#capcom make this aa7 please

[trssshh]

this is the best thing that has happened to the Ace Attorney fandom

Phoenix Wright=Cinnamoroll

Maya Fey=My Melody

Miles Edgeworth=PompomPurin

Larry Butz=Keroppi

Dick Gumshoe=Badtsmaru

Franziska von Karma=Kuromi

[alumi-san]

Fandom: aa7 main character should be Athena!

Me: CAPCOM PLEASE GIVE APOLLO ONE MORE GAME WHERE HE'S THE ONLY PROTAGONIST WITHOUT GIVING HIM ANOTHER BACKSTORY, FINALLY TELL HIM AND TRUCY THE TRUTH ABOUT THALASSA AND THEM BEING SIBLINGS, BRING KLAVIER AS PROSECUTOR AND EMA AS DETECTIVE AGAIN IT'S BEEN 17 YEARS FOR CHRIST SAKE! And then make an Athena game as the final in the franchise.

I mean if we think of Dual Destiny as an Athena game and give her 2 more games... she'll have a trilogy! And Apollo too! It's a win-win for both of them!

[rivalsforlife]

pardon me if you’re tired of discussing this but. we know aa7 is on capcom’s radar on some level. and now they’ve rereleased every game right?? they’ve finally run out of backlog material after almost yearly releases since 2019…. Not to put the clown wig and nose back on too early but do you think we’ll actually get news about, or get to see, aa7 next year?

Never tired of discussing this!! This is right around the time of year where I'd be preparing to make my yearly AA7 Speculation Post anyway so this is great timing. (TGS, my enemy, is approaching.)

So just to make sure everyone's on the same page, here's a quick recap of where we're currently at:

In November 2020 we got internal Capcom leaks which included a calendar from 2019 with the roadmap for the AA series the next couple of years. This included:

DGS1&2 collection, which I did not think was going to happen ever, releasing April-June 2021

AA7, releasing around October-December 2021, right around the 20th anniversary.

Through late 2019-mid 2022, reconsider porting 456

We got DGS1&2 (a bit later than in the plan, but by like a month), we got the 456 ports, we got bonus AAI ports, we have nothing for AA7 nearly three years after it was supposed to come out. The pandemic is an obvious feature that could contribute to its delay, but at this point with 456 ports out I think we can safely say that this was not the only cause.

Some other things that may or may not be contributing to AA7's delay include:

Yamazaki, the previous main writer for 5&6 and the AAIs, left Capcom in 2020. If he was involved in AA7 at all, that could throw a wrench into things, but I recall hearing he intended AA6 to be his last AA game (I AM STRUGGLING TO FIND THE SOURCE THOUGH SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME), so I don't think this contributed very much. It does, however, mean that we're unsure about who the next main writer is - depending on what Takumi's up to or if they had to bring someone new on, there could be complications related to that.

I think TGAA did way better than anyone expected, which I covered in this post. It's possible that this could have shifted Capcom's priorities to porting more old games / porting to all modern consoles. It may have made people at Capcom think "damn everyone loves Takumi" so they tried to lure him back to AA7, and I have no idea how well that would have gone or if Takumi is even interested in continuing mainline AA right now. (I do think this at least contributed to the Ghost Trick ports.)

In my first ever AA7 speculation post I talked about how the ending of AA6 kind of wrote them into a corner re: how to continue with the series and which protagonist to use. I still stand by that argument even if a lot of that post aged badly.

Console ports! Previously new AA games were for whichever Nintendo handheld is out now (GBA, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS). But now that the series is doing really well on all consoles, they may have decided to try to make their next mainline entry on all consoles, which would take more development time. Adding to this is that the Switch is near the end of its lifecycle with the Switch 2 (or whatever the successor will be) being announced soon - meaning that, if AA7 is coming out soon, Capcom is in the position of "do we try to squeeze this into the end of the Switch's lifecycle" (which, I'll need to find sources for this, is speculated to be some of the reasons behind why AAI2 and DGS2 sold badly when they were first released, and they can't make the same mistake thrice... right...?) or "do we try to time it with the release of the Switch 2"?

