Retronauts - 546: Ace Attorney, Part 2

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

After the initial trilogy, Ace Attorney took some find to find itself once the book was seemingly closed on Phoenix Wright. From spinoffs to crossovers to soft reboots featuring new characters, Capcom's beloved adventure game series went through some ups and downs before returning to the steady level of quality we've come to expect. On this weeks episode, join Bob Mackey, Nina Matsumoto, and Maddie Copp as the crew explores just where Ace Attorney has been in the 15 years since its first finale. Retronauts is a completely fan-funded operation. To support the show, and get two full-length exclusive episodes every month, as well as access to 50+ previous bonus episodes, please visit the official Retronauts Patreon at patreon.com/retronauts.

This week on Retronauts, an episode hosted by the legally distinct podcaster, Mob Backy. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Retronauts. host for this one, Bob Mackey. And today we're talking about Ace Attorney all of the games who didn't cover in our last episode about Ace Attorney because back in 394, we covered the origin of the series in the first three games. And now we're back two years later to cover the rest of the vast, vast Ace Attorney Library. And this podcast is actually coinciding with the recent announcement of the Apollo Justice Ace Attorney trilogy coming to all major platforms in 2024. Before I continue, who is here with me today in coming in, uh, coming in

from Japan. Who is here today? Hi, it's Maddie Kopp, and it's pretty cool. They still let me podcast from Death Row. And who else do we have? I'm the one on the jury who's definitely a witch. It's me, Nina Matsumoto. Nina will be burned alive after this podcast. Looking forward to it. She'll be dropping her cage into an incinerator. Now, Nina, you were just on a podcast, but Maddie, it's been a few years since you've been on Retronauts. And in that short amount of time, you have become not only the greatest Metal Gear Solid fan to ever walk the earth, but you were also recently, probably best known on video forever preserved as Bad Girl. Yeah, yeah, it's been a couple crazy years. I also moved to Japan, and yeah, I seem to have

gained some kind of notoriety for Metal Gear Solid Comics, as well as quite a few Resident Evil ones. And, yeah, and also I work at Grasshopper, and I am now Bad Girl. Officially. officially and actually Nina and recently you just had some great metal gear merch come out through a fan gamer speaking of metal gear yeah now I design merchandise for melgear and Melgear solid and have I done anything for Resident Evil I guess not sorry there's things I've done that were not approved by them so I can't remember if I've done anything for Resident Evil that has actually come out but I don't think so might have pitched things that didn't get accepted. Yeah, it happens. So I want to let listeners know that, of course, you definitely want to go back to episode 394 if you want to hear us talk about the origins of the series and the first three games. But in this episode, we're going to avoid the big spoilers and limit our discussion to the

development of the games, the mechanics, the characters, the reception to the games, and so on. Basically, because it's hard for all of us to remember the essentially 25 novels worth of that is found within the nine games that we're going to be talking about today. So it's going to be the broad strokes, but I think we're going to give you a very good overview of where the series went after the initial trilogy. Well, also, we have not all played all of these games that we're going to talk about today. That's true.

I am still, I still have to play one of them. I have one and a half. I haven't played, so. I have one and a half as well. So we're all, we're all lacking, but we can each fill in the gaps that we are having. We're all probably missing, like, the same one, though. We're all fake fans. We are all fake fans.

We are all fake fans. We'll talk about this. Well, we can't find anyone better to talk about these games, so it's going to be us. I apologize. Hey, I've done official Ace Attorney merchandise since the last time we talked about this. Oh, that's right. I remember. You have the Maya shirt.

You have the Ace Attorney desk mat. Mm-hmm. What else am I missing here? so far that's it but there is more coming oh okay more by the time this episode is out oh wow we are doing more awesome

so I also want to point out that weirdly enough this is a very fruitful time for what I call the anime murder genre of which Ace Attorney is a part because just since 2023 began we have four games we have paranormal site we have your

turn to die we have process of elimination and we have the newly released rain code by the maker of Dongan Rompah. We're also getting a port of Ghost Trick as well, so it's like, it's the good time for murder mystery fans. It really is, yeah, yeah, and the Ghost Trick ports should be at pretty soon. I think that's this summer. Yeah, and we're the same group who did the Ghost Trick episode, too.

Yes. Now you have no excuse. I don't know what your turn to die is. What is that? It's a remake of a web-only Dongan Rompah style. game, but it came out officially on Steam in February of 2023. And then process of elimination is essentially Nipponichi doing their own Dangan Rampa. And the

investigation scenes sort of play out like Final Fantasy Tactics. It's very weird, but I'm looking forward to playing it. It plays out like a Final Fantasy Tactics. Yeah, plays out like a tactical RPG. I don't know how it works, but it looks really neat. Interesting. I can't picture how that would work, but I'm intrigued. I could be selling it, but I have purchased all of these games already. I've had time to play. paranormal say, which I do recommend, but

it's a very good time for this very small genre. I just want to point that out in advance. If you like these games, there's a lot more to play. I love murdered animas. Me too. So we're going to talk about the second trilogy first. And that begins with Apollo Justice Ace Attorney, released in Japan in April of 2007 and in America in February of 2008.

And a lot of this is going to be talking about the series as both a blessing and a curse for the creator Shutakumi because he's always trying to get away from the series. But it simply makes enough money that they won't let him leave unless he quits Capcom, which, I don't think is going to happen. Can I put heavy quotation marks around trilogy? Yes. Any fan has referred to this as the Apologist's trilogy until they release this as such. It's a trilogy because it's four, five, and six and it's being released as a trilogy later. Maddie, go ahead.

Sorry. No, I was going to say it's, it just doesn't work in the same way that others do. But it's like, how else are you going to group them kind of? I feel like all the fans were like, Apologists is trilogy. When they released that name, we're like, you know, The main character, the main character of all three of this game, follow justice. I mean, but we'll get to it. By the time you get done with Spirit of Justice, you can say, I guess that was kind of the end of his story. So by the time they get around to the last game here,

they do figure out, like, we should probably finish this character's story, and they do. And I will get to the sixth game. Yeah, there's one cliffhanger from the fourth game that they still never went over. But we're, yeah. I don't need to tell you this, folks. is already complicated enough. And on top of that, you have to work for a living? What's up with that?

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lowercase letters, notion.com slash retro. When you use our link, you're supporting our show. Go right now to notion.com slash retro. So, yeah, shoot Takumi cannot get away from Phoenix Wright. He was assigned to work on a fourth game

in the series for the DS. He didn't want to include Phoenix Wright, but basically was forced to because the character was simply too popular. So he wasn't even allowed a fresh start. But this game is really the debut of Takeshi Yamazaki. He'll be talking about it for the rest of the podcast. He worked on the DS

re-releases of the original trilogy and had a big hand in the design of the extra case in that trilogy. And some of those elements will be found in the progressive games in the series from forum beyond. So Takeshi Yamazaki would direct the next two Ace Attorney games and he would also direct the entire Miles Edgeworth series. And he left Capcom in July of 2020. I'm assuming he didn't want to do this anymore. And I totally understand why. These games seem very difficult to make and to write and he was a director and a writer on a lot of them

throughout the course of a decade. In a way, it kind of feels bad for him. Yeah. Because I understand why he would want to just end Phoenix's story at trials and tribulations. It's a good ending. And then he was kind of forced to bring him back. And when they thought of like a good way to bring him back, the fans were kind of not for it. They're like, oh, what did you do to Phoenix? And they just kind of have to like

revert him back to what he was before. And then he just kind of took over the quote unquote apologizes trilogy. Yeah, I think it's definitely the most difficult thing is they just couldn't focus on Apollo. And if they did, I think it would have been more interesting if they were able to really make him his own character. But even the major mystery, kind of like the background mystery of the fourth game, is what happened to Phoenix.

And it's like they just, they couldn't make Apollo the focus. He sort of like Phoenix is the poochee of the Apollo Justice series in which people are always asking, where's Phoenix? And yeah, this game, when I played it when it was new, I was kind of surprised by the reception because this is the game I really mainlined over the course of a weekend, just because it was, I was having a busy time in grad school. It was the one weekend I didn't have homework. My then girlfriend was out of town, and I was just like, okay, I'm going to play this entire game in two days, and I did, and I had a really good time with it. But I was really surprised to see this being a disliked game, and because of that, it will change the trajectory

of the series from this point on, at least with the mainline games. I don't know if either of you had the same impression of this game when you played it for the first time. I mean, I loved it. I loved the characters. I think we were definitely, like a lot of fans were kind of hesitant at first. They're like, who's this new guy, whatever? But once I played it, I loved it. I think the artwork is phenomenal. It's, you know, it's really special because it is the only Ace Attorney game that was made or the mainline game that was made for the DS. So it has like gorgeous sprite work. Yeah, and it was also, it came out when I was like, like 17 or 18. And so it was like the kind of height of me and my friend's Ace Attorney fandom.

So yeah, I just, I completely loved it when it came out. I do remember when the Game First came out in Japan, that was back when I was like deep in the AC30 fandom. So I was like buying the import from Japan and looking at reviews online and stuff and seeing the reception and people were kind of hesitant about accepting a new protagonist of Apollo and they felt like he was kind of bland compared to Phoenix or just kind of like a carbon copy of Phoenix without the actual backstory Phoenix so there was a bit of hesitation rejection there but it felt like there were more people in North America who liked this more like when it came out in English

eventually here. I feel like overall, like the West has embraced, quote-unquote, the Apologist's trilogy more than Japan has. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, and I mean, it is the series creator writing the game. And I do think as we go throughout the rest of the podcast and talk about the other games, I feel like there is a marked difference in the games that Shutakumi writes in the games that he doesn't write.

I mean, I do enjoy the entire series, but you can definitely tell when the creator is behind just things he's better at writing mysteries he's better at characterization and I know he has people helping him of course but I really think his games are the strongest and we'll see that with five and six but I do feel like this is a very well written game but I feel like we were also very spoiled especially in America because we got all of these like back to back to back and when we start getting to the periods of Phoenix Wright drought we realized we really didn't we didn't know how good we had it at the time just getting basically a new game a year for a very

long time. Yeah, yeah, it definitely wasn't. And obviously Japan had had the Game Boy Advance games, so they had like a much longer history with it. Whereas America, the fandom was just so strong in that time. It was just, it was the pinnacle of being an Ace Attorney fan. So

it was just like a really fun time. And I think any content was kind of seen as good content. Yeah, for us, it was like 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and then 2010, and then 2013, then 2016, and then 2021. So you can see the gaps get bigger for us

when it comes to the releases of these games. But yeah, I think we didn't know how good we had it. But you're saying earlier, Maddie, that this is the only game designed for the DS, the only Ace Attorney game designed from the ground up for the DS, for the DS, not the 3DS. And because of that, the new mini game, the new system in the game is the perceived system.

