Wooster: A simple retitling of the topic would have been enough...
Anyway, this is what I think:

Capcom is pulling another DMC2.

Apollo Justice, while a great game on its own, let's admit, was a bad follow-up to Phoenix Wright 3.
Because of all the controversy, and the fact that they put themselves in a REALLY hard situation by the way they presented ended AJ (especially with the jury system), they just don't want to make a sequel, and will leave Apollo Justice alone.

That's why they made sort of a midquel, and now another one, Capcom wants to avoid AJ's continuity.

I can't think of any other logical explanation of them making a sequel to an already closed game, as opposed to one which has loose ends.

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*sigh*
Good thing I safed my response from before...





That's why I specifically mentioned Phoenix and Apollo being Author Avatars. They are, for all purposes, partly based of Shu Takumi himself. His Self-Inserts. He even admitted that. Edgeworth, however, was developed as a character with help of the other people on the team, so they can related to him just as good as Takumi can, unlike how it is the case with Phoenix and Apollo.

Also, "Out of character?"

That's 7 years later, my friend. We missed out on a ton of character development. Phoenix is a broken man and his personality was always quite instable and influenced by outside factors anyway. When he was in grade school, he obviously was dead afraid of being an outcast, in university he turned into a pile of human sugar upon finding a girlfriend who was into "sweet" stuff and once he started learning under Mia, he adopted a lot of her way of thinking.
He's not acting out of character, Phoenix is a person who almost constantly tries to adapt his personality to the situation he's in. And if the world thinks he was a looser, he just goes out and plays the looser. Simple.

As for Ema, becoming a Forensic was her life-dream. It's obvious why loosing the oportunity would have harsh effects on her optimism. Also, two Maya-type characters (think of Trucy) wouldn't really be interesting next to each other, would they?




No, it's not a difference, because those DS games carried on with exactly this controversial Artstyle, just like an AJ2 would carry on with the controversial story.



DMC2 wasn't made by the same team who made Ace Attorney, was it? I barely think that an entirely different series would have SUCH an effect on any series they handle, especially if the game in question sold very, very well and got good reviews, like GS4 did.

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Last edited by Neni on Sat Sep 11, 2010 10:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Erm...If one topic was locked, wouldn't this one be invalid, too? XD

I don't think this is what happened. I'm pretty sure they were planning on making a spinoff for awhile, and Ema was actually supposed to be the protagonist, but everyone loved Edgeworth so much they gave it to him.

There were a lot of demands placed when making AJ, and though none were actually bad, Shu Takumi didn't feel like continuing the series; he wanted to move on. The guy who wrote AAI wanted to do more, hence GK2. He'd most likely want to continue HIS creation, not something somebody else made.

I think we've been over this before in other threads, but perhaps you haven't seen them.

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I agree with this.

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By out of character, I mostly meants Gumshoe in the flashback, and how Phoenix never once referred to Maya in the flashback.

The main controversy about AJ was that it was believable, mostly, but definitely not a satisfying follow-up to PW3.
The writers put themselves in a very uncomfortable situation as to how to continue AJ. Will we see more oh Phoenix in AJ2, with his life resolved? If so, how?

In AJ it was possible to buy the absence of Maya and co, but given how important they are, they'd have to be at least mentioned later. Especially since AAI took the fanservice route. But 7 years passed, it's impossible to fill some of the gaps without pissing off many players, because of how divided they are.

And there's the whole jury system issue...

That's why they just leave that, and play it safe with AAI2.

I also think there should be an AJ2, definitely. But for me it just doesn't seem that Capcom really wants to make that game.


(The other topic was closed because of its title.)

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I call for a PW reboot.

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You mean as in "alternate timeline, where Gavin never slipped in that goddamn diary page"?

As long as Polly still becomes a lawyer, I'm fine with that. I hate Hobo Nick anyway. I want Lawyer Nick back. It's just that I've grown a little attached to everyone's favorite chess Pawn, Polly Justice. I don't need to play as him, I just want to be sure that he's 'fine' and doesn't wind up in some horrible tragedy as well... -_-;

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My theory is that it is precisely because of the loose threads that they are putting off making another Apollo Justice game.

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There are so many plot holes and loose ends in AJ......

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It's a mixture of reasons, Szabu's 'theory' is one of the factors.
As I said before, 'GS5 is going to be a very hard product to write, for all the controversial reasons we've argued about ad infinitum. GK series is a safe and easy uncontroversial and non divisive option. We may not like it as much as the main series, but we'll all buy it. GK hardly divided the fanbase, and hopefully GK2 will improve on its weaknesses.'