Also, a lot of this depends on how far AA7 was into development whenever it was derailed. If it was derailed from the pandemic, then according to the calendar, it would likely have still been in the prototype stage. It may be early enough that they would have had to start from scratch whenever they picked it up again. I don't work in the gaming industry so I have no idea how long it takes them to make a game or how easy it would be from what stage they're in.

One thing we can compare to is some of the comments about the recent AAI ports: in this interview, Shunsuke Nishida, the producer of the AAI collection, says that development on the collection began in 2022. He also mentions that this began once development on 456 was concluded. This leads me to believe that (contrary to my previous assumptions) 456 and AAIC were not developed concurrently (or if so, had very minimal overlap), and that the process of upscaling graphics, porting, and localization took them... about a year, maybe? So that takes time, even without taking into consideration how long it would take to come up with a new idea + write the script + the bulk of the programming that would have to be done that isn't considered with porting + probably way more than I can think of because again I do not work in the gaming industry.

There's also the question of why 456 and AAIC weren't developed concurrently. The calendar from 2020 shows that TGAA and AA7 were meant to be developed at least somewhat concurrently, and the staff from TGAA would eventually merge into working on AA7. Once again, we don't know what happened to the staff that were supposed to be working on AA7. It's possible pandemic complications meant they got shuffled onto other projects. It's possible the AA-related team is smaller now than it was in 2020, so they only have enough people to work on one project at a time. It's also possible that there's a team that was working on ports, and a team that was working on a new game, and now the "port team" is freed up to work on the "new game team".

Either way though, pretty much every interview with the staff for the 456 or AAI ports are all saying "look forward to the future of the series", which is definitely Corporate Speak, but unless they're bringing the ports of the Layton crossover (fingers crossed) that can only mean one thing. (AAI anime?) Plus, like I've discussed in this post, AA is having fantastic sales in general. They've seemingly either hired a new social media manager or changed the strategy so there is much more engagement on twitter. And AA is getting on bigger and bigger announcements - though AA trilogy ports were announced at TGS (at an AA-specific panel), TGAA duology ports were announced unceremoniously on twitter. Afterwards, 456 ports got announced at the Capcom Showcase during Summer Game Fest. And now AAI collection got announced at a Nintendo Direct, which I imagine is even more expensive, so the series must be going in a good direction for them to think that's worth it!

That's a lot of rambling for me to say I definitely think it's coming.

When are we going to see it though!!

Coming up in September is my eternal enemy Tokyo Game Show. Since AAI collection is being released at the beginning of September... it might be a bit too soon to announce a new game, but who knows. They might think it's profitable to ride the hype they're building now for AAI collection to announce a new game. Or they might let it sit for a while.

With AAIC getting announced at a Direct, I'm thinking they'll want to make AA7's announcement a) big and b) global. AA6 was announced in Famitsu, but the problem with that is that it's a mostly Japanese audience, and some interviews have been talking about how AA's global audience is particularly contributing to how big it is right now. So I'm expecting AA's next announcement to be at something major and something that will get attention from overseas audiences.

If they have been working on AA7 concurrently -- and honestly I do think there has at least been some progress on it since 2019 -- we could definitely see an announcement within the next year. I was also saying this in 2020, though, so don't take my word for it. There's been two year gaps between ports up until the AAI collection, and they seemed pretty proud about releasing 456 and AAI in the same year, so... maybe they'll want to keep it going and announce AA7 within the next year, especially if they'll have a longer announcement -> release period than they normally would for ports.

Potential candidates include:

Tokyo Game Show: As previously stated, it's very close to the AAIC release, so I don't think it's the best timing for it. I would not want my favorite AA game overshadowed by whatever the hell they're going to do with AA7. Likelihood: depends on how fast they want to follow up on the hype.

The Game Awards: is the next major gaming event, but that's already massive in terms of the type of games that get announced there, and it's expensive! Nintendo Direct is one thing since AA has always been a Nintendo-first series, but I don't think it's big enough to justify putting in a Game Awards ad. and I already have my clown wig on for persona 6 there. Likelihood: pretty low tbh

Next Year's Summer Game Fest-related Shows: I think this is the most likely, considering both the 456 collection and the AAI collection were announced around this time. For AA7 I'd say a Nintendo Direct to get lots of eyes on it, especially if AAIC sales pay off. Likelihood: pretty high!

