Just one thing - Just because Klavier and Fran were german in our localised versions...doesn't mean kokone will be.

I figure they could quite easily have her originate from ANYWHERE so long as it makes sense - we really shouldn't be in a rush to 100% say that for absolute certainty that's where she'll be from, because so long as there's a degree of ambiguity, she can be from almost anyplace at all...so there's no reason to assume there'll be moar Germanglish talk with her at this early stage.

I certainly ain't gonna jump to an assumption purely because it was done before - anything is still possible at this early stage!

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Maybe they'll make her unbelievably British and she'll "hop the lift to her flat to watch the telly" all the time. That would be amazingly terrible.

Wooh! They didnt cut out the investigation bit on the live-stream today.
But the animation part was still cut from the stream :_;
They did say that there was gonna be LOTS of animated sections by Bones in the game. I get the feeling that GS5 is gonna have a higher budget than all the other GS games put together.

Oh, and they said that Kidzuki Kokone's name was a pun on 'kidzuku', meaning 'to realize (something)'
希月＝＞気づく

wish i got to see the livestream stupid time difference!

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Opinion of game: Rising.

Also, I am surprised they managed to find such a good name-pun. "Ki dzuku" is a phrase used a LOT in the Ace Attorney games, especially by the assistants (if I counted how many times Trucy used it in Apollo Justice, I'd be here tomorrow) A fitting name for an assistant, really.

I find it interesting that her last name is a nominalized verb. Same was true for Trucy's first name in the Japanese Version, "Minuki". The verb "minuku" means to "see through"... Maya, Ema and Kay notably lack such verb-to-name puns.

However, Kokone STILL shares something with them: With exception of Trucy, all assistants have references to Sky-related things in the Kanji of their name: "Mayoi"(Maya) is written with Kanji that can also be taken to mean "Dead of Night" or "Midnight", "Akane Houzuki" (Ema Skye) means "Scarlet Jewel Moon", "Mikumo"(Kay) means "Beautiful Cloud" and now "Kizuki" is written with Kanji that mean "Rare Moon"...

I love symbolism, so I would go further and propose they are all meant to symbolize different Skyscapes. Maya is a Midnight Sky, Ema is a Sundown with an early moonrise (which results in the "Scarlet Moon"), Kay is a Cloudy Sky and Kokone is a Clouded Night with the Moon ocassionally peeking through.

It makes sense that Trucy had no such pun in her name, because she's Nick's daughter. Her last name is occupied and her first name needed to reference her Gramayre heritage some way. They probably really couldn't find any "Sky"-related Kanji for "Minuki", so they let it be.

...Man, I am reading way too much into this all. X'D


Anyway, something I realized when I thought about the "Heartscope" for a while... I was thinking about it and the "Perceive-System", comparing them, but instead, I noticed something much more important: They complement each other heavily. Let me explain:

When I played Apollo Justice, my problem with the Perceive-System was that I always had this thinking feeling that this System had one crucial flaw that could make it very impractical to use in court: If Apollo failed to correctly interprete the tell (Which could be horribly hard, given how subtle those twitches are), it was absolutely useless. Apollo was horribly lucky, in fact. He always just so happened to have enough informations about his witnesses to correctly interprete every single of their tells. Logically, though, I am sure that Apollo should have picked up much more tells but been unable to interprete 2/3 of them. Only reason why this didn't happen was that it would have made for an unecessarily frustrating game mechanic.
That's where the Heartscope comes in. We have seen how it works: Kokone analyzes the witness, compares "Expectated Reaction" to "Actual Reaction" and then Psychoanalyzes the hell out of them. Only problem I can imagine with that system is finding the right times to actually apply it, to get the most relevant results.
And now, imagine what would happen if her and Apollo worked together. Apollo perceives something. He pinpoints the moment, searches the tell, but lacks the information to interprete what it means...
...So he tells Kokone "Hey, analyze him exactly when he says X, taking into account that he displays tell Y"
I can't imagine the Heartcope could fail with such sensitive information if Kokone's psychoanalytic skills are really as great as the Devs claim.

In other words: It would be boarderline impossible for the crossexamined witnesses to lie at the Defense any longer.

