Title: [Mari-Detective] The order was to power up everything! Gyakuten Kenji 2 Interview /「【まり探】オーダーはすべてにおいてパワーアップ！ 『逆転検事2』インタビュー」
Source: Dengeki Online
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Powered Up In All Aspects Compared To The Previous Game… There Are Even Rumors They Went Too Far?
Interviewer: The previous game Gyakuten Kenji (Ace Attorney Investigations) was released on May 28, 2009. When was it decided you’d start development on the second game?
Eshiro: About three or four months after the first game was released. We started formally in September of 2009.
Interviewer: Did you have the same staff on the development team?
Eshiro: While some remained, there were quite some changes in the team. Especially the people in the graphics department. And programmers too.
Interviewer: How is the game developed? Do you first finish the scenario, create the characters and then work on the graphics?
Yamazaki: The scenario and characters are developed more or less simultaneously. Once we have a base story and an idea of what characters should appear, we relay that to Mr. Iwamoto. He will then comes up with all kinds of ideas, and those ideas are used as feedback for the scenario. The story often changes because of this feedback, so in a way it’s a cooperative effort.
Iwamoto: But the rival characters are decided upon separate from the story. This time, the team members had a shared vision of who the rival should be, so once we started talking about the rival, we all agreed she should be a woman. She was to be a judge, so visually, there were no problems either. So the direction we wanted to go with the rival for this game, Mikagami Hakari, was decided upon pretty easily.
Interviewer: Why did you make a judge the rival for this game?
Yamazaki: When we made the first Gyakuten Kenji, we actually had troubles deciding what their job should be. It wouldn’t be interesting if we just had a defense attorney, so we decided upon Rou Shiryū (Shi-Long Lang), an international police detective who would have deductive battles with you at the crime scene. For the second game, we also discussed all kinds of ideas about what job the rival should have. We then thought of the judge, as someone who is involved with trials and investigations, and a position which hadn’t been used yet for a rival. We also figured having a judge as the rival would be impactful. That was our starting point.
Eshiro: And we wanted to have a duo for a rival. In the first game, we had Rou and Shih-na. So in the second game, we have Mikagami Hakari and Ichiyanagi Yumihiko. The way Gyakuten Kenji is made, we can have two characters appear on the screen at the same time. Having two characters instead of one next to each other makes better use of the game’s screen.
Iwamoto: And you’d think that we’d have another duo like Rou and Shih-na, tuned perfectly to each other, but no! That’s what’s so funny. That’s why one of them is a fool (laugh). We thought that we could first present him to the players without making it obvious he was stupid, so at first you’d think they’d be like Rou and Shih-na, and then… the surprise!
Interviewer: Is there something you focused especially on when making the second game?
Eshiro: The order I gave Yamazaki for this game was to improve on everything of the first game. Yes, I know, it’s a really vague and completely insane order… (laugh). I wanted them to improve on every aspect of the first game, scenario, graphics, character design, music… And I wanted to see new mechanics too of course. The thing we wanted to do in the first game, were of course also included in the second game, but I wanted to pack it even fuller with even more new ideas.
Yamazaki: We came up with ideas all together. In that sense, it’s really a game that’s brimming with all of our ideas.
Interviewer: Playing the game, it does feel like there’s a lot of content. Was this your order too?
Eshiro: Gyakuten Kenji was developed as a new title within the Gyakuten Saiban franchise, and it was created with the intention of having a second solid selling pillar within the franchise. That is why we first focused on the mechanics, and because of that, the scenario wasn’t as fully developed. That is why I gave the order the second game needed to have more story content, and that it needed to focus strongly on Mitsurugi.
Yamazaki: I was told to power up everything, so I had to power up the volume of the game too.
Iwamoto: Some might say we went too far (laugh).
Yamazaki: Yeah, once we started putting in all the ideas all the staff members had, we had trouble figuring out when to stop (wry smile).
More Challenging, More Proactive: The New Mechanic Logic Chess
Interviewer: Are there ideas in the second game you hadn’t managed to put in the first game?
Eshiro: Scientific investigation.
