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eyedelater · 2 years ago

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the great ace attorney chronicles post

i went to a really cool video game / CD / DVD / comic / manga store and i HAD to patronize them because i don't want such stores to stop existing even if i'm not going to go there very often because it's quite far from where i live. so i bought the great ace attorney chronicles on switch because it was the only game i felt like i really wanted to buy.

i have played most of the other ace attorney games. i like them, but i'm not an active fan, if that makes sense? i love the weirdness of the characters. i like the game mechanics. the stories are usually fun. i even played the crossover game with professor layton a few years ago. so now the great ace attorney chronicles is both Great Ace Attorney games stuck together for my convenience?! how... convenient!!!

anyway this is the first time i've played an ace attorney game in several years and i started playing it with just a little trepidation. like what if it's not fun? but of course it'll be fun… but what if it's not? i was also interested to see how the english version approaches localization when this one explicitly and undeniably takes place in japan. i already knew that they couldn't localize the name of ryuunosuke naruhodou (apart from omitting a "u" from each name), and i also already knew that phoenix wright's non-localized name is naruhodou, so i was curious to see how they'd tackle it. it seems they've taken the approach of making jokes out of some of the names (iyesa nosa and kyurio korekuta, for example) while keeping the important characters' names intact and punless to the untrained eye (like you only know the pun of "naruhodo" if you know a little japanese). which i think is the best path they could have taken, given the difficult circumstances of pitting "an entire history of punful localized names in the series" against "keeping japanese names for characters who are clearly japanese." (i even just went to court-records.net to check on the japanese name of korekuta and yes of course it was a localization pun and his original japanese name was different. that means they also added or greatly changed brett's line about how the "kyuri" in his name is like the word for "cucumber.") very interesting. i'm eager to look at more fun localized or not localized names as i continue the game. that being said, i do want to know the naming puns for the characters whose names remain in japanese, like hosonaga. (without looking at the kanji… hosoi means thin and nagai means long, so is he mr. long and thin, is that the joke…? [note added in later: yes, that does seem to be the extent of the joke. even the kanji match.] ) and mikotoba (mi can mean beautiful, and kotoba is words, so is he mr. beautiful words, is that the joke…? but that doesn't have anything to do with being a professor of forensic science?? is it a different mi? is it body, is it 3? i don't know. [note added in later: it's a different mi. it's 御 which you usually see pronounced as "go" and the phrase 御言葉 mikotoba means "word of god" in a christian sense. so that's the joke?]) maybe i'll just play the whole game and then look up the jokes of everyone's names later?

(after playing the 2nd and 3rd chapters)

i did have a strong suspicion that kazuma was going to die. his death flag was "too flawlessly capable; not weird enough." there's no way someone that smart, capable, and helpful could survive an entire ace attorney game. his death was extra sad, though, because accidental deaths are sadder than murders, because there's nothing to get angry about.

i knew that we were expecting a Herlock Sholmes to appear. when i realized that in japanese they just called him sherlock holmes like normal, i was ready to be annoyed at the change that must have been due to some copyright problem (how's the conan doyle estate? don't care). but i was eventually pleased to see that the character of herlock sholmes is annoying as fuck and the annoying stupid name suits him perfectly, so i have no complaint.

i noticed that much of the english translation is in british english (though i feel like there might be some inconsistencies?) and that's a nice touch, i think. make us dumbass yanks read "defence" and "manoeuvring" and the like and we can't object because the game takes place in england. and the japanese characters are speaking english. the difficulty level of english they're speaking is very high. if they are speaking an accordingly high level of japanese in the original text, i bet it would be super difficult for me to read. i haven't read the original japanese whatsoever in any ace attorney games, but i get the strong impression that the localization team for this game has done an excellent job translating. a lot of the text does not feel translated at all, and you read it without it being obvious that it has been paraphrased by necessity. if that makes sense.

we met van zieks and he didn't seem to leave a strong antagonistic impression the way some prosecutors have. like for comparison, in the early games i remember being so pissed at edgeworth that it took me a long time to let him into my heart as a sympathetic character. he was such a strong antagonist in the courtroom that i could not let go of the feeling that he was going to be a thorn in my side. even auchi left a stronger impression of antagonism than van zieks because he just wouldn't shut the fuck up in the first trial. but van zieks didn't put up that much of a fight, did he? so it was a bit of a weak comeback after 5 years, wasn't it? and the defendant got a not guilty verdict by some incomprehensible technicality. it was a little bit pathetic. van zieks's animations and gestures were fantastic, though. i wanted to see the various white parts of his outfit get stained with red wine. i'm very interested to learn more about him. at this point, right after the third chapter, knowing what little we know about van zieks, i suspect that his backstory is sad. but maybe he'll put up more of a fight in the mean time before we get to learning about his character more personally.

i LOVE the way susato raises her eyebrows with pity and looks at you like you're the biggest fucking idiot in the world. she's the best.