Heartscope+Perceive System = Examination Overkill

In fact, assuming that the Gramayre siblings are still with the Wright&Co's, their legal team is pretty much invincible now. They have Nick's Magatama for out-of-court questioning, and in court, the Heartscope-Perceive Combination makes all attempts at perjury futile. Their slogan should pretty much be "Wright&Co Law Offices: If you try to lie at us, you're a freaking idiot" now.

I kinda hope they really use that in one case. An Apollo-Kokone team-up. It should be a really hard one, maybe even the last. It just has to be for one crossexamination, maybe the penultimate one. A testimony that seems so solid, you can't do a thing about it... And then, when all hope is lost, Heartscope-Perceive for Critical Damage. That would make for an amazing moment.

Though, this also makes me expect that Apollo might really not be present at the office for the majority of the plot. I mean, permanently having access to such a deadly combination would be like starting out a J-RPG with the Infinity+1 weapon...

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However in terms of gameplay I hope this doesn't happen. I didn't like that they always told you when to use the perceive system in AJ (yes it made sense storywise, but it was just too easy). So I hope that in AA5 we'll always have the option to use Heartscope, even if it doesn't help to progress the testimony. In some testimonies there could be conflicting emotions which are just red herrings (and possibly only lead to a funny scene but won't help solving the case). In general I hope the game gets more difficult. E.g. usually it was clear that during an amended testimony you always had to present evidence at the new part.

That's why I said that this moment should be saved for a climax of sorts, as a last resort. It's true, it'd be far too easy if they could always just resort to an overkill combo like this.

Though I don't like the idea of the heartscope being usable on ANY part of the testimony... some red herrings are fine, but it'd be horribly frustrating if you'd really have no idea where exactly to use it...

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Yes, I would be fine with that. But I hope the "last testimony" will still take a little bit longer than the one in 4-4.


It shouldn't become frustrating, indeed, but I think it would be enough if Kidzuki gives you a hint after a while or something like that. Maybe that many options should be reserved for the last and hardest case?

Hm. If Polly doesn't make a cameo, I'm gonna cry like a little girl. The idea of Kon and Polly teaming up (for great justice!) is awesome. Of course, the question becomes what would happen to Nick to cause Polly to step in? Another fire extinguisher to the head?

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So now that her complete name has been revealed, does that tarnish the possibility that she's a Gramarye?

Hey, I like British when it's not overly over-the-top, and I'm pretty sure most of the English-speaking people do too!

Well, Polly has a completely different name than the rest of the troupe. However, it's her age that gets me.

According to my calculations, Polly would have been five years old when she was born. Kon would have been two when Trucy was born. I'm seriously thinking that she's not a Gramarye, at least not a sibling to those two.

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Perhaps she's Apollo's half-sister, but from the looks of things, it might not.

From neogaf:
CESA have announced the winners for best upcoming Japanese games. Voting is conducted by attendees, and winners are decided by number of votes.
http://www.4gamer.net/games/146/G014688/20120923018/

- Ace Attorney 5
- God Eater 2
- Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle
- Soul Sacrifice
- Tales of Xillia 2
- Resident Evil 6
- Fantasy Life
- Bravely Default
- Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
- Monster Hunter 4
- Yakuza 5

The inclusion of this makes me doubt the integrity of this list.

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And yet, it makes complete sense. Nice catch.


And because this game is centered around Nick again, we can't leave him out, especially that it's his official return to court. I doubt this plan will actually go through, whether or not there's this one unbreakable testimony. It's as if he's playing Pokemon with them not able to work on his own, despite the amount of experience he's gathered over the years. That's a stark contrast to the end of T&T, and not the kind of ending I would prefer. Even if they're simply going to pass hints to him, it'd be game-breaking.

By the way,

almost sounds like a "Take That, Prosecutor's Office!" or is it just me?

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Wait... GS5 scored more than those games?

I don't think it's quite like that - that's probably just the way the list was taken down, I think.

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Yes, I think there is no ranking. These games are all the "winners" of the poll. It's good to see Ace Attorney is so popular in Japan.

With a culture such as Japan's, if a game isn't popular, it's not a bomb.

The list was written in order based on the Japanese phonetic alphabet. All of those games won the same 'future' award.