As announced during the most recent Japanese Nintendo Direct, Nintendo and Mages are working on a pair of Famicom Detective Club remakes. Mages is widely known for their work on the Steins;Gate series, as well as several other high-profile visual novels. Both Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and Famicom Detective Club Part II: The Girl in the Back are set to be remade. There's no word on an English translation at this time (and neither has ever officially been translated). Both Famicom Detective Club games are set to launch exclusively for the Switch in Japan sometime in 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvtqF7nlJfM
Sitting squarely within the "adventure game" genre, a term used for visual novel games in Japan, both Famicom Detective Club games are largely text-based, no mean feat at the time. The first game, The Missing Heir, sees you partnering with Ayumi Tachibana as you progress linearly through crime scenes and events. It was directed by Yoshio Sakamoto, who designed Metroid and Kid Icarus. It was later released in a dual package with the second Famicom Detective Club for the Game Boy Advance, and then ported to the Virtual Console for Wii, 3DS and WiiU.
The second Famicom Detective Club game, The Girl in the Back, sees the return of the protagonist and Ayumi Tachibana. Taking place before the events of the first game, it's set when the pair are still in high school, investigating two seemingly unconnected murders of a young girl and an old man. The Girl in the Back is far more popular than the original, owing largely to the fact that it was re-released for the Super Famicom late in the console's life cycle, and getting an English fan translation back in 2004. There was a third game in the Famicom Detective Club series, but it was released for the Super Famicom Satellaview add-on and isn't included in this remake announcement.
Curiously, Nintendo was asked about the possibility of a remake of the Famicom Detective Club games during an investor's call in July. With 2020 quickly approaching, as well as Tokyo Game Show just around the corner, we may see more of the remakes soon.
