Gyakuten Saiban, The Meaning of Design (2007)

Title: Gyakuten Saiban, The Meaning of Design / 逆転裁判、デザインそのココロ
Source: Gyakuten Saiban Official Fan Book 3

 

Summary: Gyakuten Saiban Official Fan Book 3 was released in 2007 coinciding with the release of Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 - Apollo Justice) and therefore contains some pages about the development of that game. One of the segments includes is an interview with Yamazaki Takeshi, who worked as planner on Gyakuten Saiban 4 and the previously released Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Ace Attorney 1 DS). This is a unique interview, because it is a rare interview with Yamazaki in his role as a planner on a game directed by someone else, before he went on to become the director of the Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations) series and later on the director of the mainline games. In this interview, he explains about the work of a planner. In his case, he was deeply involved with the English localization of the Nintendo DS port of the first Gyakuten Saiban, while he had more responsibilities for Gyakuten Saiban 4. He is also asked about working in the Gyakuten Saiban team and about how own future plans.

 

He entered Capcom because he was a Gyakuten Saiban fan!

 

Interviewer: There are many game companies, so why did you choose Capcom?
 

Yamazaki: Zvarri, because I loved Gyakuten Saiban! The first time I met with director Takumi, I told him I was a fan and asked him for a handshake. I have always loved mystery fiction, and I read a lot when I was in university. I first learned about Gyakuten Saiban when I picked up stories that Gyakuten Saiban was supposed to be this amazing game during that time, so I tried it out.
 

Interviewer: Many people will probably have trouble grasping what the work of a planner consists of exactly. Could you explain in more detail what you do?
 

Yamazaki: It’s a very diverse job, ranging from working on the creative contents, like the actual contents of a game, to doing all kinds of odd jobs to ensure the whole development process runs smoothly. For example, one of the jobs I had for Yomigaeru Gyakuten (Ace Attorney 1 DS) was figuring out how we’d use the extra second screen on the Nintendo DS hardware. Like the control buttons and stuff like that. And I was also in charge of the production of the English language version of Yomigaeru Gyakuten.
 

Working not only on text, but also on the details of the presentation

 

Interviewer: Could you tell us a bit more about working on the English version?
 

Yamazaki: I was in charge of the process starting from discussing the translation with the translators all the way to actually implementing the translation into the game. I didn’t directly tell the translators that the English text should say this or that, but I’d convey to them the feeling we were looking for with the translation. So it was pretty important, conveying in an accurate way what we as the development team meant, to the translators. I also worked on some of the more detailed parts of the presentation of the game, like working on the speed of the text or timing when characters should appear or disappear on screen.
 

Interviewer: Gyakuten Saiban is brimming with a unique sense of comedy. Was it hard to localize that comedy to English?
 

Yamazaki: The important thing was to retain the taste of the original text, of course. But it is hard to directly translate wordplay, so changes were made so they’d work in English. And then I guess there were the character names? The character names also have wordplay, like Naruhodo, right? The Japanese side and the people abroad had different taste in names, so sometimes we had little back-and-forths on names.
 

Interviewer: Is that why the English names became normal names?
 

Yamazaki: No, no, the English names have jokes hidden within them too. Like, Yahari became Butz. That’s because he always causes trouble, or bad things. That came from jiken no kage ni yappari yahari (TN: If something happens, you’re sure to find Yahari behind it/When something smells, it’s usually the Butz). And Uzai Takuya became Sal Manella (Salmonella) (laugh). Early on,  we had rather plain names for Naruhodo-kun, like Roger and Daniel. But those sounded too boring, so we wanted a more unique name, and thus it became Phoenix Wright. And in Episode 5, we also asked them to translate the names of the bento boxes of Kyōka (Angel Starr) in a way so you could easily recognize the boxes by appearance. Like the kusaya bento became a trilobite bento, because they resemble each other. But they don’t know what kusaya is overseas (laugh) (TN: dried, “stinky” fish). It’s pretty fun to see how things have changed for the overseas players, so you should play it and have a look yourself too.
 

Takumi and Nuri had Battles During The Development of Yomigaeru Gyakuten?

 

Interviewer: What parts were you responsible for in the development of Gyakuten Saiban 4 (Ace Attorney 4 – Apollo Justice)?
 