Which leads me into my wildcard answer:

Switch 2 Announcement Stream: If Capcom decides to go in and make AA7 one of the first games for whatever the switch successor would be, it could be announced here. I regret to admit that I am a very bad gamer and only like two things, and therefore have not ever been present for one of these things to know how many games get announced as launch games for a new console, but, like, it's possible.

In the above scenario, I'm not necessarily saying that AA7 would be a Switch 2 exclusive - because I think that would be stupid after so much of the support they've gotten from the ports has been from playstation and steam - but I am definitely the kind of person who would buy a console for one video game. Shoutout to me buying a switch in part anticipating that aa7 would come out on it and that is not looking likely

Anyways, that's my speculation!! Reminder that this is mostly uninformed and that I have no knowledge of anything related to sales or marketing or video game development, and as a result of that, I have been wrong (aside from the one time I accurately predicted AAI ports as a joke) for four consecutive years.

[dna-d2]

Oh okay wow I haven't had the money to get the Apollo Justice Trilogy yet because money is finite and I am lacking resources, but with the news of Edgeworth getting his spotlight in America, I decided to scroll through the tag and goddamn??

The Apollo Justice game art looks actually good?? Like really good????

Like the art for the original trilogy remaster kinda looks not great if you ask me, a little like it was traced. But the new art looks pretty damn good?? Did they get someone to do new art or figure out a better way to upscale it??

Either way it's tragic that the Apollo Justice game is the only one we get to see that kinda art for since everything after is 3D

(Maybe if they ever make Ace Attorney 7 they'll make it 2D but I doubt it. I would just personally love it. Either way Capcom I gave you my warning about AA7 and it's been longer than a year. This will only delay my wrath for so long you get an additional 6 months but come on I just want AA7 I'm pretty sure we all do come on please??????)

[schmorpthe]

Capcom, please make the first victim in aa7 doctor hotti. I cannot rest until this man no longer breathes.

[trlvsn]

Hello! This is the og #putedgeworthinacoma anon :)

When I said that Phoenix should be avticely present in the first case only, I meant that he should spend the rest of the game trying to solve the Edgeworth coma case! (I guess I forgot to mention that TT)

Also this isn't what I want aa7 to be, it's me trying to put together a best case scenario. Cuz they won't let those old men be happy in the background (we can only dream) Capcom would totally nostalgia bait us with them AGAIN

Proposal: The last case should be the Edgeworth coma case, Phoenix should be revealed to be the one 'pulling the strings' again BUT they should also make the game theme something like 'stepping aside for the new generation' and make Athena take the final step

Some part of me doesn't even want aa7 to happen (aai3 please) but at the same time, Ace Attorney deserves atleast some kind of proper conclusion... I've always thought of it as a sorta 'final game'...ofcourse this is all inside my head

Forever rotating this hypothetical game in my head :)

honestly, anon. and i say this with extreme positivity in my voice. you and many other people who talk about their ideas and character interpretations in my ask box should make their own posts about it too!! like. i do love hearing this stuff and engaging in conversation this way, as well as giving my own two cents on the matter, but!! this will get like two notes! this could be a fic! this could be a comic! this could be a fangame! i'm too small of a blog to contain this properly shdksksj

that being said, yeah... capcom would nostalgia bait us so hard.

[dreamsy990]

Woo here before Capcom showcase, I ready for all my new AA game hope to be dashed but what about you? Indifferent or got your clown hat on?

THERES A CAPCOM SHOWCASE????? nobody tells me these things istg

anyways i dont EXPECT a new aa game but you better fucking bELIEVE i am hoping. we deserve one i think. i hope if they make a new one they redo all of apollos 3d sprites and actually his model too why is he built like that please just fix apolly thats all i ask

aside from that. i think if aa7 ever happens it will be bad and i can accept that. i liked dual destinies so i have very low standards i just want something playable

[livingmeatloaf]

[image IDs: a series of tweets by welcome to the horse divorce @/corviid.

