Gyakuten Saiban 3 Blog Entry 7: Part 2: Greetings (2004)

Title: Part 2: Greetings / 「パート2: ごあいさつ」
Source: Gyakuten Saiban 3 official site (down)

Summary: The seventh column for the official Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3 - Trials & Tribulations) website is titled Part 2, as the previous six columns featured Naruhodō (Phoenix Wright) and Mayoi (Maya Fey) commenting on Takumi's development diaries. Starting with this column however, Takumi uses his own voice to talk about how development went on this game. Here he looks back at the last three years of working on the series.

Part 2: Greetings

I greet you once again. Takumi Shū of the Gyakuten Saiban 3 (Ace Attorney 3 - Trials and Tribulations) team here. I haven’t learned my lesson yet, so once again I’m doing planning, the scenario and the direction.

The last three years have flown by like a hurricane. And what’s left… are my irreplaceable treasures: the thirteen episodes and fifty-four characters. I can’t express in enough words how much of the development team went into all of that. I had a compelling “motive” each time I worked on Gyakuten Saiban. Let me tell you about my “self-conceited” ideas.

…Three years ago: Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney GBA).
“All the mystery games I know don’t really work. I’m going to make a mystery story in the form of a game that’ll set the standard!”

…Two years ago: Gyakuten Saiban 2 (Ace Attorney 2 - Justice For All).
“The biggest rival for any sequel is the first work. Only those who can overcome the first work are worthy. Let’s set the standard for sequels!”

…One year ago: Gyakuten Saiban 3.
“All the third games in a series I know don’t really work. I’m going to set the standard for the third game in a series. People’ll go: ‘It’s the best even though it’s the third game!’”

My ideas might've been wrong, but that doesn’t matter. That scorching explosive power during take-off. That is what allows a rocket to cross the stratosphere. Probably something like that.

Right after we start development, we always find invisible, thick walls blocking our way.

“Can we create characters that surpass the previous ones?”
“Can we tell stories that surpass the previous ones?”

These absolutely intimidating walls look down upon us with enough pressure to dishearten us.

But it is the love of all of you who played the game and all of your expectations that gives the courage to break through those walls. Simply said, it’s pressure. And also the love and expectations of producer Inaba…. Simply said, the merciless schedule also weighs heavy on us. An invisible heavy feeing weighing upon us…. Like how the immense pressure of the atmosphere allows planes to soar through the sky…. Probably something like that.

Anyway. It is only thanks to you all that we’ve reached a place now I couldn’t have imaged three years ago. I really want to thank you from the heart. I am really grateful.

…And that made it sounds like this was the last column, but I will be looking back at Gyakuten Saiban 3 using my own words now. If you look at the development diary, we’ll be going back to the start of 2003. I’ll start from right after development began. Please stick around.