Yamazaki: I can’t go in details because that would spoil things… But basically, director Takumi first writes the scenario. One of my jobs then was to write out specification documents based on his scenario, so the programmers and illustrators would know what kind of game we were working on.  This isn’t an easy job of course, so often things had to be redone after a Takumi Check.
 

Interviewer: What did you work on once development really started?
 

Yamazaki: The draft version of the scenario really only contains the bare minimum of the story. So I also worked on parts of the extra text necessary, like the text you see when you use the Examine command. And I also worked on the Scientific Investigation and Footprint Analysis segments of 4. I was able to work on much more aspects of the game this time, thanks to the support of my colleagues.
 

Interviewer: Were you not involved in the creation of the new characters?
 

Yamazaki: Director Takumi would sometimes come asking me if I had good ideas for a character, so at those times I could make suggestions. Director Takumi and designer Nuri first met for the production of Yomigaeru Gyakuten, and they’d always fight when it came to creating the characters. And I would be standing there, looking at them and thinking how scary they were (laugh).
 

Interviewer: Did the two of them also had battles during the development of Gyakuten Saiban 4?
 

Yamazaki: A bond of trust had grown between the two, so they had fewer fights this time. I think that for Gyakuten Saiban 4, more was left up to Nuri’s judgement than before. But director Takumi would still give detailed orders at times, like saying that Naruhodo-kun should slam the bench with an open hand, but that Odoroki-kun (Apollo Justice) should use his fist.
 

The Gyakuten Saiban team as seen by Yamazaki

 

Interviewer: Was the Gyakuten Saiban team as you had imagined it to be?
 

Yamazaki: Before I entered the company, I imagined the actual development floor of a game would be a bit scary, but my fears were ungrounded (laugh). Director Takumi, he’s usually very easy-going. But when he gets angry, he really gets angry at you and my very first year at Capcom he got angry at me all the time. And producer Matsukawa always got angry at me too… Some of the people who entered Capcom the same year as I would look at me and ask me if I were okay. But now I’ve grown, and they don’t get angry at me as often anymore (laugh).
 

Interviewer: What is it you respect about Mr. Takumi?
 

Yamazaki: The thing I respect most, are his scenarios. And his attitude as a creator, and the concentration skills he has. He really loses sight of everything around him when he’s focused on working on a scenario, so every day he’d be forgetting his wallet or mobile (laugh). He can also be very determined, and even in situations where most people would just accept things as is, he won’t budge at all. No matter how hopeless it seems, he’ll try to figure out an idea to turn things around and pull it off. For example, when we were working on the English version of Yomigaeru Gyakuten, he’d have some part of the scenario done, so we’d send that off to the localization company already so they could start working on it. But then he said he wanted to make changes to the scenario. The text had already been sent to the localization company, so if changes were made now, the workload for that company would increase too. So then he looked for a way so he could make changes to the scenario, while keeping the increase in work for the localization company to a minimum. And another thing I respect about him is how his personal touch can be felt in the final product. I’m still just a planner who has much to learn, but I hope I can come close to him in the future.

Hoping everyone can enjoy the evolved Gyakuten Saiban!

 

Interviewer: Gyakuten Saiban 4 was thus finally completed after much hard work. What part do you like the best?
 

Yamazaki: I think I like how we did a lot of new things both scenario-wise as well as visually. I think you can feel how on Gyakuten Saiban has now evolved further on the Nintendo DS hardware. But I can’t give concrete examples now because that would spoil the game… (laugh). The game could only be created because the programmers and all the other staff members managed to realize all the crazy wishes coming from us planners, so I want to mention their work especially too.
 

Interviewer: And what are your own goals for the future?
 

Yamazaki: I hope to hone my skills as a planner first. But as an ambition, I hope to be able to give my own touch to a finished product in the future too. You can sense director Takumi’s touch everywhere in Gyakuten Saiban, right? I hope one day, I can become someone like him, who can leave his own personal touch.
 

Interviewer: So you hope that you can create your own series in the future?
 

Yamazaki: That is of course the great goal any planner wants to achieve! I dream of making a memorable work myself one day with a focus on story and the setting. So I will have to work hard every day to accomplish that.

March 2007. Capcom H.Q.