And it's fairly simple, but they're really taking advantage of more file space, more file space on the carts and, you know, just the higher fidelity of graphics in that there's a certain point in every trial in which you need to watch the witness closely as they're giving their testimony and you have to look all around them for the tell on their body in which that shows they're lying. And it is basically a hidden object game, but it is very cool. I do like this and they will bring this back, not with 2D graphics, of course, but this is a very good looking 2D game. and the last time it would really be looking this good in 2D even though

the Edgeworth games are 2D but I feel like they had more money and more time with this one. I don't want to be too negative but the precede system it is cool and it makes sense for the DS system

however just I know it's a ridiculous video game premise to begin with but just like being able to corner a witness just by saying like oh you sweat it a little

when you said this or your eye twitch a little when you said this, it just felt a little too ridiculous and it was hard for me to buy into it at first. I was like, this would not hold up in court. And I know it's a stupid video game. It's all fictional. It's supposed to be ridiculous and fantasy and all that. But that it was hard for me to spend the belief for, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Because it's not based on like actual evidence. It was just like, oh, but you looked a little nervous and he said this. It's like, well, what does that mean? It could just mean. They're nervous because they're on court. Most attorneys don't have a magic bracelet Yeah, but what is he going to tell the judge? Like, oh, your honor, my bracelet squeezed my wrist a little when they said this, therefore.

He needs to submit the magic bracelet ahead of time to the judge. This is, like, I know there's like. Sit around. He's like summoning ghosts or stuff, but. Yeah, I know. It's just, I just couldn't buy into this. I can't like remember my exact impression

of it then, but I feel like compared to Athena's gimmick, I appreciate it more because I think Athena's gimmick is worse. So maybe because of that, I'm like, okay, well, actually, it's kind of cool. Athena's gimmick is worse and we'll talk about it. But her thing is basically like you're playing up with a play school toy, like a preschool toy, would like press the face. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure at the time I thought like, well, this is kind of silly, but it's still like something new. And you get to see like a close up of really cool art. But then I like Dangan Rompah in which it has like visual metaphors like your train of thought as a car driving down the street.

I don't mind when things get a little silly in the trial scenes. Yeah, I was going to say though, yeah, just the graphics of that game are really incredible. I remember the first time seeing Trusie's Sprite where Mr. Hat pops out and just like how mind-blowing seemed that like that animation particularly was just incredible. And so, yeah, just that game is is really beautiful to look at. Yeah, I said this in the last podcast we did, but I do think Apologius is the best looking out of all the games. Yeah, I recently replayed one, two, and three, like a few years ago. And having played all of the later ones more recently, it's easy to forget that, oh, those games really didn't have a lot of frames of animation, especially in the takedowns of the criminals. That's something they would do a lot with when the games went to 3D.

But when you go back to the original games, like, oh, there's two new frames of animation for. me taking out the villain and that's basically it and yeah and it'll be interesting to see how because they are doing like the HD adaptation for it as well and which I think a lot of people didn't think it did a very good like even though the HD graphics are basically the original illustrations it didn't really do the games of service because that limited animation worked a lot better with the sprites so a lot of people were kind of iffy about when they did the HD ones and I'm wondering if Apollo Justice, the HD might actually kind of look a little

better because it has those extra frames of animation. Yeah, I think they have more to work with. I really would prefer the Sprite graphics, but I don't know how they would do that and be able to sell it as like a new game. But other things about this, it takes over

some things from the extra case in the Attorney 1 re-release for the DS. There's basically the same kind of focus on forensics. And then there's a few elements of this game that has polygonal scenes with 3D graphics, and this is just an example of them thinking, like,

they might have made this a 3D game from the beginning, but they decided not to, which is great. I'm glad they didn't decide to make this a polygonal game on the DS. It would not have looked as good as it ended up looking. But there's a few little things in the game that play out in 3D, and mostly I remember watching the same footage of

a concert over and over and over again. It's similar to the fifth case in the first game they added, where it's like, here's a video. watch it over and over again. That's right. There's a video in that one, too. Yeah, but yeah.

They bring, they bring back Emma, but not Maya. So in a way, it's more scientific because they don't bring back a girl who can summon a ghost to talk to her. They had to balance out the magic bracelet. Yeah, exactly. So in a way, it's not so bad. I feel like they had bigger plans for Emma because, well, when we talk about the Miles Edgeworth series, she was going to be the main character before they decided she's not popular

enough. And then when you see her pop up in the fifth and sixth game, she's just really pissed off all the time and overworked. Nobody wants to play as a girl. It's true. That's why Athena gets buried in the six game, really. She has like one little trial. Which is weird because I feel

like the majority of the Ace Attorney fan base are women, right? Am I wrong about this? Yeah, but they're women who like men, so. Yeah. Want to see the hot guys. They want to see vaguely homerotic tension.

Exactly. Other women just get in the way of that. What's this woman doing here? Get her out of the way. So yeah, one thing I would do want to talk about is that no spoilers here, but the end of the game involves the introduction of something called the jurist system, which was implied to be the future of the series. But that would not actually come about until the Great Ace Attorney. This was put on hold for a long time. And so this actually reflected a change to Japan's justice system that I just found out about because as late as 2009, Japan introduced a lay judge system in which jurors will share the bench with the judge and they're permitted to ask the witness questions.

And that explains why in future games the jurors are extremely chatty. Apparently, this only appeals applies to trials for serious crimes in Japan. So not every trial in Japan is a lay judge trial, but that was something new that started in, I think, August of 2009. So the future of the series was going to reflect the future of Japan's law system, Maddie. Yeah, no, I was just going to say because, like, I've only played Ace Attorney. I can only, like, imagine that in an extremely, like, comical situation. Just like the judge and all these jurors, like, chatting about some person who's on trial for murder. I want them to all be insane characters like they are in Greatest Attorney.

Exactly. Because none of us has done jury duty. No, no. in fact, I got out of it because I'm moving. It's a valid reason. Yeah, the only time, yeah, I've like been summoned, but then it's just like, oh, just kidding, we didn't need you. So it's like, okay, cool.

I think in some states, there are special trials in which jurors can ask the defendant's questions and things like that. But this is something different. And I was reading, like, when did this come about? And apparently Japan had a juror system in place like ours in America from 1923 to 1943. during the war was put on hold and they were like okay after the war we'll get back to having jurors but then it took until 2009 so yeah I guess I mean like these games don't get very political but at their roots they are political and that like a dumb judge decides everything

yeah yeah it is it is interesting to see that those influences on the games even though obviously they aren't you know indicative of actual you know law systems, but to have that influence is still interesting. And I mean, we have a lot to cover here, so I don't want to linger too long on one game, but it's going to be interesting to see how this is reevaluated when this new collection comes out because I haven't played this game in 15 years, and I'm looking forward to jumping back in again. I remember liking it and just being put off by all the sour fan discussion that happened afterwards. And then the series went through some lulls after that. I think we're in a good

place now, but I really want to see what the 2024 gamer thinks of this game. Now, it's removed from the context of, oh, this guy's the future of the series now and we hate him. Yeah, it is really interesting because, like, you know, they've released the trilogy multiple times, so everyone's so familiar with that. And these games have been kind of neglected in a sense, but now people can kind of experience them all at once. So we'll see, you know. I will say, even though I know they were forced to put him in there. It is cool how they brought back Phoenix as a completely different character. And I will say, without him being in the game, I don't know if I would have picked up this game. Yeah, yeah, that is true. It's like, it is, it is like, I do feel

that they should have had more, like, trust in Apollo and making him his own character and giving him his own story. But I also completely understand why they put Phoenix in and why they gave him such a major role because that's what everyone wanted to see and that's I mean that was the thing in like when the trailer came out and you like saw these characters and then you saw phoenix and he's like this weird hobo and you're like what happened and so that's all you care about you're like I need to know what happened to Phoenix yeah it was like yeah why is he like this why is his personality so different we're the toxic fans that made apollo the way he is but then he should I don't want to give away too much but like I wish he kind of stayed that way

I guess it's not a spoiler to say he came back as a lawyer You know he comes like as a lawyer No it's it is they they like Apollo Justice they were like we were like we're kind of We want to put this new guy in and but we still want Phoenix to be there But then the fifth game they're just kind of like yeah screw Apollo Phoenix right back in the title Yeah I like I liked his like more lax persona in this game

Yeah it was it was cool He's just like weird weird hobo dad who's just yeah yeah it was it was a really neat version of phoenix and we only get to see him that way in four so yeah i i also like this and i think it was the most dignified way to bring back this character that was forced on the creator to return and it was a new take on him and there was a mystery about him it did remove the attention from the title character but if he was forced to do it this is the best way uh yeah i feel like just making him the star again in five and six wasn't the best course for the series yeah it would have been cool he should have the mentor. Yeah, the mentorship role for the rest of the series would have been neat. It would have allowed the other characters to... The wise old, like, jaded guy who... Yeah, he's like the...

He's barred or whatever. No, exactly. Like, he should have stayed that way. And I guess it was eventually real. It was all, like, a persona that he was putting on. And then when you see him again, the next game, he's just like, right back to normal. I'm like, no, he should have mature.

Like, he should have... I combed my hair. He's got a new vest. Yeah, right. A vest and a locket. Once he shaved, they let him into the vest store. He got the new vest. We have to move on, though, to the next game, Ace Attorney 5 in America called Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney, Dual Destinies, released in Japan and the U.S. in 2013.

So this is, in my opinion, a real regression for Ace Attorney. It feels like an overreaction to Apollo Justice's reception. And because of that, it's a real back-to-basics approach. Apollo gets sidelined. Phoenix Wright's name is in the title, and we have a new character. and because it's developed alongside Leighton versus Wright shoot Takumi is not working on this project

I'm sure he's around in answering questions but based on how this game turned out I'm not sure he was very available because to me this is the worst game in the series still worth playing but like noticeably worse than anything else in the series I agree that's exactly yeah that's exactly how I feel too

I like the DLC case a lot I was going to say the DLC case is That's the best case. And it's wonderful, and it's super wacky, and the anime cutscenes and the songs are really fantastic. So it's worth playing just for the DLC alone. Yeah, I do like six more than five, but with both games, the DLC case is very strong. And, you know, the director of this is Yamazaki, we mentioned before. It sounds like he was very burned out working on the Miles Edgeworth games because he directed those two before he got on board this game.

and he almost quit until another staff member showed him how much people like the series. He was like on the brink of quitting Capcom when this new game was forced on him. So I think he was kind of at the end of his rope. He would go on to work on the next game, which I think is a much better game. But this feels like the work of someone

who is very tired of making this kind of experience. Yeah, and I know we're going to get to the latent crossover later, but you can see, I think we all would agree that you can see the effort that was put into that. over this. Yeah, and it's, I guess it's fortunate in America that this released first because then Leighton versus Wright couldn't make it look bad to us at least. And we're also entering an era in which Ace Attorney feels like a lesser release for Capcom

because digital games had a different identity 10 years ago, but in the age in which everything was on a disc or a cart, making the Ace Attorney series digital only made it seem like, oh, as important and that's really what this era feels like it's capcom is barely releasing games and it well it's so interesting because the first when they first released the first phoenix red on the ds it was such a surprise success um and it just like catapulted into success and everywhere sold out of it and then you get to this point where it's just kind of it's almost the opposite it's it's almost more like what you think they would they expected with the series is it's just kind of like oh some weird as will probably play this but that's about it yeah yeah it's uh i mean and there's a lot of

text to localize and this time around there they have to hire voice actors so this feels like a much more expensive localization than anything that came before where it was really just one person kind of doing all the localization work this time there's a lot more people involved higher production values and um i will say like the real standout here is the graphics this is when these games start looking really good in 3d um they were to pick it earlier in Leighton versus Wright, which we'll talk about, but here I feel like the presentation in terms of animation is much better. They really nail how the characters should move. That's not quite the case with Leighton versus Wright, although I feel that that game has better production

values. This one, the animations are just so much fun to watch. And this is the game where they really figure out, oh, one of the main attractions will be kind of like the finishing moves in court and the very elaborate animations with the villains. And I really feel like it's here that they decide like oh every villain has a prop and eventually that prop will reveal their true intent. I feel like that's kind of like a little runner throughout

five and six. I'm sure there, I know there are props in the earlier games but here it feels like something they decided ahead of time to really run with. Yeah, I think a lot of people were hesitant about the switch to 3D but they did really nail it. The animations are beautiful and I just for some reason like one of the moments

that sticks out is like you're investigating a scene and then all of a sudden it like pans up and like Fulbright like waves out of a window and it was just like wow like these these things you can do now are amazing and they just were able to kind of have more fun with the environments and with the characters in a way that they were limited before yeah the fact that not only the characters are in 3d the environment as well so you kind of like swing around and like yeah around things which you could not do before in the past games that was a a major change yeah like they did a good job with the models, the character models for sure. I think they like made it so that they made different models of the faces so that it looked good from a certain angle and then it would switch to a different model when they were like moving in different expressions and different angles and such. They made sure to like keep the spirit of the flat 2D graphics sprites, which I still miss. And I still wish they would go back to you because that's why I prefer. But they did the best they could with the 3D models. Yeah, they were really able to match the classic.

