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):



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:



In addition, we have full art of the "Masked Disciple" (as the site calls him) now:



Just a week to go!

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Review score of 34/40 (9/9/8/8)

Compared to DGS1, it's worse (DGS got 9/9/9/8). Compared to Dual Destinies, it's much worse (10/9/10/8). Then again, Famitsu seems like a useless magazine to turn to for reviews, so I'm not going to read into it.

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I find it interesting that the 'Sir Van Zieks' article in the screenshot is in English.

Not to throw fuel onto the fire, of course.

Jesus. How bad can the DGS games be if DD (the weakest game in the series for me) is better?

Famitsu scores are... not exactly known for their objectivity, lol. I'd be much more interested to see the text of the review rather than the scores.

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DGS is much better than Dual Destinies imo. It stems from a variety of factors, like that Dual Destinies was the end of the series' long hiatus (it also received great reviews over here), and that DGS feels a bit incomplete in its final chapter.

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AAI2 and SoJ scored respectively worse than AAI1 and DD, so by all means DGS2 scoring lower is a sign that it's better

Regardless a score is a bad demonstration of lasting quality as seen with DD vs DGS. DGS is probably worse to some because of how the latter cases can be a mixed bag but case 1, 2 and 3 (and 4) all seem to be well-liked and unlike DD there hasn't been a sign of people finding DGS more mediocre as time goes.

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Stuff gets interesting. I wonder if the incident is going to be the fifth case.

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34/40 is also the same score PW:AA:SoJ and AAI:ME got. In comparison, there are two games that have worse Famitsu scores (PW:AA and AAI:ME2, both with 32/40).

There are also 3 games that have the same score as DGS1, with 35/40: PW:AA:JfA, PW:AA:TaT, and PLvsAA. There are two games with higher scores: AJ:AA, with 36/40, and PW:AA:DD (the highest scored game in the series) with 37/40.

So...take of that what you will.



If I remember correctly, Janet Hsu was in the development team for the first game to make the English-worded stuff, so I guess they got her to make some English text for this game as well.

On that note, that picture of Barok and the masked man facing off a bunch of highwaymen looks pretty sick. I'm guessing that's part of what's gonna happen in Case 5 (though maybe not the main crime of that case?).

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Updated the first post with scans. Adding details...

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Slight correction: AA2 did have several gameplay additions, namely the ability to present profiles and the Psyche-Lock system. AA3 was the first game to have no additional gameplay features whatsoever from the previous game.

Also, that newspaper has some pretty neat easter egg stuff in there (such as 'Skeleton Captures Bumbling Burglar'). I guess "Death Bringer of Old Bailey" is the official English term for his appellation, and the World Fair is apparently "The Great Exhibition".

Also, 'Altamont Gas Company'? Wasn't Altamont the name of Juror No. 4 in DGS2-2 (the fancy lady with the bee-looking umbrella)?

That said, the news that it actually does solve the mysteries of DGS 1 pleases me greatly!

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And also the metal detector mini game.

Still, I'm interested in the masked guy. I wonder why he can't just remove his mask though. Then everyone would know who he is probably.

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Whoops! Thanks for catching the AA3 thing. You think one thing and write another...

And yes, Altamont is the surname of DGS2-2's Juror No. 4. Curiouser and curiouser, as they say...

Updated the first post with some info from the dev interview.

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For those interested, I just posted a full translation of this interview (which is only part one of two) on Gyakuten Saiban Library.

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They mentioned the background need to stand out so players can interact better with it, so does this mean more places to investigate? I'm hyped! I personally like the change of places in DGS, DGS1-1 and DGS1-3 are my favourite because the murders happened in a rather 'public' space, rather than isolated/locked room situation even though the witnesses didn't really help, they are a breath of fresh air

Besides that, as a (hobby) artist, I really like reading Nuri's comment about creating background that stand out but still has the dark atmosphere of London. It makes dgs immersive and believable, and even fictional elements (steampunk) blend with actual historical elements (19th century London and Meiji Japan) so well and creates a nice aesthetic. My only complaint is the Western/steampunk characters are so detailed and hard to draw... 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).

Also, Takumi admitted he was a little too enthusiastic while writing DGS1 which caused a lot of mysteries unsolved. I think it's funny and relatable (when creating/designing a fictional world i get carried away too sometimes!), but also sad because it's the thing everyone complains about and it does make the finale feel underwhelming and DGS2-bait-ish... but what can you do. However, I'm still I'm looking forward to DGS2 because all the mysteries will be solved!

And,



I'm so intrigued and feel targeted aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

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You know, it doesn't actually surprise me that Thomas Romain was involved in making DGS London. The place bleeds his style everywhere.

Something I just learned about the newspaper, to the right of the headlining story is an article about crediting Maria Mitchell of Nantucket for the discovery of a comet and being awarded by King Christian VIII of Denmark. Said story is an actual thing that happened (although some alternate universe stuff has to apply here, considering that the story in question took place in 1847 in real life, and the game's events happen in at least 1901).

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He looks like sherlock.

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He bears the Asougi family seal, he is either Asougi himself, his brother, or his father. Based on his facial shape, I would say it's Asougi himself.

What a throwback to my middle school this is. I had many a classes resting my head on a book while my history teacher talked at length about this

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Does anyone have (scans of) the second part of the interview, by the way? (published in the issue released last week, which is dated as the August 17 issue).

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