Alright, apologies folks. It's been a while since I've written an update for CR, and I'm afraid I've got no excuse, since, by golly. There's a ton of stuff happening!

First, according to Kotaku, Capcom is opening the "Capcom Bar". And in it you can have some (presumably overpriced?) Capcom game themed food. For Ace Attorney, we get a pasta and rice platter.

Now, the patter is interesting, (or at least, beyond the one sided plate-size to serving-size) in how it's ace attorney themed. The description of the patter: "Make clear who is black (guilty) or white (not guilty). Seafood Cream Pasta", actually has some more obvious meaning in Japanese according to CR's Ash:



So is the food GUILTY or NOT GUILTY of being delicious? I dunno, depends on if you like sea food and noodles.

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Next, in about a week and a half, Capcom is throwing the 10th anniversary court event. Some people are really hoping to hear 'something' about Ace Attorney 5. But honestly, I haven't heard or observed anything that convinces me that we're going to, get a new title.

To recap:

• Apollo Justice was shown off for the first time at E3. Just his standard pose however. Shown off for real at TGS and Famitisu
• AAI: Toyed around as New Gyakuten NOT Saiban, shown off at a concert.
• AAI2: Famitisu and TGS
• Layton VS. Wright: Twitter teasings leading up to TGS and another Famitisu release.

So we have had 'a' game announced not around TGS. So it's not 'totally' unprecedented. But it's not a typical M.O.

As for a new game being announced at the event, based upon what we do know...

Pros

• Japan last saw a new GS game in 2007. It's been about 5 years. (Longer if you consider it was announced in '06 I believe?) And they're celebrating their 10th anniversary? Quite the gap. (Though, I'm not sure we should be complaining, we did get Ghost Trick, GK1, GK2, and quite a few concerts and musicals in that time). But, if anything would warrant an event a new GS game, IN 3D, would.
• TGS 2012 is in September. 9 months from now. If it's ready to be shown off Capcom might not be willing to wait that long.

*Shrug*

• Currently we're just shy of two weeks until the Court Event. Leaks about titles come extremely close to the events, so 'if' we were getting a new game, it's par for the course not to hear about it yet.
• GK's director offered to help with GS5. Nothing's come of that in a really long time.
• Level-5 doesn't see a problem with pumping Layton titles along with the Vs title. Capcom 'could' do likewise?
• Takumi is, at best, undecided about returning to GS prime.
• Phoenix has been suspiciously present in Japan's Ace Attorney marketing as of late. Edgeworth's being treated as a wingman, despite having the two most recent titles, and poor Apollo...
• The event's timing is a bit strange. The original Ace Attorney showed up in Japan in August 2001. It's now Jan 2012. A bit late, but perhaps Capcom didn't think the game would get the attention it might need during the holiday rush?

Cons

• On the other hand, the only time we've had an event for a game was AAI, and that was a new series. So I don't think AAI3 might warrant that kind of fan fair.
  
• Then there's the fact that they're going to show off an old TGS court video. I'm unsure Capcom would want to show one of those off if it'd detract attention from a new title.
  
• The GS team, or at least, Takumi in particular, is working on Layton Vs Ace Attorney. If we're going to get something that isn't professionally published fan fiction like AAI, it's not going to be any time soon.

In any case, the event is coming up so we'll sure know soon what it's all about.

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Hey? Remember Ghost Trick? That awesome humorous mystery game by the same mastermind behind Ace Attorney? It's currently up for an Annie Award for "Best Animated Videogame". That's no small achievement for anything. Let alone a new IP. Go Ghost Trick!

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Finally, I'll close on some less happy news. You may have heard about some things known as SOPA and PIPA. They're some rather real, and serious legislation that's trying to pass in America which could rather easily pull the plug on fan sites such as Court-Records. Officially the SOPA and PIPA are around to stop piracy, and if come to pass could ultimately blacklist servers found of "infringing upon copyright".

But what are fan sites and works but unlicensed independent usage of a studio's material?

We've had fun with Capcom in the past. But it wouldn't take much for some clerk or self proclaimed whistleblower to shut us all down. At which point we'd be all over and done with.

The internet is a really young thing. And the modern internet has only been around since maybe 1996. We've had a good run with free speech. But freedom is not free. It must be fought and maintained. There are a lot of powerful corporations backing SOPA and PIPA, with deep pockets. It's not in our best interests to allow them to dictate policy. When you stifle speech, you stifle creativity and innovation, and I don't want to live in that future.

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Very nice update/recap, Woost, though given the dearth of news since TGS, I wouldn't feel too bad about not being around much.

Interestingly, I've just learned Resident Evil's 15th anniversary event is tomorrow, and there's rumblings of a new game to be shown off there. If the mythical RE6 does rear its head there, then perhaps it's a sign Capcom's marketing teams could have something similar in store for AA's 10th.

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Yeah it would make sense, there's a large suspicious Viral campaign going about paid for by Capcom which apparently comes to a climax tomorrow.

See here

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I said this in the other topic, but about those two "con" points about a new game being announced...
-The only game so far that had its own even was GK1, and while GS5/GK3 wouldn't be as big a deal to gets its own event, since it's not a new series or anything, it's not just announcing the new game: it's that and the 10th anniversary
-Takumi is busy with PWvPL right now, but that doesn't mean Eshiro (...he's GK's producer, right?) couldn't do it. And (as someone else said, iirc) just because Takumi is busy with PWvPL doesn't mean they can't announce "Hey, we're doing GS5, although it won't really kick start until PWvPL is done and Takumi is free again, but we just wanted to let you all know it's really being done"

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Ah, but then you run into the issue of 'why' have the event in the first place? If there was nothing to show off then they could've just done with a 10th celebratory on the website and be done with it. If it were but a game, then the traditional cycle of TGS is suspect. If both, then they could've done it at TGS last year, much closer to the actual 10th anniversary. I conclude the timing is suspect, and they want the attention.

