Surely we can admit that, if a game in which you take care of a pretend puppy of your choice is--shall we say--original, the same can be said of a game in which you take on the occupational responsibilities of a professional. Not a professional assassin, that is, but someone from "the professions." Oddly enough such entertainments are also coming to the DS (as you might already know) in the forms of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Trauma Center: Under the Knife.
As one might trot out the technicalities and say Nintendogs is just a much better Tamagotchi or PC dog sim, neither is Capcom's Phoenix Wright strictly original: it's a port of the Game Boy Advance game Gyakuten Saiban 3. While the DS version doesn't come out until later this month in Japan and October in the US, you can read Tim Rogers' Insert Credit review of Gyakuten Saiban 3 for GBA from a year and a half ago. Ivan Sulic for IGN best describes how Gyakuten Saiban DS is played, reviewing the E3 2005 edition:
As Wright, players need to carefully scrutinize the testimonies of other NPCs within the game (the conversation aspect of the title) and then look for discrepancies between testimonies and provided evidence (the menu aspect of the title). It's basically a game about catching people in their lies, but it works.
The game itself sounds like a typical TV court drama, only with a little Harvey Birdman thrown in. Or more like Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, I suppose, in that the humor is the way it heavily references the grammar of Japanese comics, games, and anime that we're increasingly exposed to. ("Yes, lawyers have life meters in Japan.") Besides, any game that comes with its own themed stylus can't be serious.
The most interesting hearsay is that the Japanese version will include the full English translation (according to game magazine Famitsu, by way of Kotaku and some web board). That's understandable: if all the casefiles are the same as the original Gyakuten Saiban (3), it's already available for translation while the porting work is done, so why not? It is a text heavy game, so it's extra cool that you can still import it if you want it a month early. However if you reeeeally want that stylus, you need the special edition, which also has a poster, soundtrack CD, and "OBJECTION!" screen cleaner. (See 1up's page about the game, too.)
If law isn't your thing, or you fondly remember the Life & Death series of PC games, watch for Trauma Center: Under the Knife from Atlus. It's not coming out until "Winter," so there's less buzz about it so far, other than its apparent inclusion in the original scattershot ads for the DS. Like Phoenix Wright, it includes story around and about the cases; but unlike law, a story isn't exactly necessary for performing surgery, is it? Jeremy Parish writes for 1up:
The cartoon soap opera serves as an odd counterpoint to the rather unflinching realism of the meat of the game (so to speak): Operating room challenges that require a deft hand and a fairly iron-cast stomach. Trauma Center is hardly the goriest game on the market, maintaining a largely bloodless, stylized appearance, but the subject matter is certainly not for the squeamish. Players will be slicing into bodies, sticking organs with needles, plucking foreign objects from gaping wounds and more.
Whether you feel at home in the courtroom or the operating theater, there's a sim coming just for you. I'm sure the game based on the Animation Runner Kuromi license is coming soon enough. Now we just need a software development sim.
Cool stylus. Looks impractical but who cares. I WANT it.
Small fact about Phoenix Wright, DS version is made in
English first, then translated into Japanese. Target audience
is USA gamer. Character settings and stories are based
heavily on USA. So we don't need to expect it has Japanese
comic reference or something we don't understand. :)
Posted by: higon | 04 September 2005 at 09:16 AM