Killer7 SINdicate

So, it's a general for Jinguuji Saburo! A series nobody cares about because
a) it's niche
b) majority of it in japanese
c) whoever tries to bring it back to the West is a braindead retard
d) even current holders of IP gave up on the series after continuous "bad" releases
So, let's start with basic shit. Jinguuji is a detective who lives in Shinjuku with his beautiful assistant Yoko and cop-friend Kumano or whatever.
The series debuted on Famicom and majority of titles were released on Nintendo consoles. And if at the time of it's first games ADV games were cool and fancy, with passage of time people were less interested in hard-boiled detective stories.

You may know the series for its stylish openings
or sexy ost, or bad localization attempts on DS. Oh yeah, the reason why nobody cared about these games in the West is a bad release of the first english title on DS, that butchered remakes of the first 4 games and 1 mobile only release (iirc). When shit hit the fan, they tried to do something with it and release a proper version, similar to japanese one, but nobody gave a fuck at this point. Then they tried it again in 2017 with GOTD, at the time when nobody really cared for 3DS and they wondered why nobody wants to purchase a game for the price they wanted when it weighted like 100mb? At least this release was decent enough, followed by Daedalus. Although Daedalus was a pretty interesting experience gameplay-wise, it sucked hard on being "a yume no owari ni prequel" or sorta, having little to do with what that title established, but also flopped in English because... there were no marketing. The same shit happened with GOTD. I think with DS one too. I hate when people act surprised when 0 pr given to a title and somehow people don't care about it.

But it's funny to know that the series is pretty much dead for a decade or more for Japanese players as well. With a negative reception of the first 3DS title in mainline series, Fukushi no Rondo, released as a celebration of the series 25th anniversary, you could finish the game without collecting "character files" in 3-4 hours at best. And after previous DS titles, that contained remakes of previously released scenarios, it felt cheap. Although the experimental mechanics it tried to bring to the series were cool. Not helping the game the fact, that previously released titles since PS1 to PSP were far longer than that. And then they tried to sell people that. And series died again for 5 long years. When arcsys tried to revive it, with Oldies mobile app (which is decent remakes collection, but not sure if anybody cared), GOTD, POE and Daedalus. Not sure about reception of POE or GOTD, but Japanese were harsh on Daedalus, which I believe had higher budget than any classic VN titles. With their last attempt - another mobile app "New Order" (no new world order conspiracies though, boring), also being a flop, I think the series died again. They promised to bring brand new scenarios, but after releasing only 1 scenario in 4 episodes (not sure if it's even fully completed), they just said "fuck it" and stopped doing anything.

I think the last time they remembered Jinguuji is in a crossover "fighting game" nobody cares about. Which is a shame, since all titles in Japanese, starting with PS1 era were decent. They had some charm, cool openings and such, but were killed by being not only obsolete, but poorly managed.

Currently playing through Yume No Owari Ni and Fukushi no Rondo, though. Feel free to discuss the series, if anybody cares.

YES!! Detective Jake Hunter! I remember playing the Ds one,memories of the past, and watch a youtube playthrough of the sequel the 3ds Ghost of the Dusk, the Second case in that game is long I thought after finished it its gonna end right there but glad there is other 3 cases,its an okay story but weird how Jake's assistant forgot her name keep changing design until I learned its those extra case added in the 3dS game is from a mobile game.
I still can't get enough of it and start searching for original Japanese version, there is some playthrough of it on youtube but without sub I don'understand nothing.

HOUSELANDER wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 3:20 am YES!! Detective Jake Hunter! I remember playing the Ds one,memories of the past, and watch a youtube playthrough of the sequel the 3ds Ghost of the Dusk, the Second case in that game is long I thought after finished it its gonna end right there but glad there is other 3 cases,its an okay story but weird how Jake's assistant forgot her name keep changing design until I learned its those extra case added in the 3dS game is from a mobile game.
I still can't get enough of it and start searching for original Japanese version, there is some playthrough of it on youtube but without sub I don'understand nothing.

