Earlier in the week, we got a first look of the new Ace Attorney game taking place in 19th century Japan, and its protagonist is an ancestor of Phoenix Wright’s. During an interview with Famitsu magazine, series creator Shu Takumi talked more about the game, and the reason behind choosing Japan’s Meiji Era as its setting.
Famitsu begins the Great Ace Attorney discussion by asking Takumi to share a little bit on the concept behind the game.
“While making games, I usually think ‘to make what I currently think is the most fun thing in the best shape possible,’ which is the major premise,” replies Takumi. “This might be a bit different from the rest of the series, but our concept this time around is about making a new Ace Attorney for fans and those new to the series [as well].”
Next, Famitsu asks when Takumi began thinking about starting a new project in the series.
“When we finished Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, there were voices within the company that said ‘we’d like you to make a new Ace Attorney’ and it started out with the thought of putting together ideas we’ve had up until now.”
After that, Takumi says, it was decided that Shintaro Kojima would take on the role of the game’s producer.
“Yes. We talked about the challenge of taking on a new Ace Attorney game that is not part of its main numbered series,” says Kojima. “The base of it is still Ace Attorney, but I was interested in the new possibilities and approaches, so I decided to join.”
Famitsu asks Kojima if he has any thoughts as a producer, considering that it’ll be his first time working on the Ace Attorney series.
“I’d like to make an environment that would allow director Takumi to think of all kinds of ideas in full-swing,” responds Kojima. “While it is an Ace Attorney game, it’ll also be a new project, so while we would naturally want Ace Attorney fans to find it interesting, I also believe that it will be important to show its charm off to those who’ve yet to play an Ace Attorney game.”
It was previously mentioned that The Great Ace Attorney will be different from past games in the series, partly due to its setting. Now that we know it’s set in the 19th century, Famitsu asks how this decision came to be.
“A big part of it came from wanting to make it different from the main games,” replies Takumi. “When we first started this project, we thought about all kinds of ways as to how we could make it different from the main games. At first, we thought about having civil trials, but that would have made it difficult to show a decisive victory or defeat.”
“That would have made things about compensation instead of guilt and innocence, so in the end, we thought that [having them say] ‘court established settlement!’ would have been a bit too much,” Takumi continues with a laugh. “In the end, we kept the focus on the mystery part of it, and thought that simply changing the era would be good enough.”
Takumi concludes, “I also grew up reading classic mystery novels that were written about 100 years ago, and I thought that this would be a good opportunity to pull things out that we’ve yet to use, so we decided to go with this era.”
The Great Ace Attorney is currently in development for Nintendo 3DS.
