How Layton Forever Changed Ace Attorney

[Music] in writing the story i provide everything and in turn take everything away i give each person a story and weave their intertwining webs of fate however it would appear that interlopers have found their way into the story on october 19 2010 level 5 a company mainly known for their rpgs held their annual level 5 vision presentation at the conference the company showed upcoming games they were developing including big sequels exciting collaborations and a handful of new ips being made for nintendo's upcoming 3ds handheld one of the 3ds titles revealed at the very end of the presentation was an outrageous announcement few saw coming on foreign [Music] foreign phoenix wright and professor layton the leaders of japan's most popular adventure franchises were colliding in an ambitious title that saw the two heroes starring in a new adventure together the reveal trailer truly captured the excitement of these two franchises crossing over and shu takumi ace attorney's creator was announced to be fully involved in the game's production the game seemed to be no mere spin-off but a grand celebration and fans from both franchises could not have been more thrilled however at the end of level 5's conference the president of the company akihiro hino jokingly stated that i didn't think i'd be given the okay to make this crossover i wonder if it's okay if shudukumi doesn't make ace attorney 5. his passing comment would end up being rather prophetic while this crossover made a lot of waves during its announcement today the game is often remembered as an interesting footnote in the history of each franchise but the effect professor layton vs phoenix wright had on ace attorney specifically is actually quite significant the leighton crossover marked many firsts for the ace attorney franchise directly inspiring future games and hino's joke during the game's announcement accurately predicted that this crossover would delay the creation of new entries in the series so let's look back on the development of this grand crossover and see how it marked a turning point for the entire ace attorney franchise ace attorney is a series of adventure games created at capcom by director shu takumi and stars a young lawyer named phoenix wright the player as mr right takes on cases for various clients collects evidence for their trial and then defends them in dramatically animated courtroom battles since the series inception on the game boy advance in 2001 phoenix and his colorful cast of cohorts have garnered a strong fan following in japan and internationally thanks to the first game being ported to the nintendo ds in 2005. one of ace attorney's fans was the president of level five akihirohino hino recognized shudikumi as a one of a kind talent and had great admiration for the ace attorney series in fact in 2007 level 5 released their first self-published game on the ds that was directly inspired by ace attorney with a hint of brain age called professor layton in the curious village [Music] the soon-to-be franchise follows the adventures of a gentleman professor of archaeology with a powerful pension for puzzles named herschel layton who travels the world solving mysteries with his young apprentice luke triton the game's charming world and brain-teasing puzzles drew in fans of all ages and stood right next to ace attorney as one of the most beloved japanese adventure franchises on the ds while making layton akihirohino studied ace attorney to create the gameplay surrounding leighton's puzzles and was already dreaming of seeing his characters cross over with phoenix rey level 5 had a long history of working with other publishers and creators to develop games together and hino was hoping to do a similar collaboration with shu takumi and a crossover would provide the perfect opportunity and so as the latent series grew into prominence hino finally decided to make his idea a reality when he visited capcom's offices in 2009 thus the incident in the okonomiyaki restaurant occurred as takumi would later title it after visiting capcom the company invited hino out to eat with other employees where he spoke with shutokumi for the first time in person he told takumi about his idea for a leighton phoenix crossover but takumi's only thought about the matter at the time was that sounds hard to do no definite plans were made since in 2009 shu takumi was right in the middle of developing an original game called ghost trick and was just too busy to get involved in other projects regardless hino moved forward with his crossover idea and later made an official proposal to capcom in january 2010. the project was greenlit and a team was formed to work on the crossover but takumi was still not involved however as ghost tricks development wrapped up takumi would make passing glances at designs being made for the crossover by ace attorney artist kazunori his curiosity for the project grew but he still had no intentions of joining the team until another incident occurred this time at a yakuniku restaurant instead of okonomiyaki hironobu takashita a capcom producer that worked on ghost trick and was now involved with the crossover invited takumi out to eat in order to convince him to be an advisor on the project in may 2010. in truth the crossover had not progressed very far in the past few months and akihirohino desperately wanted takumi to work on the game since in his mind it just wouldn't be a true ace attorney title without him so when takumi visited level 5 thinking