Yamazaki: And Little Thief has also developed. In 2, you can use it across several time periods. We wanted to do that in the first game too, but didn’t manage it. So now it’s in 2.
Eshiro: Well, it would have been a bit complex for the players, first introducing them to a new mechanic like Little Thief and then having them work with it along different time settings. So in the first game, it was a gadget that could reconstruct the crime scene, and in the second game, it got a power up, so in the end, I think that works out fine.
Yamazaki: The concept for this game was Mitsurugi’s own story. Because we didn’t do that in the first game, we figured we’d really focus on that aspect now.
Interviewer: What did you want to portray with this second game?
Yamazaki: The internal conflict of Mitsurugi is the core of the story, and the hidden theme is the bonds between parent and child. So we focus on a lot of parent-child relationships in this game.
Interviewer: Could you tell us how the new mechanic Logic Chess came to be?
Eshiro: I gave them an order I wanted to see a new mechanic (laugh). But seriously, I wanted to see a new mechanic that fitted Gyakuten Kenji, but different from the core Logic mechanic.
Yamazaki: The first game introduced crime scene investigation in a way the Gyakuten Saiban franchise had not seen before, and we had Logic as a mechanic befitting Mitsurugi. However, the confrontations were using the same testimony-based gameplay from the main series. So we wanted some more Mitsurugi-esque gameplay, which was the starting point for Logic Chess. I then had to think of how Mitsurugi asks questions to make witnesses testify in the court. That was my hint, and got me thinking about a mechanic could have players proactively confront witnesses. But actually creating such a mechanic was really hard. When I first explained it to Eshiro and Iwamoto, it didn’t sound fun at all to them…
Eshiro: I had no idea what you were talking about (laugh).
Yamazaki: That kinda irritated me (laugh). But thinking back now, I get it. I hadn’t worked out the mechanics yet and only had a vague mental image. It took more than six months to actually work out the mechanic.
Interviewer: Logic Chess has a time limit, so you can’t just try out everything and hope you get lucky.
Yamazaki: Exactly. The time limit was a restraint and the player has to ty their best within those omits. The witnesses you meet at the crime scenes don’t want to testify, so if you ask them unrelated questions, they’ll just get angry and leave. So in that sense, having a time limit worked perfectly with the actual circumstances. But a time limit is an element not featured in Gyakuten Saiban before, so it was hard deciding whether we’d feature it or not.
Eshiro: It is definitely an irregularity. Having the time to think carefully is what makes an adventure game, and normally, having a time limit in such a game would be unthinkable. But the team worked hard to find the right balance, making the player think carefully without allowing them to just make wild guesses. Each time you take a piece of the board, time refills too. But it was a new challenge, so we tried a lot of forms until we arrived at what we have now.
Interviewer: Personally, when Yahari (Larry Butz) came up with four chess pieces, I thought: “Open your heart a little bit more!!”
Yamazaki: Yeah, they’re supposed to be friends (laugh).
Eshiro: He might have four pieces, but it’s pretty easy. He’s surprisingly weakhearted (laugh).
Interviewer: Were there troublesome points during development?
Eshiro: There was nothing that wasn’t troublesome! Everything about the second game
Yamazaki: Normally, a sequel is easier to make, but the scenario took a lot of time and effort, the graphics too…. It was just one hardship after another.
Interviewer: Oh, errr, right. Was there anything fun about the development?
Eshiro: It is incredibly rewarding once you get to the second half of the development cycle, when you start brushing up everything and you can see the quality of the game just improving right in front of you.
Yamazaki: Yeah, it’s really exciting and fun once you get to that point, when you see the quality just jumping up.
Iwamoto: I have the most fun when coming up with funny ideas. I’d come up with some idea and tell Yamazaki who’d cry out in excitement… that moment is the best (laugh). But it’s a lot of trouble to actually work those ideas out…
Yamazaki: That’s the same with writing the scenario. It’s fun when you first come up with the idea, but it takes a lot of effort to actually get it worked into the scenario.
“I Drew The Coolest Middle-Aged Man I Could Think Of”
Interviewer: The graphics have seen a lot of improvement, like the character graphics from the waist up
Iwamoto: As for those graphics, we didn’t change the existing characters a lot, but we did work a lot on the new ones. There were a lot of new characters, and we also managed to do animations we couldn’t do in the first game. We didn’t really think ahead of what was possible or not, and just worked without stress on it: that was the key to improving these graphics.