poses while adding new things for the characters to do. And I think they were, I feel like Capcom is really number one in terms of character animation. Like this and Monster Hunter and Resident Evil, they're just so good at that, especially with Monster Hunter. I feel like they, they've got some great people on board to know how to make people move in an effective way. So yeah, this is a bad game. I still think it's worth playing, but in terms of an Ace Journey game, well, I think part

of it is it's being compared to not only the trilogy, but even Apollo Justice, which are you know all really fantastic games or at least really good and it's yeah just nothing nothing about it hit right even like the kind of like the big mystery was just kind of weird like the like the major like villain reveal you're just kind of like all right yeah that's that's something and yeah and it's just like yeah like we i mentioned before Athena's Athena's system is just like what emotions are people feeling is this person happy or sad it's just like And it's just like, it just feels, and like, but honestly, I think the, the major complaint I had this game, and you kind of touched on this earlier, is it felt like it was holding your hand the entire time. It, like, did not give you the opportunity to think for yourself. And it's like you would figure something out and it'd take, like, half an hour for it to actually get to that point in the game. You're like, I already understand this. You, like, you don't have to guide me through every single little step of it. Yeah. The first time they put in the checklist. Oh, that too. That too. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of handholding. I remember because it came up in my research for six. I forgot there's there's kind of mandatory hints in this game that you can't turn off. And they'll just kind of, they'll kind of like nudge you too much in the right direction without you having to figure out like, oh, what does this, this character is saying this, how is this a hint for me and said they kind of just directly tell you, you should present this information. And the investigations are streamlined. It just feels like we had gotten over this kind of handholding in games by this point. So it felt like a, a weird regression and yeah yeah that was a good qualification mattie it is a bad game because it's being compared to the other games around it if this was the only phoenix right game it probably would be like oh this is neat and original how cool but other things have done this so much better and i'm glad they recovered from this but it was a bad time for the series yeah and like everything

and just like the story everything they did with apollo and the whole like dark it's like dark age at the law and it's just this bizarre plot and apollo's like just like emo and sad the whole time and you're like, what's his deal? Why is he like this? It's just, it's a weird game. I complained about this in the last podcast we did, but one thing I don't like about Apollo is he,

his personality and backstory changes to whatever suits the need of whatever game it is. Yeah, yeah. This is one big example of that and like, especially in like the next one as well. Like, I don't know. Another big complaint I have this game is there's like three protagonists.

Yeah. Because of that, there's no real focus goes on one character, just drop one of them. Yeah, yeah. Or if you have anything to just drop Apollo, Phoenix, get Phoenix out of there. We just need Apollo and Thina, like, whatever. Who cares about Phoenix anymore? His role is done. Both Athena and Simon, I was like Luke Waramont.

It's like I like them now, but I like them because of their role in six because they have a really great case. That's just fun in six. But in five, like, you're just kind of like, okay, like, yeah, big emo. Like, his concept is funny, the fact that it's like, oh, he's on death row, but we, like, need him to prosecute. It's, like, it's, like, it's funny. He's allowed to, uh, keep his bird, though. I mean, I like him.

Oh, yeah. He's a, he's a bird man. You should love that. Uh, I like him as a fellow bird man. And, uh, I mean, it's such a silly. I mean, he's like, he's like a kind of like a Ronan stereotype as well. But he, yeah, he's, he's kind of, he's handcuffed in court when he's, uh, when he's, uh, when he's, uh, fighting you in court, basically.

It's a fun gimmick. One of the big reveals of the game also is something they've done before. So I saw it coming from like a mile away. I'm like, oh, you're doing this again? So that was disappointing as well. We mentioned Athena though.

I did want to bring her up because everybody's mechanics are incorporated into this game. You get the cycloc thing with Phoenix Wright. You get the perceived system with Apollo Justice. And then Athena has the mood matrix. uh in theory i like it in execution i don't know if it works very well it's like the idea of doing like a like a psychological analysis of the criminal is so cool but then they boil it down to like preschool level of motion so it's just it just kind of makes her seem like it makes her seem

like immature and stupid and then of course Athena's gimmick is she's the youngest again it's like oh well you know they kept doing that with the with the original phoenix right with the prosecutors it's like well this is actually the youngest prosecutor well this is actually the youngest prosecutor well And then they do it with the defense attorneys too Because I think she's like 16 Like she's still a high schooler in this one With the with the what's it called again Oh the mood matrix yeah

You basically you listen to testimony And then you have to point out When the witness has a mood that conflicts With what they should be feeling And by doing that you basically Push the smiley face that equals the mood There are only four emotions in the case of this trial but I feel like they're always trying to find new things to do.

Yeah, yeah. This is kind of a reach, I think. Again, it was like, it's like an interesting idea to have this emotional system, but they just, they couldn't execute it in an interesting way. Well, I don't like about this is it's based on technology. So it kind of breaks the theme of like the spiritual aspect that we had before in the past, past games with like Phoenix with the Magatama

and the psych lock and stuff and then Apollo with his magic bracelet and then suddenly having this like amazing technology although that happens in investigations as well and I don't mind that as much for some reason I don't know but like yeah she

Maddie you brought like that her gimmick is also like oh she's a very young girl like these token girls of the game keep getting younger younger until they get like Iris in Grace Attorney who's like nine years old or better I'm like this is ridiculous Like yeah

At least she is not in court with you No but still I was like come on What I remember At this rate we're gonna have a literal baby I think that's actually one of Awkward Zombies comics I think it like it like the process

Oh yeah I remember that yeah This baby's unprofessional Like can we have one mature woman Like helping us out I know. That's who Emma was, I guess, but no one took different. They killed the one mature woman in the series immediately in the first game.

Right, that's right, yeah. So I do want to point out that I feel like after a bit these games do start taking from Dangan Rampa a little bit. And one thing that I like in this game is at the end of a trial, there's this thing called the re-visualization mechanic. And it's essentially a multiple choice summary of the entire trial. I do like that to put things in context. Like, here is everything to happen. because usually in Phoenix Wright games you're working on one thing at a time

and then rarely do you get the full context of the entire crime. It is nice, especially if you're playing the game for a while too and you kind of don't remember everything so you can get a little summary and it'd be like, oh yeah, this is everything that's happened. Yeah, and I do like that element of this game.

And I think that ends up going, kind of feeding into the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles as well. It's in investigations as well. Oh, yeah, yeah. work that's putting together the case in his head. That's right. Yeah, it's good. And also, they catch up with modern, like, visual novel mechanics. Like, there's a backlog you can

look at in this to see what, what text have you seen lately in the game? Just, like, if you want to look at old dialogue and stuff, it's just catching up to modern standards, but I still like it. But, yeah, it's a letdown. We can't linger too long on this, but we mentioned something

about a villain. From what I remember, there is no villain in the game. The villain is a concept. That's why it's like a weird reveal You're kind of like It's not super satisfying So Yeah

That sounds like a spoiler But it's not because you'll never see it coming And you won't understand it when it happens You'll just be like oh, okay Exactly And it doesn't really matter who the villain is in a sense Yeah Yeah

And that's why it's just it just kind of felt disappointing You're just like oh okay Yeah So but again The DLC case We didn't. We mentioned it was good, but we didn't mention the fact that you're a Phoenix and you get to defend a killer whale who's been accused of murder, which is just fantastic. And there's a doctor with like a little penguin in his hair and just good stuff. And can we say who comes back in that case? Is that a spoiler? No, because I don't remember. Pearl. Oh, okay.

Oh, yeah. I mean, she comes back at six anyway, so I don't think it's not much of the spoiler. Yeah, she comes back. I wish she changed a little bit more than she did. She just got a longer, a longer hair with a bead on it. Sure, yeah. I just kind of wish she matured a little bit more, but it was cool to have her back. And she makes for a good assistant. It just felt like a much more simple case and back to basics. And I like that a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really good. You could tell with that DLC case that they knew how they kind of fumbled the fifth game and they were getting back on track. So let's go to the next game. Phoenix Wright, Ace, Attorney, Spirit of Justice. This is the only one of these I got to review. I really enjoyed this game.

I think it's a good return to form for this trilogy and giant quotes. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people, including my wife, didn't play this game because 3DS fatigue doesn't count because 3DS had really set in. The Switch wasn't out yet, but I think a lot of people were just kind of tired of the 3DS and weren't looking at new releases. And it was a digital only release in the 3DS store is awful. And the system had about two years left of releases, but they were mostly published by Nintendo. Wasn't dual destinies digital only? Yeah, this and dual destinies are both digital only. That was disappointing.

Yeah, yeah. I like having physical copies of these games. Yeah, I'm not big on physical, but it also gave the games a second-class citizen status amongst people playing the stuff on 3DS. I do like this game. Mercifully, we don't get any new characters. Thank God. Athena's here. Apollo's here.

Phoenix is here. We get all of their mechanics, but there are no new playable. characters with new mechanics. Instead, the new mechanic is related to the trials and where they take place, and we can talk about that soon. But yeah. And Maya's back for the first time. Myaz back as well.

