Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Capcom Filed an Apollo Justice Trademark

 Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Mar 162022
 

With the Phoenix Wright Trilogy and the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles available on just about every platform, fans have been hoping the other games will follow suit.

Especially in light of the upcoming closure of the 3DS eShop, a port would be welcome news, since once the 3DS store is gone, Apollo Justice will only be available on the DS and mobile devices, and Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice will be on mobile alone.

(Investigations is already only available on DS or mobile. It didn’t even earn a 3DS port.)

I want to hear about Ace Attorney 7 as much as anyone, but I’ve been hoping for a collection of 4-6 in the meantime, so that all of the games leading up to 7 are more readily available.

Well, maybe there’s a chance. People watching for new game trademarks noticed that Capcom recently filed a trademark for Apollo Justice. You can read the details of the trademark here, although it’s mainly just a long list of concepts related to video games.

One puzzling thing is that it’s a Japanese trademark, but it’s for “Apollo Justice,” not Gyakuten Saiban 4. So… what do we take from that? Did they file a trademark specifically for the western release? Or for something related to the character, but using his English name?

(Update: I’ve seen a plausible suggestion, which is that it could be a port/remaster/collection with English included in the Japanese release, like they did for the Trilogy & Chronicles, so they’d need the English title trademarked in Japan.)

I took a look at Capcom’s other recent trademarks, which include the Capcom Fighting Collection, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, and some hunting trademarks that seem related to Monster Hunter, among others. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to when trademarks are filed compared to when the games were announced, though, but seeing an Apollo Justice trademark among all of these gives me hope!

Trademarking only Apollo Justice might suggest they’re going to port the games separately, but maybe not. Right now, this trademark is more puzzling than anything else.

Of course, trademarks don’t always mean anything. I’m still patiently waiting for Baten Kaitos news after those promising trademarks.

Ideally, I’d like this to lead to a collection of Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice, followed by an Investigations duology with Investigations 2 getting an official western release, and then of course Ace Attorney 7. …Okay, I would trade away most of these for a Great Ace Attorney Investigations. I need that to exist. Please.

In the meantime, Capcom has all of their 3DS games on sale, with Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice at $5 each, which is ridiculously good.

So what do you think is up with this mysterious Apollo Justice trademark? Is it for a port? A collection? Something entirely different? Random chance?? Let me know what you think!

The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve is a Truly Epic Conclusion

 Reviews, Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,
Dec 172021
 

I’ve now finished The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, the second half of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, and it seems safe to say my GOTY is now set in stone.

When I finished The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures back in August, I suggested Chronicles should be instead viewed as one big Ace Attorney game.

I still feel that way, but what I didn’t expect was how much better Resolve would be.

Not only does it follow up on the numerous loose ends left by the first game, but it had me constantly re-evaluating hints and coming up with new theories.

The pacing and stakes are excellent; if Adventures felt like it had three tutorials, Resolve balances that by making every case important and memorable.

And while it’s a small thing, I greatly missed having multiple investigation days in the first game, so I was thrilled to see multi-day investigations return. I still would have liked more, but that’s only because I wanted this already-long game to last even longer.

I liked the cast when I played the first game, but the second left me wanting to stay in this era with these characters to the point where I dragged out my playthrough solely because I didn’t want to finish.

It has so many incredible moments, and more plot twists than I ever expected. It hit me with so many revelations that shook up what I expected, even once I thought I had everything figured out.

Click for major Great Ace Attorney 2 spoilers
KAZUMA! Everything about Kazuma is wonderful, and he also has one of the best prosecutor themes in the series. Van Zieks was already rising to be one of my favorite prosecutors, but then to give me Kazuma on top of that? And then with van Zieks as the defendant???

Speaking of which, Gregson being a victim stunned me. They’ve never killed a supporting character who was around for multiple cases–and a whole game!–like that. And then, of course, I found out the truth about his involvement with “the Reaper.”

(Oh boy did I keep going over and over those four names from the Morse code message every time I found out something new about them.)

Then there was learning the Professor’s true identity, at which point I needed to take a short walk before I could resume playing.

And these aren’t even all of the plot twists that made me say, “Wait, WHAT?” but I’ll be typing all day if I try to list them all.