The little sprite characters were all renewed. All the spritework was redone, from Mitsurugi to all the other characters. I wasn’t completely happy with the first game’s characters actually. I wanted to do more. And for this game, we had the godly sprite artists at Capcom perform their magic. Thanks to them, the sprite characters can all positively do their work, no complaints from me. I really want you to have a good look at them as they do all kinds of small gestures! Please indulge in them, playing through the game multiple times to just admire them!! (laugh).
Interviewer: Let me ask about Mikagami Hakari. Where does her name come from?
Yamazaki: Her name Hakari (TN: scale) comes from the scales of justice in a trial. Her name Mikagami (TN: water mirror) comes from the Yatanokagami, the symbol of the judge.
Iwamoto: Her design consists of a dual concept: the holy mother, and haughtiness. Her braided hair is to invoke constraining chains and the straight angles in her design area reflection of her personality, who wants to clearly define things black or white. I had trouble deciding how far I could go with rearranging the judge’s robes, like whether it’d be okay to have white robes, or have her gavel extend. I think I did get away with a lot.
Yamazaki: You also said you wanted her to feel sexy, without making her something revealing.
Iwamoto: Actually, I also decided on what kind of underwear she wears. I even have it drawn. Not likely that illustration will ever see the light of day though (laugh).
Interviewer: Err, what? You even decide on that?
Yamazaki: He says he always likes to design characters by thinking of them up to the smallest details, like what kind of underwear they have.
Iwamoto: I am of the opinion that when creating a character, I myself and the person working on the scenario have to be the ones who know that character the best in the whole world. That means I have to know what kind of underwear they are wearing. So on the direction sheet, I also decide what kind underwear Mikagami Hakari is wearing, or what Shigaraki is wearing…
Yamazaki: That is how he designs characters.
Interviewer: Let’s move on to her partner, Ichiyanagi Yumihiko…
Iwamoto: Yumihiko is the character that took me the most effort across both games. I had been working on a character until halfway the development, when Eshiro had it canned completely. A moment to commemorate: this was the first time a design had been completely rejected. It was a character I had been working on with some doubts, and he saw through me, and said it just didn’t work. So I talked things over with the director and started from zero again. The only thing that remains from that first design… are his gloves, I guess.
Yamazaki: And his red jacket.
Iwamoto: Oh, yeah, so his gloves and red jacket. He was really cool at first. I figured that it would create a nice gap, between him looking cool and him being so stupid. But this concept didn’t reach the producer’s mind properly, it was doubtful the players would get it either. So I had to start from the beginning again.
Yamazaki: Ichiyanagi is a bit of complex character, as at first sight he looks like he’s a capable producer who calls himself first rate, but he’s actually a fool, and we do a lot with him. What was difficult about the first game, was that our protagonist Mitsurugi was a relatively complete character already, so we couldn’t change him too much. Mitsurugi does grow in the second game, but it’s not like we can make him change completely: it’s a change that takes place in the depths of his heart, and not something you could easily reflect on the surface, something you could notice with just a glance at him. So we thought of having a different character who could show development, and that was Ichiyanagi.
The rival for this game is Mikagami, but rivals in this franchise bear the destiny to always lose, so their deductions need to turn out wrong. That was also something we had trouble with when writing Rou, as it is difficult to make them look actually fierce. But by having Ichiyanagi in the position of always getting it wrong, we were more able to present Mikagami’s strength and fierceness. So that was the role Ichiyanagi fulfilled.
His name of course comes from ichiryū (TN: the name Ichiyanagi can also be read as ichiryū, a homophone to ‘first rate/first class’). His name Yumihiko comes from “ichiya naki yumi wo hiku” (TN: ‘to draw an arrowless bow’). His deductions always miss the mark, as he shoots his bow without any arrows.
Interviewer: A question for Mr. Eshiro. Why did you think the first design for Ichiyanagi didn’t work?
