The Schoolgirl Famicom Detective, Ayumi Tachibana for Smash Switch (Famicom Detective Club Remakes Coming to the Switch)

[perfectchaos83]

Well, I come bearing some unexpected news. You guys remember the mystery of Ayumi's spirit artwork? We all were quite puzzled about the source last December, but while looking for artwork for my above post (in Japanese this time), I actually stumbled over the source. This might get a bit lenghty, as usual for me though. Well, let's start.

While going through Google Images, a particular image caught my eye (more on that shortly), which in turn led me to a Japanese fan blog talking about FTC. Scrolling through it didn't reveal much new in terms of art, except for two particular pictures:

Spoiler

One was the artwork used for Ayumi's spirit, but the other had her in a swimsuit, which I've never seen before. Seeing those two pictures piqued my curiosity and I decided to actually take a closer look. First thing I did was check the date and the blog entry is from March 2016, which predates Ultimate by nearly 3 years (December 2019). And that's when I was all like:

Running the site through Google Translate didn't reveal much about about the school uniform artwork, but it said the swimsuit is from the official site:

Seeing that the blog is from 2016 and mentions the official site, I took the chance to see if it's still up and luckily the Japanese Wikipedia article for the first game did indeed have a link. While it seems to mostly be focused on the SNES remake and the history of the series, celebrating the "10th anniversary of FamiTan", it does have some FDS era stuff, too. Well, to stop beating around the bush, after going through the pages, I ended up on this page, featuring Ultimate's spirit artwork. And clicking on the left FDS era Ayumi, bring up this page with swimsuit Ayumi. And for good measure, here's the page with the biography of the protagonist and Ayumi, as well as their best known SNES era artworks.

So, there you go, two of the probably most obscure Ayumi artworks straight from Nintendo's very own website. Also writing all this down in a somewhat meaningful order took me way too long than I'd like to admit. But hey, case close, I'd say, I consider it a victory.

Mystery solved! Good job! Quite an interesting tale.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

Well there you have it, we know where her spirit came from. I never knew her swimsuit artwork was real, but now we know.

Anyways, I will add anyone new here to the support list now that we are getting more activity. Let me know if I missed you, I want to keep track of everyone now that we got more people supporting her and a remake coming soon.

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

Given how Nippon Ichi deals with visual novels, I think they'd be perfect for the localization job. Not only did they bring over Suda 51's Silver Case games, but have single-handedly managed to export a Sakura Wars title when Sega wasn't going to do it.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

Given how Nippon Ichi deals with visual novels, I think they'd be perfect for the localization job. Not only did they bring over Suda 51's Silver Case games, but have single-handedly managed to export a Sakura Wars title when Sega wasn't going to do it.

That is actually a good idea actually.

I would not mind them doing the localization if NOA/NOE lacks the efforts of using their usual localization team on it.

Just as long as the voice acting is good, or they can just leave it dubless and just translate the text. I would be happy with either route.

 

[Deleted member]

Congrats to the Famicom Detective Club fans for the news about the upcoming remake! It does look pretty promising!

Hopefully other obscure Nintendo IPs get remade too, my personal dream being Mach Rider.

I’m rooting for all of you on the hopes of an english translation. I feel that it can happen after seeing how the Western DQ fandom managed to get an english translation of the Erdrick trilogy for the upcoming Switch ports to happen in some way!

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

All we have to do is either push the petition around the web or hope for the best.

There got to be someone in NOA who would look at this game and know it would have that same appeal as Phoenix Wright here. VN's are not niche in the West anymore, they are growing more popular every day.

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

Pushing the petition would be best, yes. It worked for somebody's game. Can't take any chances.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

Then that is our next course of action.

Me and Denoxkun should let you all know when Operation Tachibana's Twitter is ready and we should go from there. For now, we all should push the petition individually on any social media we use. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, whichever works. As long as more sees it.

 

[BZL8]

All we have to do is either push the petition around the web or hope for the best.

There got to be someone in NOA who would look at this game and know it would have that same appeal as Phoenix Wright here. VN's are not niche in the West anymore, they are growing more popular every day.

If I recall, one of the Treehouse employees did a personal stream of FDC a few years back. I might be able to find it.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

If I recall, one of the Treehouse employees did a personal stream of FDC a few years back. I might be able to find it.

This is interesting. If you find it, please share it.

This could be our smoking gun.

 

[BZL8]

This is interesting. If you find it, please share it.

This could be our smoking gun.