As for the latter, I did include that in the *Shrug* section, but that factor has been suspiciously idle. As for saying "Hey, we're working on GS5, and we're leaving it at that"... they DID do that at E3 with Apollo. If that's the case, I hope they handle it better. Took us forever to find his mug. And even then, it wasn't the best shot. We couldn't tell back then if he had a pony tail or not.

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Still lovin' that concept Apollo. Far superior to the one we got IMO.

Call me optimistic Nancy, but I have high hopes for a game at the event. I'm not saying GS5! I'm not saying GS5. But. There is always hope. Then again I wouldn't mind GK3-D. Or a brand new spin-off.

I hold complete responsibility in case of depressingly harsh, burning crash of the hype train, of course.

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I still want that Ema spinoff. Would've been better than Edgeworth.....in my opinion of course.
They should bring that idea back.

Seriously though, with all the publicity Phoenix has been getting lately (movie, PL vs AA, UMVC3, 10th Anniversary), maybe they're planning something new for him....and hopefully Apollo. If it is a game, a spinoff doesn't seem fit in with Phoenix's 10th anniversary. (please GS5)

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Well, either there's a very well-organized prank going on, or Capcom's announcing Resident Evil 6 at the RE 15th event in about an hour and a half. Here's hoping they've got something similar up their sleeves for AA...

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Hmm... Edgeworth I could see as a protagonist. He has both the personality (something Phoenix and Apollo lack I'm sad to admit), and he's quite marketable.

Ema, while I always enjoy her science gimmicks and thus think a case with her is much better then one without, I just can't see her with a sidekick.

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I suspect that if a new game is coming, even if it's Gyakuten Saiban and not Gyakuten Kenji, Edgeworth will be involved. They've built him up as a second pillar of the series the past few years, so even if we do get, say, GS5 starring Apollo, I can't see Edgeworth not being in it now.

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If they make a game and Apollo is the protagonist, hopefully they would take advantage of it and give him more personality. So that can still be fixed (I think) even though, unfortunately, it probably wouldn't. We know Phoenix will come back, and Edgeworth would probably show up in the game as well. But then, like in GS4, Apollo wouldn't get any spotlight.

And now that you mention it.....I wonder how they were going to make that Ema game in the first place? Because as you said, her having a sidekick would be strange.

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I guess their response to that problem was.... to make an Edgeworth game. And then give Ema all but the most insignificant and brief cameos.

Though, bringing up Ema's potential game... it might go a ways to explain her redesign. Of all the returning characters, she had the greatest jump in the transition to GK's sprite system. Perhaps Ema with a cap is all we'll get to see of the game that could've been?

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Ema Skye was going to be the main character of GK, but they listened to Japanese fans and made Miles Edgeworth the lead character instead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Attorn ... evelopment

If that devil woman Ema is the lead of GK3 and it gets localised I doubt I'll buy it.

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I remember reading about that a while ago, but maybe they had internal problems with the game as well, which also could have been part of why they changed it to Edgeworth.

I wonder if they ever had Ema as Edgeworth's sidekick in the game? I never really thought Kay fit as Edgeworth's sidekick, but maybe that's just me.

And about the sprite redesign....I always thought it was cool that she was still young Ema...but with signs of detective Ema. I wonder if they really did have that design from the beginning?



Your loss.

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It may not have been especially obvious, but Emafan and I were talking about the same proto-AAI you referenced. Though, it could be my mind playing tricks on me, but I do not believe the Silconera article was the origin of the AAI: Ema Skye story. Specifically, I don't explicitly remember the fans clamoring for Edgeworth, so much as one of the more important members of the GK team trumping the Ema idea because they didn't think she was particularly marketable. It's almost the same thing as the fan's demanding Edgeworth, but not quite the same thing.

In any case, we can be fairly sure that they decided upon Edgeworth sometime in Apollo Justice's development.

There was a poll at the time, asking who their favorite GS character was. Maya won; I 'think' Edgeworth got second, and Phoenix third. If I'm wrong then Phoenix and Edgeworth are switched. Croik basically foretold AAI when she said something along the terms of "Capcom knows exactly how popular Edgeworth is. If they didn't include him then they have plans for him," in response to Phoenix showing up, and Maya getting a shout out, but Edgeworth going missing.

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Thanks for the recap and news. All of these news are great and bad, but all in all we at least got some news. It's better then being left in the dark. We can only hope for the best and that the worse will pass.

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Just about a game with Ema as the main character... I remember when they first unveiled GK, the video had a joke where they thought it was "Gyakuten Keiji" but it turned out to be "Gyakuten Kenji". What if they turned it around (c wut I did thar? :P) and made it seem like it was a new "Gyakuten Kenji" game, but it was actually "Gyakuten Keiji"?

...I think I'd like a new GS or GKenji than a GKeiji, but just a silly idea I had

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Incidentally, no big AA news in this week's Famitsu. There might still be info on PLvsAA there that we'll see in a day or two (as before Level-5 World), but no major articles or announcements.

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Sometimes...it pays to have a little optimism, I guess.

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