Celebrating the Release of Gyakuten Saiban 4 - A Discussion with 4 Members of the Team (2007)

Title: Celebrating the Release of Gyakuten Saiban 4 - A Discussion with 4 Members of the Team / 『逆転裁判４』発売記念　チーム４者対談

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), containing several pages on the development of the game. The longest article in the book is an interview with four members of the core development team of Gyakuten Saiban 4: the series supervisor and scenario writer of this game Takumi Shū, director Endō Mitsuru, producer Matsukawa Minae and planner Yamazaki Takeshi. The four discuss how the team structure changed for the development of this game, and the difficulties that arose from this transformation. Other topics discussed are about Takumi's drinking, things they'd argue about during development and changes made to the story. This interview is noteworthy for featuring director Endō Mitsuru, as he seldom appears in promotional material for this game.

Celebrating the Release of Gyakuten Saiban 4 - A Discussion with 4 Members of the Team

Matsukawa Minae - DOKI DOKI Questionnaire

DOKIDOKI Questionnaire
Q: Hobbies, skills.
A: Games.

Q: Favorite foods.
A: Udon, okonomiyaki, yakiniku.

Q: Favorite sayings.
A: Keeping your word.

Q: If Mayoi-chan (Maya Fey) could channel the spirit of someone for you, who would you like to talk to?
A: My granddad.

Q: Would you rather be a defense attorney or prosecutor?
A: Defense attorney.

Message: Thank you for enjoying the Gyakuten Saiban series. The court finally opens with the new chapter that is Gyakuten Saiban 4! It’s become a game that can be enjoyed by existing fans of the series, but also who have never played the series before.

Takumi Shū - DOKI DOKI Questionnaire

Q: Hobbies, skills.
A: Singing.

Q: Favorite sports.
A: Wii Sports.

Q: Favorite sayings.
A: “Mr. Takumi, the deadline’s been moved back!”

Q: What do you do on a day off?
A: I seldom have one, so make sure to enjoy the weighty worth of a day off…

Q: If Mayoi-chan (Maya Fey) could channel the spirit of someone for you, who would you like to talk to?
A:  Chihiro-san (Mia Fey).

Message: We have finally given everything we have. I hope you could tell us what you think of the game once you’ve played it. Have fun from the depths of your hearts with this new Gyakuten Saiban!

Endō Mitsuru - DOKI DOKI Questionnaire

Q: Favorite foods.
A: Duck hot pot and curry.

Q: Favorite music genre.
A: Game music.

Q: Favorite sayings.
A: A word I hate is… effort.

Q: What do you do on a day off?
A: I play a game, I read a book, I eat.

Q: Would you rather be a defense attorney or prosecutor?
A: Prosecutor. Because there’s no such game yet.

Message: We’ve created a game that if I were a player myself, I too am sure I would enjoy. To be honest, I wish I could’ve just played this game just as a normal consumer! (laugh). Please enjoy the game!

Yamazaki Takeshi - DOKI DOKI Questionnaire

Q: Hobbies, skills.
A: Reading.

Q: Favorite foods.
A: Motsu-nabe.

Q: Favorite music genre.
A: Everything. I often end up listening to J-pop.

Q: Person you respect.
A: Araki Hirohiko.

Q: Would you rather be a defense attorney or prosecutor?
A: Defense attorney.

Message: I am sure much of Gyakuten Saiban 4 will surprise you! The whole team worked hard on this, so I hope you’ll enjoy it!

4 Not Only Features A Big Change in Characters but Also In The Development Team’s Structure

The Game Still Feels like Gyakuten Despite the Bigger Team!

Interviewer: Thank you for your work on Gyakuten Saiban 4. Looking back, what are your thoughts now on the development of the game?

Takumi: This is the fifth game in the series I worked on, and we changed the development structure for this game. The scale of these games has become much larger compared to when the series first started, so there was a big emphasis on nurturing successors among the staff to work on this series. Do you have anything to add?

Endō: I have lots of stories about the difficulties we had.

Takumi: Creepy! (Laugh) And you?

Matsukawa: There’s so much to talk about. We’d still be here tomorrow if we went over everything (laugh).

Takumi: But I feel the difficulties we had during this project, were different from earlier projects.

Interviewer: Because the team changed?

Takumi: I’d say they were difficulties because the team had become much larger. In the past, the teams were much smaller. There are advantages to smaller teams, but also disadvantages.

Yamazaki: Working on your own or with multiple people is quite different.

Takumi: There was a lot of trial and error to find the right balance.

Yamazaki: This project was indeed completely different from previous times, when Mr. Takumi would focus and do everything all by himself.

Takumi: Yes, in that sense, the development of this game was different from before.

Endō: Basically, this time, the team structure was closer the things work in other teams.

Takumi: Really? Oh, of course, you’re a veteran planner who was worked in many teams, you’d know.