Also, the Takumi factor. Takumi explicitly stated he wasn't planning GS5 when he wrote GS4, implying that IS a defacto ending and that all the ambiguities, including the ending, what the heck happens with jurist trials, Phoenix etc was supposed to be ambiguous. And Capcom and the other writers probably see the main GS as Takumi's baby, they're not going to continue their own 'interpretation' of it lightly. But it's even less palatable to do so with the 'problems' mentioned above, so they're not going to do so while other options are viable for the franchise.

We might see a Takumi-less GS5 one day, but it's much easier for Capcom to just commission GK2. And dead easy in terms of development, the GK team can just pick up and improve on GK, very simple, just build on and reuse the game engine and characterisation they were working on recently. And graphically GK was a improvement on AJ. It's going to be glaring if they took a step back to reuse AJ's game as a base.

Maybe he can become a piece in Edgeworth's new Chess mode
Just make Apollo cause the ret-con by saving Phoenix seven years ago or something...
See, that would cause a riot too. By ignoring AJ they think they are 'placating' everyone, and it's sort of true.

Stop arguing (again) about whether or not GS4 was OOC or had 'problems'. A large portion of the fanbase thinks it did, and yes some don't and so what. The game is controversial and divisive of the fanbase in general and that's that.

Who cares. Szabu's just giving a precedent example of how a divisive controversial game can then be quietly ignored in future cash cow directions of a game franchise. Sales figures doesn't mean people liked it after they'd played, it just means the marketing succeeded in making them take the initial purchase. There was heavy marketing to tie in with the jury system propaganda, and all the old PW players bought it for the Phoenix hook. What 'hook' are they going to have in 'AJ2' if it's made, for all the people who had problems with AJ? (Since the difficulty of including the marketing hooks arguably messed up the game last time..)

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I think that's a really fair assessment. There's no reason to bash the awesome game that is AJ. But T&T had already provided a feeling of closure. AJ raised more questions than answers.

The notion that Takumi wanted to leave it that way, openly ambiguous... I guess I should believe it (and it is sort of believable), but I don't know... The best thing about Ace Attorney is watching everything and everyone connect in the end.
T&T was undeniably supposed to be an ending (each of the first two, too, as seems to be common knowledge -- but definitely T&T), and yet he was willing to go on and make AJ. I'm not saying he'll ever do GS5, but I don't think he would have a problem at all if it was made. Obviously, neither I nor anyone else can presume a creator's feelings about his project, but... Having already extended the supposed-to-have-been-done timeline of a game several times, I'd think he's in the style of being always open to more development. It's not as if he wanted the characters dead, as if a next game would be doing something as drastic as bringing them back from the dead. The characters still exist, and, like I said, the beauty of AA is finding truths, not being left hanging. So a GS5 would by nature be in the full spirit of AA, certainly no harm to his "baby."

What would be hurting his baby, though, in my opinion, would be a retcon. I hope I'm not stealing someone's quote; I feel like I've seen this posted somewhere: A retcon is an admission of failure. AJ was not a failure in the slightest. Many people liked it -- and most importantly, Takumi supposedly liked it. A retcon would mean that the creator was wrong, and the entire half of the fanbase that liked AJ was wrong. What happened, happened for a reason.

I do agree that they're, for now, trying to avoid AJ's continuity... (that's why I'm not getting my hopes up for any sort of appearance by Phoenix in GK2)... but I think it's only until they figure out how to handle it. Two major parties of the controversy are
1) the people who want more ((the solution to that would be to make another game that goes into detail about the ambiguous parts and solves the problems to tie up loose ends))
and 2) the people who want it to have never happened ((the solution to that, barring a retcon, would be to make another game that goes into detail to justify why things happened and solves the problems in a way that makes fans think, "oh, so it worked out in the end; everything happens for a reason; I can finally accept things as the creator wanted them to be")).
Essentially, that eventual new game might be able to make both parties happy... I think... Of course, you can never please everyone in the end, but, I mean, both parties would at least be interested in what that next game had to say, so they'd, like, buy it...


