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Ace Attorney Investigations 2 [DS] Actually Definitely Not Coming to the West

ShockingAlberto said:
So who has actually played the game? Because I just read something about one of the cases that may be the actual reason it's not coming out.

The case synopsis I read said that Edgeworth is trying to figure out who killed the President of Zheng Fa. It connects to an older case where his father defended someone accused of killing the leader of Japan. Since Ace Attorney takes place in America in the western versions, that would mean the assassination (attempt?) would have to be on an American president, which would not fly at all. They can't change or remove the case because it is the fundamentally most important case of the game.

Is that true or did the case synopsis totally bullshit me? If it is true, I think the "We don't think it would make money" thing is just an excuse.

Could be, but it shouldn't be much of a problem they could
just change the name to a herp-a-derp made-up country. Plus other games have First Man-assassinations in them, think XIII from Ubisoft
 

MrMephistoX

Member
Weren't the originals on GBA originally? Wouldn't surprise me if Capcom ported them to 3DS instead later on.

On a side note iOS ports of the sequels would be godly. The original plays perfectly on iPhone.
 

Jocchan

Ὁ μεμβερος -ου
MrMephistoX said:
Weren't the originals on GBA originally? Wouldn't surprise me if Capcom ported them to 3DS instead later on
I really hope the fact they stressed "it's not coming on DS" means they're going to port it to 3DS, either digitally or at retail, but I'm not holding my breath as that would cost even more than just localization :(

MrMephistoX said:
The original plays perfectly on iPhone.
I'd say it's a nice port but FAR from perfect: the text is much smaller because of the screen size (you hold the iPhone vertically) and the interface is honestly quite terrible, both visually (let's add ugly bright orange buttons and leave some remnants of the DS graphics here and there so it looks more inconsistent!) and in terms of usability (half the screen is empty and you have to hold buttons to reveal more icons? Really?).
I hope they overhaul HEAVILY the interface for future ports.
 

InfiniteNine

Rolling Girl
Well with destroying DMC, RE, and now refusing to bring this over you are officially not getting my money anymore Capcom. Good show.
 
Rebochan said:
I heard Ghost Trick didn't do so hot in Japan
Yeah. Not that much worse than the original release of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, actually, but that game found a lot of success with a budget rerelease, DS port, budget release of DS port, budget budget release of DS port... ANYWAY, Ghost Trick did a lot worse than AA Investigations 2, which itself was part of a downward Gyakuten trend.

AAI2
 

Kikujiro

Member
After what I wrote I should feel stupid, but I'm more angry. I can't believe it, this is one of my most anticipated game this year. And for me AAI is the second best in the series.

I still think it will come somehow. In a far-distant future.
 

GhaleonQ

Member
ninj4junpei said:
So even though the series became a surprise success, they were already cutting costs. Fascinating.

And I'd take a Justice For All-level translation with a limited run over nothing. I'll see what he says, though.

(Also, please change your avatar. *sad face* She's my 2nd or 3rd favorite major character.)
 

Jintor

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
Yeah. Not that much worse than the original release of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, actually, but that game found a lot of success with a budget rerelease, DS port, budget release of DS port, budget budget release of DS port... ANYWAY, Ghost Trick did a lot worse than AA Investigations 2, which itself was part of a downward Gyakuten trend.

AAI2

Urgh. Damnit, Ghost Trick was really, really good, and if Capcom shuts down more visual/adventure game development because of this...
 

Jocchan

Ὁ μεμβερος -ου
GhaleonQ said:
And I'd take a Justice For All-level translation with a limited run over nothing. I'll see what he says, though.
I'd take a Justice For All-level translation over a fan translation any day :(
Fingers crossed.
 
hosannainexcelsis said:
But there was some manga!

Are those any good? A major part of AA's charm is it's writing / localization. I never bought the manga's because I was unsure how good of a job they would do in matching the writing / localization style of the games.
 
AdawgDaFAB said:
Are those any good? A major part of AA's charm is it's writing / localization. I never bought the manga's because I was unsure how good of a job they would do in matching the writing / localization style of the games.

No. They're collections of short stories, none of which actually focus on in-court battles. For example, one has Maya finding a cat, and Phoenix arguing against keeping it, and another has them both looking for an equivalent of a waterfall for Maya to stand under.

At best, some of the stories are mildly amusing. At worst, they approach the sort of downright creepy "Phoenix X Edgeworth" stuff you'd find on a disturbing fanart site. The Edgeworth book in particular, is full of scenes where Phoenix and Edgeworth are getting a little too friendly, and engaging in in discussions where comments like "follow your heart" are thrown around.


There's apparently another Phoenix Wright manga series in Japan though; I think Court Records has it translated; I can't remember. I read the first chapter/volume/whatever of that, and it was quite good. It felt like reading a version of a "1st case" from one of the games. It was short, and didn't have much in the way of plot-twists, but it took place in court, had Larry on trial again for murder, Winston Payne was prosecuting, and Phoenix had to figure out the trick the killer used. Maybe other cases are longer.

Shame they didn't bring that over to the West instead.
 
GhaleonQ said:
And I'd take a Justice For All-level translation with a limited run over nothing. I'll see what he says, though.
So would I.
GhaleonQ said:
(Also, please change your avatar. *sad face* She's my 2nd or 3rd favorite major character.)
2vwtm2w.jpg

She's been my avatar for months now, and that's not changing.
 

