Thanks a lot!
I really like these chapters, so please continue translating them.

Same. I'm reading them too.

Me too, and I wanna know what happens on Nanasa's first job :P

---

Chapter 4 of the short story. Again, please do not repost elsewhere. Just link to this post. It's supposed to be a five part story, so I assume next week's chapter is the last. I'm also expecting more details about the exact release date soon, which should be pretty close, I guess (perhaps the game will be released the week after next?).

---

Damn, I didn't even know there was already new short stories. Thanks for translating them!

---

I just started reading the stories myself, and... what the heck is up with the organization? Why do they have everything in reverse order? xD

---

The page is being updated blog-style, so the newest entry is on the top of the page.

---

Last chapter of the short story. Expecting details on the exact release date etc. soon (update next week, perhaps?).



And for your convenience:

---

Thanks, Ash!

They should've just made this a game about Kyle Hyde in his detective days. The main character is clearly supposed to be him. I mean... compare this and this. All they did was flip the image and give him a cigarette!

---

The official release date has been announced: it will be released on Wednesday May 11th, for the price of 800Y. The website also got an update, including a 2 minute trailer! (with a long version of (presumably) the theme music!).

http://www.arcsystemworks.jp/chase_tooikioku/

---

Last edited by Ash on Wed Apr 27, 2016 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nice, that's really soon. I hope they also want to localize it for the West.

Nice, can't wait!

EDIT: okay maybe i'm being really stupid, but where's the 2-minute trailer? I can only find the 30-second one that's been there since the beginning.

---

It will just pop up once you click on the link, unless of course you have a really strict ad blocker.

Here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6eFqA-HIJc

Couple of screenshots from the official Nintendo website. Confirms there's also investigation scenes.

---

That better be placeholder art, because it's aweful.

---

As far as we can guess from the Famitsu article though, 'crime scene investigation' is limited to investigation of photographs of crime scenes. As in: the duo do their investigations based on the old materials in the files, as well as calling some of the old witnesses, etc.. The sloppy art-style is probably used in the 'old pictures' (though attractive, it certainly isn't).

---

Aside from being unattractive, it is also very unclear. It's hard to distinguish and identify the different things in that image

---

Yeah, it's pretty ugly. I think it's the final art, too. It might be an old picture, but... I don't think it should result in quality like that. I also don't really like the in-game font from the trailer and stuff.

But the character models and graphics for the interrogation segments like sweet, and this is the kind of game where characters/story tend to end up more important than graphics.

The ugly investigation graphics might definitely end up being a negative point, but as long as the rest of it is up to CiNG par, I doubt they'll bring the game as a whole down.

---

Ash is gonna love that. Totally not lengthy interview!

> http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/in ... 55100.html

---

That's only part two of the interview.

So yeah, I'm only doing a summary of the interview, for obvious reasons.

Participants are:
Taisuke KANASAKI (ILCAAPPS): Game design, character design
Tetsurō SHŌJI (Arc System Works): Director
Mayu Sakura (Freelance Writer): Scenario

About Cing
Kanasaki has been working in the industry since the age of 18. He originally came from a shooting game background (Technosoft, Red Company). After some other jobs, he joined Riverhill Soft (J.B. Harold games), which was going through some changes, as a group of employees left to set up their own company. That group became Level-5. Riverhill Soft went out of business soon after, and Kanasaki joined another group that originated from Riverhill Soft. That was Cing. Both companies thus had their roots in Riverhill Soft, were situated in Fukuoka and focused on adventure games. Whereas Level-5 did more accessible adventure games like Professor Layton, Cing sticked with the more traditional adventure.

It was Cing CEO Miyagawa who came up with the idea for Another Code and showed it to Nintendo. Kanasaki was then appointed to director and character designer. Kanasaki was first asked to make a sketch for the presentation, which was Ashley. Afterwards, he tried to make a better design, but the first sketch was deemed more suitable for the game they were going for.

How Chase First Started
Kanasaki already knew Arc System Works CEO Kidooka, and about a year ago, Kidooka asked him if he wanted to make an adventure with them. ASW already did the Jake Hunter games, and they wanted to do a new series. Kanasaki accepted and after discussing it with former Cing CEO Miyagawa, they contacted Mayu Sakura for the script. The writer of Cing’s Little King Story, Yasuhiro Wada, had worked with Mayu Sakura, which is how they got her for Chase. Arc System Work’s Shōji was assigned director.

Nowadays, ‘pop’ adventure games like Danganronpa and Ace Attorney are popular, with new gimmicks every game, but there are few classic, traditional adventures anymore. Kanasaki is aware he himself couldn’t make such games, but he hopes he can make an adventure where other companies will also think they couldn’t make a game like Kanasaki.

About Chase
The final product is close to the original concept, which revolved around an interrogation room. It was chosen as an original setting for a game. Kanasaki thinks it’s like the TV drama Cold Case, a series he likes, though he also notes you shouldn’t say that to Sakura (“It’s my original story!”). Sakura first had no clear image of “hardboiled” (she had Golgo 13 in her head). Sakura is best known for games like Toybox’ Hometown Story and Level-5’s Cinderella Life, but she likes taking on writing challenges (and she is not particularly specializing in games aimed at girls).

