Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Could Ace Attorney 7 Be Coming Soon?

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with:
Jun 242024
 

I know what you’re thinking.

Another Ace Attorney post? The Ace Attorney Investigations Collection was just announced last week, with an Ace Attorney Investigations 2 localization after all this time, and I’m already speculating about Ace Attorney 7 again?

Yes, it would be logical to assume that with the Investigations duology on the horizon, we shouldn’t expect any other Ace Attorney news for quite a while.

But I’m not convinced.

In fact, the timing makes me wonder if Ace Attorney 7 might be closer than we think.

When you have a series like this, spacing out your releases makes sense. You want to give people time to buy and play the first one before you dangle another in front of them. So with the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy having come out at the end of January, I would have expected the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection to come out early next year at best.

But it’s coming out this September. Less than 8 months after the previous Ace Attorney collection, the Investigations Collection will be available.

I’m not complaining; I’m delighted that it’s so close, but why do it that way? Spacing them out more would make more sense… unless there’s a new game on the horizon. Because you know what else is happening in September? The 2024 Tokyo Game Show, a prime candidate for where a new Ace Attorney game might be announced.

When I think of it like that, everything fits. They are building off the momentum from re-releasing games 4-6, with Ace Attorney 7 to be announced at TGS… but they want the whole series (except the crossover) on modern platforms first, so they’ve slotted Investigations into early September ahead of TGS. Heck, maybe Ace Attorney 7 will include Investigations characters, and so they specifically want it out first.

Either way, while the announcement of the Investigations Collection would normally make me temper my Ace Attorney 7 hopes for a while, its release date being so close has had the opposite effect instead.

We’re getting two Ace Attorney collections in the same year. That’s crazy! And what better reason to do that than if 2025 is set for the long-awaited return of the series with a brand-new game?

(On the other hand, my predictions of Capcom’s Ace Attorney behavior – “Capcom will localize Great Ace Attorney in 2023 when Sherlock Holmes enters public domain;” no, they called him Sholmes and released it in 2021; “Capcom won’t announce any Ace Attorney games until the Ghost Trick remaster is out;” no, they announced the Apollo Justice Trilogy a couple weeks before Ghost Trick’s release date; “Capcom will announce Ace Attorney 7 before an Investigations collection to build off the momentum from 4-6;” no, here we are with the Investigations Collection announced first – have pretty much all been wrong, so I might be entirely off-base again.)

What do you think? Will we get an Ace Attorney 7 announcement this year?

Every New Ace Attorney Investigations 2 Name We Know So Far

 Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jun 192024
 

Yesterday, our hopes and dreams for the past 13 years came true when the Nintendo Direct included the announcement of the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection.

This means that when that collection comes out on September 6, we’ll finally have an official localization of Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit.

And with an official localization… comes official names, which has been causing no end of both amusement and arguments among fans who got used to the names from the popular fan translation.

I spoke about this briefly in yesterday’s blog post, but now let’s take a look at all the names currently revealed from the official Ace Attorney Investigations 2 localization.

The Ace Attorney Investigations Collection website gives us two right off the bat, listed under the main characters for Investigations 2.

Hakari Mikagami, whom the fan translation called Justine Courtney, now has the official localized name of Verity Gavèlle. I like this one a lot. It’s an elegant-sounding name, and it plays on the same court meanings without being as overt.

Tateyuki Shigaraki, dubbed Raymond Shields by the fan translation, is now Eddie Fender. This is the one I’m having the hardest time getting used to. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because the “a defender” pun is so blatant. Maybe it’s because I keep thinking of Freddy Fender. But like it or not, Eddie Fender is what we’ve got.

Moving away from the the list of characters, the gallery section provides us with one more, the name change that’s received the most attention from fans. Yumihiko Ichiyanagi, who was called Sebastian Debeste in the fan translation, is now officially known as Eustace Winner. And honestly… it’s growing on me. “Winner” feels a bit too on-the-nose, but it turns out it’s actually a real surname, and I can see him being a Eustace. It’s an adjustment, but it’s growing on me.