Edgeworth wasn't in five either, so. It's very, I mean, it's fan servicing in a good way. It's like, here are the characters you like doing the things you like them to do and the trials are all well written. And I think the whole overarching story is surprising and good. Yeah, I think this

finally kind of even though it's like let's give Apollo another like a third back story I think this is the most interesting they did for him I think the like the Korean country stuff with like the revolutionary I love the revolutionaries I think they're

some of my favorite characters in the games the animations I think even are better in this one like some of them just like stick in my head so much because they're so expressive the fact that they put it in this kind of fake country but they could be really stupid with the names because they're like, well, they're in a fake language so we can just

make stuff up. And so because of that, they're like really stupid, but it also makes them really funny, I think. But yeah, no, I honestly, I really like this one. This is, I think I like this one more than Apollo Justice as well. I think I put it close to the original trilogy as far as how much I enjoyed it. Glad you brought the name because like, I only played half of this, but as soon as they started, the kid you get at the beginning, his name is I'll be your god. I'm like, come on, come on. Like, that's too much. It's really stupid, but it's like, I just, I thought it was funny because it's just like so blatant. You have to say the names out loud. And then. Some of them are hard. So there's, there's a character who comes on later who's called Dots Aribal. And it's,

I, like, could not figure out for the life of me. And it's just supposed to be like, that's a rebel but I thought it was like a joke on like that's all folks or something and I like kept I was like what is this but yeah some of them and there's one character who has like this really really long name and it's really funny and like it's one of those names I think it might even be like a like a joke on the like classic rock go go story with the kid with a really really long name because it's like they have to say the whole thing every time oh yeah I'll put that up oh go ahead yeah when I looked up their Japanese names later I was like okay fine that tracks but still stupid. Hey, they worked really hard for those growners. And yeah, Maddie, you mentioned the

Rakugo case. I like this game because up until this point, the localizers were like, oh yeah, they're American characters. This is America. It's all American, very English languagey. Here, they're going to like a fake Asian country. But when they're back in America in big quotes, the one trial that Athena gets to do is all about the Japanese art of Rocco Storytelling. And they have to explain how this works to the American player, give the full context for it, but it's still taking place in Japan, Afornia, or whatever they call their version of the setting. And it works, but I feel like they included that to punish the American localizers. Right, right. Yeah. It's, it's, that's one of my favorite cases, though. Usually,

usually like because it's the fourth case and it's like the it's the court only case which usually is it's kind of like supposed to be kind of a break in the game between like the big long cases and it's usually kind of a weaker case but I honestly think it's one of the strongest ones in the game and it's the it gives Athena and Simon a chance to kind of really stand out yeah and I forgot to mention that we'll talk about them soon but the Miles Edgeworth games they established like there will be five cases and then the main games pick that up so Ace Attorney 5 has five cases, so does six, and the Greatest Attorney games

each have five cases, and I believe the Well, three had five cases, though, as well. Oh, you're right about that, yeah. Yeah, it's only the first two had four originally, and then trials and tribulations. Apologesis has four, I'm pretty sure. Oh, okay. So I guess they kind of went back and forth.

Yeah, yeah. But from Miles Edgeworth on, I think it's just five across the board. So, yeah, this, the premise of this game is that after the first trial, you go to this fictional country, they have zero respect for lawyers they hate them to the point where every basically trial is a death sentence

and if the lawyer loses they are also put to death so the stakes are very high I think that's again more like Dongan Rompany sort of like tension creating in which you are dead if you get this wrong and the big new element of this is divination

seances so essentially this is like things you've seen in past Ace Attorney Games in which you're looking at surveillance footage. But in this case, the surveillance footage is coming from the perspective of the person that was killed. And you basically, if I remember this correctly, you have to point out what interpretations the prosecutor is getting wrong based on the spiritual surveillance footage from the victim. I do like how suddenly it pivots to spirituality and not like hard science. that is kind of cool yeah because they are you know they do take advantage of the fact that they're like well let's focus on you know curran and this all the spirit medium stuff again so

it is funny how uh koreen went from like just a village of japan to a whole made up country that's pretty funny but they made it work it's kind of cool what it did do you know nina like do you remember kind of because you said you only played half of it so do you remember kind of what made you fall off oh i just kind of lost interest in a weird way. I kind of felt vindicated when recently I found out that like three other friends of mine who were like super into Ace Attorney

all fell off halfway through Sparital Justice because we couldn't get into it. So it's all just me then. I don't know what it's about it. Like we all just kind of fell off of it apparently. I do want to finish it eventually though because I've played so many of these games. I feel loyal to the series. I do want

to see this through till the end. That end like great attorney as well because I haven't played the second one yeah I couldn't put this game down and I was I mean I was reviewing it but I was forcing it in the hit but you literally couldn't put it down it was a job to play it it was a game I didn't mind playing very quickly for review because I just I was just happy after five that it was this good and I feel like oh after five I thought this could just be the end of the series I lost interest after five I was like no more this because every time a new game came out I would

buy the Japanese version and English version. And that's a lot of time and money invested in this. And after the fifth one, I was like, I'm done with this. I don't want to do this anymore. But then I heard six was good. So I'm like, okay, fine. I'll get this. Yeah, yeah, I think so.

I think I think part of it is I think the characters are just, are just really good in this game. They're a lot of fun. Yeah. There's an actual villain. The stakes are very high. The new setting is cool. It's as challenging as one of these games should be.

I remember, I had to look up. up solutions for a few of the divination seances because I feel like there's a lot of wiggle room in those segments that you could easily present any number of things and kind of be right. But that's an issue with a lot of these games. But I do feel like good return to form many. I think, no, I was going to say one thing that I think was exciting about this game. I think this is the first case. So it's like kind of a minor spoiler, but it's not huge. But it's the first time we get to see Maya summon a male instead of a female, which was I think something that we people like you know fans had like drawn stuff about for so long and it was always kind of this

idea that people had as the first time we get to see maya you know get a different spirit in her which is and one that's just like it's kind of like this weird old monk which is really funny and so it's they kind of fulfilled some of those like ideas that fans had for a long time that's cool yeah I forgot about that and yeah Maya is back in what feels like fan service but they actually do new things with her. And yeah, I guess to track from this. Except she's accused of murder again. So it's kind of the same also. She has that problem. But yeah, I guess the worst thing you can say about this game is that it's a lot of fan service to try to get people back on board. But hey, it worked on me. And I feel like there is an inherent dignity to this that is not present in five, which was a huge overreaction

to four. And yeah, we don't we don't quite have seven yet, any announcement. But I feel good about to where the game could go after this. The series could go after this because everything just works so much better. And I feel like even Athena, like you said, Maddie, the third case in this game or the fourth or whatever one is her court only case. It feels like, oh, this is what you should have done with this character before. The mood makes your stuff works better here with this trial. I just feel like maybe Yamazaki got a chance to take a vacation or something. But it does feel like a real return to form.

And I assume a lot of people miss this and this will be a, you know, their first time playing this game when they play through the trilogy again. Oh, Bob, remember when we watched Rush Oman for the first time together, and all we can think about was A's Journey? Hey, I assume that was a big unspoken of influence on the series. It probably was an influence because of the spirit medium, like, speaking as the dead in a court trial. Yeah, that's what made us think of it. Or it's actual Japanese history, who knows?

Oh, it could be. I never really looked into it, but it would. wouldn't be surprised if that was an actual thing that happened. So yes, a spirit of justice is very good. Thank you. Moving on to the spinoffs, we have the Miles Edgeworth series, which began in Japan in 2009 and came over here in early 2010. So at this point in history, the Ace Attorney series is so relatively popular. There are four games out.

It finally gets a spinoff. And this game focuses on crime scene investigation, you know, one of the most popular TV series in America. So it makes sense. And it was originally going to star Emma Sky, the forensic detective from the introduced in the added case in the DS release of the first game, but Miles Edgeworth simply too popular to ignore. So he is put in charge

and he is given a wacky sidekick in that his Maya is a ninja, if I remember correctly. Yeah. I'm okay with Kay. I remember a lot of people here like absolutely hated her when she came out. Like the accuser of being Mary Sue

and to a ridiculous point where I was like, well, she's a lot just like the other assistant characters, though. I understand she seems like a kind of girl you wouldn't expect Edgeworth to be paired up with. That's kind of weird.

But that's just how these games are. And I wouldn't have minded if Emma was with him. I would have maybe preferred that because I like Emma a lot. And because she's so scientific and it kind of goes with his mindset. Yeah, well, that's what, like, that's why Emma. But he also uses science.

Yeah, that's because Emma and Maya kind of had that difference because Maya was the spiritual and Emma was the scientific and then it's like well here's another one who's also science I guess yeah I was surprised it wasn't Emma as his assistant in this game but it also kind of makes

sense because Edgeworth is so into the steel samurai so maybe he kind of likes that kind of weird spirit in him like maybe kind of reminds him of the steel samurai which is like left unsaid but that's just my head counter for it anyway I'm a big fan of these games oh really okay so this is the one that I have only played half of.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't, but part of it, I think, is when it came out because this is one of the games I specifically remember the day I bought it because I had just graduated from boot camp. And so it was like my first exit into the real world after two months. And so I bought, I bought this game and I bought Soul Silver. But then I went into tech school right after that. So I think I just like didn't have the energy to focus on it. And it's hard, too, because I just,

Edgeworth is my favorite character, so I was, like, super excited for this game. But for some reason, I don't know. I think I got through, like, about half of it, and then I just never finished it. This game came out when I was insanely unemployed. I think I had been unemployed for close to a year at that point. It was right before I moved out to California. So every day I punched in at the playing Miles Edgeworth factory. That was my job for the day.

And I did really enjoy this game. And I think my one issue with it was, I feel like it was misrepresented by the press, because I feel like people saw screenshots of it and they were like, oh, it's a point-to-click adventure game, that's cool. It really isn't. I feel like the issue with this game is they try to think of new mechanics for Ace Attorney, but they really couldn't, so they just dress up existing ones in different presentations. I feel like you're kind of doing everything you were doing as Phoenix Wright,

but you're just seeing things from a different angle, sometimes, like, literally. Andrews is also my favorite character, so I was, like, super excited for this game. I distinctly remember when this game first came out, in Japanese because I had on pre-order. So I was getting the physical copy of the game. But when the game came out, I was on a trip in Toronto, visiting friends of mine. And while I was over there visiting friends, I downloaded the ROM in Japanese that just came out the day the game dropped. Wow.

And I was with friends who were also big AC Trinity fans. So I was like, is it okay if I just play this game? They're like, we're fine with that. So I just played through the game and I finished it in like a day and a half. Oh, my God. In Japanese. Yeah, the ROM of it. And then when I came home, the physical copy was raining for me.

But at that point, I already finished it. But I played it again and I played it in English. And I really like this one. Although I can't decide if I like this one more or the second one more. But we can talk about that later. Yeah, I think the main deviation in this game compared to his attorney is that there are no trials in a courtroom. So the flow of the chapters is less predictable. That's really the main deviation.

It's sort of like if you ever see the anime Detective Conan or read the manga, every crime must be solved while the body is still warm. Everyone is around the corpse or whatever. They never even bother going to court. It has to be solved there. And that's sort of what happens in Miles Edgeworth. Maybe that's why I like it so much. Maybe because it's like those old mystery series like Detective Conan or Kindeichi or say,

Colombo, which I only just started recently watching, because there's no court. So, like, you kind of have to assume that the murder is going to be put through a trial, like, later, and then have their sentence, which is kind of weird, but you just kind of have to assume that. Yeah, they never cover that on Conan, the follow-up trial, and if they were found innocent or guilty. Yeah, or in Kindejee either, but you just kind of have to assume it, yeah. Maybe that's what I prefer. Maybe the court system is too formal for me. Maybe I just, Yeah, someone being yelled at in a room. Yeah, with this game, they don't really come up with new mechanics.

It's sort of like refining old ones or presenting old ones in a new way. There's something called the logic system in which evidence is not just physical items, it's ideas, it's concepts, and you can combine them to either, you know, eliminate old evidence you don't need or come up with stronger evidence. But essentially, you're doing the same Ace Attorney-style things. And I remember having a good time with this game. Unfortunately, my one lingering memory is the final enemy in the game. just takes forever to take down.