1. (May 31) i am only, i repeat, ONLY becoming a lawyer as a part of my deep commitment to the bit

2. (May 31) i am not even joking at this point every time my motivation is flagging im like wait. you have to finish this. you started this because of ace attorney

and it will be so fucking funny just trust me

3. (no date given) happy disbarment day to phoenix wright! as he's the one who inspired me to go into law id like to celebrate his disbarment by leaving my degree and walking into the sun

4. (Dec 20, 2022) i need capcom to not announce aa7 in the next half year or so and then immediately announce it right after I graduate so that I can say in the hiatus between aa6 and aa7 i got a law degree

5. (Apr 21) phoenix wright who has been isekai'd into the real world australian legal

system: okay im ready for trial

me: no dude you haven't filed an originating claim

phoenix: what

me: you can't lodge a pleading until you've finished the preaction

processes phoenix: i can plead. "please"

6. (Apr 21) me, monotonously: phoenix wright from ace attorney i will teach you the litigation rules in the australian federal judicial system. first of all in the civil dispute resolution act 2011 requires that legal representatives take genuine steps to resolve a dispute having regard to t

7. (Oct 1, 2022) just imagine if you were at a convention and someone dressed as phoenix wright came up to you and was like hi im a lawyer and gave you a card and you're like haha that's so funny and you look down and firm. ill finish my degree to make this gag real

8. (Aug 27, 2022) average attorney: a new visual novel mystery game where you play as a defence attorney who has to comply with all the rules of evidence and procedure

9. (Aug 27, 2022) ace advocate: a visual novel where phoenix wright doesn't pass the bar and becomes a non-legal advocate in adjudicative bodies which don't require compliance with evidence rules or a law degree such as tribunals

10. (no date given) well hey guys whaddaya know. it's the two rules of evidence law

(image attached is a screenshot that reads as follows)

EVIDENCE ACT 1995-SECT 56

Relevant evidence to be admissible

56 Relevant evidence to be admissible

(1) Except as otherwise provided by this Act, evidence that is relevant in a proceeding is admissible in the proceeding. (2) Evidence that is not relevant in the proceeding is not admissible.

End ID.]

compilation of ace attorney law school struggle tweets. please send thoughts and prayers while i wait to find out if i get to graduate so i can throw my textbooks directly into the fucking sun

[dreamcast-official]

I love her too!!!! Please tell me your Rayfa thoughts

ok hear me out. aa7 rayfa co-counsel. i dont know how this would work out if she was still in khura'in so let's just pretend she went to the us for some reason (maybe she went w apollo or smthn idk) bc think abt how funny this would be. the defense's co-counsel is the crown princess/royal priestess of another country and she is just vibing over there w the angry red attorney. what would you do if you went to court and this was your defense.

[n-a-gindustries]

aa7.  phoenix is the main character.  again.  we’re back in japanifornia.  apollo gets two new backstories.  athena is a background character who’s allowed to be the defense attorney once (1) in a dlc case.  there’s a new prosecutor that we won’t give any proper attention to after the end of the game. we bring back edgeworth as a prosecutor for like two cases because he is the only prosecutor who matters and he will always come back despite being the chief prosecutor who isn’t even supposed to prosecute cases anymore what the fuck.  they put in a bunch of obviously gay banter between phoenix and edgeworth without making them explicitly gay because they know it’ll make people go crazy while still not having to commit to anything because they’re probably homophobic.  where are klavier, franziska, gumshoe, and simon?  who cares.  larry’s death is brought up once in the third case and then he is never mentioned again.  ema’s the detective again which im actually fine with.  the aai characters are still locked in capcom’s basement even though they literally fucking live and work in the exact same area as the main franchise characters how have they never run into each other.  the climax of the last case is that maya’s on trial for murder again and you go up against edgeworth because that’s the only fucking thing anyone wants apparently.  you win.  duh.  the game ends.  i pretend that it was a great game and draw fanart for the least popular character.

[lutzlig]

Just looking out for the day when you're close to me ♪

[dumbasswhatever]

Trucy: hey, polly, where you going?

Apollo: just getting lunch

Trucy: oh, good luck!

Athena: have fun!

Phoenix: do your best!

Trucy: we believe in you!

Apollo: I'm never asking you guys to be supportive ever again

[atroquininetynine]

Hey so I guess I’m going to put art here or something. I drew the ginger grinch. Well, one of the ginger grinches, the other one is my friend, Lily. 

[rivalsforlife]

The Yearly AA Series Future Speculation Post

I've given up on calling it aa7 speculation because that has never worked out for me. anyways [apollo justice voice] hiya!