(Also, I was quite surprised to see many people dislike Stronghart as a villain. He was obvious, yes, but that enhanced my playthrough instead of detracting from it. When I saw him as the judge, it was way more intimidating because I already suspected him of being up to no good. He’s also pretty much the embodiment of “the ends justify the means.”)

It’s not perfect, of course, but most of my quibbles are minor things. Is it just me, or do these games always have exactly 5 points in each testimony/cross-examination, when the number used to vary more? And one critical moment stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit… but look, I’ll take it in exchange for everything else this game gave me.

There is so much to love, from the characters to the music to the plot twists and the way it brings everything together. I am seriously considering the possibility that it might have dethroned Trials & Tribulations as my favorite Ace Attorney game.

I want another Great Ace Attorney game, be it a Great Ace Attorney 3, a Great Ace Attorney Investigations, or some other spin-off.

Click for major Great Ace Attorney 2 spoilers
An Investigations spin-off set in this era has potential for so many different ideas, too!

Would we play as Barok? Or play as Kazuma? Both?? Gina as the main detective and/or assistant? Or maybe we’d play as Mikotoba working together with Sholmes again?? Flashback case playing as Sholmes and Mikotoba again?? Flashback case playing as Klint before crossing his despair event horizon?????

Or, you know, we could have a Great Ace Attorney 3 starring Ryunosuke and Susato again. I’ll take it!

But whatever it is, please, let Barok van Zieks smile. Please!

In a year filled with incredible games, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles will most likely end up being my favorite game of the year. While the first game set up a good story, The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve went above and beyond and ended up being one of the best – if not the best – games in the series.

The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures Sets the Stage for Its Sequel

 Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,
Aug 232021
 

Over the weekend, I finished the first half of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the game now officially titled The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures.

The more I played it, the more I wondered if I should think of Chronicles not as a collection of two games, but as one big Ace Attorney game.

Before we get into that, it’s a beautiful game and I love how expressive the 3D sprites are. Some of the animations are simply fantastic when it comes to how much more they can show now. The music is great, too.

Ryunosuke is a good protagonist, and he doesn’t just feel like a copy of Phoenix but a new character in his own right. I like him and the rest of the main cast, with the standout character being Herlock Sholmes (Sherlock Holmes).

I don’t know why they decided to make Sholmes such a wacky character, but I love it. He has a tendency to make elaborate deductions based on clues, but overlook certain necessary details, leading to a new gameplay mechanic called the Dance of Deduction where you find the evidence to steer his wild conclusion back onto the right track. Beyond that, he also sometimes just shows up in the background during investigations, always doing something odd that contributes to this… eccentric portrayal of the great detective.

The new prosecutor, Barok van Zieks, is also interesting. He’s sort of a racist jerk toward Ryunosuke, but he also seems much less corrupt than a lot of the prosecutors we’ve dealt with in the past. He’s fairly dramatic, although not as over-the-top as you might expect from a guy who tosses wine bottles around and occasionally slams the desk with his foot.

Moving on to gameplay, you can investigate most areas for entertaining dialogue once again, and the trials involve both multiple witnesses like in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, as well as a jury system.

The jury comes across almost as another set of witnesses, with moments in the case where you need to hear their reasoning and find contradictions in order to change their minds. It’s a bit contrived that you always end up with a jury with information relevant to the case, but in general I found it to be an entertaining feature.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures… except that, once again, I don’t feel like I finished an Ace Attorney game so much as played half of an extra-long one.

The pacing in this game is strange. The first three cases all feel like tutorials to some degree, and none of the cases have multiple days of investigation. Some of this comes from it really shaking up the Ace Attorney formula a bit, which I liked, but it gives the game a strange feeling. The final case does feel like a typical climactic resolution, but the overarching plot leaves many unanswered questions.

I liked the game a lot, but I wonder how I would feel if we did get the game back when it first came out on its own, instead of being bundled with its sequel. If the second half of this story wasn’t waiting for me, I might not have nearly as positive an impression.

Nevertheless, we didn’t get it alone but as part of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, so I’ll save my final thoughts for once I conclude the story! I’m taking a break first to play NEO: The World Ends With You, but after that I’ll move on to The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve.

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