Posts tagged Touch Detective at DS Fanboy

Posts with tag touch detective

DS Daily: So about those new Atlus games ...

Posted Jul 11th 2007 9:00AM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: DS Daily

With yesterday's announcement of three all-new (well, one is only half-new) games for the US from Atlus, we thought it might be a good time to ask which one sounds the most interesting to you. Do you want to do a little detecting with Mackenzie and her suspiciously-shaped sidekick? Are you more the type to get down with the rhythm, particularly when it looks inspired by Jet Grind Radio? Or do you want to be a Grapping superstar?

So what'll it be? Ontamarama, Draglade, or Touch Detective 2½?

Atlus confirms Ontama, Touch Detective sequel, Draglade for US

Posted Jul 10th 2007 3:39PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: News

If there's one thing to love about E3 -- even the all-new, scaled down E3 -- it's the flood of new game announcements that tend to come with the show. On that front, Atlus has certainly not disappointed us; this morning, they let fly with a bevy of localization announcements. One -- Touch Detective 2½ -- we expected, but the announcements that Draglade and Ontamarama are headed to English-speaking gamers are news indeed. For rhythm game enthusiasts, those last two are very good news indeed.

Ontamarama follows the story of Beat and Rest, two "Ontamaestros" who discover an evil demon (as opposed to all the good ones) is cajoling villagers into trapping Ontama, the sound spirits who bring music to the land. Of course, that means our heroes have to get their rhythm on in order to save the day. Also, the word "Ontamaestros" demonstrates why we love Atlus-style localizations. We've been cooing excitedly over this game for months, so unless you've been living under a rock that didn't have wifi, you've probably seen a screenshot or two.

Draglade is the intriguing mix of rhythm and fighting that the world has been waiting for. Well, we've been waiting, at least. In the world of Draglade, the premier spectator sport of the day is "Grapping," which sorta makes us think of breakdance fighting -- just with more potential violence. The game tracks the rise of four hungry Grappers, Hibito, Guy, Kyle, and Daichi, and their struggle to make it to the top. Can someone get us a hip hop version of "Eye of the Tiger" up in here?

Obviously, Touch Detective 2½ is the sequel to the BeeWorks game released last year. We have such a love-hate relationship with this game that we can't help but look forward to the sequel, if only because we're masochists.

[Via press release]

Touch Detective sequel continues to taunt us with fungus

Posted Jun 28th 2007 6:35PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: Video

Before Touch Detective hit shelves, we were obsessed with it -- the dark, unique look, the intriguing characters ... we couldn't get enough! The game itself, however, didn't really deliver; there was too much going on to enjoy Mackenzie's wackiness on the top screen, and the puzzles were less-than-optimal.

And yet ... faced with a sequel ... we're back on the love train. We can't help it. It must be the rapidly multiplying shape of Mackenzie's sidekick, Funghi, shown in the opening movie. He's hypnotic and we're powerless before him. We love the music, we love the wacky parade of characters, and when the localized sequel lands near us, we'll probably pick it up again and hope for the best.

Sometimes, even knowing better just doesn't matter in the face of pretty, pretty art.

Continue reading Touch Detective sequel continues to taunt us with fungus

Hardboiled detective title coming to the DS, but not the US

Posted May 17th 2007 6:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Screens, Imports

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Tantei Jinguuji Saburou's (Detective Saburo Jinguji) debut on the Famicom Disk System, WorkJam plans to bring the adventure game series to the DS. Despite appearing on a multitude of consoles ranging from mobile phones to the PS2, the chain-smoking sleuth's bebop-jazz-filled murder mysteries haven't yet been localized for the US audience.

Given the success of Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk in the states, both of them also being adventure titles, perhaps we'll finally see an English translation for this one? Come on Atlus, we can cross Touch Detective 2 off the possible-projects list and bring this gumshoe game over instead, right?

Players investigate their cases through menu-based interrogations and actions, piecing together clues found at crime scenes while taking Saburo through Shinjuku's tough streets. Bring your magnifying glass and deerstalker hat past the post break for screenshots of the stylish DS title and a gameplay trailer from the series' GBA release, Detective Saburo Jinguji: The Woman With the White Shadow.

Continue reading Hardboiled detective title coming to the DS, but not the US

DS Fanboy Favorites: Alisha's top five

Posted Apr 16th 2007 10:01AM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: Features, Meta

All this week, the DS Fanboy staff is letting you in on a few of their favorite titles. Each day, a different member of the staff will present their personal top five DS games along with a snapshot of their gaming paraphernalia and habits, in an effort to provide our readers with a little more information on the tastes and personalities of our writers.

If there's anything that can be said about my life -- and that includes my gaming life -- it's that it's messy. I'm messy. I have all this organizational garbage that's supposed to make it easier to store and find all my stuff, but see, I keep accumulating more stuff, and so I need more organizational items ... it's a vicious cycle, and it's part of why I love cartridges. I know where the box is for Clubhouse Games. It's about three feet away as I type this. I could get it, but why? Clubhouse Games goes in and out of my beloved handheld so often, I usually just leave it here on my desk along with the other games I'm interested in at the moment, and I don't have to worry about it getting all scratched up because it isn't delicate like some pansy disc. This makes me happy. I have to be more careful with CDs and DVDs ... but that doesn't mean there aren't a few stacks of discs around my workspace. Believe me, if it's at all stackable, I'm gonna stack it, and to hell with the consequences.

Of course, the problem with the size of DS carts means that sometimes I lose my Clubhouse for a while, and that makes me unhappy to the extreme. Luckily, there are other games that can distract me ....