It's been a while since I made one of these little posts where I try to predict things and end up horribly embarrassing myself. BUT this year has actually been very exciting for Ace Attorney. We have Ghost Trick! We have 456 ports! Could there be more? Who knows. Tokyo Game Show is coming up and that's always a bad time of year for my self-esteem.

In this post I will do the following:

-Go over the November 2020 leaks again, to compare that to where we're at now

-Talk a bit about the 456 port and what I think that means for the series and its future

-Talk a bit about how well TGAA is doing, I think

-Brief Tokyo Game Show speculations (there's not much to speculate about)

I'll reference my previous posts and sources where necessary. It'll get long and rambly again so I'll put the rest under a keep reading.

FIRST:

Revisiting the Calendar (Again)

For those who aren't aware, back in November 2020, Capcom got hacked (this was overall bad) and from that hack came a leak of a roadmap for the future of the AA series.

For this post, please keep in mind that this calendar is using the Japanese fiscal year, which starts in in April. Therefore Q1 is roughly April-June, Q2 July-September, Q3 October-December, Q4 January-March of the next year.

This calendar was likely made in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, which inevitably ended up throwing everything off quite a bit.

Some of these things came true. This leak was where we first heard about the official TGAA ports, and while they were delayed by about a quarter, they still came out pretty close to on time with all things pandemic to consider. What's especially interesting is that now with confirmation of the 456 ports, we now have no idea what is up with AA7.

We know that AA7 was in development at one point. We know that, if things were on track prior to the pandemic, they might have started the main production. However, the plan seemed to be to release it for the 20th anniversary and use those sales and the sales from TGAA to judge whether 456 would be ported; now that we have 456 confirmed before AA7, we can assume that AA7's delay is so severe we have no way of predicting if or when it will come out.

The thing is, though, AA has been doing really well the last few years, despite the lack of a new game. The 2019 ports of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy have sold around 2.3 million copies, when previously no other Ace Attorney game broke a million. The trilogy hit a million copies around December 2020, for reference. Ace Attorney itself as a whole broke ten million copies sold recently. In this post I covered how TGAA seemingly has sold way more than Capcom expected, and sold pretty quickly, and is confirmed to be somewhere between 500k-1 million copies sold.

I don't see any reason to believe that AA is in dire financial straits. We've gotten more official merchandise in the last year or so than we got for a while, AA is featured heavily on Capcom's Captown website, the Tokyo Game Show merchandise store has been selling out of AA merch faster than any of their other IPs... I don't see why they wouldn't want to milk that. And 456 is probably a part of it.

What Do The 456 Ports Mean

Back in March 2022, in an event I almost completely forgot about, Capcom updated their trademark for Apollo Justice. I covered my thoughts on that here, and speculated it might indicate a 456 port. ... Which it apparently did. I'll quote exactly what I said in that post, since I still feel this way:

Presumably, previously, the decision to port or not to port 456 would be dependent both on how well TGAA does and how well AA7 would do. With no AA7, they might be making this decision solely based on TGAA. And they… might actually decide it’s worth the port?

This tells us a couple of things.

1.Capcom is aware that there is a decent market and profit to be made porting the Ace Attorney games to all consoles.

2.This heavily implies that TGAA sold fantastically.

I also said in my post about TGAA's success that the 456 ports would be the best indicator of whether Capcom would find it more profitable to continue along with mainline or stick to writing more things about TGAA. Because TGAA is actually doing... pretty great? It's always seemed to have a pretty good fan reception, but it came at the end of the 3DS life cycle and seemed to do poorly enough that Capcom didn't try to localize it for several years. But now it's big enough that Ryunosuke made it onto the 20th anniversary logo, and Ryunosuke and Kazuma are featured in some of the Ace Attorney merchandise for TGS's merch store.

456 doing well would probably reinvigorate Capcom's desire to continue making stories set in mainline. It also might inspire them to finally give an official translation to my favorite game, Ace Attorney Investigations 2, who is Capcom's poor unloved child these days. I'm not expecting Investigations Ports for a few more years, since they seem to be spacing out the ports by about two years, but... it's more likely now than I felt it was about three years ago.