he would just be suggesting a few ideas as an advisor he soon fell right into the team's trap and was quickly swept up in the momentum of the project eventually agreeing to be a writer and co-director on the crossover the idea that finally got the ball rolling on the crossover was takumi's suggestion of centering the story around medieval witch trials from about june to august of 2010 takumi hashed out the details of the game's story with level 5. while the narrative changed a lot during development the final premise involved leighton and phoenix being spirited away to the storybook town of labyrinthia where a villainous figure known as the storyteller possessed the power to make his writings become reality within the town there are also magic users hidden within the citizenry known as witches that are greatly feared by the populace anyone suspected of being a witch takes part in a ruthless witch trial where they are burned alive if they are found guilty of performing magic one of these people is a young girl named espela who befriends our two heroes after attempting to escape from laparinthia now these strangers in a strange land must work together to defend espela and uncover the many mysteries behind labyrinthia and the egnematic storyteller [Music] with the concept decided development duties were split between capcom and level 5 with both companies helping to write the scenario and compose the soundtrack while capcom specifically focused on graphical design and level 5 helped with programming with two companies putting all their effort into the crossover the game was shaping up to be a massive title that would mark many firsts for the ace attorney series the first four ace attorney titles were relatively small games characters were colorful and well animated but every piece of art was heavily used and reused in future games plus the gameplay mechanics seldom ever changed from game to game with only a few systems being added here and there over the years takumi's policy for the franchise was don't include things we don't need and often fought against additions to the formula he thought were superfluous this is perhaps the reason why early games in the series don't have a lot of extra frills with even the title screens being simple and silent but with the crossover takumi was working with a much larger team on hardware that was far more powerful than the ds or gba because of this every part of the game was lavishly designed [Music] for the first time phoenix wright and his assistant maya fey would be voiced in game i'm maya faye and this is nick my assistant baker phoenix wright pleased to meet you how come i'm the assistant the crossover would even contain fully animated cutscenes which were produced by the prestigious studio bones and towns were now full of characters that often had little to do with the main story and merely serve to populate the world and also deliver puzzles professor layton vs phoenix wright would also be the first ace attorney title to be fully 3d both polygonally and stereoscopically even the franchise's traditional gameplay contains some fairly big changes courtroom battle saw the addition of multi-person testimonies so instead of the player interviewing one witness at a time four or five people could testify at once this shook up the formula quite a bit and added a new sense of energy and unpredictability that had not been seen in the franchise before normally takumi would stubbornly resist changes like this but since this game was a crossover takumi felt more relaxed about incorporating new elements into the ace attorney style all the pieces seem to be coming together after the game was announced to the public in october 2010 everything seemed to be smooth sailing on the outside however behind closed doors professor layton vs phoenix wright was going through some rough waters and for the next two years the core ace attorney franchise would be adrift without its former captain to guide it when takumi left to work on the layton crossover the ace attorney franchise was currently in the care of a man named takeshi yamazaki and producer motohite ashiro yamazaki was a planner at capcom that joined the company in 2005 where his first job was helping shu takumi during the pre-production of the aforementioned ghost trick takumi had begun working on ghost tricks soon after completing ace 23 in 2004 but ended up putting the project on hold in order to create the bonus case rise from the ashes for ace attorney ds in 2005. takeshi yamazaki also transitioned to the project where he worked on the game as a planner eventually helping with all future ds entries in the franchise including ace attorney 4 in 2007 after that ghostrick finally entered full production and the ace attorney franchise was left in limbo while takumi was away and so capcom decided to allow the rookie members of the ace attorney team to create a spin-off to the series without takumi's involvement with takashi yamazaki stepping up to lead the project as a first-time director and writer motohite ishiro a former capcom programmer and director also served as a first-time producer on the project where he had a lot of input on its development initial plans were to make something small but the project eventually grew to become ace attorney investigations a title starring phoenix wright's longtime friend and rival miles edgeworth released in 2009 the title served as a stopgap that kept the ace attorney series active while takumi was busy making ghost trick while never officially