Found it. If anything, Treehouse definitely has a few people who would be excited about the remake.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

Found it. If anything, Treehouse definitely has a few people who would be excited about the remake.

This is actually pretty good.

Assuming these people did not leave Treehouse yet, I would hope they do vouch for the remake to be localized. If they know about it already.

 

[BZL8]

El Psy Kongroo.

Chiyomaru Shikura, the creator and writer of Steins;Gate and the Science Adventure series, is involved in the production of the remake and is probably writing it. Are we getting two separate remakes or one combined remake? Something tells me if its the former, they are about to add a lot.

大人「フ、ファミ探！？マジかよ！」

若者「え！任天堂新作でテキストADV？」

これは任天堂×MAGESコラボによる『ファミコン探偵俱楽部』2部作、フルリメイク復刻プロジェクトなのだ！原作はまさかの任天堂製テキストADV！

とうとうこの時が…
ご期待下さい ！#ファミ探https://t.co/S1aBnsPMNR pic.twitter.com/emkUvgCVGK

— 志倉千代丸 (@chiyomaru5pb) September 7, 2019

 

[Rie Sonomura]

El Psy Kongroo.

Chiyomaru Shikura, the creator and writer of Steins;Gate and the Science Adventure series, is involved in the production of the remake and is probably writing it. Are we getting two separate remakes or one combined remake? Something tells me if its the former, they are about to add a lot.

大人「フ、ファミ探！？マジかよ！」

若者「え！任天堂新作でテキストADV？」

これは任天堂×MAGESコラボによる『ファミコン探偵俱楽部』2部作、フルリメイク復刻プロジェクトなのだ！原作はまさかの任天堂製テキストADV！

とうとうこの時が…
ご期待下さい ！#ファミ探https://t.co/S1aBnsPMNR pic.twitter.com/emkUvgCVGK

— 志倉千代丸 (@chiyomaru5pb) September 7, 2019

>MAGES

aw yeah this gonna be goooooood

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

8-bit mode would be so cool. Steins;Gate on Switch felt like a Famicom game because of that.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

Maybe they could have you choose the soundtrack you want.

8-bit, 16 bit, and the new remake. That would be absolute fanservice for those that played the whole series and SNES remake.

 

[GoodGrief741]

El Psy Kongroo.

Chiyomaru Shikura, the creator and writer of Steins;Gate and the Science Adventure series, is involved in the production of the remake and is probably writing it. Are we getting two separate remakes or one combined remake? Something tells me if its the former, they are about to add a lot.

大人「フ、ファミ探！？マジかよ！」

若者「え！任天堂新作でテキストADV？」

これは任天堂×MAGESコラボによる『ファミコン探偵俱楽部』2部作、フルリメイク復刻プロジェクトなのだ！原作はまさかの任天堂製テキストADV！

とうとうこの時が…
ご期待下さい ！#ファミ探https://t.co/S1aBnsPMNR pic.twitter.com/emkUvgCVGK

— 志倉千代丸 (@chiyomaru5pb) September 7, 2019

It's gonna be one combined remake from what I gather.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

The combined remake approach would actually work out. But here is my thing, The Girl in Back is a prequel to the Hissing Heir. For the plot to make sense, they could have you play the latter first since it would explain how the detective agency was first formed and the Protagonist meeting Ayumi.


By the way, the OP is edited to have a link to our Ayumi Discord. Join it if you can. Also, we have 54 supporters so far. A huge milestone we managed to reach long before the news of the remakes. Thanks everyone.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

I'm absolutely loving how on fire this thread is right now. Let's make Ayumi the queen of the Retros bois and gurls.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

I'm absolutely loving how on fire this thread is right now. Let's make Ayumi the queen of the Retros bois and gurls.

We can only try, if anyone plans to import this or they could maybe give the fan translation of 2 a try. It is readily available for newcomers to play.

 

[BZL8]

Do remember that the remake might still be in early development, hence why they didn't announce anything for the West yet, and the reason they most likely announced it in the Japanese direct was to aim for nostalgia.

Assuming the investor's comments back in July marked the greenlighting of the project, the remake would only be two to three months in development towards the scheduled 2020 JP release. We also haven't heard any voice acting in the Japanese trailer despite them saying that the remake would be fully voice-acted, so I would think that the remake is still in its relatively early stages of development.

 

[perfectchaos83]

Do remember that the remake might still be in early development, hence why they didn't announce anything for the West yet, and the reason they most likely announced it in the Japanese direct was to aim for nostalgia.

