Puns and Legal Prodigies - Capcom Devs On Finally Bringing the Long Lost Ace Attorney Game West
A True Turnabout.
Ace Attorney is one of Capcom’s most unique series, a courtroom drama brilliantly meshed with murder mystery and a healthy dose of slapstick comedy. After 23 years, there’s still nothing quite like Ace Attorney. The series has managed to endure so long because of its utterly beloved characters.
Miles Edgeworth has long been a fan-favorite character, eventually leading to his own spinoff duology, the Investigations games. But despite that popularity, Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit is the sole Ace Attorney game that was never released outside of Japan, until now with the Investigations Collection.
“We've seen an increased number of fans around the world becoming acquainted with the Ace Attorney series and playing the games available to them, so we feel like now is the right time to bring Ace Attorney Investigations 2 to a sizeable fanbase in the West,” producer Shunsuke Nishida tells Inverse, “We put a lot of thought into quality-of-life improvements in hopes of providing both veterans and newcomers with an even more comfortable gameplay experience.”
While the Investigations games are technically spinoffs, Capcom has clearly put a ton of work into this collection, even more so than the previous ones. The release of Investigations is a surprisingly momentous occasion, as it means every single Ace Attorney game ever made is now playable on modern consoles, worldwide.
It’s proof of how far the scrappy series has come in the last two decades. With the release of the Investigations Collection, Inverse chatted with Nishida and localization director Janet Hsu, learning about the immense amount of work that went into the game’s visual upgrade, localizing the one Ace Attorney game left out, and more.
The new 3D sprites of Investigations help add an incredible amount of personality and style.,
I’m curious about the redesigned sprites. How did you decide the art style, and were there any difficulties in implementing the new sprites across both games?
Nishida: Since the chibi characters are unique to the Ace Attorney Investigations games, we weren't able to use the previously ported Ace Attorney collection titles as reference. This meant we had to start from scratch and search for the best ways to enhance the classic sprites from the original games. We explored several options, including keeping them as sprites, recreating them in 3D, etc. and after a fair amount of trial and error, we settled on the current 2D graphics.
The process of creating new full HD quality animations for a massive number of character sprites was an enormous undertaking, and at certain points in the process, we weren't sure we'd be able to finish in time. These more modern designs include finer details that weren't possible with pixel art, such as small finger movements and facial expressions. We hope that everyone will be able to feel the charm of each character more directly with these enhancements.
How important do you think Miles Edgeworth is to the Ace Attorney series? How do these games expand on his character?
Nishida: Miles Edgeworth first appeared in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as a rival prosecutor, and I think he's a charming character that's popular among the fan community. The story of the Ace Attorney Investigations games focuses on his struggles and beliefs as a prosecutor. The fact that Edgeworth is featured as a central character in an unfolding murder case differentiates these games from others in the Ace Attorney series.
Although the Investigations games revolve around solving mysteries, their narratives unfold with thoughts and developments unique to prodigy prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, which I think makes it possible to enjoy these games as pure unadulterated mysteries. With their unique take on the Ace Attorney series, I feel like these games are truly deserving of their status as spin-offs.
The Investigations games can be played standalone, but the payoff will be even better if you’ve played the original Ace Attorney trilogy.
The Investigations games have some really quirky characters, and fun names. How do you approach localizing character names that might be puns or a play on words?
Hsu: Every character's name reflects something about them, and outside of the main characters, most of the other characters are some sort of pun or play on words. So it's not hard to decide which characters need a pun name. Rather, it's harder to figure out what level of pun is appropriate for each name and for the game overall. For example, do you go for the really on-the-nose pun or do you go for a super subtle one? Perhaps something in between is best when it's a character that you want to have a little fun with but should still have a name that can be taken seriously most of the time.
For example, with Eddie Fender, he's a really fun character who never takes anything too seriously... until he does. So the pun in his full name (A Defender) is to reflect this sort of laid-back guy who still has a name you can take seriously in most contexts. The meaning of the pun in his name reflects the Japanese name's intention that he is a shield that defends others.
This duology now means that every Ace Attorney game can be played on a single console. Is that fact important to the series at large? Why did you decide to release the Investigations collection now?
Nishida: Yes, I definitely think it's important. Following the releases of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the development team wanted to make all games in the Ace Attorney series playable on current gaming hardware in languages other than Japanese. Our goal was to release the remaining games as quickly as possible, so we launched Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy in January 2024. The fact that we're releasing Ace Attorney Investigations Collections in the same year was a pleasant surprise for the community.
Investigations continues the series’ long tradition of slapstick humor and puns.
I know the Investigations games build on the story of the original Ace Attorney Trilogy. For localization, how did you make sure everything lines up with those past games? Did you want to make sure they had a similar tone?
Hsu: Keeping things consistent with previous games was a big part of localizing the Investigations games since one of the core concepts of the series is that it's a big celebration of all the games that had come before it, including Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. There are a ton of references and callbacks — both big and small — in both games, and keeping track of them was a little tough. I recognize most of them on sight because I've lived and breathed this series for nearly 20 years, but the translators on the second game weren't as familiar. So, we on the dev side made reference documents and made the in-game text for the relevant games available to them. Anything they missed, I went through and touched up on my editing pass.
Speaking of references, there's actually something in the fifth game, Dual Destinies, which was a reference to Prosecutor's Gambit. But because we'd localized Dual Destinies first, we had to make sure the reference line up with Dual Destinies this time around!
As for tonal consistency, we tried to keep it the same, but with over 10 years between the localization of the first game and the second, and with a different localization team and UI layout, there was always bound to be some slight differences. Still, I tried to edit everything to be as similar in tone as possible to the original games.
What do you think about Ace Attorney’s popularity in the West? Do you want it to reach new audiences, and how do you think it could do that?
Hashimoto: The fan community continues to grow, and we think that the Ace Attorney series has gained popularity in the West. By bringing these games to the current generation of gaming hardware, we've seen an increased number of younger players in their teens and twenties enjoying the series. We hope that easier access to the Ace Attorney series encourages even more fans of all ages to give the games a try.