Endō: Still, even though the work was divided more, it’s still very rare to have one person’s touch so clearly reflected in a game. I think it’s quite amazing your personal touch can be felt throughout even though so much of the work was delegated.

Takumi: Really?

Endō: Your unique touch is all over the game!

Takumi: But with more people on the team, I really could feel how my views on things doesn’t match the views of others. There were a lot of people on the team who didn’t really know the series yet.

Interviewer: Did you want to transform the game to something new, and that’s why you had a different team structure and changed the game contents?

Takumi: We wanted to renew the cast of characters, though that didn’t necessarily mean we needed a new world. But we were tasked to use the existing world, and Naruhodo-kun (Phoenix Wright) had to appear too. Looking at the final product now, I feel it turned out very differently from what I had expected at first, in a good way.

Endō: You managed to connect all four games in a good manner in the end.

Takumi: That’s because Yamazaki and you were there too to watch over my work.

Endō: I’m glad it was not a completely separate game. The role of protagonist was nicely passed over from Naruhodo-kun to Odoroki-kun (Apollo Justice). I hope people will play the game soon to find out for themselves how that happens.

Interviewer: Ms. Matsukawa, you hold the reins of the development team. Was a difficult task?

Matsukawa: We agreed on the major parts when the overall storyline was decided upon, so as long things didn’t stray too far away from what we agreed on, I basically always gave them the okay sign. I barely asked them to do anything specific in terms of the contents of the game. But, these guys will keep on working on the game forever if you’d let them. (laugh) That’d delay the schedule, so I guess keeping everyone on track was the hardest part?

The Hardship of Creating Something New Sometimes Led to Fights?

Gyakuten Saiban Focuses More On Characters and the Story than the Mechanics

Interviewer: I’ll be asking you a bit about the story now. This game adds the new Perceive mechanic. How was that created?

Takumi: We wanted to brainstorm training with the younger staff members, and had them come up with all kinds of ideas. Perceive was an idea we kept in the back of our heads just to be sure we had something.
 

Matsukawa: I believe you wanted a new mechanic or feature that’d use the touch screen?
 

Takumi: 4 is a renewal of the series, so we had decided early on we wanted new features in the game. Of the many ideas proposed, Perceive was the one that seemed the best implementable.
 

Yamazaki: It took a long time before we actually settled on the final form of the mechanic.
 

Endō: We only decided on how to actually control it quite late in the cycle I remember.
 

Takumi: But on the whole, on the whole, I think the game is quite easy to understand. I really hope Gyakuten Saiban 4 will sell like crazy.
 

Everyone: Yeah!
 

Matsukawa: Wow, you sound like a producer! (laugh)
 

Takumi: People become irritated when they get stuck in a game. Finding the right difficulty level, that still allows someone to have fun with a game is the most important thing. I get a lot of questions about the game mechanics each time, but Gyakuten Saiban mainly focuses on the story and the characters. The mechanics follow afterwards. It’s not just us in the development team who work on Gyakuten Saiban. There are a lot of other people who work on these games, like in sales and marketing. We all have to keep everyone’s wishes in mind when making these games.
 

Matsukawa: Wow! Three years ago, you’d never say anything like that! You’d only go on about wanting to make the game only you want to make! (laugh).
 

Takumi: But honestly, I had always been of the opinion we are all one big team ever since the first game. For the second game, I was asked to add something different, so I added the Psyche Lock system. There is a lot we in the development team just don’t think of.
 

Interviewer: Were there times you had trouble with creating the characters?
 

Takumi: I guess Odoroki-kun’s bracelet.
 

Yamazaki: That bracelet was added because Odoroki-kun rolls up his sleeves and Mr. Nuri (the character designer) thought his arm looked so empty. The design of the bracelet however seemed to suggest it was important, so it was decided to make it a key item.
 

Takumi: Originally, we just wanted to make it a wristwatch.
 

Yamazaki: I think we even talked about actually releasing such a wristwatch.
 

Takumi: Ah! Yeah, that’s true! We certainly didn’t forget about money! (laugh)

Interviewer: Why was the wristwatch changed to a bracelet?

Takumi: I don’t remember. Did someone say a wristwatch was a no-go?

 

Yamazaki: I remember we came up with the idea of making an eye-shaped wristwatch because of the Perceive mechanic.
 

Takumi: I don’t remember that all (laugh).
 

Yamazaki: I think we discussed a few times, and eventually asked Mr. Nuri to come up with something besides a wristwatch.

Takumi: He came up with an intricately designed wristwatch, so we decided to give it a backstory, and it became an important item.

Fights Are Also Important To Create Something Good!?

Interviewer: Do you ever argue when you are exchanging ideas?

Takumi: Arguing? I have the feeling we were always fighting. For example, Naruhodo-kun was supposed to drink, and be a gambler in the story. But then someone asked if that was okay ethics-wise. The game would also be played by children, and it was a lot harder to handle themes like alcohol and gambling than I had expected. I personally liked the idea, so I ended up arguing with several people regarding this.