The Great Ace Attorney Sweep

Also, the last few years have had a heavy focus on Great Ace Attorney, even now a couple of years after the ports came out. Takarazuka made their first AA musical in a decade based on TGAA, and, if you ask me, it sounds pretty heavily like they were teasing for a sequel someday. There also has been a reading theater based on TGAA, with an original episode written by Takumi.

Of particular relevance is this source of dubious credibility I linked to in one of my other posts talking about TGAA's expected success. I've assumed it came from the data in the November 2020 Capcom Leak but I can't be certain, so take this next part with a grain of salt.

Here are the original sales projections from 2019(?): FY21: 195K (originally supposed to launch in Q1) FY22: 55K FY23: 8K FY24: 41K (with 32K being in Q3)

This sudden increase in FY24 has always been interesting. Again, as a reminder, Japan's FY24 Q3 would be equivalent to October-December 2024.

It would make sense to say that the 456 ports coming out would likely lead to an increase in sales for all AA games, and it could be that Capcom initially intended for a 456 port to come out about half a year later than the current projection of early 2024. At the same time... I can't deny the possibility that this could be hinting at a new game in the TGAA setting. And something coming out in late 2024 could be a reasonable candidate for an announcement at some major gaming show that Ace Attorney fans already have an interest in tuning into. These are all completely neutral things I am saying that I have no expectations or hope for whatsoever.

What IS Happening At Tokyo Game Show?

TGS is always the part of the year where I say "This is the most likely place for a new AA game announcement leading up to or during it" and it never happens. This year, though, will be different! We have a CONFIRMED feature of the 456 ports. This is the first time we'll have AA content at TGS since 2018, when I first got into the series, so I think it's a pretty big deal. (2018 was when the trilogy ports were first announced; TGAA ports had an announcement-release window of April-July, so they didn't get a chance to feature at TGS.)

Since all we have for a release date is early 2024, I wouldn't be surprised if there will be an official confirmation of the release date, probably a showcase of port features, maybe in-person gameplay? That could be all, and it would be more than we've had since 2018.

I want to say "because there's going to be 456 advertising there, it would be ridiculous for them to announce some new AA content to detract from that". But I said the same things about the capcom showcase where Ghost Trick was featured and the 456 collection was announced, so. Capcom's decisions on when to announce things can be counterintuitive, it seems, so maybe the least likely time is actually the most likely...?

Anyways, we have no idea what the state of New Ace Attorney Content is like in Capcom. From the calendar from the Nov 2020 leaks, the staff that had been working on the DGS ports would join the main staff for AA7, suggesting to me that there would be part of the staff working on ports and part of the staff working on new things. We have no idea what happened to these people who were supposed to be working on AA7. We *can* assume that at least part of the staff transferred over to 456 ports now, but we don't know when that would have been, or if they'd really need all hands on deck for a remaster.

It's been a few years now since Yamazaki left Capcom. We know absolutely nothing about what Takumi has been doing, outside of whatever contributions he may or may not have made to the Ghost Trick remaster, and only recently contributing to various stage content. (We know he advised at least somewhat on the Takarazuka play, and wrote that original episode for the reading theater, so I'd assume he's not in the middle of a big project right when those were taking place.)

This is all to say, there's reason to believe Something's Been Happening Behind The Scenes. And Therefore -- [clown wig descends onto my head again] Maybe TGS 2023 Will Be The Year Of New Ace Attorney Content. Since 456 will be taking the spotlight, I wouldn't expect anymore than a teaser, if it's happening at all.

And now that I've said it, it won't happen.

OVERALL

-TGS confirmed 456 port feature, which should be interesting to see what kind of quality of life features they'll add. Slight possibility there could be something else AA related teased there, solely because Capcom.

-I think TGAA is doing better than Capcom expected and I wouldn't be shocked if they tried to make a new game of it, or at least more extracanonical content like stage plays taking place in that timeline

-AA7 has seemingly vanished but I am sure it will come back when I least expect it.

-AAI ports someday. please. please. please.

[claitea]

This is it. Herlock Sholmes is one step closer.

dhdvejhrjr yEAH... c'mon capcom cough up the release date, when can i see herlock

[mtndeworpheus]

ITS FUCKIN MIA DAY I GOTTA GO PRAY