I hope I don’t sound like a shill, but I’m getting slightly annoyed by all the “why didn’t Capcom just use the fan translation’s names? Clearly they did it to spite us/disrespect the fan translation team!”
You do realize…that’s not as easy as it sounds, right? Capcom doesn’t want to be sued and can’t just use a popular fan translation’s names willy-nilly without risk of plagiarism accusations. They could get away with it without fear if they struck a deal with the fan translation team, but from what I gather they’ve been off the web for a while now so that wasn’t really an option even if Capcom wanted to.
Before you get the wrong idea, this is NOT to say the official localization is above criticism or that you’re not allowed to express your preference for the fan translation’s names (I myself am getting whiplash). Yes, the best-case scenario would’ve been if Capcom was able to strike a deal to use the fan translation, or better, if they localized AAI2 a LOT sooner instead of waiting 13 years. Just please think before saying “They should’ve used the fan translation’s names!” or assuming there was any malice or disrespect involved in not using it.
I've seen a lot of negativity surrounding certain aspects of the aai collection announcement, so I'm just going to list a few things I'm happy for in the updated release:
HD sprites. HD sprites. HD sprites my beloved.
The fact you can actually choose to switch between HD and original mini sprites. I wish they did that for the original trilogy collection so badly. (I've already seen some people don't like the new minis, so the fact they even considered the option to change it shows they acknowledge this)
The UI got an upgrade and is stylish as heck. This isn't much but I like it so it's here.
Some of the best characters in the series are going to be known worldwide (including my favourite characters in the series overall, personal bias here).
Gallery, music and all the documentation is in one clean place in HD. They did this for TGAA and I'm grateful they are doing it again.
The fact that they're even doing this in the first place is because they've listened to the fans. The Dog Race video was in the Japanese news, Iwamoto saw it. That's some wild fan impact.
While is sad to say goodbye to the fan names, the fan localization shows just how many people cared about this game enough to translate it. Plus the ROM patch is still publicly available, I dont think it’s going anywhere for the time being (ROM patch please don't disappear right after I type this).
Anyway I'm just really happy about this since Prosecuter's Path/Gambit is one of my favourite games and I don't want a few minor disappointments to dampen the experience for everyone.
Happy Miles Edgeworth: Investigations Duology day I guess
I think 'Eustace Winner' is fine and 'Verity Gavèlle' is a lot better than 'Justine Courtney', but I'm not so sure about 'Eddie Fender', mainly because 'Raymond Shields' is a lot more subtle pun and just sounds better
I'm really curious about what they will do for Blaise and Simon Keyes though