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[Vampire On Titus]

Ahead of the release of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, producer Kenichi Hashimoto has been interviewed by various outlets, including the Japanese website 4Gamer. One such exchange had Hashimoto confirmed and assured fans that Ace Attorney would not be stopping as a series.
While not elaborated upon, Hashimoto stated that they have become highly knowledgeable in the adventure game genre with the RE Engine, making it adaptable for future potential releases.

You can view a translation of this question and answer below via our team’s Ryuji:

4Gamer: What I am interested in is the future of the Ace Attorney series. Since you are building up the know-how of RE ENGINE for adventure games, does this mean that we can expect more developments in the future?

Hashimoto: I cannot tell you anything at this point in time. However, it is true that we have gained knowledge in creating adventure games with RE ENGINE. Ace Attorney will not be stopping as a series, so I hope you will look forward to hearing more about it.

Full Article on NoisyPixel

Interesting confirmation that the AA team is working on creating adventure games within the RE engine. There's a lot of potential there.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Mobile gacha when?

 

[Mr Moose]

More of the animes too please Capcom.

 

[Deft Beck]

Mobile gacha when?

How do you make an adventure game into a gacha? You would have to turn it into an episodic visual novel at that point. No, please.

Anyway, I predict they're going to do a "next generation" game as a timed exclusive for Switch 2.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

You would have to turn it into an episodic visual novel at that point

You just gave them a new idea

 

[Vampire On Titus]

There are gacha adventure games, unfortunately. One company in particular, SEEC, makes some rather good ones.

Basically they split up each chapter into 10~20 minute chunks that you need to unlock using tickets. Furthermore the bigger chapters are usually gated behind progress in some clicker style mini game.

Fortunately SEEC is in the process of doing remastered versions of their best games on PC without the gacha nonsense. Yotsume God ~Reunion~ was the first (absolutely work checking out) and there best game, Tasokare Hotel, is getting the same treatment.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

There are gacha adventure games, unfortunately. One company in particular, SEEC, makes some rather good ones.

Basically they split up each chapter into 10~20 minute chunks that you need to unlock using tickets. Furthermore the bigger chapters are usually gated behind progress in some clicker style mini game.

Fortunately SEEC is in the process of doing remastered versions of their best games on PC without the gacha nonsense. Yotsume God ~Reunion~ was the first (absolutely work checking out) and there best game, Tasokare Hotel, is getting the same treatment.

Hmm, I think I remember you talking about one of their games on the Adventure thread.

Also, what the heck?

 

[STARSBarry]

I would like to see you playing as a grown up pearl who decided to become a defence attorney, making use of her power to channel spirits to make it through trials. Instead of having living side kicks she would have a slowly expanding group of spirits to channel and aid you in investigation/court. Naturally changing pearls appearance and skills.

As every new ace attorney game needs a new gimmick this one would be the need to channel the correct spirit at specific times in court to corner your opponent.

You would start off with the ability to channel Mia Fey move on to Ryunosuke Naruhodo and eventually unlock Manfred Von Karma.

The issue with Phoenix Wright is you need to have him be the underdog, its why they tried a reset with Apollo. It's hard to have someone who's essentially a veteran who wins nearly every case, believably backed into a corner every trial.

But I would rather they take an existing character people know and follow them rather than try an entirely new cast.


But honestly il take whatever they give, they mostly haven't let us down yet.

 

[Danjin44]

YES give us more Ace Attorney! Seriously, this series is one of the most underrated Capcom series….it deserves more love.

 

[RNG]

Taking them forever to make 7

 

[ReBurn]

It was touch and go for a moment there.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

Hmm, I think I remember you talking about one of their games on the Adventure thread.

Also, what the heck?

Going through my backlog and finishing some abandoned games before so much time elapses that I'd just have to replay them entirely. Tasokare Hotel is a Japanese adventure game by SEEC. I've become somewhat of a fan of their games having played Yotsume God and Tsumugu Logic recently. SEEC's stuff has some rough edges, the English translations vary from sub-par to borderline Google tier and they've got the typical gacha style mobile game issues which plague that corner of gaming (which I shamelessly circumvent using mods). Still, they produce genuinely interesting stories and don't hold punches with dark narrative turns in a way I appreciate.

In Tasokare Hotel you play as a girl named Neko Tsukuhara who finds herself in a purgatory-esque realm between living and death but she can't remember who she is or how she arrived there. Neko eventually makes her way to the titular hotel, which is a place where lost spirits regain their identities and discover whether they're truly dead or still clinging to life. Seeing as Neko isn't quickly regaining her memory she's taken on as staff, along with some other spirits in a similar predicament. The game plays out in chapters, most of which devoted to a new lost soul you must guide to their final stage. You do so by solving puzzles in their hotel rooms which uncover the guest's secrets, as well as confronting them in Ace Attorney style interrogations.

The puzzles are fun and a solid but fair challenge for 90% of the game, some of the tougher "riddle" style puzzles in the game's last chapter suffer from a lack of clarity that seems rooted in poor translation. There was one in particular, where even after reading the in game hint system's breakdown, I still didn't completely understand the solution. In general, though, it's a good time and the setup of puzzling through a spirit's room while simultaneously revealing more about their backstory is just a really clever way to combine narrative and gameplay in an adventure game. In addition, there's some branching depending on choices you make but you ultimately need to make the correct choices and get the each chapters "true end" to progress, the final chapter is a bit more open ended.

As the the game nears its conclusion the focus switches from individual guest based mysteries to the overarching mystery regarding Neko's identity and the circumstances of her death, which involves some of the other more "permanent" residents of Tasokare Hotel. Without saying too much, shit gets nuts in a thoroughly entertaining way. Neko's characterization is handled very differently to your typical game protagonists, she's rather stoic and driven by curiosity to the point of being basically insane but I found her journey extremely fun to follow along with.

I thoroughly enjoyed Tasokare Hotel, it's my favorite of the SEEC games I've played and Yotsume God was no slouch. It's a wonder so much the the game's charm survives its shoddy translation, but there's hope for the future on that front. SEEC has been porting its games to PC recently, adding new animation, removing the gacha BS, and giving them new localizations + bonus content. Yotsume God received this treatment previously and they just announced Tasokare Hotel: Renewel, if it's as good of an upgrade as they've done previously, they'll polish this hidden gem even further and make it an unambiguous recommend.

I'd give Tasokare Hotel an 8.4/10

Yeah I wrote a review of it in 2022, really hoping that the remastered version for PC gets an English translation.

Especially since the original will be taken down at some point (might actually be offline already).

Taking them forever to make 7

Yeah but it makes more sense thinking about it now. I don't think the project started on RE Engine so they likely had to rework a lot of it.

 

[Danjin44]

Yeah but it makes more sense thinking about it now. I don't think the project started on RE Engine so they likely had to rework a lot of it.

I'm curious it gonna look in RE Engine, i just hope they wont make faces look realistic like they did DMC and RE games.

I will trust Capcom to know whats best Ace Attorney games.