Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Gyakuten Saiban 3 Blog Entry 14: The Magnificent Turnabout Pt. 2 (2004)

Title: The Magnificent Turnabout - Part 2 / 「華麗なる逆転・後編」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban 3 official site (down) 

Summary: In the fourteenth column for the official Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3 - Trials & Tribulations) website, Takumi explains how he managed to solve a fatal problem in the original script for the final episode of the game, The Magnificent Turnabout  (Bridge to the Turnabout). After three years, Takumi decided to take the advice he had written so often in the games and use it himself, and that led to a surprising result.

Gyakuten Saiban 3 Blog Entry 13: The Magnificent Turnabout Pt. 1 (2004)

Title: The Magnificent Turnabout - Part 1 / 「華麗なる逆転・前編」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban 3 official site (down)

Summary: In the thirteenth column for the official Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3 - Trials & Tribulations) website, director Takumi starts his two-part series on the final episode in the game: The Magnificent Turnabout (Bridge to the Turnabout). As seen in previous columns, the last episode of each game usually proves to be the most difficult, and this was no exception. Even though he already had a rough outline finished for the first part of the game, that version had actually been abandoned earlier because it contained a fatal flaw he didn't manage to fix. But with little time left, Takumi was forced to use that version anyway, and hope he'd come up with a solution to his problem anyway.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Gyakuten Saiban 2 Blog Entry 5: Psyche Locks (2002)

Title: Psyche Locks / 「サイコ・ロック」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban 2 official site (down)

Summary: In the fifth column posted on the official Gyakuten Saiban 2 (Ace Attorney 2 - Justice for All) website, director Takumi talks about the new mechanic introduced in this game, the Psyche Locks. He explains why they were added, how he came up with them and the difficulties they had actually creating the system. As usual with the columns of this game, Naruhodō (Phoenix Wright) and Mayoi (Maya Fey) have fun 'backstage', looking back at Takumi's column and commenting on that.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Gyakuten Saiban 3 Blog Entry 16: Finale (2004)

Title: Finale / 「大団円」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban 3 official site (down)

Summary: In the final column written for the Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3 - Trials & Tribulations) website, Takumi looks back at the release of the game, as well as the whole series. At the time, this was supposed to be the last game in the series, so Takumi takes the time to look back at all that has happened inside the courtroom, and says farewell to his characters and the players who have supported the series these three years.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Gyakuten Saiban Blog Entry 15: Advertising Campaign (2001)

Title: Advertising Campaign / 「宣伝活動」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban official site (down)

Summary: In the fifteenth column for the official website of the Game Boy Advance version of Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney GBA), director Takumi talks about another 'contradiction' in his project. To sell the game, he needs people to know about it. But as it's a mystery game, he doesn't want people to know about it, so they can be genuinely surprised by what the game has to offer. The pros and cons of the advertising campaign is always a problem for this series, as many years later, the director and producer for Gyakuten Saiban 6 (Ace Attorney 6 - Spirit of Justice) would also have frequent fights about what they could say and could not say as part of the marketing.

Gyakuten Saiban Blog Entry 14: Excursion (2001)

Title: Excursion / 「えんそく」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban official site (down)

Summary: Many fans of the Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) series like the games because of their writing, but obviously, plotting and writing a story is not a simple job. In the fourteenth column for the official website of the Game Boy Advance version of Gyakuten Saiban, Takumi explains about all the moods he goes through during the writing process. 

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Gyakuten Saiban Blog Entry 10: Run With Everything You Have (2001)

Title: Run With Everything You Have / 「全力疾走」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban official site (down)

Summary: With the team had finally settled on how the game should be after stumbling and getting up again, it was basically a race against the clock to finish the game, as director Takumi and his team were only given a few months to create their game in the first place. In this tenth column originally published on the Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney GBA) website, Takumi explains some of the minor troubles they had as they headed towards the goal.

Gyakuten Saiban Blog Entry 9: Restructuring (2001)

Title: Restructuring / 「リストラ」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban official site (down)

Summary: In the previous columns on the official website of the GBA version of Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney), director Takumi explained how the project had almost been cancelled because of a lack of team members, and how the initial demo of their game met with harsh criticism within his department, as it was not hard to understand and simply not fun as a game. With little time left, Takumi had address those problems quickly and start on the actual creation of the episodes of the game. In this ninth column, Takumi explains how the original demo was rebuilt to become the game we know now.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Gyakuten Saiban 3 Blog Entry 15: Infinity Born From "Restrictions" (2004)

Title: Infinity Born From “Restrictions” / 「“制限”が生む、無限大」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban 3 official site (down)

Summary: The fifteenth column for Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3: Trials & Tribulations) has director Takumi talking about what the limited storage space on a Game Boy Advance cartridge means for the development of these games. While you would think that restrictions would be a bad influence on that, Takumi points out that being forced to come up with ideas is not a bad thing per se, and indeed, many of the elements thought "typical" of this series, were simply results of the team having to cope with storage restrictions.

Monday, December 5, 2016

Gyakuten Saiban 2 Blog Entry 10: Turnabout Circus (2002)

Title: Turnabout Circus / 「逆転サーカス」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban 2 official site (down)

Summary: In the tenth column for the Gyakuten Saiban 2 (Ace Attorney 2 – Justice for All) website, director Takumi writes about the third episode in the game: Turnabout Circus (Turnabout Big Top). The story features many personal elements, like a character with a love for (bad) jokes, as well as trick magic (Takumi has always claimed that his performance during his job interview with Capcom got him hired). But he also notes that this was an episode with more focus on drama: many years later, when he was working on the anime adaptation of this very episode, he still remained firm in his opinion that this was one of the most touching episodes he had created. In the backstage part of this column, Naruhodō (Phoenix Wright) and Mayoi (Maya Fey) talk a bit about some scrapped ideas for this episode.