Eshiro: The first time I saw it, it just looked like a cool character, so it didn’t resonate with me. Having a character whose first impression with the players is that he looks cool, but that he turns out to be stupid can be a plus, but if that gap doesn’t fit the character’s personality, it fails as a character. That is why I rejected the design. The second time I was given the design we have now, and I immediately gave it the okay. Everyone likes how Ichiyanagi is someone who doesn’t seem to understand himself, he’s a bit off-kilter, and that aspect becomes even funnier when Mitsurugi coolly reacts to him. That is why Ichiyanagi is really popular among the development staff members.
Interviewer: Next I want to ask you about the protagonist of the third episode, Mitsurugi Shin (Gregory Edgeworth).
Iwamoto: He appeared briefly in Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney 1 GBA), but it was hard deciding how we should use him as a protagonist. Like, he was just a sophisticated-looking middle-aged man with glasses.
Yamazaki: Shin looked sophisticated in the first Gyakuten Saiban, so we worked that aspect out to create his character. He usually talks and acts like he looks, but he also has a funny aspect when he thinks to himself. Mitsurugi has that too, right? Acting cool, but also having a slightly goofy side to them is something this father and son share.
Iwamoto: Where Shin’s different from his son, is the fact he really only laughs when he’s in trouble. That is why he grins when he takes damage.
Yamazaki: The line “A lawyer is someone who smiles no matter how bad it gets” of Ayasato Chihiro (Mia Fey), who appears in Gyakuten Saiban, is a key line for all the defense attorneys in the franchise, I think. In the first game, Hoshikage (Marvin Grossberg) states Chihiro and Shin have similar defense styles, so we worked that aspect out too in this game.
Interviewer: And now for his assistant, Shigaraki Tateyuki…
Iwamoto: Shigaraki’s a character who had to be designed twice, one for the past and one for the present day. The older Shigaraki appears first, so I started with him. I designed while thinking of how he’d be different between the two eras. Like, I imagined everyone would be disappointed if he were a really big guy in the present, even though he was such a cute guy in the past…
Yamazaki: I told you to move away from that because everyone would be disappointed! (laugh)
Iwamoto: So that idea was rejected, sadly enough. But after that, we decided on the design really quickly. He became a cool character, usually just joking around, but he’s there when it’s needed. Some years ago, I designed Godot, the coolest middle-aged man I could think of: Shigaraki is the character I came up with when I decided I wanted to challenge myself like that again, coming up with the coolest middle-aged man I could think of now. A lot of middle-aged men appear in this game, but Shigaraki is the coolest of them all for me.
Yamazaki: Yeah, at first I was a bit in a panic, because we had all these middle-aged men, but they are all memorable, so in the end, that worked out (laugh).
Iwamoto: As someone who specializes in drawing middle-aged men, it was pure bliss. Oh, this is a little detail, but the pink notepad Shigaraki was eating when he was young, is kept in his breast pocket together with a pen when he’s older.
Yamazaki: About his name, I wanted to have the character of “Shin” in his name, so hence Shigaraki (TN: first character in “Shigaraki” is the same as “Shin”). There is also the famous Shigaraki ware raccoon dog statue, which links his name to the phrase tanuki-oyaji (TN: literally ‘raccoon dog old man’, meaning a sly old man). The “tate” (shield) in his name is to mirror the “tsurugi” (sword) in Mitsurugi’s name.
The Truth Behind The (Among Select Groups) Very Popular Voice of Naitō! And What About A Sequel…?
Interviewer: You announced the character Ichiyanagi Bansai at the Gyakuten Kenji 2 Completion Presentation. I heard you had fights about this announcement?
Eshiro: Yeah, we had fights about that. I wanted to announce him, but Yamazaki said no. But at a presentation, you want to present a new character, right? And nobody would be surprised if you’d announce Karuma Mei (Franziska von Karma) there, everyone would be expecting her. People would complain if you didn’t announce someone new there. So I wanted to announce one last final character, and as the hidden theme of the game is parent and child and Yumihiko had been announced already, I suggested announcing Bansai, but Yamazaki was against showing off characters from the second half of the game. The development team wanted the game to surprise the players when they play it themselves.