Nanase’s design is made similar to Kyle Hyde on purpose, as they wanted to catch the eye of Cing fans. He was the first character they thought of. Assistant Amekura followed as a foil to Nanase. Amekura had long hair in her first designs, but that became shorter.

Concept
The game was from the start designed as a small project. The game is like a film, so 2~3 hours of gameplay for the price of 800Y, which is a bit cheaper than a movie ticket (My note: actually, it’s less than half the price of a regular ticket in Japan!). They hope they can make more episodes in the future, like episodes in a TV drama.

Development
At Cing, they’d have to draw everything themselves, but for this game they used Live2D to add animations to the characters. They paid special attention to the expressions of the characters. Obviously, doing many animations would make the game bigger (memory-wise), so they had to work hard to keep it all in balance. Live2D is actually not often used to animate expressions, and even the staff misunderstood them when they were first told to animate the characters with Live2D.

There’s no voice acting in the game. Kanasaki and Sakura both don’t feel a particular need for voices in the game (Kanasaki didn’t use voices in Another Code R on purpose), but director Shōji has to admit he wishes he could’ve added voices, as it does tie in to sales.

With Cing, they did a lot of experimental stuff with moving the hardware around, but this time they focused on the story alone. Kanasaki used to talk with former Cing CEO Miyagawa about the kind of games they made. Like Nintendo, they wanted to make games you could play over and over, but they also thought it was important to make games you suddenly feel like playing again. During the production of Hotel Dusk, Kanasaki saw the film Bagdad Café, about an old roadside motel, and he wanted to make a game like that film, one you could look forward to again and again.

The story is a mystery game, but not one about pointing out who the guilty one is , or about activating the right story flags one after another. Like the Cing games, it’s all about enjoying the story.

---

It's out!

---

Will probably start on it tonight ^_^

---

Please let us know what you think of it!

---

Haven't gotten too far into it yet (I think), but the pacing feels kind of fast. It's kind of hard to make out some of the kanji in the font, but the graphics/pictures ended up fine.

---

There's a Part 1? o_O

Anyway, thanks for the translation, will read that when I have a bit more free time ;__;

---

So, I played the game last night, and it was... disappointing. I understand it was a small project, but similar DL-only projects by ASW have showed more ambition than this game. The story starts with the Unsolved Cases Section getting a mysterious call saying an explosion accident five years ago was not an accident at all, and detective Nanase (forced by his subodinate Amekura) start going through the files and calling people to the interrogation room for further questioning.

The game is fairly short. It was envisioned like a film, and I did indeed clock in at about 90 minutes (which is almost half of what they estimated it would take, but whatever). The story, while not groundbreaking, is fairly amusing, and is accompanied by a short soundtrack by Satoshi Okubo, whom we know of his CING work. The story is standalone, but it does hint at more to follow, also regarding Nanase's past.

In the interview, Kanasaki mentioned he wanted to make more traditional adventures, as opposed to the more game-mechanic-reliant Ace Attorney and Danganronpa. Here, he fails miserably. While the story is okay, it is not presented as a game. It's just dialogue. The player has pretty much nothing to do: the story flows automatically. The only times you, the player, can do anything is 1) at the rare times the game asks a question and you need to select the correct answer, classic CING style (you get a penalty if wrong, but you usually only get to pick out of two or three options), and 2) some investigative sections where you need to point out something in old crime scene photographs (including a _weird_ instant game over sequence, where you absolutely need to pick out the right answer in one go). That is all you can do. The rest of the story goes automatically, from calling the witnesses, to the questions asked etc, all the way to the ending.

The biggest problem of Chase is really it isn't an adventure game. It isn't even a real novel game, as the choices you make do not lead to different story branchlines. They just want you to give the correct answer. And it's a shame, because the story itself is okay; it's just that the conversion to a game isn't really there. And I guess that this also has to do with the scale of the project, but it's so different from Kanasaki's other adventures, it just doesn't feel right. The story isn't written by the usual CING writer by the way, but it actually doesn't feel that out of place, and I think many players will think it feel somehow familiar in a good way.

Overall though: disappointed. And strangely enough, mostly by the element I thought couldn't go wrong with this project.

---

How would you say it compares to your typical linear visual novel, aside from length, seeing how that also typically has no real gameplay? I've 'played' some incredible linear visual novels, so the lack of branching path or any strong gameplay doesn't necessarily worry me

---

The thing is, the 'typical' visual novel isn't linear or lacking in gameplay. At least, not in Japan. The genre is a digital version of the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, so choices do matter, leading to branching storylines/bad endings/alternate scenarios. The genre isn't called a novel because it's linear, it was only called because the original novel games used prose, accompanied with some music and background images, to convey the story. Gameplay therefore lies at a different level than 'normal' games: whereas in most games you do the actions yourself to 'change' the story (move Mario around), in novel games you changes the entire flow of the story through your choices (= gameplay) (Choice 1) Mario goes through the normal pipe -> Branch A. Choice 2) Mario takes the hidden warp pipe -> Branch B). The best novel games are about finding out the correct sequence of choices that lead to the best ending, by gathering information through the various routes. It's like cracking a safe.

