Capcom: 'One Grand Finale – Weddings, Rakugo, and Succession'

I posted it without the spoiler part. Anime Expo must have been a blast for the AA team this year. 🙂

☆ NintendObs Weekly – Monday, September 26, 2016 – Sunday, October 2, 2016.

One Grand Finale – Weddings, Rakugo, and Succession

SEP 30

Hello, and welcome to the final development and localization blog for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice. It’s been a wild ride, and these last 8 weeks have been a blast! And what better way to end than with the release of the full-length Special Episode, “Turnabout Time Traveler?” I don’t want to say too much about it since Mr. Eguchi will be telling you all about it in a bit. In addition, we’ll have some final words from Mr. Yamazaki, and then I’ve got some extra cultural info for all of you regarding Episode 4 and rakugo! Are you ready? Because here we go!

First up is Mr. Eguchi, the main writer of the Special Episode. If you haven’t played it yet, I hope his summary will convince you to check it out!

Welcome to the Special Episode: “Turnabout Time Traveler”!

Hello to all you Ace Attorney fans out there! I’m Masakazu Eguchi of Mr. Famous fame!

What? You have no idea who I am? Oh, sorry…

As fate would have it, I was able to write for the Ace Attorney series this time for Spirit of Justice. The Ace Attorney series features a different kind of charm and style from what I’m used to, so writing for it made me face a variety of writing challenges that are very different from the RPGs I am used to writing, so my experience on this title was invaluable to me.

Yup, I sure faced a lot of things during my time on this title. Even though I made sure to go on a run every morning and managed to lose 10 kg (22 lbs), once things got really busy, all I had time to eat was tsukemen (ramen in dipping sauce). So before I knew it, I’d regained 7 of those 10 kg (15.5 lbs)… And when all I needed was for the doctor to remove a polyp, I ended up getting hospitalized for the first time in my entire life…

All that’s coming to mind right now are things completely unrelated to Ace Attorney… Oops. I’m sure you’re not here to hear about my personal life, so I’d better get to my three-part detailed thoughts and analysis on what I’ve learned through my two years of writing for Ace Attorney!

…What? You don’t want to hear that much, either?

Then I’ll talk about the main game. There are so many interesting things I’d love to share… Hmm… What should I start with…?

…What? No spoilers? So that’s no good either?

All right, then what can I talk about? Hmm…

How about the DLC Special Episode “Turnabout Time Traveler”…? Yeah! I can talk about that! I can talk about the Special Episode that was released yesterday! You really must get it! I put everything I had into writing it, so I’m counting on you to catch my hot fastball!

So, would you like to know what kind of story it is? Yeah, I bet you do!

…What? But without any spoilers?

All right, and don’t worry – I joke around a lot but I’m actually a really tight-lipped person.

Now then, let’s talk about the true ending of “Turnabout Time Traveler”…!

…I kid, I kid!

OK, OK, I’ll get serious now, so please stop giving me that death stare!

All right, let’s start again with a little about the Special Episode!

…But before that, I just want to warn you that you have to clear Episode 1 “The Foreign Turnabout” before you can play “Turnabout Time Traveler.”

Now first, an overview of the case.

The crime takes place inside a wedding banquet hall, but it’s no ordinary banquet hall – it’s actually located on an airship!

This is completely unrelated, but as an aside, it was really tough working on this episode because sometimes I would type けっこん (kekkon) with the intention of producing the kanji for “wedding” (結婚), but I would wind up with the word “blood spatter” (血痕) instead. You really have to watch out that you’re selecting the right kanji when writing for the AA series.

[Note: When you type in Japanese on a PC, the most common input method is to type the word you want in romaji (Roman letters), and then hit the space bar to convert it into the kanji you want. But oftentimes, your OS will remember which kanji you chose the last time instead of picking the more logical kanji for the sentence and set that as the first option. So if you’re not careful and just hit “Enter” to accept the conversion, you could accidentally choose the completely wrong word.]

The defendant this time is the bride of the ball, Ms. Ellen Wyatt, and – get this – she claims to be a time traveler!

So, this case involves a murder in a flying banquet hall, and the defendant bride is also a time traveler…! Yes, the whole thing already smells a little suspect, doesn’t it?

Well, the one defending Ms. Wyatt will be our beloved Phoenix Wright, while the prosecution will be handled by his eternal rival, Miles Edgeworth!

I bet that got your blood pumping!

But that’s not all! After all that time away in Khura’in, Maya Fey will finally be back on her home turf as Phoenix’s assistant! Plus, when something smells, you know who’s sure to be lurking nearby… That’s right – Larry Butz also makes his long-awaited return!

Sorry for yet another aside, but I’ve gotta say that Larry is one crazy guy. He got into all sorts of trouble in the previous games, but boy does he get up to stuff in “Turnabout Time Traveler,” too. But you’ll forgive his crazy antics since, well, it’s Larry, right? There aren’t many characters like him, are there? So, thank you, Larry for being just the troublemaker I needed you to be!

With the gang all finally reunited, it’s time to party as they fly, move, break, and mend things in their latest adventure!

And what of the time traveling mystery? Well, I encourage you to pull back the intricate veil on that and discover the truth for yourself!

