VC Tuesday: Reopening the case

Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles on the DS didn't really set the American gaming community on fire, in terms of sales or critical response. The American debut of Workjam's detective series was marred by text errors and omitted content that caused the game to lose points with reviewers, and it just flew too far under the radar for even the Phoenix Wright audience to hear much about it. All of that is just a roundabout way of saying this: the third Tantei Jinguuji Saburo game, with a scenario by Final Fantasy VII/VIII/X and Super Smash Bros. Brawl scenario writer Kazushige Nojima is out in Japan today, and we shouldn't expect Aksys to pay to translate it for the few people who would drop $5. Prospects are significantly better for Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair -- so much better, in fact, that it's already out in the US and Europe, albeit on a different console. Rastan Saga 2, an awkward-looking Taito action-platformer about a big barbarian dude, is pretty much a lock as well, because Hudson is nice. As for WiiWare, judging by Nintendo of Japan's WiiWare page at the time of writing ... nothin'.