The impact the Ace Attorney series has had is enormous.
The lawyer genre has long existed in TV dramas, but this series distilled it into an incredibly entertaining game.
The ripple effect was staggering, and to date it has been adapted into films, stage plays, and even anime.
The main Ace Attorney series currently runs up to its sixth entry. Ace Attorney Investigations, which makes rival prosecutor Edgeworth the protagonist, goes up to two.
And the Great Ace Attorney that I'm introducing this time also has two entries.
This one, however, is a complete continuous story, and the first game, Adventures of Ryunosuke Naruhodo, serves as the first half of the tale.
This installment goes back to the late Meiji era, far earlier than the traditional Ace Attorney games.
The protagonist is Ryunosuke Naruhodo, who could be called an ancestor of Ryuichi Naruhodo (Phoenix Wright). As a law exchange student, he travels to England and resolves the various incidents that occur there as a defense attorney.
As a period piece, there are strictly speaking many points that don't quite add up, but overall it incorporates various historical facts while leaning fully into entertainment.
Specifically, the world-renowned great detective Sherlock Holmes appears, as does Soseki Natsume, author of "I Am a Cat."
The period when Soseki Natsume studied in England has been turned into novels and stage plays. A famous example is the play "Begge Pardon" by the genius playwright Koki Mitani.
And in novels, there are two intriguing mysteries by Koji Yanagi titled "I Am Sherlock Holmes," in which Soseki Natsume becomes convinced he himself is Sherlock Holmes.
The game's setting is reportedly said to be around the 30th year of Meiji.
Considering the era and Soseki Natsume's age when he was in England, you'd guess it to be 1900, but various other elements don't line up with the timeline, so the exact year isn't clear.
A new system called "Joint Reasoning" was added, in which Ryunosuke Naruhodo complements and corrects Sherlock Holmes's slight deductive slip-ups.
The way the deductions unfold atop the "Joint Reasoning" track, as if dancing a waltz, feels wonderful to play.
This time the composers are a sound team belonging to Capcom: Hiromitsu Maeba and Yasumasa Kitagawa.
Maeba worked on "Monster Hunter Stories," while Kitagawa, before joining Capcom, was at Konami, where he composed music for the "Power Pro Baseball" and "Power Pro Kun Pocket" series.
Much of the music played in "Adventures of Ryunosuke Naruhodo" consists of Meiji-retro-style arrangements of the traditional Ace Attorney tracks.
This might be easier to grasp by actually listening to it.
First, here's what could be called the main theme of the original Ace Attorney, "Phoenix Wright ~ Objection!"
And here's what could be called the main theme of this game, "Ryunosuke Naruhodo ~ Objection!"
Can you tell how it faithfully inherits elements of Ace Attorney while taking on an overall modern feel?
There are others too, like "The Great Ace Attorney ~ Court Is Now in Session," "The Witnesses Enter the Court," and "Cross-Examination ~ Moderato," and you can clearly tell they're arranged in a Meiji-retro style while retaining elements of the traditional Ace Attorney.
Now, the Great Ace Attorney: Adventures of Ryunosuke Naruhodo that I introduced this time is, as I mentioned earlier, the first half of the story, but these days you can buy it on Switch as a set with the second game, which is an even better deal than buying it on 3DS.
Still, here I'll deliberately part ways by introducing the PV for the 3DS version of the Great Ace Attorney: Adventures of Ryunosuke Naruhodo.
Quoted from the official site https://www.ace-attorney.com/ja/