all the ace attorney games up to apollo justice, i've played at least twice, maybe three times. it was fun, but looking back, that kind of game also presses some of my buttons that makes me remember it as something of a vexing struggle that we're glad is now over. like all these problems cropped up one after another and we solved them and now it's all set. so going back and replaying those games feels like it would be revisiting problems i've already solved and don't need to solve again (and it would also be extra vexing because i'll know i've solved them before but i won't remember exactly how to do it). so even though i do look back on ace attorney games fondly, i don't know if i want to replay them. (including this game when i'm done with it). even though there were some really really good moments that i might like to experience again. maybe i'll watch playthroughs or something.

i think van zieks isn't as satisfying an opponent as edgeworth partly because of the jury setup; it's like he and i have a common enemy, and that is the idiot jurors, so there isn't such an exciting animus between us, and something is lost. i also think the wine thing really isn't that funny the 10th time. and so far, he hasn't made the kind of really desperate, truly vexed face i want to see… it's like he's not really that invested. i want to see him come closer to fully losing his cool. he's too composed… i don't know. maybe he'll lose it later on. but that's two trials now. [note added in later: he did finally make some truly deranged poses at the very end of the second game. it was pretty satisfying to see his shoulders heaving with desperation.]

TANGENT: out of curiosity i started reading "i am a cat" by our unfortunate character and real life person Natsume Soseki, and i'm very tickled by it so far. i can really feel the love and skill that went into the translation as well; the formal wording they use is so consistently funny. this is truly the self-important and blithely curious viewpoint of a cat. given the complexity of the english vocabulary used, i bet the japanese is crazy difficult. but i certainly like it a lot better than a lot of what i had to read in school. (i heard it is a book often assigned to schoolchildren in japan.) it's also interesting how they sort of half-localized it, translating main character names so we get the puns but leaving place names and some characters' names untranslated? i wonder about that. (the version i'm reading is the 1972 translation by aiko ito and graeme wilson.) i also notice the story takes place during the russo-japanese war, a time period i am slightly familiar with from golden kamuy. the late meiji era. it seems like i'm in a late meiji era spectacular with these three works of fiction lately.

i bet the sequences with herlock's deductions are polarizing among players. if you're impatient, i bet they're excruciating. but i enjoy them well enough. herlock is such a reigen. he's such a dipshit. he's more of a dipshit than reigen.

overall i think the use of motion capture for the character models really adds something special. i appreciate that they went all-out with it and didn't stick only to Plausible posing. that being said, i don't think it hits the mark 100% of the time. (like some of natsume soseki's movements, for example...) plus there's the inherent uncanny contradiction of "moving smoothly between poses (human-like)" and "otherwise maintaining static poses (less human-like)," if that makes sense. like they don't have idle animations. i guess it's not a big deal. i also wonder if the use of 3d models made the animators less inclined to go wild with the faces. i think some of the faces should've gone a little wilder maybe? like if van zieks's eyes got much wider when he was upset or something? hard to pinpoint what i'm longing for.

windibank's little habit with the gun was not fucking cute or funny at all. what were they thinking. honestly.

i laid in my bed for 11 hours and played ace attorney until it wasn't fun anymore. i like that there is the story mode option for when you're stuck and you can't even be bothered to google the solution. i don't give even half a shit about the stupid achievements they have added in to the game. achievements are worthless and meaningless when it's a linear visual novel. especially on the nintendo switch. so even though i feel slightly miffed with myself on some level for using the autoplay option when it means that you get no achievements for that section… on a logical level, i don't care and am in fact more miffed by the fact that there are achievements at all. because that's dumb.

so there's gonna be some dramatic personal history reason why van zieks is racist against japanese people… ok

the more i look at ryunosuke, the more it sinks in… this isn't a word i use lightly, but the only word that can describe him… is "cutie." of course he strongly resembles phoenix wright, but phoenix was never this much of a cutie. ryunosuke is the one who is a cutie. he is just as much of a cutie as apollo justice. or almost.

i just wish van zieks's white gloves would turn red when he crushes the chalice of red wine in his hand. is that too much to ask?

(plays a lot more without writing any notes)

(i hated myself for wasting my saturday playing ace attorney in bed for 11 hours, but i did the same thing the next week.)

kazuma reappears in a cute and sexy new white outfit, obviously a foil to ryunosuke's all black outfit, and with a red splash-of-blood cravat at his neck to show that he died once. but the important part is the very large and unmistakable strap-on harness at his crotch. please tell me there's fanart where he straps the appropriate implement to the front of that thing.

i'm glad gregson turned out to be a bad guy. or, you know, grey area. when he showed up i was like, "are we supposed to like this guy? i can't tell… certainly he's not the gumshoe of this game… they wouldn't give him an annoying habit like constantly eating fish and chips if he was intended to be the gumshoe of this game… right…?" though i'll say that every time he showed up, i was well and truly struck with a VERY powerful craving for potato wedges. oh my god. i can practically taste them. fried fish i don't have such strong feelings about but oh my god. i need to get potato wedges soon. with the skin on. what was i talking about? gregson is not very likeable. i do appreciate the audacious character design of choosing not to endow the man with a chin.