Next we need to take a look at the reveal trailer. At 1:12, a demonstration of the dialogue history shows a line in which Edgeworth mentions Di-Jun Wang. That character’s Japanese name is Teikun Ō, and the fan translation called him Di-Jun Huang. According to the wiki, Di-Jun Wang is the Mandarin Chinese reading of his Japanese name, while the fan translation then changed “Wang” to “Huang” to add an additional play on the word for “emperor.” This explains why the official name for him is so similar to the fan translation name, compared to the others.

Those are the only four new names we currently know in full. However, we have pieces of three more.

The reveal trailer also includes a scene at 2:02 in which Edgeworth is talking to a character named Knight and mentions two other characters, Ms. Lloyd and Mr. Rook.

Knight is Manosuke Naitou, who was called Horace Knightly in the fan translation. We have no clue what they’ve gone with for his first name yet, but it’s interesting that they simply went with the surname “Knight.”

Similarly, Rook is Gai Tojiro, who was Ethan Rooke in the fan translation. From Rooke to Rook, another choice that’s so close it almost seems like they didn’t have to change it at all.

And the character referenced as Ms. Lloyd matches up with the young journalist Mikiko Hayami, called Nicole Swift in the fan translation. While we haven’t seen her first name yet, the popular theory is that it will be Tabitha or Tabby to make her full name a play on “tabloid.” If that’s true, that’s a brilliant choice. I love it.

Those are all the new names I’ve been able to find. If you’ve spotted one that I missed – from an official source, not just people editing the wiki – let me know. It’s certainly going to feel strange seeing these new names after I played the fan translation just last year, but I’m so, so excited that this is even a conversation we’re having at all.

After all these years, Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is being localized. How do you feels about the character names revealed so far?

Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy

 Celebrating All Things Mysterious, Reviews, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,
May 312024
 

It’s the final day of Celebrating All Things Mysterious 2024 (and your last chance to participate in the contest).

Last year, we closed out the month by talking about Ace Attorney Investigations 2, so why not end the event with Ace Attorney again?

Earlier this year, Capcom finally brought Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice (the 4th, 5th, and 6th mainline games) to modern platforms as the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, which even got a physical release for the Switch in North America. Since Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice were digital-only here before, it’s great to finally have them in physical form.

While I ultimately decided against playing through all three games again, I did spend some time with the Apollo Justice Trilogy nevertheless.

I love that these newer collections include concept art and similar bonuses. Looking through the concept art is always fun, especially when you get to see earlier character designs.

It also includes an extensive soundtrack selection (all the songs from the three games, minus the ones that only play for a few seconds, plus some additional tracks as well), and you can set a song to play in the background while you look through other parts of the gallery.

Then there’s the Animation Studio, which might be the best bonus feature I’ve ever seen.

The Animation Studio lets you pick any background, character, pose/animation, and voice clip (ex. “Objection!”) to create your own scenes. It’s restricted based on game, so no taking a character exclusive to one game and putting them in a background from a different game, but it still has a ton of options. One annoying part is that some poses/animations are exclusive to the courtroom, so if you select that option while on a different background, it automatically changes to the courtroom. I’d have preferred it if courtroom-specific options only showed up on the list while you had a courtroom background set, or if it asked first.

Still, after a bit of fiddling, I managed to make some fun what-if scenes with Blackquill, since he’s one of my favorite prosecutors. I like to think he’s there to see the bird.

…and a scene with my least favorite prosecutor, to imagine what could have been (out-of-court encounters with Nahyuta might have done wonders for him).

Playing around with the Animation Studio makes me wish The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles had this feature, because I’d go crazy if I could make my own Great Ace Attorney scenes.

Anyway, another nice feature added to the Apollo Justice Trilogy is that you can not only select which game to play, but even a specific section of a specific case. I revisited some of my favorite moments from the trilogy this way, and it reminded me just how much I love this series.

The Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy is a fantastic collection of the later three Ace Attorney games, with some really nice bonus features, and a perfect collection to end Celebrating All Things Mysterious 2024 with. So let me know your thoughts on the Apollo Justice Trilogy, and join me in hoping that this is the year a new Ace Attorney game will finally be announced!

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