaser for the story expansion that I tried not to pay too much attention to since I haven’t finished the game yet.

Then it happened: Ghost Trick.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is back! Capcom later released a full trailer confirming that Ghost Trick will be remastered for Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC (Steam) this summer. While largely the same as the original, this remaster includes a few bonuses (like sliding block puzzles for some reason).

If you’re unfamiliar with Ghost Trick, it’s a puzzle game from Shu Takumi, the creator of Ace Attorney. You play a ghost able to manipulate objects in the environment as well as rewind time to shortly before a person’s death, which you do while in search of answers about your own death.

It’s an incredible game and one of my favorites. Now that it’s coming to modern platforms, you definitely should play it.

(I was hoping to order a physical copy, but after mistakenly saying it would be available physically, Capcom corrected themselves and said it will be digital-only. Although I’m disappointed about that, I’m still getting it, of course.)

That was it, the Nintendo Direct was already won for me. I was so excited over Ghost Trick, I nearly missed the game shown directly after it, DecaPolice.

DecaPolice is an upcoming detective game, and it appears to be a combination of an investigation game and an RPG. Once I calmed down enough from the Ghost Trick news to pay attention, I realized it actually looks pretty cool.

What really surprised me was seeing the develop of DecaPolice. I actually missed it in the trailer (Ghost Trick hype), but then I saw people talking about it being a Level-5 game.

I’d more or less given up on Level-5 after their new content over the past few years consisted of unlocalized Yo-Kai Watch games, an unlocalized Megaton Musashi game, a couple mobile games, and an ever-lengthening list of delays for Inazuma Eleven. Things didn’t look good, especially with the reports that their North American offices had shut down.

So to see a new Level-5 game in the Nintendo Direct? That was quite a welcome surprise!

A few other interesting-looking games followed, including a narrative adventure game called Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, which I didn’t realize was from Don’t Nod until I wrote this post (and when did they change their name from Dontnod?), Octopath Traveler II and Sea of Stars, both of which look appealing to me as a classic turn-based JRPG fan, and a full-scale remaster of the first Metroid Prime game, which has me trying to decide if it’s worth playing over the Wii U version I already have.

The Direct included another trailer for Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, as well, which I’ve had preordered for a while now.

And then the trailer was shown for the Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster. That’s right, it’s real and it’s a collection of both Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean and Baten Kaitos Origins! I had a great time with the first Baten Kaitos, although I haven’t played Origins yet. I’m so happy to see these often-overlooked JRPGs return!

Who knows, maybe this will pave the way for the cancelled Baten Kaitos 3 to be revived?

Sadly, the Baten Kaitos remasters have been confirmed to have Japanese voice acting only. While this might be a good thing for the first game and its rather terrible English dub, I’ve been told the English voice acting in Origins was much better. Still, I’ll take no dub if it means a Baten Kaitos revival!

And then they immediately followed that with the headline “A New Fantasy Life Awaits,” and I spent half a second thinking, “No, they can’t possibly mean that Fantasy Life” before the trailer made it abundantly clear that yes, it’s that Fantasy Life!

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is a sequel to the 2012 (2014 worldwide) JRPG life sim from Level-5. While it technically received a sequel before, Fantasy Life 2 was a short-lived mobile game that was shut down after a couple of years. Now this new game looks to be a full sequel worthy of the name and incorporates time travel into the gameplay.

Fantasy Life was a lot of fun, so I’m happy to see it get a true sequel at last (and disappointed at the number of online reactions I’ve seen where people see the title and dismiss it as just another farming game; you don’t even farm in Fantasy Life!) and hope it lives up to the original.

And then they followed that up a short teaser trailer that made me freak out the second I saw a top hat wearing silhouette… Professor Layton is BACK!

Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is a new entry in the series, and you know, despite my mixed feelings about the last game in the series, my excitement at seeing a new Professor Layton game announced was on the same level as if it was Ace Attorney.

(Maybe even more, since I’m not among the doomsayers who believe Ace Attorney is dead, but I did believe the Professor Layton series was probably dead outside of my faint hopes for a Layton Brothers remaster/sequel because of the manga.)

So yes, I’m thrilled beyond belief that Professor Layton is back… but since the announcement, my excitement has been tempered with caution.