But, as long as it doesn't get hostile, we can still friendlily debate over the controversial points, right...? Your post presented a lot of good decisive truths that can prevent a lot of the more pointless debates, but I think there are still plenty of points about the reasons behind the series's current direction and future that are based on speculation and opinion that can still make for interesting discussion. I don't understand why people complain about "another thread like this" -- we need (or at least I need; I admit I'm a needy little PW fangirl who, in the absence of an actual game to play, wants to type about it until her fingers falls off) discussion to pass the time until GK2 and maybe-possibly-hopefully-GS5...

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Well here we go again.
A ret-con is not an admission of 'failure', it's more in line with Takumi and Matsukawa's creative freedom. They wanted to write AJ as a NEW STORY with no continuity to the old. Then Capcom demanded they return Phoenix. Hence the strange discontinuity of returning an old character to the new story. It brands AJ as a worthy standalone story rather than a substandard error of discontinuity and poor writing. It totally frees them to write AJ2 without any 'Phoenix issues' also. Wait for the flame war.

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I think I may be one of the only people around here who actually PREFERRED GS4 to the previous GS games~

And, judging by all the reviews I've read, not to mention how it sold, GS4 definitely can't be discounted as an unpopular game which was unpopular with the fans. You only have to look at The Hydeout board to see that many GS4 characters are just as beloved as those in the Phoenix arc of GS ^^

That said, I can believe that GK may have outsold it and taking into account Capcom's preference for Phoenix and Edgeworth and the fact that Eshiro came up with a new format that he probably sees as being different from Takumi's approach, makes it plausible that they'd prefer to make a GK2.

Personally speaking, though, my heart will bleed if we don't get an GS5. There are just so many loose ends and points that I'd love to see explored- tell me more about Polly!

Besides, IMO, GS2 was inferior to the other GS games, yet that still got a sequel. Which turned out to be one of the best games in the franchise :3

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I would like to second every word in that statement, except that I personally prefer T&T over AJ. But everything else is completly my opinion.

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The reason I said that AJ was a bad follow-up to T&T is because it pretty much ruins its happy ending. Mia told Phoenix that now he's finally grown up, and can stand on his feet. Guess what happened 2 months after it. What about Maya, then, huh? Why didn't she show up in the flashback? Since they are really important to each other (in a romantic, or just a friendly way, everyone decides for themselves), it would be logical for Maya to rush to Phoenix as soon as she knows about the the trouble he's in.

Actually, I have to give credit to GS4 here, because the way they presented the flashback, with its fragmented nature, it just barely doesn't contraditct T&T, and the missing holes can be filled in the fan's mind. That's exactly the reason I wrote my first and only fanfiction.

Still, AJ pretty much renders the entire ending of T&T meaningless. All destroyed in 2 ****ing months. That's like if there was a sequel to Aladdin where some random new villain kills Princess Jasmine, immidiately after the events of the movie. Or how about a Rocky IV sequel where he loses everything he had due to idiotic impossible plot devices such as a randomly discovered brain injury and some swindler legally stealing all of their money? Oh wait, that's happened.

And it was not like they were forced to do this, the only criteria was that GS4 had to include Phoenix one way or another. I still can't even grasp what they were thinking, did they hate T&T's happy ending, or what?



Exactly, Asa.

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But it didn't. In GS4's first two weeks in Japan it sold over 280,000 copies. GK1 got in just under 230,000 (according to VGChartz, which sure, isn't 100% reliable, but the difference is there). They have total sales for GS4, worldwide, as 859,273. GK's at 466,851. Even just looking at American sales you have 223,301 for AJ, 95,456 for AAI.

Some people blame GS4's fan reception for GK not selling as well. Some say it's because it's a spin-off, and casual gamers don't always pick up on those. Some say the series is running out of steam. Some might even say GK wasn't as good, or that people didn't buy it because they heard there weren't court phases--there could be a dozen reasons together, but the fact is GK did not outsell GS4, it's not even close.

This could be considered good news, because it means that Capcom is listening to the fans rather than simply running with the numbers. On paper, AJ rated higher with critics than T&T before it, and it turned out the most impressive sales of the series. But they're still going with fandom's golden boy, Edgeworth.

If we really want to see AJ2 (or even a ret-con to PW4) all we can do is make some noise.

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AJ was by no means a bad game, I enjoyed it but I agree it wasnt as satisfying a follow up to PW3 because of all the lose ends. To be fair, T&T was perhaps the greatest game in the series so had lots to live up to, but T&T tied up lose ends and AJ had "To Be Continued" stamped on its forehead. Nick didnt seem at home being a hobo, he was cheated out of his badge.

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