 

Matsukawa: We were struggling how to keep the core trick while removing what would commonly be considered a gambling aspect. It took a long time before we found a way to make it not about gambling in a practical sense.

 

Takumi: The alcohol was not really important, so changing that was easy. But the gambling part was really difficult. We tried a few things, and eventually, decided upon the characters not gambling for money, but by having the men put their own prides at stake in a 1:1 confrontation. If you play the game, you’ll see for yourself how the story handles that.

 

Matsukawa: We wanted the game to be accessible to all ages. I think the change was for the good in the end.

 

Yamazaki: There was also arguing about the animation of Garyū Kirihito (Kristoph Gavin) shaking his head. We came up with the animation, but Mr. Takumi just wouldn’t give us the okay. That was really frustrating.

 

Takumi: No, no, no, you see, that was an impossible way to shake your head (laugh). During the development of this game, we had to discuss a lot over the phone, so perhaps that didn’t help the team spirit… Oh, this is starting to sound like a feedback session (laugh).

 

A Duck Hot Pot Party at Endō’s Place?

 

Interviewer: Did you for example go a camp together to strengthen the team spirit?

 

Matsukawa: We didn’t go camping together, but there was a curry competition at Mr. Endō’s place, right?

 

Endō: No, it was duck hot pot.

 

Takumi: Yes, the duck hot pot! Ms. Matsukawa was going about how duck is delicious, so then we decided to do a duck hot pot party, but then she said she couldn’t come in the last moment!

 

Matsukawa: I had a business trip!

 

Yamazaki: But fortunately we got to eat more because you were not there.

 

Matsukawa: I thought Mr. Endō’s specialty was curry?

 

Takumi: Let’s have a curry party next time then.

 

Endō: Okay, this summer then (laugh).

 

Yamazaki: You always think of things in seasons, don’t you? Earlier you said we could only eat duck in the winter (laugh).

 

Interviewer: And Mr. Takumi was of course holding a big bottle with drinks while chatting at such parties?

 

Takumi: No way! (laugh) There’s this image of me that I’m always drinking, but I barely drink outside of work.

 

Matsukawa: He gets drunk already from one cup of umeshu.

 

Takumi: I don’t drink much in my private life. Oh, but I like kahlua with milk.

 

Matsukawa: There’s this story that during the Tokyo Game Show last year, when waiting backstage, people looked away for one second, and the next second, Mr. Takumi returned backstage with a red face.

 

Yamazaki: What happened?

 

Takumi: I had some kahlua with milk! (laugh) Just to get rid of my nervousness!

 

A lot of funny answers to our questionnaire!

 

Interviewer: Let’s talk about the short questionnaires we asked you to answer earlier. I was wondering about Mr. Takumi’s reply to his favorite sayings. “Mr. Takumi, the deadline’s been moved back!” (laugh).

 

Takumi: Well, I love hearing those words. (laugh)

 

Yamazaki: Yep, I like that too.

 

Endō: I change my answer to “Mr. Endō, we made the deadline!”

 

Matsukawa: I’ll change mine to “Ms. Matsukawa, we’re done!” (laugh)

 

Interviewer: What do you do in your time off now the game is done? Do you have any plans? Mr. Takumi wrote something about making sure to be aware of the worth of a day off…

 

Takumi: I always start thinking about what to do, and the next moment, my day off has already ended…

 

Yamazaki: While days off are rare, I end up doing the normal stuff like buying toilet paper, going to the bank to pay the rent and having to do other odd jobs.

 

Takumi: I always write down things I have to do in a note on my mobile. Buying light bulbs or toothpaste, that kind of thing. But I still forget to do it. Toothpaste is still on my list. (laugh)

 

Interviewer: Ms. Matsukawa wrote games down as her hobby. What games do you like besides Gyakuten Saiban?

 

Takumi: I like Ico and Puzzle de Pon!.

 

Endō: I like RPGs. I am not a big fan of adventure games. I often play Final Fantasy. Now I’m into Etrian Odyssey.

 

Yamazaki: I’m into Tactics Ogre. I like how it’s so intricately made.

 

Matsukawa: I am now playing Fire Emblem.
 

Interviewer: Do you also play games made by other Capcom teams?
 

Endō: To be honest, when I play those games, I think of the people who work in those teams, so playing them feels different. Like, I’d wonder why the interface wasn’t made differently, things like that.
 

Takumi: Yeah, it’s difficult to really simply enjoy a game if you know the developers of the game. Like, you’d wish you had come up with a great line like that. But that feeling also urges you to do your best the next time yourself, so it has its advantages too.
 

Matsukawa: The Gyakuten Saiban team hates rehashing ideas. They lose all interest in an idea if they see a different team has already done it. The wish to always do something new is present in the whole team. That’s why there’s a lot of new elements in Gyakuten Saiban 4. I hope everyone will enjoy the game!

Interviewer: Thank you for the interview.
March, 2007, at Capcom HQs.