I really hate the final argument in this game. Yeah, there are just, he steps out of danger about eight times when you think you've nailed him. And it just, it might be three or four times too many. Like, I love those moments in Ace Attorney, especially in the greatest attorney series. But it just happens too much in that final trial. The spoilers, the villain is a he, huh? Oh, well, he looks like, I'm just kidding. That's also what I remember.

Most of the time, it's a need. No, there is one new thing, though. There's a cake and recreate. the crime scene. Right, right. And it's sort of like the evidence collecting thing in the other games.

The evidence, it's like investigating. Kind of walk around in a virtual version of the crime scene. It's a lot like what Iron Man can do in the MCU movies.

I hate to bring the MCU in here. But whenever I saw, when I saw that in the movie, I was like, this is just like his attorney investigations because he recreates the crime scene, so to speak.

Well, Iron Man came first. the movie, so maybe it was inspired by that. Oh, did it? Yeah, 2008. Oh, okay. Oh, very close. Oh, they're probably already working on the game, though, at that time. Could be. But yeah, yeah, I forgot about, like, they do include some 3D elements, and that's one of them. They move investigations into 3D in which you're looking through, like, a simulation of the environment instead of actually looking at the environment. But then there's also things that are just very superficial, like, you can actually move Edgeworth around on a screen. There's, like, little sprite graphics for him is his entire body you're moving around landscapes not from the first person perspective but from

that third person so i think people saw that and got the wrong idea when it really just plays out like an ace attorney game but in a slightly different way yeah even though i fell off this i still remember like distinctly when i played it for the first time because it had been a while since i played an ace attorney game i don't know how many years it was between this and uh apollo justice it was a couple years at least right yeah it was it was three years it was three years yeah so it's had been a while. So it was like, you know, it was kind of in the Ace Attorney Droughton and I, you know, had it super been into Ace Attorney for a while. But I remember playing it and just like, just the dialogue and everything. And I'm like, oh, these are the characters I love again and the humor and everything was there. And so even though I didn't finish this one, I still have really positive memories of it. Do you remember how far you got? I think I was in the third case. I think I definitely finished the first two. So third case. Is that the flashback? I don't remember. I don't remember that much. I remember there's a, okay, because there's a flashback.

The first one, okay, I don't think I, did I get to the flashback? Because the first case is like the plain one. And the second one I think is like the Blue Badger one. So I might not have made it. I feel like if I had gone to the flashback, I would have been really excited. Yeah, that's the third one. I think it's the third one. I guess mild spoilers to any one who hasn't played it.

I don't want to give away like plot points, but a third. case is a flashback case where you are the young Edgeworth. Glamorous. Yeah, and it's like super fancy pans suit that you see in a previous game. You're young Edgeworth

and you have like young Francisco as your assistant. Which is awesome. Actually, I forgot about that. I completely forgot about the flashback case. That's so great. Okay. Yeah, I feel like if I had gotten to that point, I would have really been into it. So maybe I just stopped shy of it.

Maybe I finished the second case and then something happened who knows yeah just getting more like edgeworth lore was like yeah because i think he's he's always been a fan favorite and he is he is so different to phoenix his personality his background and everything so i think it is yeah really nice to see him in fact at this point we have we know more about i feel like we know more about edgeworth than we know about phoenix yeah yeah definitely i mean you don't get it all we know about phoenix's background is he was like a goofy kid in a pink sweater so yeah that's true I guess yeah we did together his flashback with him

at least but we don't know what his like parents were like yeah we don't have we don't get to play as him in a flashback yeah well I think that's why Edgeworth is more interesting because he does have like this whole traumatic childhood and stuff

whereas Fiax I think it was kind of a normal guy for the most part but like he probably like nice normal parents and just kind of a normal childhood just just one bad kind of girlfriend Yeah, but who doesn't, right? Who doesn't have one of those

murderous girlfriends in college? We can move on to the second game because this is the one that I haven't played. Also, yeah, I haven't also because this is the only one that doesn't have an official translation. I love this one. So the fan translation came out

in June of 2014. I hear it's very good. Unfortunately, the last time I was unemployed was 2013 and that's when I was playing a lot of great fan translations. I finally played through Psycho-onauts and a few other big fan translations. Oh, sorry, not psychonauts, police nots.

Okay. Different authorities. Different not. But yeah, if that had come out in 2013, I would have appreciated it, but unfortunately it came out in 2014. And, yeah, to date, the one ice turning game that has not been officially localized because it came out in Japan in February of 2011, and Capcom saw this as a losing proposition because any new DS games are being pirated, and this is a costly localization

with lots and lots and lots of text. and even Nintendo was barely publishing DS games by 2011. There was things like Kirby Mass Attack and a few other things, but DS was not where you wanted to be seven years after its launch. And Nina, you have played it. Is it as good as people say it is, or is that just the I Can't Have It Bias? Well, like I mentioned,

I can't decide whether I like this one more or their first game more, because I think the first game is stronger in terms of mechanics, especially because it's the first AC-turned-to-game where you move around S-sprites going to different rooms and going up to objects and examining them. That's really exciting. That was fun.

In the second game, it limits you a lot more. When you get to the investigation part, you're usually confined to just one room, which is kind of disappointing, but I guess in a way it's good because it kind of limits you to what you can. so it makes it a little bit easier for better for worse

but to make up for that I think the story and characters are a lot stronger in the first game so it depends on what you're looking for when you're playing these games I definitely hear when I hear people talk about it they seem to prefer the second one I guess

just because it does have a stronger story because obviously you've played it in Japanese have you checked out the fan translation at all I haven't played the fan translation but from what I've seen, it's really well done. Like, when they were first starting out, I would watch, like, YouTube videos of it and go, like, oh, yeah, this is really solid. So I would recommend it. Yeah, yeah, definitely, I mean, I, and I think I've seen, I think there was actually fairly recently an article came out about it, maybe about the time of Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, because they were talking about the localization of that.

But, like, the effort, like, everything that they had to put into making the fan translation, including just, like, the technical aspects and everything is really extraordinary. So you can definitely tell that it was a really incredible passion project and these people who did it cared a lot of them. Yeah, I trust them. From what I've seen it looks great. I would endorse it. Yeah, like Bob, you mentioned

the ending of the first game is a big slog because that just final confrontation takes such a long time. And I've never heard anyone defend that. Like everyone hates that part. Whereas the final villain of the second game is great. and the final confrontation is amazing. So it's definitely worth it.

I think one of the plot threads in the second one is, do you get a play as Gregory Edgeworth? Yeah. Yeah. Edgworth's their dad. It's amazing. He's a defense attorney, which is, that's, I think, when people talk about the plot, how strong it is,

I think that's like a major part of it. Yeah, that's super cool. One thing that the first Edgeworth game did, I heard this game does as well, is that every case is actually related, and it builds one big story, which was not the case for his attorney in general, because there will be some filler cases

and some main plotline cases. But I hear that it's cool in one, but in two, it's very interesting. Yeah, like, I don't require that of these games. Like, I don't care. Some cases are totally unrelated to the rest of the cases. But it is pretty cool once you see everything come together. If I had one bad thing to say about the second game,

I guess the main antagonist of the second game is kind of weak. She's not a prosecutor. She's a judge. He's a female judge, which is a cool concept. But I don't know. I just find her kind of a weak character and kind of annoying. It's hard to explain why I don't like her too much. Like, maybe it's her design.

She has an enormous boobs. I feel like they kind of focus on her life. That is the personality. Beyond that, she doesn't have much more personality. Yeah, yeah, she's kind of boring. There's also like, no, there is also a rival prosecutor who's like this supposed to be like this, like young prodigy but he's actually like a complete idiot

but because of his his privilege because of his lineage they treat him as like oh he's like this genius prosecutor but you can tell he's just like super stupid and like he was born with like you know silver spoon in his mouth and you kind of get to take him down a little and that's pretty satisfying

and what about logic chess the main mechanic in this game I really like logic chess I forget that that wasn't in the first game. Can you explain it a little more? Yeah, I want to know more about this. I mean, the chess port is such a big gimmick.

It doesn't have anything to do with anything. It's just like, you're refuting arguments with like evidence and arguments in your head. And it just kind of visually represent it with chess pieces. Okay. Okay. Well, that's funny. I mean, it's just like taking right in the bonus

case of when they ported the first Ace attorney to DS. Edgworth has a chess board. And it's just like, It seems like they took that. He just has a chess board in the office. They're like, well, let's just make this into a whole thing. Well, the way he explains it in like the first case, when logic chess first comes up, he's like, well, you know, arguing is kind of like playing chess.

And then you see him like visualizing as like using chess pieces. But yeah, there's no like chess board or anything. Okay. You're just literally like chess pieces are representing. Does he even actually know how to play chess? I wonder. I don't know. you might be making it up as it goes along

It seems like a fun visual metaphor for an existing mechanic And I do like that It does kind of remind me of Dangan Rampa in that way Yeah, I always like that I think I have more tolerance for that than you do, Nina I did gently ask you to play through the entire Dangan Rampa series

No, the difference between that is You don't actually have to platform Yeah, that's true What is that stupid game where you're going down a tunnel On a stupid skateboard and you have to like jump If it's a stupid game It could be any of them. I'm sorry.

I really hate the mini games and dangarump us so much. I'll let our listeners know that you chose to play that game with a keyboard and mouse, so... Would it have made much of a difference if I use the controller? Yes. It would have. Really? I'm skeptical.

We'll let everyone else weigh in the comments. We're going to move on, though, to what I feel like is a strangely overlooked entry in the series because it shares its title with another series. And that's Professor Leighton versus Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney. And if you look at the very, very big gulf of time between the Japanese and U.S. releases, it feels like we almost didn't get this game. in English, which I feel is very strange because Leighton and Wright were modest 3DS hits, or sorry, modest DS hits that really proved like, oh, here are different kinds of games you can play now with these two screens. But by the time the 3DS came around, I feel like localization budgets were a little more stingy when it came to things like this. I think it came here because

of Leighton. I think you're right, yeah. Because wasn't Leighton better selling than is a tour Yeah, probably at this point it was. I feel like when they first came out, like I mentioned before, when Phoenix Wright first came to America, it was like a surprise hit and it was like sold out everywhere. They had to reprint it and stuff. But I think probably once we got into this era, Leighton was still pretty strong, whereas the East Attorney Series had fallen off of it. I think the Leighton series is weaker than the East Attorney Series. I agree. Yeah, me too. But I think this crossover is, it might be like my first. or second favorite game on the 3DS. I think this game is phenomenal. Yeah, in terms of rankings in the series,

it's up there, like in the top three or top four for me. Yeah, it's just, it's kind of like you kind of imagine Phoenix Wright and Layton together and it sounds really cool, but then when it's executed, it's just as amazing as it sounds. It sounds like a dream. Yeah, they just meld together so perfectly. And it's like, and I think that's one issue I have with the Layton series is it's, you get tired of all the puzzles. you get kind of, your brain gets kind of tired

and it's like, okay, I'm trying to solve this bigger mystery and then it's like, here, make this car exit the parking lot and you're like, okay. But then when you mix it together with the Phoenix Wright stuff, it's more, the pacing of the game seems a lot better. And yeah, it just, and like the setting of this game is super weird, but it's really fun. And I think because it's like a non-canical game,

they were able to kind of go wherever they wanted with it. So they made this kind of fantasy, like, royalty night setting. And it's just a lot of fun, I think. It looks great, too. Yeah, it's beautiful. I was shocked that it came over here. When it was announced for a localization, I was like, whoa, really? Okay.