And.... none of that is in Chase. It's just one linear story, with some quiz questions once in a while. So no, I can't consider it even a novel game. In both the good, and the bad sense of the expression, I thought Chase is like a film. It has a reasonably interesting story, but there is just a major hiccup in translating the story to a game.

---

In other words, it's a kinetic novel with a few "are you paying attention" questions. Still a subset of a visual novel, but less interactive for sure.

Nothing wrong with that though, Higurashi has no choices either.

Now I kinda feel you're just being semantic here. When I say a linear visual novel, I'm talking about those novels like the mentioned Higurashi. And there are plenty more like those, especially when they're short. Apparently they're called kinetic novels? So I did use the wrong term, but I had thought it was clear enough what I was referring to when I said linear visual novel.
And when I used that term, I didn't exactly expect this... uh, I don't even know what it is... lecture? I understand what a visual novel is (heck, I help in localizing them), and I gotta say, I've always used VN as a kind of umbrella term for all digital novels with pictures and text in a digital format -- and it almost always has music, often has voice acting, and frequently has choices. And I've never really got told off for this. So either your terminology is a bit too stiff, or the others have been way too lenient with my incorrect usage of the word.

So... now knowing I'm referring to the novel types that are linear and have very little gameplay, how does it compare to those, if you're familiar with it? Would you say it's on the same level of those? Better? Worse? I'm asking this so that I can get more of a feel for this game in a reference frame I'm familiar with myself

EDIT: And sorry if this reply of mine sounded a bit stiff, but I really had expected a comparison to some linear novels instead of what I did get

EDIT2: Yeah, in hindsight, I shouldn't react this way. But at this point, I also don't think I should edit my post any more. I just want to add that the last paragraph is an earnest question. Reading it over, it could read to be sassy, or passive aggressive, but I meant it earnestly.

---

So in other words, it's a Kinetic Novel (as blahmoomoo pointed out already). Interesting. I really don't mind that kind of game (loved Planetarian, though it's significantly longer than Chase), but I can understand ending up disappointed with one when expecting a traditional CiNG game.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting anything big (at least, not since we learned it would be a DL-only title), so I'm not really surprised. Really hope there'll be a localisation down the line.

---

So really, if this was extended into a full length story with twists and turns and a satisfying climax where all pieces and all subplots tie into the general plot like in Hotel Dusk, it would fail because of the format of "play" Chase is in? Dang. I reaaaly hoped we would get a traditional CiNG game with a slightly more modern design here.

---

Looks like Aksys is localizing this game! Fall 2016. https://twitter.com/VaguelyHorrible/sta ... 7517950976

What? Ugh, no. I like what Aksys does with the 999 series, but seing this Kyle Hyde-esque protagonist having a japanese name in the localization... what a bummer :/

---

Yeah... I don't like his name in the Japanese version, but keeping it that long and clunky in the English version is uurgh. This is a pretty small and low-key game, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're not putting much into the localization.

---

I've heard as much too, but I hope they're not glossing over this release too much and I hope it won't make potential revisiting fans of Hotel Dusk and etc. turn away because of it.

It makes me a little relieved though, knowing that this game actually takes place in japan. For a moment I thought this was another japanese-written-but-set-in-the-west game like HD or LW where the character names simply hadn't been localized.

I'm very torn on this not being picked up by Nintendo Treehouse, but why am I complaining? I'm just happy this ex-CiNG gets another chance at this game and made it to the western market already. I doubt this game sold well in japan and I doubt it will sell well here, but I know this is about Arc Systems testing the waters as a new/rebuilt studio with a small title. I just hope this becomes at least a basic success for them so they can move on to make bigger and meatier games again, like Hotel Dusk and the other great CiNG titles.

---

This game will be out in the eShop on October 13th in NA/EU.

---

This game has now been released in NA/EU eShops, by the way.

---

Just finished playing this and, well, I pretty much agree with Ash's review of the game. There were a few moments that were interesting, including the progress toward finding the true culprit and the twist at the end, but it was hard to get invested and they didn't have enough time to make the main characters all that interesting. I can dig another Hyde-like character, but this was basically a prologue to a bigger story (if they can get the budget to make another), so it's hard to recommend to the average person.

Also, using Japanese names (especially ones that seem atypical for average Japanese media) in a short story like this really doesn't help. I can get used to remembering what Japanese name belongs to what person with sufficient exposure, but this game is too short for that, so sometimes I got confused about the names of the people involved in the case.

I don't regret buying it though, since I want to see a CiNG successor. But considering they apparently didn't have the budget to get the game on the main screen of the eShop, this game has been stuck with other shovelware on the store, so who knows if it'll be successful. It does seem that a number of people have been waiting for Chase though, because it has 20 reviews and it is in the middle of the second page of best sellers, so it could be doing as well or better than they expected since that's about #30 (note that the first page of best sellers is mostly free stuff [which is stupid]. Also, SoJ is near the end of the first page and the two latest Yokai Watch games are before and after Chase).