With the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection ready to serve up justice soon, I had the chance to interview Producer Shunsuke Nishida and Localization Director Janet Hsu about Miles Edgeworth’s greatest hits. Their passion for the project rings loud and true, much like Mile’s sense of justice.
What Is Ace Attorney Investigations Collection?
The Ace Attorney Investigations Collection brings Miles Edgeworth to center stage with completely remastered versions of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and the first official English release of Ace Attorney Investigations: Prosecutor’s Gambit. This collection is coming after the release of the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy and brings almost every available Ace Attorney game to modern platforms, outside of a few select spin-offs and the 3DS titles.
Interview With Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Producer Shunsuke Nishida
In an interview with Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Producer Shunsuke Nishida, I had the opportunity to chat with him about the upcoming collection, as well as glean some insight into his favorite Ace Attorney franchise:
Fans have been hoping for a localization of Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit for a very long time. Why localize it 11 years after the initial release?
Shunsuke Nishida: Since the release of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, there’s been an increase in the number of fans both domestically and abroad who’ve become familiar with the Ace Attorney series and played the games available to them. As a result, we’ve also received a significant number of requests from the community to localize Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit. The development team has wanted to make the Ace Attorney series playable on current gaming hardware in languages other than Japanese, so we started with the development of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy. We then followed with Ace Attorney Investigations Collection and the official localization of Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit into the same languages as the previous collection.
What makes Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit so much different from the main Ace Attorney titles?
One of the most distinctive features of the Ace Attorney Investigations games is the Logic part of each case. Players can move freely around a crime scene and collect evidence and hints to progress the story. The use of Logic to connect information gathered at crime scenes and progress investigations, as well as the Mind Chess gameplay mechanic where players probe stubborn opponents for answers in a game of mental chess, are gameplay systems that reflect the nature of protagonist Miles Edgeworth. The Trial part from the mainline Ace Attorney games has been replaced with a Confrontation part where players confront various persons of interest directly and break down their arguments to reveal the truth.
Do you have a personal favorite Ace Attorney game, and if so, which one is it?
My favorite game in the series is the one that started it all – Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Edgeworth made his debut as a ruthless rival prosecutor with a perfect win record, and the episodes where he and Phoenix interact are truly enjoyable.
On which other games can we see your producing work, and which has been your favorite to work on?
As a producer, I had the pleasure of working on Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, which also happens to be my favorite among the games I’ve worked on.
Related: Take That! Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Launches in 2024
Q&A With Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Localization Director Janet Hsu
I also had the chance to interview Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Localizer Janet Hsu about what inspires them, as well as why they love the Ace Attorney franchise as a whole:
What inspired you to work in the game localization field?
Janet Hsu: Ever since I was young, I’ve always loved to play games and to write. I was also in a bunch of fandoms on the fledgling internet of 20 years ago, and I found that I enjoyed translating stuff for others so that we could all share in the joy of the original content together. Naturally, this meant that the idea of a job where I could combine my various hobbies and interests in such a fulfilling way appealed to me greatly. To this day, a lot of what drives me to continue working in localization is this wish to share something I love with others.
What is the most difficult part of localizing a game in a beloved franchise, such as Ace Attorney?
Aside from keeping the details of each mystery straight and figuring out how to convey Japanese cultural concepts without losing something in translation, I’d say the most difficult part is balancing the tone of the dialogue so that it’s something everyone can enjoy. In Japanese, the games are written in modern and accessible language, and they don’t use the latest slang unless it’s on purpose. So the English strives to follow this convention and create fun and interesting text that you don’t need to be up on the latest meme to understand but also isn’t so dated as to make the characters unrelatable. The dialogue also can’t be so non sequitur that only a handful of people can enjoy the humor, despite Ace Attorney’s penchant for a touch of the surreal with its wacky cases and characters. Each line of dialogue should also read well and sound natural without dropping the meaning or nuances in the original Japanese, which often means learning to use fewer words to maximum effect. This also helps to keep the text scrolling along at a comfortable pace and not feel like a chore to read. It’s in the fine-tuning of the words we use that make or break a player’s experience, I think, so I always pay a lot of attention to the writing itself.
Speaking of the characters, having a strong sense of how each of them should sound helps to keep characterizations consistent while giving them a speaking style that gels well with their personality and animations. Additionally, the scripting we do on the text also helps to bring the way a character speaks across. For example, an older gentleman might speak slower, so following the Japanese base, we might slow down the text a little bit for him, or we might speed it up if he suddenly becomes super excited about something. I think this sort of holistic view I take with the characters is what helps to make them feel like a complete person in the end.
Who is your favorite character to try to provide localization for?
Edgeworth is the most interesting to write for because he has so many different eras. Trying to keep to what makes Edgeworth, Edgeworth, despite all the growth he goes through is something I really enjoy. I’ve written him from bratty rookie Edgeworth to redemption arc Edgeworth to Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth, and each version of him is just a little different but he’s still the same guy at heart.
Do you have a favorite character in the franchise? If so, who is it and why?
I have so many, including Edgeworth for the reasons I mentioned above, so I’ll go with the character that feels the most “real” to me.
Susato is one of the most fleshed-out characters in the series, so I feel a stronger connection to her. A lot of the characters in this series are well fleshed out, of course, but I think there are a few factors that make her stand out to me. One is that she has a past that includes family members and friends. Second, she’s a playable character, and that strong, reliable young lady you see from a third-person perspective as Ryunosuke is only more amazing once you get to be inside her head. Third, she accompanies Ryunosuke everywhere, so you get to spend a lot of time with her. The Great Ace Attorney series does a lot of world-building, and it almost luxuriates in Ryunosuke and Susato’s experience of discovering a foreign culture together. In this way, their many interesting and substantive conversations feel very natural, even as they are basically just feeding the player information that’s relevant to the case at hand.
As great of a character as Phoenix is, for example, he has an almost non-existent backstory due to his player avatar status. Who are his parents? Does he have siblings? We never get answers to these questions. And outside of one very brief segment, Maya is never a playable character, so we never get to explore her (I imagine) vibrant inner life. Susato having all three traits is why I think she leaves such a strong impression on players — it’s just so easy to see her as someone real, and perhaps, as someone in their own lives.
… Hmm, now that I think about it, I suppose maybe that’s why Edgeworth is also one of my favorites since he also shares all three traits, lol.
Which has been the most thrilling game in the Ace Attorney franchise to localize, and why?
I never take it for granted that any game I work on will get a localization, so in a way, they’re all a thrill, but recently, both The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit are the ones I’ve looked forward to the most. I’ve written before about how localizing The Great Ace Attorney games was like finally getting to turn my rough sketches into the final pieces I’d imagined them to be since my involvement on the original Japanese Nintendo 3DS versions.
As for Ace Attorney Investigations 2, well, it goes without saying that it’s been a long time coming, but I’m happy to say it’s finally here! I really enjoyed going back to the original trilogy characters and I couldn’t wait to see everyone’s reaction to when we announced the official localization. And what a reaction it was! All I can say is thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who kept believing that an official localization would happen someday. I hope we haven’t let you down.
Can we find your localization work in other games?
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is one of my best and favorite projects (please play it!), along with my work on the Mega Man, Dragon’s Dogma, Monster Hunter, and the Resident Evil series.
If you could spend a day with a character in Ace Attorney, who would it be?
Oof, that’s a tough one. Every character has something unique about them, but Gumshoe is probably my go-to. He seems like such a chill guy and I would love to buy him the fanciest lunch my wallet will allow.
The Ace Attorney Investigations Collection launches on September 5, 2024.
Published: Aug 1, 2024 03:27 pm