Another day, another GS4 developers' blog entry... another hack-job translation by yours truly, for those of you who are interested to hear what they're saying. Like the last entry, there's not much in the way of "new" information here... but it's kind of interesting to hear how these sort of stories about development process went along, and how certain things took shape.

Again, this translation was done in a rush, so... my apologies in advance for any rough spots. I also translated "Minuku" literally as "See-through"... but there has to be a catchier name for the system. Something like "Mind's eye"...? But that might sound too "psychic."
"Pierce"...? "Uncover"...? "Unmask"...? "Expose"...? (Actually, I kind of like "expose"... even though it's not a literal translation. Maybe I'll go with that... until I (or someone else) can come up with something better.)

Well, you didn't click on this post to listen to me ramble, so... without further ado:

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GS4 Developers' Blog Translation
Entry #2 (Fri. 3/23)

Topic: New gameplay features

Pleased to meet you all.
I'm Endo, a newcomer to the series this time around.

I still remember the day when, having heard that they were going to start development of GS4, I went to plead with the bigwigs here at Capcom to put me on the team.

Endo: "Please... I really want to join the GS4 team!"
Bigwig: "Eh... but..."
Endo: "Ah... here! You know, I shared a bowl of instant yakisoba noodles with Mr. Takumi once. See... here's a photograph!"
Bigwig: "Um... Endo."
Endo: "Yes, sir?"
Bigwig: "You really shouldn't show that picture to strangers... It might -- er, how shall I say... -- lead to misunderstandings.

Was it the power of the yakisoba photo? Who can say... but here I am on the GS4 dev team.

So a word of advice to all of our new employees: If you have lunch with your bosses, make sure you get "photo evidence" -- you just never know when it may come in handy.

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So, let's talk GS4.

A new gameplay feature worthy of a new "Gyakuten Saiban" game... How did we come up with this? Let me try to piece together my sketchy memory and tell the story.

Production had just started, and we had three planners on the team. All three of us were big mystery buffs with an aversion to physical exercise -- typical "humanities" types. In a company like Capcom filled with martial arts sort of guys (just my personal impression) we were about as out of place as you can get. We'd have these heated debates, with ideas for new gameplay features pouring out one after another:

"We could have a case where multiple shots were fired from a gun in a short period of time, in a small room..."
"Yeah! If we could show the paths of the bullets in 3D... that might look pretty neat!"

"How about a composite photo... where you gradually put together the face of the culprit?"
"And when it all comes together... it turns out to be someone you didn't expect!"

"It might be interesting if we had a sort of sixth sense to 'see' the monetary value of things...
"Like you look at a lighter in a dollar store, and... 'Wait, this is actually worth $5000!" Then you turn it around and see there's suspicious fingerprints on it."

From typical mystery concepts to some seriously wacky, off-the-wall stuff.
The flow of ideas was endless.

As each of these came up, we'd discuss them in more detail. "What kind of rules, what kind of controls would we give this?" "Does it fit with the story?" "Would it actually be interesting to play?"

In the end, the "See-through" (Minuku) system is what finally made it into the game.

This was something new, so we had to experiment a few times.
As it is now, the "See-through" system is in black-and-white, but actually, earlier in the development cycle we were doing it in color.

Black-and-white, or color?

We took a poll among the team members, and the consensus was that it would work better in black-and-white. If there were just a few more votes the other way then, the "See-through" system might have taken on a completely different look.

We also debated a bunch of ideas about how to handle the visual presentation.
How about adding an animation of Odoroki before he goes into "See-through" mode? and so forth.

This was the sketch that Mr. Takumi drew at that time:

http://www.capcom-fc.com/saiban4/lib/0323/minuku_rough.jpg
(ed -- I didn't want to hotlink this... follow the link to see it.)

Endo: "Wow... that's pretty, um, intense."
Takumi: "Well, this sort of thing needs to have impact, you know."
Endo: "Yeah, with this glare, he'll knock the stuffing out of those witnesses!"
Takumi: "Uh, Endo...?"
Endo: "Yes?"
Takumi: "You use some pretty cheesy expressions sometimes, you know."

...so how did the "See-through" system turn out? I hope you'll experience it for yourself on release day.

When you run into a witness for whom "pressing" and presenting evidence doesn't get you anywhere, see through their lies and knock the stuffing right out of them.

***

Anyway, for our next entry, I'm going to pass the baton (to use another cheesy expression) to Yamazaki, one of the game planners who joined our team back for the first DS "Ace Attorney."

GS4 was my first chance to work with him, so we've only known each other for a short time... but we've already been through a lot together.

Though he drives me absolutely nuts sometimes (for example, even though we like the same authors, the parts of a story we connect with are just ever so slightly different) -- when all is said and done, he's an invaluable colleague.

We aren't yet close enough to share a bowl of instant noodles, but he's a guy that you can trust, and I'm sure that he'll give you some passionate insight into GS4 from his fresh, young perspective in our next entry.

Well, that's a wrap for today.

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Oh, and there was another brief entry in the blog saying that the GS4 TV commercial is going to start airing on Sunday. It's going to feature an appearance by Kazuya Maruyama, a lawyer here in Japan who's rather popular for his sort of eccentric personality, appearing on talk shows and the like (he also released a song last year) -- so it should be amusing enough. Hopefully it'll show up online somewhere as well so we can all take a look at it.

That part about the yakisoba photo cracked me up

I like your style of translating, you really make it sound nice in English. I tend to translate too literal and need an extra editor to make the translation sound good.

So you like in Japan right now? Or permanently? What do you do there, if it's okay to ask??

Ah, thanks. Really intereasting stuff. Something that's bugging me, though, is that they're making the Minuku System sound more and more like the Magatama. I don't really see how they could be similar, but I guess we have to play it for ourselves to find out...

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How so? I don't really get that impression. To begin with, the times that you use them are completely different -- the psycho lock system only occurred in the investigation phase, while the Minuku system is going to be something you do during the trials, while cross-examining witnesses.

So they sound pretty distinct to me... I'm looking forward to playing the game to see exactly how you pick out the facial expressions, twitches and whatnot that betray their lies.

Thanks for the kind words -- though I think you give me too much credit. Of course, the idea is to preserve the voice and tone of the original, and render it into natural English that doesn't sound like a translation. But I rarely feel like I'm completely succeeding at that. It's really a never-ending struggle.

Well, I'm living here now, yes... and I'll probably stick around for the foreseeable future. I'm on the JET Program... perhaps you're familiar with it?

EDIT -- Sorry Ryu-kun, didn't see your post the first time! (By the way, I see from your profile that you're in Germany... are you actually German? If so, I give you major credit for being able to translate into English if that's not your native language! Too literal or not, just being able to translate from one foreign language to another is a pretty incredible feat.)

Yes, I'm actually German, though I've been studying English a good deal longer than most people here - my parents taught me some even before I went to school, and I've been practising with the old Sierra adventures from very early on. I've also been importing books, movies and games from English-pseaking countries for a long time to avoid anything translated to German, the same way I now import from Japan.

Didn't you actually offer to help with the manga scanlation? Seeing how you're a native speaker of English and speak Japanese better than me, I really think you should be helping out there instead of me.