case by case: GAA 1-1: the wilson to live
We're just normal men.
It is another Monday, which means it's time for yet another murder! Today we are beginning our case-by-case look at The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the Ace Attorney series' bit of historical fiction. For context, I have played through all of GAA 1 and all but the final two cases of GAA 2, so I'm not going into these fresh. Still, it's been a while, and there's always something new to discover. So without further ado, let's begin! Spoilers below.
Before we begin, we have to talk about Auchi. This is actually the name of the Paynes in the Japanese version of the main series, and, yes, it is a translinguistic joke on the word "ouch"; but this one has a name which, in my estimation, really elevates the art of the pun. You see, his given name, Taketsuchi, is written with the characters æ¦åœŸ; this is a visual pun on the word "bushi", æ¦å£«, which in English is usually translated samurai. Note the length of the top horizontal stroke in the second character in both of those names; the stroke in 土 is slightly shorter, and is a character meaning earth, clay, dirt, soil, etc; the stroke in 士 is longer, and means "warrior." This pun is great, and it is, as you can imagine, nearly impossible to translate into English.
That, unsurprisingly, has no bearing on the actual case, which does a good job setting the tone for this game. This case takes place in early 20th century Japan, where everyone is starry-eyed for the wonders of Westernization; witnesses have been ordered to conceal the involvement of the visiting Englishwoman who is the actual murderer in this case, because of concern that it might cause a diplomatic incident; and, in the end, the British consulate demands that she be extradited rather than face justice in Japan; the Englishwoman in question is also just staggeringly racist on the stand. Oh, and our protagonist, Ryunosuke, is pressured into defending himself rather than let his friend, who actually has a license to practice law, represent him. The characters are excited about being able to go to Great Britain and see the heart of the greatest empire in the world, but we're already beginning to see the cracks.
Ryunosuke, the ancestor to Phoenix Wright, is even more of a nervous wreck than his descendant, if you can imagine. The animations do a great job of showing him as a nervous student who is very unprepared to defend himself, and, what's more, they show him growing more confident as the case progresses. This is some great work, and something that would have been much harder to pull off in the classic 2D style. For what it's worth, I do still prefer the classic style, but credit where it's due, they're using the 3D well in the courtroom here.
We're introduced to one of the new mechanics: multiple witnesses can be on the stand at the same time, and sometimes one of them will react to something the other one is saying. It's usually pretty obvious when you need to do this--I remember being a little worried, when reading a description of it, that it might be a bit of a chore--but it makes for a somewhat more dynamic cross-examination, and it will become very important later, when we have to deal with jurors.
As is traditional for a tutorial case, there aren't a lot of moving parts here, but it's laying a lot of narrative groundwork and setting the tone, which is fairly important, especially given how much of a departure this series is from the main series. A strong intro, all told.
That is about all I have for you this week. Next week, we get to meet Herlock Sholmes . . . on a boat! I'll see you then, friends.
Case by Case is a weekly series where I play through and write about every case in the Ace Attorney series, case by case. It started on Cohost and is, as of this posting, still available there; I intend to import the archives here eventually.