Hmm… I wonder if that description was enough to convince you to download this Special Episode…?

But really! Rest assured! True love and great sadness resides in the shadows of the gorgeous wedding reception. Tears will spill and fall. And strong hatred and murderous intent will even make an appearance!

I can’t write any more without getting into huge spoilers territory, so I’ll have to leave it here. And that about wraps up our time together here today. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and I’ll see you in Spirit of Justice!

HOLD IT!

Not so fast, Mr. Famous! You have some things to answer for! Mainly, all that rakugo in Episode 4!

But just in case someone hasn’t finished playing episode 4 yet, let’s have a few closing words from Mr. Yamazaki first about the ending of the game and the future of the Ace Attorney series before I head into spoilertastic territory!

Take it away, Mr. Yamazaki!

Fifteen-Years’-Worth of Thanks

Hi everyone, this is Takeshi Yamazaki, the director of Spirit of Justice.

This is the last installment of these dev blogs, and I want to thank you for reading each and every one of them. I sincerely hope that through these blogs, you have been able to see the strength of our devotion to Spirit of Justice and how we breathed life into the game.

This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Ace Attorney series in Japan, and the tenth in the West. I was but a fan of the series when I first started working on these games, and all of a sudden, ten years have passed.

Looking back on the series, the first episode of the first game featured a trial that centered on a murder that was committed in the course of a burglary. Now, in the sixth mainline game, we’ve come a long way and now find ourselves telling a story centered on the revolution of a foreign nation’s court system.

Over the course of these fifteen years, Ace Attorney has continued to evolve as a series with new gameplay mechanics, a transition from 2D to 3D graphics, and the ever-expanding cast of new characters and their dramatic stories. In addition, the dev team has changed and grown throughout the years. From the director and art director to the new people who continue to join our team, each change has brought fresh new ideas and new life to the team as a whole. Yet, despite this long history of changes, there were things that we absolutely could not change – things we as the dev team had to do our best to preserve no matter what – and these things can best be cast as the answers to the following questions:

1. What do people play Ace Attorney for?

2. What makes Ace Attorney, Ace Attorney?

When we first started working on Spirit of Justice, the team’s core members got together to re-evaluated what these “absolutes” of the AA series are by re-analyzing the core concepts behind this series of games. Over a series of meetings we laid out what these core concepts were, and we then layered what new concepts we wanted to see and work with in Spirit of Justice on top in a concept sheet like this.

Hmm… Just showing you a picture of the cover isn’t all that interesting, is it? But what’s written inside is the super top secret recipe to our Ace Attorney sauce, so I’m afraid this is all I can show you!

But I will share with you what one part of the concept sheet says. In the “What is the theme of the experience that we want to impart?” section, there are two key phrases: “The Thrill of Turning Things Around” and “Revolution and Succession.”

The first is obviously something you are all very familiar with, but the second is a new theme we wanted to tackle inSpirit of Justice. Ever since we announced this game, we’ve been saying that its theme is “revolution,” and yet, there was actually a second theme of “succession” we’d kept hidden behind the scenes.

I’m sure there are many of you who have finished the main game by now. How did you find it? Were you able to feel and experience the themes of revolution and succession? I would be ecstatic if you could.

There is just one more thing I want to talk about regarding the ending of Spirit of Justice. I promise not to spoil anything as I talk about it though!

I struggled a lot with what kind of ending to give to this game, but there was one big thing I was sure of, and that was that I wanted the game to end in a way that would leave the series as open as possible for the future. One of the reasons for this is because Spirit of Justice is a sort of culmination of all the various threads of the Ace Attorney series.

Simply put, I wanted to leave this series in a place where, when the next installment is made, we can take it anywhere we want. I wanted to leave this game open-ended so that we could pick up the next game with whoever we wanted as the protagonist, have it be located wherever we wanted, and address any themes we wanted.

The future of Ace Attorney lies before us, its potential is as wide and infinite as the oceans. Where the series will go is up to you, the players, so please definitely let us know what you’d like to see.

Don’t worry, we’ll be sure to bring that secret Ace Attorney sauce with us into the future, too.

I sincerely hope you’ll continue to support the Ace Attorney series, and that you’ll watch this space.

Thank you for reading to the very end! Until we meet again!

Thank you, Mr. Yamazaki! That was a really great way to end these blogs. As a player myself, I think you and your writers have accomplished what you set out to do.

Now, before I get to the next section, I must warn you that it is full of spoilers for Episode 4 “Turnabout Storyteller,” so if you have not finished it yet, read at your own risk. That being said, I just want to thank everyone who has read up to this point. Ace Attorney sure has come a long way, and it couldn’t have without all of you.

I especially want to say a big thank you to everyone I met at Anime Expo this year. It was an amazing experience seeing you all! It was a great reminder that at the end of the day, it’s all about how much fun YOU, the fans, have with this series, and I couldn’t have asked for a more fun-loving, talented group of fans than all of you.

Thank you for all your support and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy the Ace Attorney series in the years to come.

Be sure to come back to this entry after you’ve finished Episode 4, now, you hear?

Until then!

— Janet Hsu at Capcom
Source: Capcom Unity.