Yeah, it came out in Japan in November of 2012. It came out here in August of 2014, so nearly two years. And, yeah, it feels like Capcom and Level 5 struggled to, figure out how to integrate the two styles of gameplay. So they decided let's not do that. Instead, this game plays out in that the investigation segments are really

Layton's game and he does his puzzle thing. And I honestly found the puzzles in this one a bit easier than the rest of the Laton series, but that's fine because some of those puzzles drive me insane and I want to like Leighton's like really condescending. It's like you finally solve it after like 900 moves and then Laton's like, you could solve that in 12 moves, you know? And you're

like, shut up, yeah. That man's a lie. and then in court Phoenix is doing his court thing and all the cases are really well done this is written by shoot Takumi obviously and Hino the level 5 guy but I really feel like Takumi is in charge of the trial scenes

and yeah like like some of the other games it Dongan Rampas things up in which all of the trials in this are witch trials in which the the witch on trial is immediately like just dumped into an incinerator if they lose the trial.

It's just shocking when you see it happening. It's literally like a trapdoor and they just fall. You're like, whoa. I was like, oh my God. It is. It is the first time they show it is really shocking. You're just like, it's cool. It's really cool.

She got straight up murdered. Oh, my God. There is no death row in this in this world. It's a medieval world in that aspect is poorly explained by the weird ending. We can kind of maybe mention that later. But yeah, this game introduces the mob trial system in which you have multiple witnesses at once. There's still one judge, but

you have multiple witnesses, and you have to question them all, and then you have to see how they react to each other's testimony, and it's very cool. And that just lets, that provides more opportunities for different things to happen in court compared to previous games. Yeah, I was thinking one of the reasons I think this

one is overlooked. I mean, I can't really speak for when it came out, but very quickly, the physical release got super expensive, and the digital really never goes on sale because it is not part of the the Capcom which would always you know like during the the 3DS the e-shop the Capcom the Ace Attorney Games would go on sale for like

50% off 75% of all the time this one never went on sale it was always full price yeah I think that's because it was published by Nintendo and they never do that even in the dying days of the 3DS I did buy a few games for 40 bucks just because I knew there was no way to do it otherwise the I think the price point and the fact that it never got that discount is one of the reason that it never even got to have a second life past the initial release. And in this game

production values are amazing. This is, I think this has to have the highest production values in an Ace Attorney game. Animation is not quite up to what it would be in dual destinies and spirit of justice, but everything looks so good. The designs are so great. I'm pretty sure you have the art book for this game.

Oh yeah. I got the artwork immediately because I just loved the look of the game. And the 3D models they use in this. And also the cutscenes, I think, look kind of different from the ones in Dual Destinies. I think it looks better, honestly. Something about the color palette they use, I guess to go with the medieval setting, maybe to match it more to Leighton's color palette. It just looks better. And I like how the 3D models are made, the way they're shaded. It's less saturated, I think, compared to Real Destinies, you know? You probably know what to talk about, Eddie.

Yeah, well, I was going to say, like, speaking of the art book, I think what they, the style they chose to go with the game is perfect, but it's also really fun to see when they were considering making the Phoenix Wright characters look more Lateney, so you can see some of the concept art for that, which is really cool, but, but yeah, the way, because I mean, Layton has a very kind of, I don't know, more of like a Western, like the features of the characters are very exaggerated and the, the latent characters are a lot more cartoony, whereas. as Phoenix Wright is more of a standard kind of anime more style. They look at different species. Yeah, right. And so, like, melding those two styles together, you know, might, it might seem like it might not work, but they just really figured it out. And it's, it's excellent. It helps that there were some characters in the Ace Attorney world that look so goofy

and cartoon. Yeah, I think the Ace Attorney characters, I think, got goofier as it went along, too, which was helpful. But it's like, you look at, I mean, even if you look at, like, Professor Layton like he just has like those little dot eyes like he's yeah a lot more a lot more cartoony but one thing they released like this really beautiful artwork for the 20th anniversary of Phoenix Wright with like a ton of the characters and I was so excited because they also included characters from Layton versus Wright which yeah I think it does even though it's it's so

fantastic it does seem like it's still overlooked yeah even though Layton's name comes first in this game it is a real Ace Attorney game with five real trials with lots of cool twists and um the mob trial thing is great and then they'll double down on that with the greatest attorney series in which you have multiple witnesses and multiple jury members to appease so i feel like this is kind of where he wanted to take the series after four but uh he's finally doing it let's see uh six years later seven years later also one thing weird is the the trailer for this game shows scenes that doesn't actually happen in the game oh that's strange yeah It is kind of weird.

Maybe it's like to prevent, like, giving away, like, spoilers or something. Maybe. Yeah. It feels like they promised more of a versus thing, like a rivalry between. Well, that's what it's called, right? It's called late versus, right? Which is weird. It should be called just, like, and or something because it's...

Meets. I mean, like, Japan loves using, like, VS in their titles, you know? It could have been X, but no, they chose to go with BS. And the trailer made... If it was X in America, though, they would have thought it was fan. Oh, that's true. That's different. That's different. No, no, like, they made it seem like there's going to be more violently, except in the actual game, they kind of go along, like, immediately. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They're their best pals.

Yeah. But they do. The dynamic works really well. And, like, you get the dynamic between Phoenix and Layton, you get the dynamic between Luke and Maya and then kind of how those crossover. It just, yeah, it just works out so perfectly. Yeah, Luke and Maya getting along is very, it feels very natural. Yeah. Maybe if you made the trailer, they were expecting more revivably, but as they were writing it, maybe they were like, oh, actually, it makes more sense if they got along. I was going to say, Nina, it seems like the game had development problems. They hinted it a bit in some of the extra content,

like, oh, the teams didn't really get along with each other. I think they both had a different vision for what they wanted this game to be, which is why both games seem to now exist in their own territory. Like, the latent thing is its own thing in a vacuum, and the attorney thing is an own vacuum in this game. And there are a few instances in which I see, like, the direction the game could have been, but they're not very good in which you have to point out the contradiction in a puzzle that Leighton is solving.

It happens maybe a few times towards the end and you're like, oh, I'm really glad you didn't think of a bunch of puzzles that do this because this is bad. It just feels awkward. Yeah, my biggest worry about this game before I played it was how much of it is going to be Leighton because I'm not a big fan of Leighton series because of the BS puzzles. There's a lot of things I don't like about that. like it's also the plot like the the ending of each latent game is so like ridiculous to the like kind of like yeah like it's just like well of course i wouldn't have known that because it's stupid it's like you concealed all these things for me it's not a twist if you hide important facts for me you know that's that's cheating so i can't expect that from this game and there's a little

of that but uh i was like i'll forgive it because the stuff up to this point was like was really well done. It is. It's so fun and it's so well done that at the end I was like this is stupid as hell but whatever I expected this. I think maybe it is because it is like the non-cananical crossover you kind of are a little more forgiving for it to be a little stupid. Yeah. Yeah. I will say that I love this game and recommend it if you can find it. It's totally worth playing. It's great. Great graphics, music, story, everything. This is one of the stupidest endings I've ever seen in a game. Actually, one of the stupidest endings I've seen any kind of mean. One of the stupidest endings I've seen any kind of mean. but I enjoyed the game so much, I was just like, whatever. Actually, I kind of saluted the audacity for how bad the ending is in terms of the big twist. But I enjoyed the entire game. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like what else were they going to do to explain all this nonsense. It's not as bad as some latent twists I've seen, I've got to say.

I've seen worse in that series. I've only played a couple of the latent games. But, yeah, the way stories are told in Phoenix versus Leighton are completely. different so I'll say this I will spoil the first latent game the twist is everyone is secretly a robot it doesn't matter that you know that because it doesn't make any sense

they just pulled that out of their ass the twist in this game is worse but I did not mind that at all it's worse yes but not as bad as some other latent endings like I said yeah how do you feel about the prosecutor is not a posseater the night in this game

he's he's a little boring but I just enjoyed the world so much it didn't really bother me he's just kind of a nothing character he's just like yeah he's just beautiful yeah yeah he's very nice as well as a character he's kind of like um clavier gavin and uh right where he's like kind of he's actually like sincere about kind of working together to solve the mystery rather than being an antagonist yeah i feel like he he's he's devoted to because the night he's devoted to justice and the court and it's not nothing personal when he's against

you in court but it does make him kind of boring because that's just kind of all there is to him but the overarching story is good until the end and all the cases are just classic Ace Attorney cases written by Shoot Takumi with that new mob trial system that again they'll double down on with the next games we'll talk about. The prologue sequence

with all the drawings of like showing what happens all the characters afterwards, it's very satisfying. Yeah. And I wish this game will become available in some other format at some point. I hope it doesn't get lost to time because it's like a one I think a lot of people ignored or didn't think was actually a real Ace Attorney game. I think I bought it out of habit like, oh, writes in this, I wonder what it is.

And I was surprised like, oh, this is a real ace attorney game. They kind of hit that for me. Yeah, it is. I mean, I honestly, like having the greatest attorney games on Switch, there is more hope and getting the new trilogy. There's, there is kind of hope that they're going to bring this one over. But it is, I think there's always something difficult when it's like a crossover game because then you have to get like both studios to like work together. Then you also have like Nintendo's involvement and stuff. But, yeah, hopefully, I really, I really hope more people have the chance to play this game, because it is, it is phenomenal.

And Layton is making a return very soon, so who knows, maybe with the latent resurgence, there will be more demand for this game on a modern platform. Yeah. Wasn't this a first AC-Trenate game that has a jury system? Actually, there are no jurors in this game. The next games have jurors, and they have multiple witnesses. Oh, so this has the multiple witnesses. Yes, I don't believe it has the jurors. I think it just has the multiple witnesses.

But the multiple witnesses kind of act like a jury in a way. Yeah, yeah. It's a first time you get to like talk to multiple people. It's kind of a similar concept where you have, yeah, like you're having these multiple people that are all talking at once. Yeah, yeah. Like in the next games we'll talk about soon, the jurors are no different than witnesses in terms of how they function. You have to sort of appease them. But you're all trying to resolve problems via conversations with a bunch of people in the courtroom instead of just one person at the time.

You need to look around and see who's, like, acting suspicious during a certain testimony. Yeah, yeah. Like, if they take notice of a certain testimony, you can then move over to them and question them. Like, hey, why did you look over at him? What's going on here? Things like that. Let's move on to the final games in our series here, the Great Ace Attorney series.