A lot of fans seem to think that because this game stars Professor Layton himself (and Luke, as revealed by the official website), it will be a return to form. But I’m not so sure. Layton Mystery Journey’s problem was not the protagonist. Katrielle would have been fine if she had a better game around her. The low-stakes writing, lack of story, and weak puzzle direction were the game’s actual problems and won’t necessarily be fixed just because Hershel is back in the protagonist’s role.

But you know what? I want to believe. I want to believe they saw the mixed reception and sat down to write a solid Professor Layton story again. I want to believe they brought in a good puzzle designer to make this game’s lineup of brainteasers. I love this series so much that I want to believe in it again, with as much excitement as I felt when Layton’s Mystery Journey itself was first teased.

The Nintendo Direct continued after that and closed with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but I don’t care about that nearly as much as the other games here.

Ghost Trick and Baten Kaitos remasters, Fantasy Life and Professor Layton sequels… I can hardly believe all of these things happened in the same Nintendo Direct. (Also, is it just me, or did this Nintendo Direct have an unusually large number of mystery/investigation games?) It was an incredible Direct, and 2023 is shaping up to be an amazing year of games.

What did you think of the games shown in the Nintendo Direct?

Layton Brothers: Mystery Room is Getting an Official Manga!

 Books, Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Dec 202021
 

Even in this year of niche games getting unexpected sequels, I didn’t expect to be talking about Layton Brothers: Mystery Room.

While it might not have a sequel (yet), Level-5 is adapting the story of Layton Brothers: Mystery Room as a manga being released on their manga website Manga-5.

The manga follows the game’s story, but it seems as though it will have new story content as well. Two parts of the manga have already come out and can be read for free, with more parts being released each week. It’s only available in Japanese so far, but I hope they consider an official translation eventually.

(Manga Alfendi is absolutely adorable, too. I can’t wait to see how the manga handles “Potty Prof.”)

If you’re unfamiliar with it, Layton Brothers: Mystery Room is a Professor Layton spin-off starring the professor’s son, Alfendi Layton, who works as a detective for Scotland Yard solving particularly unusual cases, and his new assistant, Lucy Baker. It plays more like a streamlined Ace Attorney game than anything else, and I’ve been hoping for a sequel for quite some time.

Layton Brothers was only ever released for mobile devices, so I’d love to see them port the original game, too. For the first time in years, it actually seems possible.

From celebrating over the tiniest reference to Alfendi in Layton’s Mystery Journey to actually getting an official manga… things are looking up for sure!

Have you played Layton Brothers: Mystery Room? Would you play a port and/or sequel? Are you planning to read the manga, especially if it gets translated?

The Layton Anime is Off to a Much Stronger Start

 Movies and Shows, Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: ,
May 142018
 

After my disappointment with Layton’s Mystery Journey, I had some misgivings about the anime, but I decided to give it a try.

The anime, which has the alarmingly-long title Layton Mystery Detective Agency: Kat’s Mystery‑Solving Files and potentially 50 episodes, isn’t available in English yet, but subtitled episodes have been posted online.

(They’re currently up again, although it seems they’re occasionally taken down.)

First, the anime showed me how much names were changed for the game’s localization, usually for puns. Apparently Ernest is actually called Noah in the original version, Inspector Hastings is Inspector Aspoirot, and Aleks is Reggie. I’m especially unsure why that last one was changed.

Anyway, I watched the first five episodes of the anime, and they were much more entertaining than the game!

Layton Mystery Detective Agency: Kat’s Mystery-Solving Files seems to take place either around the same time as or after the events of the game, although it hasn’t referenced the game specifically yet to make that clear. Each of the episodes so far has been a short, standalone case, but these ones are much more interesting than the game’s harmless mysteries.

A phantom thief stealing jewels throughout London, a “diabolical dress” that possesses whoever wears it… these are the kind of mysteries I expected from the game’s premise, shorter stories that still capture the Layton tone.

Complete with absurd twists, of course!

The anime has also done something the game struggled with, and that is making Katrielle seem like a smart, competent detective. We see her investigating, the twists are much less obvious, and even though it still shows each clue as she finds it, the revelations come across more like when Professor Layton would piece together some insane mystery.

It’s had some pretty funny moments, and I might enjoy Kat and Sherl even more here than in the game. She comes across more ultra-dramatic than silly, which is great.

Now, so far the episodes have relied a lot on little nods and references to the original six games, such as the cursed dress episode being a clear shout-out to Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. It will be interesting to see how it goes from here, but so far the anime is off to a much stronger start than the game.

Here’s hoping we see some official subtitles for the Layton anime soon.

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