stated the plan seemed to be that once ghost trick was finished takumi would return to ace attorney to direct the next numbered entry in fact capcom's founder kenzo tsujimoto even mentioned that the company planned to develop ace attorney 5 all the way back in 2007 during an analyst meeting however the title's creation seemed to be a long way off takumi was unexpectedly swept away by the layton crossover and wouldn't be returning anytime soon due to the game's troubled development while east attorney and professor layton seemed like a match made in heaven there were several factors that made the crossover's development slow and tedious one was that akihirohino wanted the crossover to be a true shutokumi game and tried to give him as much creative freedom as possible however the game's nature as a collaboration kind of made that impossible takumi was used to working with small teams where he was deeply involved in all aspects of the game and often had the final say but for professor layton vs phoenix wright takumi was not only working with a much larger team but a team that was also split between two companies in three cities where every decision had to be a consensus takumi was also used to being the sole writer on ace attorney but he was now working with five other writers on the crossover making the script much more of a group effort in fact the idea for the storyteller came from a level 5 employee instead of takumi himself and the first draft of the game's climax was written by an external writer development had also become very segmented despite being a collaboration capcom had not worked with level 5 before and staff on both sides had trouble gelling with each other this caused each company to focus on the sections related to their characters causing each gameplay style to often feel like it was siloed off in its own corner of the game even the game's art style went through dozens of iterations before both parties were satisfied with the game's look all these troubles caused this dream team project to have a somewhat nightmarish development in fact it wasn't until the year of the game's release in 2012 that professor layton vs phoenix wright finally began to come together and take the form fans would eventually play [Music] meanwhile takeshi yamazaki and motohite ishiro continued to keep the ace attorney series active in takumi's absence by creating a sequel to investigations in 2011 but at that point development on professor layton vs phoenix wright was nowhere near done and takumi wouldn't be available to work on a new project for some time so yamazaki's team needed to decide if they were going to continue forward with spin-offs and make another investigations title or make something new by this point it had been four years since the fourth ace attorney title was released in 2007 and while people were enjoying these spin-offs capcom was getting a lot of feedback that fans were getting tired of side stories and wanted a new flagship title so it was decided that production on ace attorney 5 needed to begin without shu takumi and that yamazaki's team would take over the reigns of the mainline series the former team of rookies were now responsible for deciding the direction of the entire ace attorney franchise professor layton vs phoenix wright was finally released in japan near the very end of 2012 on november 29th afterwards shu takumi wrote a number of short dlc episodes that showed what the characters were up to after the events of the main story their conversations were very meta with the cast often talking about the development of the game itself reading these episodes can often feel like takumi is speaking through the characters about the ups and downs that cross over its creation while never explicitly stated you get a sense that the crossover perhaps wasn't able to reach its full potential when reading anecdotes about the game's development in these episodes and in real world interviews by 2013 shu takumi was finally available again to work on his next project but takeshi yamazaki's team had moved on without him to create ace attorney 5. additionally in an attempt to give yamazaki and his team more freedom producer motohite ashiro encouraged the ace attorney 5 team to not be constrained by the plot threads left dangling and 4 to create their own game while mandating that phoenix wright returned as a main character when apollo justice had been the previous lead this helped the new team feel like they had more ownership over the fifth entry but also meant that the mainline series was no longer following the road map to kumi had set up in ace 24. so since it was too late for takumi to be involved with the next mainline entry capcom approached him with the idea of making an ace attorney title unrelated to the franchise's new direction and takumi took that opportunity to make an ace attorney game without compromises something that wouldn't be subject to review by another studio or the current continuity of the series that game would be the great ace attorney a spin-off starring a new cast set to the backdrop of a fictionalized version of japan and london during the early years of the 19th century with this title takumi set out to make the greatest entry in the franchise that would hopefully surpass fan favorites from the original trilogy in many ways the title feels like an amalgamation of concepts first introduced in professor layton vs phoenix wright and ideas initially teased in ace turning 4. just like in pl vs pw the game begins in the