Yamazaki: Yes, to be honest, the team wants to reveal as little as possible (laugh). But it is true you can’t really present the game to the consumers without revealing anything. So it’s a struggle to decide what to reveal and what not.
Eshiro: It’s about how you do it. You can’t reveal everything because it’d spoil the game, but it is important to have the materials available to entice people to buy the game.
Interviewer: By the way… what is Bansai burning?
Iwamoto: Evidence. He’s burning important evidence once after another.
Interviewer: That’s quite a lot he’s burning…
Iwamoto: I hadn’t expected him to burn so much myself either. I actually thought there were fewer animations (laugh).
Interviewer: Could you us your favorite characters from the ones who appear in Gyakuten Kenji 2?
Eshiro: I lately started to see the charm of Oyashiki Tsukasa. I mean, the adult one. I liked Shih-na in the first game, and there’s something Tsukasa shares with her!
Yamazaki: Mine is Ichiyanagi Yumihiko. There are a lot of turnabouts in this game, but Ichiyanagi is a character who experience a lot of turnabouts himself, so he’s my favorite.
Iwamoto: And I am with Shigaraki. I like his younger self too. Like, how his timing for the Dansweets dance is off. Shin actually tapped his feet on the rhythm too, and I like that too (laugh).
Interviewer: Are the new characters once again voiced by the staff members?
Yamazaki: Yes, this time too. It’s a tradition. We hold auditions within the company.
Iwamoto: It’s like a bonus for the staff. And everyone’s really good too. Almost like real voice actors. My voice alone, for Mitsurugi, sounds like an amateur…
Interviewer: Naitō Manosuke’s “Objection” made quite an impression on me personally.
Iwamoto: Ooooh, I’m so glad. I wonder who did his voice!!!
Yamazaki: Hahaha, that was Mr. Iwamoto actually.
Interviewer: Whaaaat! Really!? It was really popular for some time here at the editor’s department. We’d all be saying “Igiarrrri!” with the rolling ‘r’!!
Yamazaki: Really? Because Mr. Iwamoto did Mitsurugi’s voice, we thought it’d be fun if he also did his father, but another voice fitted the character perfectly, so we asked him. But then we had trouble deciding on Naitō’s foice, so we asked a lot of people, and when we asked Iwamoto here to do it with the rolling ‘r’, his igiarrrri sounded really good, so he got that role.
Interviewer: What a surprise! I never would have guessed. Could you all tell us about what makes this game so good?
Iwamoto: When it comes to my task as a character designer, I have prepared a lot of wonderful culprits once again. In terms of how formidable they are and their animations, I think we’ve managed to come up what is basically the culmination of ten years of this franchise. I hope players will enjoy defeating the culprits, and the vexing feelings leading up to their defeat.
Yamazaki: The story has become rather dramatic, focusing on Mitsurugi’s internal struggle and the theme of parent and child. We really did our best not only on the mysteries, but also on portraying the emotions and growth of the characters, so I hope everyone will enjoy that.
Eshiro: When Gyakuten Kenji was released, the reception was really good. In an interview at that time, I said a sequel was dependent on fan feedback. And we really received a lot of calls for a sequel, which is why this sequel has now been made. As the second game in this series, it needed to improve on a lot of aspects of the first game, from the scenario to the mechanics to the graphics of the characters. And everything worked out perfectly in this game. The synergy between these elements allows for the game to be mere more than the sum of its parts.
Players who found the first game to be lacking will probably find this sequel to be very surprising. I hope they will try out this game themselves too to see it for themselves. I also think some people may have avoided Gyakuten Kenji thinking it was different from the main series, but I think they can enjoy this second game a lot. Playing this game will give them a good idea of what Gyakuten Kenji really is!!
Interviewer: One last question. It’s a predictable question, but please tell us your plans for a sequel. There are three Naruhodō Ryūichi games in the main series, so people hope Gyakuten Kenji will also end up with three games.
Eshiro: Like I said in a previous interview, we only make what the fans ask for. If people who have played Gyakuten Kenji 2 ask a sequel, we of course will have to consider making it. We will try to answer these calls from the fans as best as we can, so please play Gyakuten Kenji 2 first.
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