Korigama

Member
Even with my confidence in Capcom as a company at an all-time low, I still find myself surprised by this. An extremely disappointing decision.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
And to say we called them Capgod not that long ago. Now we got LP2, that Resident Evil game from Slant Six, that awful DMC revival and no AAI2.
 
wrowa said:
The success of the Layton series is the sole reason that made it possible for Level-5 to open a US branch in the first place, so I strongly doubt that they would pass on Layton 4.

Well, that's basically what I said. The only reason I could see it getting skipped is if it takes them so long to get things going in the West that they really can't launch a DS game anymore.

Actually, since we haven't heard anything about a Western release of Layton 5 since last E3

Well, we probably haven't heard more about it because they need to figure out what they're doing with Layton 4 first. :p

ShadowPampers said:
As others have said, it doesn't make sense to release it on 3DS because the install base is low

Not always accurate. Games get launch window boosts, and the dearth of good competing software will often drive up the sales of even series that were on the decline previously. Just look at Atlus' Devil Survivor Overclocked cash-grab port.

I could easily imagine a shoddily up-ported AAI, released sometime this year, nonetheless catching more attention as an early 3DS title amongst a rather thin selection than it would a late DS title in an overcrowded section that stores are trying to thin out. If that were Capcom's plan, I'd have no complaints even though it'd necessitate me buying a new system for a game that was technically already released on a system I own. But I imagine if that were the case we'd have gotten more of a "no comment" response than what we did.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
Well, that's basically what I said. The only reason I could see it getting skipped is if it takes them so long to get things going in the West that they really can't launch a DS game anymore.
I wonder if Level 5 would do a 3DS port of Layton 4. Though it would likely take away from sales potential now that I think about it.

NoA will likely support the DS for at least two years unless NCL forces them to kill support and put efforts on the 3DS even faster then the did with the GBA. Nintendo's Portable Sales tend to have longer legs in NA then Japan.
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
Capcom should give the series a few years to breathe and then make a huge comeback with AA Collection (or rereleases through DSiWare/3DSWare) and AA5 for the 3DS, IMO.
 

Droplet

Member
I'm currently playing the first game and while it leaves a lot to be desired, this still makes me sad. Especially because a friend of mine was looking so forward to this.
 
Vamphuntr said:
And to say we called them Capgod not that long ago. Now we got LP2, that Resident Evil game from Slant Six, that awful DMC revival and no AAI2.

If they pull off Monster Hunter on 3DS I'm sure that Capgod title will show right back up.
 

bernardobri

Steve, the dog with no powers that we let hang out with us all for some reason
I'm kinda surprised that AAI didn't sell as much as AJ in Japan. I wonder if it's because AJ caused a backfire in the franchise or maybe Edgeworth isn't the fan-favorite that Capcom expected him to be.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
So who has actually played the game? Because I just read something about one of the cases that may be the actual reason it's not coming out.

The case synopsis I read said that Edgeworth is trying to figure out who killed the President of Zheng Fa. It connects to an older case where his father defended someone accused of killing the leader of Japan. Since Ace Attorney takes place in America in the western versions, that would mean the assassination (attempt?) would have to be on an American president, which would not fly at all. They can't change or remove the case because it is the fundamentally most important case of the game.

Is that true or did the case synopsis totally bullshit me? If it is true, I think the "We don't think it would make money" thing is just an excuse.

The synopsis you read is far off course.

The older case involves a chef murdering another chef. Incidently, this is the case where von Karma get his first penalty in court, leading to the DL-6 incident. But more importantly this case ties into the backstory of the game's big bad.
 

kunonabi

Member
I thought AAI was pretty meh to be honest. Not as bad as Justice for all but still pretty underwhelming. Unless the sequel is a huge step I'm not going to get to upset about. Now if we don't get layton X Phoenix we have a problem.
 

jvalioli

Member
bernardobri said:
I'm kinda surprised that AAI didn't sell as much as AJ in Japan. I wonder if it's because AJ caused a backfire in the franchise or maybe Edgeworth isn't the fan-favorite that Capcom expected him to be.
Clearly because one is a spinoff and one is a numbered sequel.
 
bernardobri said:
I'm kinda surprised that AAI didn't sell as much as AJ in Japan. I wonder if it's because AJ caused a backfire in the franchise or maybe Edgeworth isn't the fan-favorite that Capcom expected him to be.
Well, AJ was a mainline game, the first original Gyakuten Saiban on the DS, it was released in the DS' prime and turned out to be by far the best selling SKU in the series history. It's not easy to outsell that.
 

bernardobri

Steve, the dog with no powers that we let hang out with us all for some reason
jvalioli said:
Clearly because one is a spinoff and one is a numbered sequel.

I'd say the same, except that Miles Edgeworth is one of the most popular characters in the franchise, ergo, the fact that the game is not a numbered entry is not a deal breaker for fans of the series to let it pass.

If the game could have focused on a less popular character as the lead role like Ema Skye (which was the original scenario for AAI) I'd understand, but other than Phoenix, Apollo or Mia, what other character with a law background in the series could have been the lead for a new entry in the franchise and being a favorite about the fandom at the same time?
 
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