Assuming the investor's comments back in July marked the greenlighting of the project, the remake would only be two to three months in development towards the scheduled 2020 JP release. We also haven't heard any voice acting in the Japanese trailer despite them saying that the remake would be fully voice-acted, so I would think that the remake is still in its relatively early stages of development.

This is all the more reason to start asking for a localization. If we can show early interest, it might be something they consider.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

Do remember that the remake might still be in early development, hence why they didn't announce anything for the West yet, and the reason they most likely announced it in the Japanese direct was to aim for nostalgia.

Assuming the investor's comments back in July marked the greenlighting of the project, the remake would only be two to three months in development towards the scheduled 2020 JP release. We also haven't heard any voice acting in the Japanese trailer despite them saying that the remake would be fully voice-acted, so I would think that the remake is still in its relatively early stages of development.

This is all fair. Famicom Detective Club was something 80s Nintendo fans adored and it would be nostalgic to reveal it just for them.

I almost forgot about the investors comments too. It very well could be very early in development. Maybe later this year or in a direct next year we could have a look at more parts of the game and some voice acting. I would hold my breath for a localization, it does seem possible when Nintendo is fine making a simultaneous release for the Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE port.

The day Ayumi can get a proper introduction in the West would be a victory for us.

 

[AwesomeAussie27]

Well, I come bearing some unexpected news. You guys remember the mystery of Ayumi's spirit artwork? We all were quite puzzled about the source last December, but while looking for artwork for my above post (in Japanese this time), I actually stumbled over the source. This might get a bit lenghty, as usual for me though. Well, let's start.

While going through Google Images, a particular image caught my eye (more on that shortly), which in turn led me to a Japanese fan blog talking about FTC. Scrolling through it didn't reveal much new in terms of art, except for two particular pictures:

Spoiler

One was the artwork used for Ayumi's spirit, but the other had her in a swimsuit, which I've never seen before. Seeing those two pictures piqued my curiosity and I decided to actually take a closer look. First thing I did was check the date and the blog entry is from March 2016, which predates Ultimate by nearly 3 years (December 2019). And that's when I was all like:

Running the site through Google Translate didn't reveal much about about the school uniform artwork, but it said the swimsuit is from the official site:

Seeing that the blog is from 2016 and mentions the official site, I took the chance to see if it's still up and luckily the Japanese Wikipedia article for the first game did indeed have a link. While it seems to mostly be focused on the SNES remake and the history of the series, celebrating the "10th anniversary of FamiTan", it does have some FDS era stuff, too. Well, to stop beating around the bush, after going through the pages, I ended up on this page, featuring Ultimate's spirit artwork. And clicking on the left FDS era Ayumi, bring up this page with swimsuit Ayumi. And for good measure, here's the page with the biography of the protagonist and Ayumi, as well as their best known SNES era artworks.

So, there you go, two of the probably most obscure Ayumi artworks straight from Nintendo's very own website. Also writing all this down in a somewhat meaningful order took me way too long than I'd like to admit. But hey, case close, I'd say, I consider it a victory.

Now this is good detective work. Ayumi would be proud.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

The moment you all been waiting for, Operation Tachibana is ready. This will be our base of operations on Twitter, something me and Denoxkun worked very hard on. We got a good 17 followers for now, which is not too bad. But we need far more. Which is why I need all of you to do your parts by following the account and spreading the word.

https://twitter.com/OperationTachi1

Now let's get out there and show Nintendo that the West will enjoy Famicom Detective Club as much as Japan would.

 

[Deleted member]

The moment you all been waiting for, Operation Tachibana is ready. This will be our base of operations on Twitter, something me and Denoxkun worked very hard on. We got a good 17 followers for now, which is not too bad. But we need far more. Which is why I need all of you to do your parts by following the account and spreading the word.

https://twitter.com/OperationTachi1

Now let's get out there and show Nintendo that the West will enjoy Famicom Detective Club as much as Japan would.

I shared the link to the Discord server for the movement at Dragon Quest Inn, a place usually considered as the biggest DQ server for its western fandom.

Hopefully some people from there help the cause besides myself!

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

I shared the link to the Discord server for the movement at Dragon Quest Inn, a place usually considered as the biggest DQ server for its western fandom.

Hopefully some people from there help the cause besides myself!

Thanks.

We will see if we could get enough support from them. Dragon Quest fans were in a similar boat before and we could be allies if we tried.

 

[Deleted member]

Thanks.