protagonist's homeland and later has him journey to a foreign country where he crosses paths with another famous character this time sherlock holmes instead of professor layton or should i say herlock schmoes the multi-person testimonies return once again and the presentation in general is very similar in style to pl versus pw featuring voice acting animated cutscenes and designs by kazuo inori there are even several characters that look almost identical to people from professor layton vs phoenix wright along with other new gameplay elements the title also introduced a jury system a concept talked about at the end of ace attorney 4 that was not developed in the 5th entry so in many ways the great ace attorney was takumi's way of finally fully developing the ideas he created for professor layton vs phoenix wright and even spiritually continuing the concepts introduced infor [Music] when the great ace attorney released for the 3ds in 2015 it was basically the next flagship title in the franchise but was being marketed as a subseries while the numbered entries were now being created by the franchise's younger staff with the team releasing 5 in 2013 and later 6 in 2016. thanks to takumi suddenly becoming involved in the creation of the layton crossover the development schedule for the ace attorney series was interrupted and now the original creator and his a-team were making spin-offs while the core titles were basically being made by the franchise's former b team who were originally making spin-offs themselves the roles had basically been flip-flopped with each team now taking the franchise in their own direction it was an interesting situation that changed the course of the series forever [Music] and so there you have it a project that began as a fun crossover a spin-off meant to celebrate two popular franchises ended up inadvertently drastically altering the trajectory of the ace attorney series some could see this as a negative shuttakumi was distracted by the latent crossover which led to a new team taking the mainline series off in a completely different direction without him even the great ace attorney the sub series where takumi was allowed to do what he wanted was not well received initially in japan due to the story ending rather suddenly in the first installment in fact sales were so poor that motohite ishiro had to really fight with capcom's upper management to even get the second game greenlit however the sequel sold even more poorly than the first which may be the reason why the entire ace attorney franchise went into a kind of hibernation after its release in 2017 however all this cannot be blamed entirely on the crossover takumi left the mainline ace attorney series after the release of the fourth game in 2007 in order to work on ghost trick which began the domino effect that led to the franchise being split into two development teams additionally ace attorney 4 was actually received very poorly by fans of japan upon its first release which may be the reason takumi took a break from the series at the time and why capcom decided to focus on making spin-offs that start characters from the original trilogy instead of apollo and the other new characters from four regardless no matter how you look at it professor layton vs phoenix wright most certainly created a lot of good for the series as well today the great ace attorney one and two combined which carried on the concepts introduced in the crossover are now considered by many fans to be one of the greatest installments in the entire franchise being a high point in design presentation and story and while i'm personally not the biggest fan of some of the titles developed by yamazaki's team ace attorney investigations 2 is a very fun spin-off and improves a lot on its predecessor and ace attorney 6 is one of my personal favorite entries in the series after the original trilogy plus professor layton vs phoenix wright itself is a good game in its own right while the development team had a hard time making the title and its story is often messy the game overall has many high points and contains a lot of entertaining fan service for both franchises the crossover also helped tokumi evolve his ideas of what an ace attorney game could be with the man himself stating that i think level 5 offered me a good opportunity to think well maybe not about changing directions but they at least let me consider maybe i could go this way if i hadn't gotten this opportunity to make this game the style of ace attorney would perhaps have never changed and today ace attorney seems to be on the road for a comeback six years after its initial release in japan the great ace attorney titles are finally being officially localized into english and based on recent leaks coming out of capcom a seventh ace attorney title might currently be in development so in the end it is hard to say that the crossover's impact on the series was all good or all bad but in terms of its historical significance and unique place in the franchise professor layton vs phoenix wright is an incredibly interesting title that shouldn't be forgotten you

Channel: Bowl of Lentils

Views: 41,949

Rating: 4.9732113 out of 5

Keywords: ace attorney, professor layton, professor layton vs. phoenix wright: ace attorney, capcom, level-5, nintendo 3ds, the great ace attorney, phoenix wright

Id: KOSb3kNcEnc

Length: 24min 26sec (1466 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 25 2021

Reddit Comments

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