what is the connotation of unicorns in japan? what about in britain? because as far as i know, to americans like me, the connotation is maaaybe "mystical magical legendary forest gracefulness" but primarily "little-girliness and silliness and like rainbows and sunshine cutesiness." so when stronghart appeared behind the bench and his usual walking stick had turned into a unicorn apropos of nothing??? and he bangs it like a gavel even though it doesn't have any surfaces that look good for banging on and he's gonna poke holes into the gaveling block??? and neither he nor anyone else comments on it, ever??? it was more baffling than anything. like, first of all, does this fit his motif, stylistically or symbolically? what message were they trying to send with the unicorn? and why is it suddenly a unicorn now that he's acting as the judge? why couldn't it have been a unicorn the whole time and then the joke is that he bangs his usual walking stick instead of a gavel? why didn't he use his usual walking stick? why is the joke instead that he put away his old walking stick, brought out his fancy unicorn walking stick, and used that as a gavel? just incomprehensible. (also was this guy's japanese name really "Hurt Vortex"? fantastic. that's awe-inspiring. ok to be fair you could have transliterated it as "Hart" instead and then it would actually be a plausible given name. if the localization team was hardcore they could've tried to make "vortex" work by approaching it from a dutch "voort" kind of angle. maybe.)

speaking of gavels, when jigoku was on the witness stand, i was really expecting him to bring out his own gavel. i know he had it in his pocket. he had it in his pocket when we last saw him. it would've been some very welcome comic relief if he had brought out his own gavel and banged it a little.

for years i went to court-records.net to get my explanations of ace attorney character name puns, but it seems they haven't updated it with names from great ace attorney resolve… the people running the site must have lost their thunder… i certainly don't have enough ace attorney thunder to go help them with their website. i guess i'll go to the reprehensible fandom wikia. (grits teeth) it's… very comprehensive and helpful... i looked up a lot of the japanese names of the characters and some of the puns are pretty weak. makes me feel better about some of the weaker localization puns. sometimes there's only so much you can do.

you can tell by the way the characters use both -san/-sama and Mr./Miss that they are frequently flipping back and forth between english and japanese. some hardcore person should put together a hack of these games in which they're speaking japanese for every line that they're speaking in japanese in canon and english for every line that they're speaking english. you'll have to come up with some creative solution for the names.

i have finished playing. i enjoyed the game (i.e., the duology of both games) but it didn't blow me out of the water. i would recommend it to someone who already likes visual novels and ace attorney games, and i will tentatively categorize it as "worth playing" if you already suspect that you might like it. but i won't replay it. i think the motion capture character animation was, on the whole, really funny and totally worth it. even just shamspeare alone was worth it. but like i said, i think some of the faces should've deformed a little more sometimes to show greater emotion. all the outfits were fun. i have to say that in terms of old-timey london aesthetic and interacting with funny londony characters while solving mysteries, that itch has been VERY well scratched by the professor layton series, so this really didn't feel like anything especially new or worthwhile in that respect. i wonder if the game's scenario wouldn't have been more fun if they had stayed in late meiji era japan. and i don't feel one way or another about how *erlock *olmes was involved in the story, but it's worth pointing out that in western culture, he is a pretty played out and tired character, completely lacking any kind of intriguing freshness. even reinventing him as a total reigen can't cleanse him of that tired feeling, in my view. though of course in the end you can't help but love him a little. and his excessively stylized trenchcoat was magnificent.

i guess it was interesting to play a game that starkly highlights the similarities and differences between victorian london and late meiji japan, with characters often butting heads between the two cultures, as someone who is part of neither culture (but who is a native speaker of one of the languages). though during my golden kamuy fixation i did spend a lot of time in the same era of japanese history. and as an english speaker in america, i've absorbed my fair share of cultural and historical information about victorian london. so i was a bit familiar with both cultures. but i guess my point is… they couldn't come up with a more fun or interesting flaw for van zieks than having him be racist against japanese people? i dunno. in conclusion, the culture shock element of the story was necessary but not very striking to me. it didn't leave a strong impression. and it's also worth noting that despite the characters constantly extolling their respective countries, looking back in history, no one nowadays really likes that both great britain and japan were Empires at that time… like, you know… imperialism turned out bad for a lot of people… it's actually quite a bad thing that they had in common.

it seems the last ace attorney game i haven't played yet is Spirit of Justice. i haven't decided whether i want to buy it. it feels like i've been out of touch with phoenix and apollo for a decade and i'd have to catch up again before i could play another game that features them. hmm...

well, what matters now is that i can finally look at some great ace attorney fanart.

#this goes on my anime/manga blog bc the work is originally in japanese.#the great ace attorney spoilers #dgs spoilers

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