Friday, August 19, 2016

Gyakuten Saiban Blog Entry 12: Every Meeting Is Fleeting Yet Precious (2) (2001)

Title: Every Meeting Is Fleeting Yet Precious (2) / 「一期一会 (2)」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban official site (down)

Summary: In his second post introducing all the staff members who worked on the original Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney GBA), Takumi looks at the rest of the development team he hadn't mentioned yet: Ōtani and Endō of Programming, and Sugimori and Mori of Sound Design. Sugimori Masukazu is probably the best known of these four, as he composed the iconic soundtrack of the first game. Sugimori would leave Capcom, but Takumi and Sugimori would team-up again for 2010's Ghost Trick. Mori is perhaps not very well known by name, but he was actually the person who "saved" the game. He was the person who had been added to the Gyakuten Saiban team when the game was about to be canceled because it didn't have enough staff members. The poor guy had to work on both the Biohazard (Resident Evil) team and the Gyakuten Saiban team (see blog entry 8).

Every Meeting Is Fleeting Yet Precious (2)

And now, the continuation of the previous time. Let’s start with the introduction of the programmers. The men who took all the assets like graphics, text and sounds and made it into a game. Ōtani and Endō worked on this.

Let’s start with Ōtani. He’s the man who built the main system of the game. It turned out be a system you'd expect from someone like him, focusing on making the game run 'smoothly'.

And he is also my calmative. When I work on the scenario, it sometimes happens that I hit upon ideas I myself am not sure whether it’s a good one. I go immediately go to him at such times.
“I think it could work.”
Unless there’s something really wrong, Ōtani will usually say that. And by trusting him, I can calm down a bit. That is definitely worthy of a special decoration placing him in the top 3.

“I think it could work.”
As Ōtani says that, you’ll notice Endō next to him, with a slight grin.
That grin.
“I don’t think that would work.”
That is what you can read clearly from that grin. He has an exclusive right for reporting on mistakes in the scenario. Objection! to his smile… I’d like to say. But of course, I don’t have to explain in detail that thanks to his advice, the scenario did become a lot better. The Investigation Parts too have become much tighter in design. That sharp eye also shines throughout his own work. The opening of Episode 3, where the BGM matches up perfectly with those satisfying animations, that’s his masterpiece. That alone is definitely worthy of a special decoration placing him in the top 3.

And now for the sound part. Sugimori of the BGM, and Mori of the sound effects. Let’s start with Sugimori. Whenever you ask him something, he replies with an answer about 2cm out of focus, which can be a bit vexing. But there is one thing that happened with him that I will not forget. It was near the end of the development cycle, when he came to me, as I was working desperately on the plot of the last episode.

“Tonosaman (The Steel Samurai), that was fantastic,” he told me.

This was the first time that anyone in the team had praised me while I was working on the scenario. In my opinion, that alone is definitely worthy of a special decoration placing him in the top 3. But a while after that, when he had read the scenario of the last episode I was working on, he said:
“The Tonosaman one was better.”
That made me fall down from heaven again.

And then we have Mori. A nice guy who amidst all of his own work, came to us from the Biohazard (Resident Evil) team to help us out. When I asked for a gunshot, he immediately pulled out thirty different versions.

He has a very gentle eyes. And no matter what you ask him, he only has two replies.

“Shouldn’t ya add a Law Office simulation part to ta game?”
 “Don’t’cha think it’d be good if ya connected all four episodes?”

It kinda gets on your nerves. At first, I thought that neither of those were necessary and pretended I didn’t hear him. But, his words had been engraved deeply in mind. That the four episodes do form one story together, is completely all thanks to him. That alone is definitely worthy of a special decoration placing him in the top 3.

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