We will see if we could get enough support from them. Dragon Quest fans were in a similar boat before and we could be allies if we tried.

Indeed!

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Phoenix Wright showed that there's a market for visual novel murder mysteries in the West and games with more out there premises have been localised before so I can't see a reason not to.

Maybe getting Europe all all it's languages involved but start with an English Localisation and go from there.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

I think we should also try to get the Ace Attorney and Professor Layton fans to join our cause as those franchises wouldn't exist without Famicom Detective Club.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

I think we should also try to get the Ace Attorney and Professor Layton fans to join our cause as those franchises wouldn't exist without Famicom Detective Club.

While that may be a good idea in concept, it may not be an easy task.

We do have Layton and Phoenix fans that would rather have those two in Smash over Ayumi any day, or probably would not want to look at the predecessor that even gave them their existence.

I think what we need is more someone who is a face of them, who can convince them to help us. Maybe Moydow for Phoenix and Curious Villager/Erureido for Layton if possible. Assuming those three are still around here.

 

[RetrogamerMax]

While that may be a good idea in concept, it may not be an easy task.

We do have Layton and Phoenix fans that would rather have those two in Smash over Ayumi any day, or probably would not want to look at the predecessor that even gave them their existence.

I think what we need is more someone who is a face of them, who can convince them to help us. Maybe Moydow for Phoenix and Curious Villager/Erureido for Layton if possible. Assuming those three are still around here.

Curious Villager Is still around, but I don't know about the others.

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

Oh right, Moydow is here, although they go by a new name.

We will see if the two can find some way to get Layton and Ace Attorney fans to support our cause. That could do us a huge solid.

 

[GoodGrief741]

While that may be a good idea in concept, it may not be an easy task.

We do have Layton and Phoenix fans that would rather have those two in Smash over Ayumi any day, or probably would not want to look at the predecessor that even gave them their existence.

I think what we need is more someone who is a face of them, who can convince them to help us. Maybe Moydow for Phoenix and Curious Villager/Erureido for Layton if possible. Assuming those three are still around here.

We have talked about the remake on those threads and there's a good amount of people that are happy about it and either are already fans or are at least curious about it. I'd say it's worth a try!

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

We have talked about the remake on those threads and there's a good amount of people that are happy about it and either are already fans or are at least curious about it. I'd say it's worth a try!

Thanks GoodGrief, and that does sound reassuring.

I will give it a shot this night, just to see how many of them will be on board.

 

[smash puffle]

Congratulations on getting a remake! Hopefully StarTropics can get one too someday...

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

A friendly reminder to follow Operation Tachibana if you haven’t already.

https://twitter.com/operationtachi1/status/1170747032505634817?s=21

We should have our first video for the movement ready tonight. I will be the one to share it here and you all can spread it.

 

[Deleted member]

I've been quite busy with IRL stuff meaning I didn't really have any time to continue working on the model, so I figured now might be a good time to ask a few things.

• I'm undecided about her face as official art has been quite contradictory with itself. I don't know whether to go for a realistic look for the eyes (like Yuri Kozukata, for example) or a bigger, more anime styled look.
• And the second question I have, would a rigged model of Ayumi be of any use right now to help out? I ask because, as mentioned, I hadn't found the time to continue, but if it can be helpful, I'll try to set some time aside for it a bit more often.

That's it basically. I'm a bit stuck right now and could a second opinion.

 

[fogbadge]

well a remake is bound to increase chances, though if it remains japan only sakurai's initial hesitations would likely remain

she is exactly the sort of character i love it when they put in smash, though im not usually one for supporting characters from games i havent played but im all on board for the trying to get it localised movement

 

[Yomi's Biggest Fan]

I've been quite busy with IRL stuff meaning I didn't really have any time to continue working on the model, so I figured now might be a good time to ask a few things.

• I'm undecided about her face as official art has been quite contradictory with itself. I don't know whether to go for a realistic look for the eyes (like Yuri Kozukata, for example) or a bigger, more anime styled look.
• And the second question I have, would a rigged model of Ayumi be of any use right now to help out? I ask because, as mentioned, I hadn't found the time to continue, but if it can be helpful, I'll try to set some time aside for it a bit more often.

That's it basically. I'm a bit stuck right now and could a second opinion.

IMO a middle ground of big eyes with some realism is the way to go. Smaller than the spirit's eye and bigger than in game sprites.

And honestly the model in a way would help if it means spreading awareness. But if you are too busy and have little motivation to work on it, it is best not to force it. We do not want to pressure you too much.