So this came out in America a few years ago as the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles in English, but that's a compilation of two 3DS releases. There's the Great Ace Attorney Adventures, which came out in Japan in April of 2015, and the Great Ace Attorney 2, Resolve, which came out in Japan in 2017, both for the 3DS, and this is shoot Takumi returning to Ace Attorney with two new games that really are just one big game. And until 2021, it felt like these would never be released because the modest popularity of the series and the cost of localization felt like this was a no-go at Capcom and also rights issues. But I have played through both of these games. And honestly, I think in terms of Ace Attorney rankings, the series as a whole, greatest attorney,

is number two on my list. Wow. I love this collection so much. Yeah, I really love these games, but like you said, they are basically two halves of a whole game. So I think Nina, you've only played the first one, right? Yeah, because I got the short end of the stick. I played the Japanese one when it first came out and then had to wait two years for the next

one. And I've never played the second one. Yeah, so I think we're very lucky in the U.S. to have gotten them as a set because you don't get the really. satisfying story stuff until the second game because it is like two halves of a whole game. So all basically, if you put it in one case, the second game is like half of three all the way through five case in a normal Ace Attorney game. So that's when you get like the really good lore, the really good mysteries. But it is like 70 hours. So it's like you do kind of have to

have to earn it. But it is good. The first game is still good, but it really like earns it place through the second game. I think this is the first time getting the game earlier in Japan was a curse instead of a blessing. Yeah, it sounds really sounds like it. By Japanese fans after the first game came out. Playing the first half and then immediately going to the second half was just so rewarding because this is not a spoiler, I think, in terms of the structure of the second game.

But the second game basically kind of relitigates a lot of the cases in the first one from a different perspective. Like, oh, you know, it's kind of like, how do I say this in a non-spoilery way? that your victories in the first half of this series are a little like underwhelming. You're like, well, I won but not on the terms I wanted to win. I won, but I helped a bad person. And then the second half of the greatest attorney, you kind of look at those cases again, but see, oh, there's a bigger picture

here, and I can feel better about a different kind of victory within the same kind of context. I'm trying to be as vague as possible, but I feel like these games have to be played back to back. And I really feel bad for the people in Japan. I would not have retained any of this information two years later with a second game. Yeah, it's definitely like, I understand why they had to make it two games because it is like two 30, 40 hour games, but they, they, they, they, that, it just sucks that you could only play half of a game basically at first. They should have called it like part one or something. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, like, okay, so I, I, I have not seen, uh, Bob and I have not seen, um,

into the Spiderverse yet but I feel like the reaction is the same where yeah where apparently it's like it's not the doesn't complete the story and a lot of people watch the movie not knowing that so they felt very cheated at the end when they were like what it's not over and we have to wait like at least two years for the next one I think it's a kind of similar thing going on here where except in this case in the case of Ace attorney people didn't know about that until they could be doing whereas people some people online knew that Enter the Spider-Verse is part one of a two-part story

but like the players of Great Ace Attorney didn't know about this so when you got to the end you spent all this time playing the game you're like wait what? Yeah it's like it doesn't you don't even get the mystery solved that's so yeah that's really unfortunate I like can completely understand why

Japanese people would be so sour about getting basically an unfinished game It's still a miracle though that he was allowed to follow that first game up and complete the story. It felt like the first half of Greatest Attorney was very unpopular because of the giant cliffhanger because of it was basically

an incomplete game. And it's also the cases and it are a little mediocre because they do seem like the, you know, the first cases of the game which aren't quite as exciting and I think one issue I had with the first game is a lot of the characters aren't particularly likable. They're kind of all like crappy

British people and you're like, oh I don't like really I don't really care about what happens. I agree. There's a lot of racism and stuff, and so it's like a lot of racism for the Japanese characters. And so you're just kind of like, oh, these people kind of suck. I don't really care about them. But the main cast, though, I think is really fantastic. I think because of the change in setting, though, I do enjoy just how many scoundrels there are in this game. And they have a lot of fun with these crazy British characters in terms of the design and their animation. Yeah. I don't know if they're in the, are they in the first or they? the second game. There's like the pair of brothers. There's like the tall one and they have like the mustache and the little one has like these big chubby cheeks and his animations are just like so charming because he has these little chubby cheeks that wiggle about. And yeah, some of the animations are really fun. They're like really taking advantage of the 3D. Well, we are kind of bearing

the lead here because the guest star in this game is Sherlock Holmes or excuse me, Herlock Shomes. because until January 1st of this year, not every Sherlock Holmes story was in the public domain. Now it's free to use him in any context you want. But the copywritten version of the character you could not use, it was the Sherlock Holmes that expressed emotions because that is how he's characterized in the later stories which were not in the public domain until 2023.

And that was the issue with this game. The cost of localization, the dying 3DS market in the States, and the Sherlock Holmes thing. but with just some careful like letter rearranging they're able to make this happen in America and I remember talking to Capcom people off the record in like 2016 saying

oh there's a nice attorney game and why aren't you bringing it over and they're like honestly it's the Sherlock Holmes thing it could be opening a can of worms we don't want to be in court over this because apparently the Doyle estate was very litigious up until the end

when it came to these kinds of stories but they felt okay with like calling with Sherlock Holmes in Japan because they're like oh the Doyle estate is never going to be able to play this, understand this, I guess? I guess it's exactly like Holmesoo, which is a different person, right? I think that is one thing that is really funny, because when you do play the localized version, you get this character named Herlock Shomes, and you're like, oh, he's funny, he's like a parody

of Sherlock Holmes. And then when you look at the Japanese, when you're like, oh, he's just Sherlock Holmes, like he's not, he doesn't have a different name, which is really funny to think about. I love mystery novels. I love mystery games. I have not really read a lot of Sherlock Holmes. And I feel like a lot of the cases are references to Holmes novels and short stories. They reference like the dog one.

They reference the whatever the collar one is also whatever the second case on the ship with like the spotted collar or something. They all like kind of and like they have like an intro sequence that's like a reference to like an actual Sherlock Holmes tale and then it kind of twisted into something else. Yeah, I could tell, like, either Takumi or like someone on the project was a big homes nerd because it's very faithful to... I think it's pretty popular in Japan. Yeah, yeah. One thing I will point out that I noticed immediately is that this is a monumental localization because they were forced to keep the Japanese cast Japanese people from Japan. They could not just give them all jokey English names. And because most of the game takes place in England, they can have more fun there.

But your main character is not, you know, a name referencing the law. It's Rihonosuke, is that his name? Rioniske Nauruodo. He's still Nauru right, yeah. And they keep it Naurhoto. And in the game itself, within the text of the game itself, I don't think they ever say, well, naturally, you know this is Phoenix Wright's ancestor. And here's his story.

They never point that out. You just have to kind of understand, like, well, I guess this is who this is. Even though the designs are the same and the animations are the same, they have the dignity of saying, this is its own thing. And you can, you can pretend in your head, this is Phoenix's ancestor and it kind of is. We're not going to have a lot of fun with that. It is cool, though, because now this means the American Phoenix Wright has Japanese ancestry. Yeah.

Whereas he did not before. When they localized him, they took away Japanese name. They also changed his eye color. I was not to say, yeah. They gave him blue eyes instead of brown. Yeah. They whitewashed him for lack of better. Oh, yeah.

They changed his eye color. Yeah, that's true. I remember so much of it because, like, the Japanese fan art would make them, like, separate characters. They're like, well, this is Nahuahua with heronics, and this is Phoenix with blue eyes. I mean, they didn't need to go that far. Like, there can be American white people with brown eyes. It is. It is really weird.

Yeah, that's really bizarre. I wonder who decided that. That's such a strange story. I don't think he would be able to do that today. Yeah. I mean, I'd be happy with that. You could just see how much game localization has changed in 15 years where we're okay with Japanese. names, Japanese characters

I think in Dongan Rampa they weren't allowed to change the names but like no one was put off by that by it's like oh it's a Japanese school Japanese people Japanese name sure. In this case they had no choice. They could not give him a jokey name or Susato a jokey name

or any of his Japanese characters. They had to stick with their actual names which I don't think is his name are these names puns in Japanese Nina the Japanese names? Oh it's like almost a same because Phoenix is Riuichi, right? So they made a Biu-Nosuke.

They gave him like... It's almost exact same name. Old-timey kind of with the Skei. Yeah, like, Ichi is like a common ending for a male name, first name. And Noseke is like a more traditional. Yeah. Okay, yeah. So it's almost exact same name.

So they probably could have called them like Falcon Narohoto or something if they wanted to. But no, I like that they were kind of forced into adhering to the original names. and like I said earlier I read a lot of old mystery novels and one thing I like about the setting is it gets rid of technology which makes the mysteries harder to write but more interesting in that you don't have modern technology you don't have computers you don't have cell phones you have rudimentary you know cameras that's kind of it and I do like that setting you also don't really have a lot of the spiritual stuff either so they do feel a lot more of a traditional murder mystery which is a lot of fun there are times when homes will kind of bring out new technology that should not exist in the time period but I will say well the little girl character is a inventor so why not yeah it's it's fine it's not enough to like take you out of it they changed Iris's last name from Watson to Wilson I guess also for copyright evasion Watson the name Watson itself isn't copyrighted right because she's no but Watson is a character in Sherlock Holmes and in this game Iris is his

assistant so I feel like even if they changed his name giving him an assistant called Watson would be grounds for probably something a decent assist yeah they wanted to play very safe very very very safe yeah so yes we have the whole mob trial here from Layton versus right and that's why that game I feel like is is secretly important because it does inform what has been the evolution of the series where there's the mob trial thing where you have multiple witnesses are giving testimony at the same time and then you also have this jury system which was hinted at in Ace Attorney 4 where

you have a number of jury members you must appease who will often chime in during the trial and I believe like you appeasing them as a separate gay play segment but them being present and being wild characters adds to the trials because they will often chime in

they'll be running jokes because they're not rendering an entire new jury for every trial there are running jokes about how the same people end up on the jury every time which I like I think they I think the fact that they joked about that later Because, like, the first time it happens, you're like, why do they keep having the same jurors? But then they, like, kind of cheekily make references to it. So you're kind of like, okay, they, like, obviously they did this because it was, like, limitations.

But it's like they kind of realized that it was kind of silly that they keep reusing it. So they made it part of the game. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, in terms of resources graphically, in terms of having to write new characters for every trial, I feel like they were smart about how to reuse the characters. but it adds so much it does make the trials go on for a very long time it's the one downside. It is one thing because you do have this system where there's like this scale with fire on it and it's like you have to balance this fire based on what the jurors think and it goes back and forth so many times like it's not just it's not just you just don't have to just convince them once it just like keeps going back and forth and you're like okay I convince them and it's like but wait and so a couple of the trials do go on a little too long of that risk. respect. Right, they got to put in a visual metaphor. It's totally necessary.

It's like, it's so bizarre. It's like the jerseys have these little flames and they like slam on their desk and the flame like launches into this fire scale. You're like what is happening? It's ridiculous. Just put in the help bar like the past games. It does fill the game with more, as you would say, Maddie, British assholes. But the game is full of them. Like I like I love how antagonistic everyone is to you immediately. And I think it is the racist angle too. Yeah. it its own personality compared to the other Ace Attorney games, which is nice.

I really feel like people would be more racist to the main character and his Japanese friends in that time period. Oh, yeah. But I feel like the way it's presented is elegant, and it does give you more to be up against as a Japanese person in early 20th century London. And one of the recurring characters is like a famous Japanese poet is a total sad sack, and I love him. really funny because a lot of Americans don't realize that Soseki is like a real author because we just like obviously Japanese people all learn about him in school because he's like one of the most famous authors in Japan but then for Americans you're just like oh who's this like wacky Japanese writer and then like I think maybe half the people who play don't even realize

he's a real guy I am running out of steam a little bit here but I can't say enough how good this game is like I don't know if people ignored this or not I don't know how well it's sold it's almost always on sale for like 20 bucks and like you said mattie this is like an 80 hour experience so i i played this game this is the only game i played from like july to october of 2021 it was a it was a big undertaking but it was very very satisfying by the end it is it's super rewarding i think one thing the the mechanic i particularly love about this game is when you are doing investigations Sherlock will basically tell this really stupid version of events and you have to correct his version.

