Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice devs on Maya’s return, strikes system, Nahyuta, fan feedback
Siliconera had the opportunity to send some questions to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice producer Motohide Eshiro and scenario director Takeshi Yamazaki. The two commented on Maya’s return, the change inpenalty system, Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, and fan feedback.
These excerpts can be found after the break. Head on over to Siliconera for the full interview.
On Maya Fey’s return…
Motohide Eshiro, Producer: There were a lot of people who wanted to see her in the previous game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, so we decided to answer their desire by having Maya return in Spirit of Justice. However, we didn’t want to just have her return for no reason, so we made it so that Maya was training in the Kingdom of Khura’in, which ties her appearance to one of the key aspects of this game: spirit channeling and spiritual powers.
On why Spirit of Justice goes back to the five strikes instead of the lifebar introduced in the second Ace Attorney game…
Takeshi Yamazaki, Game and Scenario Director: The reason there was a lifebar to begin with in Ace Attorney: Justice For All was because the player could receive penalties for making mistakes during the Psyche-Lock segments of the Investigation sections.
In Dual Destinies, we removed the penalties from the Psyche-Lock segments. However, because our goal was to faithfully recreate the feel of the first four games on the Nintendo 3DS, we kept the gauge as part of the overall look. But because you would get a game over after five mistakes, it was not functionally necessary to keep it as a gauge anymore. Therefore, in keeping with the UI design concept for Spirit of Justice of giving each country its own unique look, we decided to go back to the five strikes style with magatama marks and attorney’s badges for Khura’in and the US respectively.
On new prosecutor Nahyuta Sahdmadhi…
TY: You’re right, in that the rival prosecutors are always the toughest characters to create. Because they are characters that players wrestle with and defeat throughout the game, it’s very important that they be worthy opponents. To that end, we thought to make Nahyuta literally as strong as a god. By making him a monk from a foreign land, we were able to create a character with an air of mysticism and omnipotence. We had also wanted to do something different with him in contrast to the main prosecutor of Dual Destinies, Simon Blackquill. In Dual Destinies, Blackquill was dressed all in black and was meant to be an “evil prosecutor,” so this time, we went for a white-based color pallet with Nahyuta to create a “holy prosecutor” look.
On fan feedback that surprised Eshiro the most…
ME: I don’t really want to call out any specific feedback as that would be rude to the other fans who have also expressed their feelings on the series, but there were a large number of core fans who felt that the previous game was too easy and that there weren’t enough places to freely investigate, so we worked hard to first and foremost address their critiques when we made this game.
