Ace Attorney creator on Apollo Justice – using DS’ features, Resident Evil inspiration, new characters, more
Janet: Well, since it’s part of the story, it isn’t all that different from the Japanese, I assure you, but I guess the rhythm and placement of words were slightly different for grammatical reasons. Speaking of the localization, I remember you mentioned a long time ago that you didn’t really consider the localization when you created the second and third games (Justice For All and Trials and Tribulations) because you had received word that there would be no localizations of those games.
Takumi: That’s right. When I was in the middle of making the first game, I remember thinking to myself “I shouldn’t create any plot points or puzzles based entirely around Japanese-only language tricks, just in case we make an overseas version.” But when we finished making the first game, I remember asking the producer at the time, Mr. Mikami, “So, are we making an overseas version?” to which he replied, “Of course not, no way.” So that’s when I stopped trying to hold back and freely used whatever tricks I wanted when making the second and third games.
Janet: Tell me about it… *shudder*
Takumi: At least we were finally able to start localizing the games with “RftA”. As for AJ:AA, I knew starting from the beginning that we were going to make an overseas version, so you’ll notice I didn’t use any language-based tricks.
Janet: For which I am eternally grateful, but then what about the Japanese elements like the yakuza?
Takumi: I figured everyone knew about yakuza from Takashi Kitano movies and the like.
Janet: Sadly, his movies were still considered relatively small cult hits at the time — especially in America where foreign films weren’t all that popular. But speaking of real life at that time, I guess this is sort of a spoiler but to what degree did the judicial reforms going on in Japan back then influence AJ:AA?
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Takumi: Let’s see, the topic of Japan and its adoption of the new “Lay Judge System” (陪審員制度 / baishinin seido), which was a long time coming, was on everyone’s mind. When we were making AJ:AA, we had received two orders from above: 1) bring Phoenix back and 2) work the Lay Judge System into the story. That’s why I created the Mason System for the last episode, and included lay judges in the story. As part of the game’s promotion, we also collaborated with the Japanese Ministry of Justice, which was preparing for the official launch of the new system, and gave a presentation of AJ:AA at the ministry’s head office.
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Janet: Wow, I knew about the “bring Phoenix back” bit, but I never knew you guys presented the game to the government! Speaking of Phoenix, I know you spent many years writing him, but how different was it writing a whole new set of main characters?
Takumi: My thinking on main characters goes like this: the main character is the player, so the character shouldn’t have too strong of a flavor to them. That’s why I didn’t go out of my way to make Phoenix Wright anyone special, or give him any special features — all of his lines are pretty much just what I would say in those situations. And for Maya, I just naturally wrote a character who I thought would be fun to have by your side as a partner character. The two of them live in my head and whenever I would sit down to write the games, it was like I would hear the two of them bantering with each other inside my head. All of this is why it was so hard to write a completely new main character — the most natural parts of me had already all been used up by the Phoenix Wright character. So I tried to take everything about Phoenix and turned them upside-down. With this great turnabout, I came up with Apollo: a character who is aggressive, passionate, and youthful.
Janet: And what about Trucy?
Takumi: Trucy was also the “opposite” of Maya in a sense, though her love of magic comes from my college self, I suppose. I worked hard to get good at stage magic in my university’s magic club.
Janet: You certainly are no slouch at it, that’s for sure. I had the good fortune of seeing you do a new rope trick the other day. That was really something to make the knot completely disappear into thin air like that! And you seem to be into music too, what with your guitar playing. Is that where Klavier got his rocker personality from?
Takumi: Klavier was meant to be something we’d never seen before in the series. The most difficult aspect for me to create in the first three games was always the prosecutor. We had the “genius prosecutor” Miles Edgeworth, the “overly-concerned with how perfect she had to be” Franziska von Karma, and the “suspicious man shrouded in mystery” Godot, so when it came time to create someone different, I had to really search for an answer. One of the common threads that ran through the first three prosecutors was a sense of darkness, which is why I wanted Klavier to be a bright, carefree character in the form of a prosecutor who was also the vocalist of a rock band. But I wanted to give him a “shadow”, and to that end, I give him a brother in the form of Kristoph Gavin.
Janet: Alright, just one last question before I stop bothering you and let you get back to work: Seeing as how this is the 10th anniversary of AJ:AA , is there anything you’d like to say to the fans?
Takumi: I’m grateful that even though we made this game ten years ago, we can bring this game to you, the overseas fans once again, on a new platform. It’s been so nostalgic to reflect on and talk about how fired up we all were at the time to make a whole new story after the original trilogy. As for me, I’ve been making games nonstop for the past ten years — games like Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and the Dai Gyakuten Saiban series — but on this occasion, I think I’ll take a break and play Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney once more with all of you.
I hope for your continued support of this series in the years to come.
Janet: Thank you again for all of your time! I can’t wait to see what your next project will be!