Continue reading DS Fanboy Favorites: Alisha's top five

Touch Detective toys, because touching is good

Posted Feb 27th 2007 5:00PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: News, Fan stuff

Really, these Touch Detective figures speak for themselves. In fact, they even serve as a great review for the game: cute, yet more than a little creepy, and weirdly enigmatic. They repel us, and yet we want them. We're willing to bet that Mackenzie's gaze follows you wherever you go ....

Touch Detective 2 on the way?

Posted Jan 3rd 2007 1:25PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: News

We can't decide if this is surprising or not, but from the new page at the Success site, it looks like Mackenzie will be back (with her funny-shaped pal) for another round of quirky mysteries. Considering the mixed reviews, we can't say we expected another Touch Detective game immediately, but hey! What fun would it be if the industry didn't offer up a few surprises here and there, amirite?

For now, we'll hope that they focus on the things they got right with the first installment -- like the humor, art style, and characters -- and work a little on the opaque mysteries that were, at times, somewhat like pounding one's face with a sledgehammer.

[Via 4cr]

Metareview: Touch Detective

Posted Oct 24th 2006 4:15PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: Reviews

Color us disappointed. Touch Detective looks so fascinating, from the unusual art style to the story to the eyebrow-raisingly strange sidekick Funghi. We were looking forward to it, and still are ... just with less fervor. It's interesting to note that while the game is often compared in reviews to Trace Memory (and, of course, our beloved Phoenix Wright), due to the gameplay and style, the way reviewers refer to Trace Memory is quite varied (it's terrible! it's great! it's so-so!), so it's probably not surprising that some love Touch Detective and others think the developers should probably be beaten. Most of the reviews have one thing in common, however -- the gameplay aspect of Touch Detective, well, it isn't so good.

GameSpy - 40%: Touch Detective may have the weirdest, driest sense of humor I've ever encountered in a game. It's rarely if ever laugh-out-loud funny, but it did make me smile a bunch, particularly when reading Mackenzie's secret thoughts on the top screen. The localized script is very capably written. Despite all this, the storylines are just not very intriguing. Worse, the game isn't very engaging to play. The puzzles are a weird combination of simple yet obtuse; there's generally not a lot of items you can get at any one time, yet the way you use them is often weird enough that the solution's not very obvious. Sometimes I'd seem to run out of options, which led to much frustrated back-tracking through the game's decidedly small number of environments. The problem often turned out to be that I simply hadn't clicked in the right place on a certain screen; for example, in a store, it transpired that only one of the items was purchasable, and it took me several trips there (and a lucky tap) to figure out I could get the item I knew I wanted. That's the epitome of very annoying game design.

Continue reading Metareview: Touch Detective

A touching talk with Touch Detective's Jamie Ortiz

Posted Sep 21st 2006 1:16PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: Interviews

Joystiq's Ludwig Kietzmann sat down recently with Touch Detective's project lead, Jamie Ortiz, for a little hands-on. Or more likely just discussion, since we're pretty sure there's a court order floating around that keeps Ludwig at least twenty feet from everyone in the industry.

Among other topics, they discussed the challenges involved in translating a story-heavy game from Japanese into English and the changes that had to be made -- and how they tackled those challenges while remaining true to the original characters. They spent a little time exploring the art style as well, and Ortiz mentioned that the style is often compared to Tim Burton's work, but we prefer the comparison one of our readers here at DS Fanboy drew -- the style looks influenced by the work of Jhonen Vasquez, the brilliant and twisted mind behind Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee!, and Invader Zim.

And it seems we're not the only ones who think Funghi is somewhat questionable in shape, though the esteemed Mr. Ortiz did not seem to share our opinion. We'll leave it up to you to decide.

Touch Detective's sinister boxart

Posted Sep 18th 2006 4:25PM by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: News

Touch Detective leaves us a little speechless around the DS Fanboy offices. The game looks great, but there's just something about the art style that seems ... well ... sinister. Creepy, even. Sure, the game will be a blast. It's the new Phoenix Wright -- offbeat and interesting story and touchscreen-centric gameplay. But just look at the characters! We can handle the robot butler, though with that beaky nose, he resembles some sort of evil muppet refugee from the '80s. But Mackenzie, the heroine, looks perpetually terrified and it makes us wonder if she's just traumatized by the death of her father or if maybe that little phallic mushroom guy is exploiting her offscreen.

Or maybe we just have too much time on our hands. Touch Detective will be available for a little hands-on next month.

DS impressions: Touch Detective

Posted May 13th 2006 5:30PM by Ludwig Kietzmann
Filed under: Fan stuff

"This game seems a little confusing."
"Yes, it's almost as if it's in a completely different language."

As the E3 demo had not yet been translated from Japanese, it was initially difficult to come to grips with Atlus' Touch Detective. Luckily, a background in old-school adventure gaming served as a boost over the language barrier. The game is, at its heart, a completely traditional adventure (point-and-clicker, if you prefer) augmented by a very bizarre art style. Using the touch screen and stylus to move your wide-eyed character, collect objects, traverse dialogue trees and examine the environment, the gameplay is just about a perfect portable representation of a genre considered to be dead by many. Many people are wrong.

Though I couldn't make heads or tails (or any sort of appendage) of the story, the game is littered with strange characters, including a talking corpse and a sentient mushroom...phallus...thing. We'll have a better idea of where the game is headed once it enters localization, but for now, it appears to be a visually arresting throwback to the adventure games of yore.

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DS Daily: So about those new Atlus games ...

Atlus confirms Ontama, Touch Detective sequel, Draglade for US

Touch Detective sequel continues to taunt us with fungus

Hardboiled detective title coming to the DS, but not the US

DS Fanboy Favorites: Alisha's top five

Touch Detective toys, because touching is good

Touch Detective 2 on the way?

Metareview: Touch Detective

A touching talk with Touch Detective's Jamie Ortiz

Touch Detective's sinister boxart

DS impressions: Touch Detective

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