And I think that's one of the most interesting mechanics in the game. Oh, yeah, that's a great point. I forgot about that mechanic. And having to have him come up with the wrongest conclusions ever must have been a challenge, but it's also very fun to take them apart piece by piece. Yeah, and I think he is such a good character. And he's really different than other detective characters because he is very stupid, but he's kind of smart somewhere underneath all the stupidity.

And he's kind of very arrogant, but he's also very very, nice and I might one of my favorite parts is like you'll just be looking around a scene and he'll just be like somewhere in like a corner being a weirdo and that's like how he's introduced to you in like every case yeah I did like that mechanic and I do like him as a character a lot I feel like they went their own direction with Holmes because he is not that character in any of the stories I read he's usually like serious and mean and he's not like the very emotional whimsical character in this but that's fine because it works with the setting and it works with just having just a fun person to be around.

I don't think it would be fun to be around the actual homes as a sidekick. But yeah, definitely recommended in case you're wondering, these are Reelace Attorney Games and the way this ends, it feels like there could be more of this. I don't know if this was popular enough for them to make more, but the end of this game leaves it open for there to be further adventures in this setting with these characters. And I would love to see more because I feel like they really figured out

where to take the series here it felt like it took like a very long time after the original trilogy but here I feel like they figured it out after doing some experiments with latent and writing it does feel like where it should be I'm curious Dina do you know if the second game had a positive reaction or if like the combined trilogy was successful in Japan at all or it seems like once I think of after the second game came out people kind of came around to it and they're like okay I'm satisfied now after playing it The people who did get the second game. Yeah, I guess the fact that they were able to release the switch port of it

means that it was popular enough for them to justify that. I think the fans are not as angry about it anymore now that there's a conclusion to the story. That's good to hear. Yeah. Yeah, I hope there's more fun to be had with this series. And they were finally able to let go of Phoenix Wright completely, even though he kind of is this character, but not really. Yeah, it's really, it's honestly just the name.

Like, you don't feel, there's no, like, they don't try to, like, tie it into Phoenix in the future. It's like, oh, he, like, left something for Phoenix. There's, like, none of that. They're just like, oh, he just happens to be Phoenix's ancestor. That's it. And this game is available on Switch, on PC, I think, on the PS4 and even, like, Xbox series, whatever. They made this very available. So, definitely worth playing.

But, again, it's a very long experience, and you're looking at 80 or more hours, depending on how long it takes you to get through one of it. of these, but it's so satisfying, and I don't know if anything will, like, amaze me as much as this, but I'm hoping that for the future, this is the world that can play in more. I want to hear what both of you think as far as games for the future, because I feel like, again, I'm being repetitive here, but they figured it out here, and I want to see more of this. And if we don't get the setting, I want to see more of these mechanics. Madi, sorry. No, I just, I just, I just want Shukukukukami to, like, do whatever he wants to do. Because when he is given free reign, like with

ghost trick like with this with the ace attorney chronicles i think he does so good because he's just brilliant that obviously the original ace attorney trilogy is incredible and so whatever shoot takumi does next that's what i want to play i agree like instead of more ace attorney let's have another ghost trick let's go with that yeah i like i just like shu takumi's uh vision in general and if i'm sure he has more ideas of like different games he wants to do let that man be free let him do what he want. If they do do more Ace Attorney games, just get rid of the whole Phoenix

Apolog justice thing. Come up with a whole new characters. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, I don't, like, a lot of people are like kind of, you know, when they announce the remaster of the Apollo Justice trilogy, the so-called Apollo Justice trilogy. People were like, well, where's Ace Attorney 7? And I'm

like, do we really need an Ace Attorney 7? Like, if one comes out, I'll definitely be excited and I'll definitely play it. But it's also like, yeah like just shoot let shoot takumi do whatever he wants that's the game i want to play yeah i don't know how excited i would be because i never even finished spirit of justice i didn't play the second grace attorney maybe i'm just done with the series maybe i just want to see more from shoot takumi yeah totally yeah i mean i saw him in the video promoting the ghost trick HD release i saw him in

his little hat and he said oh my god he so i can't believe he did and he did his whole presentation in english and it was really incredible and at the end of it he's like i worked really hard to do this in English so please if you meet me work hard to speak Japanese to me and I'm like you are his God he's just so precious and so incredibly intelligent and smart and creative and yeah just like I just want to see more shoot Takumi yeah and in that video I think he said like who knows if this sells well a ghost trick to re-release that we may yeah obviously we talked about that on the ghost trick episode but I think a lot of us we feel the same way that if they make a sequel, it'd be great to see, you know, them reuse the mechanics,

but do a completely different story because that story was perfect. It's been told. It wrapped up incredibly well. It's beautiful. But if they take the mechanics out and put it in with a new cast, I think it would be really cool. Yeah, yeah. There are no loose ends in that story, but everyone please buy Ghost Trick if you didn't already. Definitely. And go back to our podcast. And I think that is a very spoilery podcast after the first half. So you can play through and listen to us talk about the story as a whole. Sorry, Nina. Oh, no, I just wanted to bring up, I don't want to put you too much in the spot, Bob, but since we've done the Ghost Trick podcast, the first EC20 podcast, you've since read all of the Father Brown series, which was a major inspiration for Shutakumi.

Like, what was your thoughts on that series? Oh, honestly, I read, I read all of that was available to me in a collection, which is honestly a third of the stories, but I think I'm good for a while. But reading, I read one of the old Perry Mason books recently. And I feel like, oh, this owes a lot more. Oasterny owes a lot more to this. And I'm not sure if that was ever on the record as an inspiration. But it's so Ace Attorney. If you ever want to read a book series and there's like 80 of them, the old Perry Mason books.

But Father Brown, I can see it being somewhat tied to Ace Attorney. But a lot of the Father Brown stuff is about religion. And a lot of the ways Father Brown is proving things incorrect is showing how people are being like superstitious or not knowing enough about Catholicism. In a way, Father Brown mysteries are pretty good mysteries, but they're tied into Catholic propaganda, which is kind of strange. But I'm happy I read them, but I honestly didn't see too much of a connection. When I read Perry White, I was like, oh, my God.

I'm sorry, Perry Mason. I was like, oh, my God. It's like I'm reading Ace Attorney novels, really. Well, even though Ace Attorney does not have Catholicism, obviously, would you say he was inspired to them bring in spirituality into? the series in a way? I don't think so. Father Brown would hate that.

Having like spirit mediums and witches and stuff. One of the last Father Brown stories I read was people assuming a dog knew something based on how it reacted. And Father Brown he pointed out, no, the dog is

acting on instinct. Here's what really happened and you're a bad Catholic for thinking a dog could have human thoughts. Whereas in these games, the dog would be an expert witness. He brought in a trial It's like proper evidence You'd read its mind And it would have human thoughts and feelings

But not so in Father Brown And they're all public domain If you want to read Father Brown They're all out there They're all available in public domain You can buy like all of them for 99 cents on Kindle If you want or just look them up on Gutenberg But I didn't really

I want to read more Japanese mystery novels honestly And I have some I have a bunch of your apartment That are packed up in boxes Nina Yes So that's where I want to go You should read more Kindaji I want to

I have a lot of novels ahead of me in my life, but there are so many games to play, and some of them are 100 hours long like this Last Ace Attorney game. But we're going to wrap up. And I'll let everyone know that this has been Retronauts, of course. You can find us on Twitter at Retronauts. And we are supported, of course, on Patreon at patreon.com slash Retronauts. If you sign up for three bucks a month, you can get all these episodes one week at a time and add free. But you really want to be at that $5 level because at that $5 level, we have two bonus full-length episodes every month for patrons on that level. And also,

in a monthly, or sorry, weekly article by Diamond Fight and a podcast to go along with that article. So that's a ton of content you're going to miss out on if you're not on that level and it's been going on for over three years now.

So that's two episodes a month for almost four complete years. You're missing out on a lot of podcasts if you want to hear more of us. And I can remember we launched that new initiative with Maddie and this is relevant because the Super Mario RPG remake was just announced.

That was our first Patreon exclusive episode back in 2020. That was my first Retronauts. Oh, that's right. Okay. Yeah. And I'm so excited about that. I didn't get the chance

to talk with you about that maybe. My freaking mind was blown. I was just like freaking out. Like my friend and I, who's also like been a major fan of this of Mario RPG since they were a kid. We were just like yelling quotes at each other. And we're just like naming all the characters and being like, Booster in HD,

Bosci and we were just freaking out. I'm so excited. That's one of my favorite games of all time. And the remake looks phenomenal. And you can hear us talk about it on the Patreon for five bucks. And you get a ton of podcasts on top of that. But please check it out at patreon.com slash retronauts. I will do my plugs last.

But Maddie, it's been a few years. Where can we find you? You're doing a lot of great comics online. You're going to be doing stuff with Grasshopper. What's going on with Maddie? Yeah, you can find me on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, and Patreon at O That's Raspberry, as well as my website. Oh, that's Raspberry.com.

that is the letter O. That's Raspberry. It is a Simpsons reference. And yeah, doing mostly Metal Gear stuff, occasionally Resident Evil, Zelda, lots of video game comics, just being a big dork all the time online. And yeah, you can also find me. I half manage the English Grasshopper Manufacture account. Also appear in their videos, do some streams for Grasshopper Manufacture, so be sure to follow them as well. I know you have mental care content Well, first of all Related Ace Attorney, but there is a attorney

I think that's more important to mention in this one, but Hey, but the dog just came out, Diamond Dog just came out Oh, that's true, the D-Dog plush, yes, among other things. Well, I mean, I'm on Twitter, Instagram, Blue Sky is the latest new thing. Who knows that that's

going to stick around RAPE Hive? I really liked Hive, but did not win the social media per, not purge. mass exodus war wherever we all end up at you can just go to spacecoyote.com slash links

and that has links to everywhere you can find me online all my social media pages and all my online stores I recently put up an in-print print shop that's like I-N-P-R-N-T-com and I'm on there as Space Coyote

you can buy my original print but also more relevant to this podcast. Yes, I do AC-Turning merchandise and Metal Gear Solid merchandise. It's all official. Go to Fangamer.com. Sort by collection, click on my name.

That's Space Coyote or Nina Matsumoto. And you can see all my AC-Ternie merch. And, sorry, Bob, when does this episode come out? The episode comes out on July 10th on the Patreon feed and July 17th on the main feed. Okay, well, then all I can say is there's more coming from me. More Eastern stuff coming from me. Ooh.

I don't think I've seen this privately. No, I'm not showing you. I'm not supposed to show you. No, and she never has. I never show you anything I do. It's in advance, right? No, no, absolutely not. As for me, you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo.

I'll be on other things at some point. I'm lazy about that right now. But the other thing I do is Talking Simpsons. It's a podcast I do about The Simpsons. You can find that wherever you find podcast or go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. You can find the podcast there, as well as other series like Talking Futurama. Talking of the Hill. What a cartoon. You know all this stuff about me, but if you want to support my other thing, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. That's it for us this week. We'll see you

again very soon for another episode of Retronauts. Take care. I'm going to be able to be.