With DGS2 out next week, Famitsu brings one last article previewing the game! The masked man seen on the cover art and in the trailers is confirmed as a compatriot of van Zieks, and the magazine describes an incident where the two of them are attacked by a mysterious group. The rest of the 12-page spread is dedicated to revisiting DGS1, providing Famitsu's impressions on DGS2, and an interview with the game's staff.
Additionally, Famitsu's four reviewers gave the game a 9/9/8/8 for a total of 34/40.
As always, scans will be provided when available.
Update: Full scans (excluding the DGS1 recap pages):
Spoiler: Scans
The only new story info about the game itself is the aforementioned incident of Barok and his attendant being attacked. Despite the masked man's skill, he has no recollection of his name or past, and nobody has seen his face. Very mysterious!
The reviews and play impressions for the game are generally positive, with particular praise for how the game addresses all the lingering mysteries and the speed of the plot from the third episode onwards, though a few of the reviewers wish there could have been new gameplay systems [DGS2 is the first AA game with no new major gameplay systems since AA3]. The reviewers averaged 30 hours to finish the game. As for the extended impressions, the author is pretty much just gushing about the game as a DGS1 fan, but also notes that the ending felt like "it had to be this" (in a good way), that there was a strong sense of catharsis, and that Takumi's writing style shined through. More details on the interview with the staff as we translate...
Update 2: Some dev details from the interview. The second half will run in next week's issue.
-Nuri was the one to come up with the World's Fair theme, since he was tired of always drawing small locked rooms as murder scenes.
-Thomas Romain (who also worked on DGS1) designed several aspects of the World's Fair due to his history with mecha designs.
-Romain was also a big help in designing various London areas because he came from Europe.
-Takumi wanted to write cases that could _only_ happen in 19th-century London.
-Takumi had the general plot for the series outlined since DGS1, but writing DGS2 still took longer than expected. He'd hoped to finish the scenario before proper development began but instead went back and forth with the development team.
-As before, Takumi wanted to make a game that felt distinct from the original trilogy but also lived up to it. When discussing the scenario with his team, he would often take their guesses on where the story would wind up as a kind of challenge and strive to make the plot even better than they thought.
-The team was a little surprised by how popular Asougi was, but this time they feel all the main characters get spotlights and development a bit more evenly.
-Takumi enjoys the Holmes stories by Robert L. Fish for showing a Holmes who can be a bit nonsensical. He also recommends the first batch of Doyle's Holmes stories.
-Takumi's never been to London (though he asked if the team could go for, uh, "research".) Nuri visited once as a student. Eshiro went several times while working on DmC: Devil May Cry.
-Takumi recommends Asougi's fans play the Asougi Asinine Attorney mini-case... and van Zieks' play the Holmes mini-case.
Update 3: Ash has translated the interview in full:
Ash wrote:
For those interested, I just posted a full translation of this interview (which is only part one of two) on Gyakuten Saiban Library.
In addition, we have full art of the "Masked Disciple" (as the site calls him) now:
Spoiler: Official art
Just a week to go!
I also like that Nuri sometimes adds his own ideas and Takumi accepted them, it really shows how much trust they have for each other (and results in cute, even though nonsensical detail like Ryuun's hand guard).