Well, there's always a Daedalus game.
I think that YumeNoOwari-InnocentBlack-KindOfBlue one of the best VN trilogies with cool for the genre. In any case, Jake from DS is cool since he calls babes babes

So I resumed my playthrough of YumeNoOwariNi and it's a mixed bag. Sure, the atmosphere is great, but the main plot is stalling for quite some time. We have 4 characters here and zapping is cool n dandy, but here's a particular case of it being a not so great system: We look for clues what PCD supposed to mean. We start the case as Jinguuji, an obvious choice, reach the conclusion of a segment and we have 99% of information that will be used in Miki and Yoko scenarios. Let's say we start from Miki or Yoko pov, finish the segment, but here's the catch: they were together 99% of the time so the other character route will take like 10 mins overall. You learn absolutely nothing that you wouldn't learn from Jinguuju case. I thought why not to try Kumano's case last? Well, it just spoils what PCD is and who the shady guy is, eventually making the following three segments not as fun at they supposed to be. Idk, it's slow and good around and about for quite a bit.

Also idk at what point of time I tried other PS1 and PS2 titles, but here's some cool features from them:
Mikan no Rupo: Zapping system and 3d chase segment on a car
Tomoshibi ga kienu ma ni: Time restriction and a lotsa bloom. God damn, they were hip before it was cool.
Innocent Black: I kinda dunno. I think I saw TPS system here first? Idk
Kind of Blue: Shopping system that forces you to purchase Marlboro and key items. Dang!
Fukushi no Rondo: Oh, the shop from Four Seasons makes a cameo! Nice one.

I finally started Daedalus the other night. So far so good, aside from the word "telegraphed" which obviously triggered me. Might switch to Japanese. I'll let everyone know how I get on if I remember to.

Meru wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 12:13 pm I finally started Daedalus the other night. So far so good, aside from the word "telegraphed" which obviously triggered me. Might switch to Japanese. I'll let everyone know how I get on if I remember to.

I didn't like it after initial playthrough. It was quite unique experience, but not good enough even for a mediocre Jinguuji game. Also the whole premise of it being THE PREQUEL TO YUME NO OWARI sounds weird, when there's almost nothing close to what it supposed to be.
Yoko being a tsundere is also a funny change to her character in the main games. She did have some tsundere or bold personality in different games, but not as bitchy as Daedalus.
If anything, it doesn't feel like a Jinguuji game, it's a weak prequel to Yume, it doesn't feel like this is THE experience that will haunt Jinguuji, it recontextualize everything as a bad anime adaptation of a hard-boiled adventure game.
Though I appreciate the swimsuit and overall tits art there.

Update on the fate of mobile apps.
So, on android and ios we have two apps oldies and New Order. What both apps promised us? Oldies promised to remaster older mobile cases in a more HD way (which they did), but the thing is that, I believe, due to low sales, we only got 3 cases out of 19 mobile cases with promises of more to come, but alas what we have is: A portrait of a dead child, Night of Quito and In the everending night. Nice pick, though in a few months all 20 cases were already available on 3DS via remakes in DS and 3DS games. What's not nice is that they abandoned the apl after that. Funny enough english pedowikia implies that these totles are included in the app, when they are not, "App collecting remasters of games in the original mobile series (No.2-No.20)".
Though if you never played these 3 stories, mobile remasters sounds better because of remade graphics. I think maybe there's bits of remade ost, need to check that. But sad reality is that app is dead.
New Order was supposed to return these small cases to us so we could continue enjoying Saburo in a short adventures, but only after the first case they decided nah fuck that and dropped another mobile title for good.
Sad shit imo. Fuck arcsys. Glory to DataEast!

Also, it's funny that original release of Night of Quito for smartphones is a lost media now. Actually, nobody lists this title as existing on mobile apps, though the traces are still there. Unfortunately it's just a straight port of a dumbphone title but now for smartphones.
Whatever, just gonna save this info in my general.

Did you know that Mystery Case Files from DS era, that served as a parody on hard-boiled nature of Jinguuji games, initially were released as a separate series of games for mobile phones. So actually DS remakes contain more games than I acknowledged at the time.
I think that DS games contain all mobile games they could, which is crazy.

Did you know Saburo?
In ~2009 there were separate releases of mobile cases that would be (or were?) included in DS games, as DSi ware titles sold for ~500 yen per title. In total, there were released 5 titles.
They all feature a separate from other games intro, which may not be as cool as previous ones, but still picked my interest. The intro can be seen here https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/so7387766
It uses the same track as Ash and Diamonds opening for PSP remade with DS limitations in mind (you can heard it in a PSP title's soundtrack as The din and bustle (dsi ver).
Sincerely yours, schizo1 /iiam