Loop8, The Centennial Case Revealed on Nintendo Direct Japan

As usual, the latest Nintendo Direct, on February 9, 2022, had some Japan-exclusive game announcements, and this time, we most notably got to see The Centennial Case and Loop8.

Nintendo Direct showcases always have a specific Japanese live stream, which will contain exclusive announcements. Sometimes it’s indie games already available in English getting Japanese releases for the first time. But sometimes we also get to see exclusive games not shown on the English Direct. Here are the biggest games which were shown exclusively on the Japanese February 2022 Nintendo Direct.

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Loop8, new Switch JRPG by Gunparade March‘s Yuri Shibamura

Loop8 is a new “Juvenile RPG” planned for PS4, Switch, and Xbox One in 2022 in Japan. Loop8 was not announced in the West as of now.

Loop8 takes place in an alternate, futuristic world similar to ours, where humanity is fighting against the “Kegai”, an “ancient threat” that looks like giant monsters/Kaiju.

The protagonist of Loop8 is a young man called Nini, who grew up in a space station and lost his family to a Kegai incident. At the beginning of the game, during summer, Nini goes to live with his mother’s side of the family in a Japanese rural town, and ends up meeting with a relative called Konoha.

The Kegai can possess people, and it’ll be up to the player to enter the Kegai’s world and fight them in what looks to be turn-based battles. Players can also turn back time to redo certain actions and use their free time differently, and must build relationships with the characters. These relationships will have a direct effect on the battles.

Loop8 is a spiritual successor to legendary PS1 game Gunparade March

More importantly, Loop8 has a Gunparade March-like system where all characters have AI-calculated emotions to determine their actions and choices. And these AI emotions will constantly change depending on how your playthrough evolves, and the player’s own actions.

The game design and scenario of Loop8 were handled by Yuri Shibamura, a legendary game designer and author who in the past was the main creator of Gunparade March on PS1.

Loop8‘s character design was handled by En Morikura, who’s the character designer of Kizuna Ai, and Shingo Adachi, who worked on the Sword Art Online anime. Noriyuki Iwadare (Ace Attorney) is composing the music. Lastly, the producer is Youichi Miyaji.

Yuri Shibamura is overall one of my favorite authors and I recommend checking out their novel series Marginal Operation, which also had a manga adaptation, but no anime. J-Novel publishes the Marginal Operation manga in North America.

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, a Live-Action mystery by Square Enix

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story will release worldwide on PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam on May 12, 2022. The game is titled Haru Yukite Retrotica in Japanese. It’s a mystery, detective adventure game with a duo of protagonists, making it slightly similar to the Eve Burst Error series.

While The Centennial Case only showed up on the Japanese Direct, the game was later announced separately in the West.

The first protagonist of The Centennial Case is Haruka Kagami, played by Nanami Sakuraba. Haruka is a mystery novelist who investigates four murder cases that have taken place in the Shijima household these last 100 years. Haruka can use her own superpower to solve the cases: she can enter her inner cognitive space to help her logically solve the murders. The game also has a second protagonist, Eiji Shijima played by Yuta Hiraoka.

The Centennial Case was directed by Koichiro Ito, who worked on Metal Gear Solid V and P.T./the cancelled Silent Hills with Hideo Kojima.

The game’s producer is Junichi Ehara (Babylon’s Fall, NieR Automata), and the scenario director and cinematographer is Yasuhito Tachibana (The Naked Director on Netflix). The music was composed by Yuki Hayashi, Daiki Okuno, Ryoshi Takagi, Shuichiro Fukuhiro and Shogo Yamashiro.

The game’s Japanese official site has additional cast and gameplay details not found in the English press release that we might translate later on if time permits.

What do you think of Loop8 and The Centennial Case? Tell us in the comments below!

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