Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice devs give detailed insight into various characters

Main character

Maya Fey

– They already decided to include Maya from the start, and that she would also perform with the Divination. So Fuse began designing her in parallel with the Khura’in Kingdom place.

– Fuse had to think thoroughly how Maya has grown. Like Pearl who appeared in Dual Destinies, 9 years have passed since her last appearance, so the fans may have their own imagination as to how a 28-year old Maya would look like.
– To handle that, Fuse first tried drawing Maya from the first game era himself, and then thought of an idea of how to make her change/grow from that. It’s because he didn’t want to drastically change her looks and destroy fans’ imagination of her.

– He drew various faces of Maya from one that looks very close to her previous self, one that really looks like Mia Fey, to a very adult-looking one, but in the end Yamazaki picked the most suitable one. The conclusion is that while Maya also has some similarities with Mia, they do not diminish Maya’s own original charming point.

– For her clothes, they basically did not change the general design. However, considering Maya goes to Khura’in to train in order to become the head of Kurain, they made the design a bit similar to Maya’s mother Misty Fey, like having long sleeves and beads on the chest part.
– When her design was published to the world, the fan reactions were very good, so Eshiro was delighted. It’s like the users envisioned Maya as so.
– Eshiro looks at her design from a parental point-of-view, like seeing how his child has grown and matured from 9 years ago, so he really thinks that this design is good.

– For the scenario, it’s the first time Yamazaki and the rest of the scenario team had to write quotes for Maya, so he felt a bit nervous at first. He thought about not changing her basics from the past, while inserting scenes that show that she indeed has grown.
– Of course there was also an option to make her a full-fledged adult, but nobody would want that. However, considering that she’s now 28 years old, there’s no way they keep her totally like in past games either.
– Considering that the protagonist (Phoenix) is in his mid-30s, and Maya is 28 years old, the interviewer joked that Maya’s Japanese honorific should’ve been changed from ‘chan’ to ‘san’, and everyone laughs.

– It’s a rare case in a game series to actually progress through years and also have characters aging. It’s actually a problem this series (Ace Attorney) has been facing while continuing the series.
– That’s why Yamazaki had to imagine events that happened to Maya in those previous years, while letting her have fun in the ordinary conversations.
– Yamazaki also wrote about Nick (Phoenix) for the first time in Dual Destinies. Writing about Maya here has about the same amount of nervousness for him when compared to that. It’s difficult to handle characters that do not have a tone of voice that’s easy to understand, so he had to check with past games to find out how to give the correct atmosphere.