In Justice We Trust
Gender: Male
Location: Southern California
Rank: Admin
Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2007 6:31 pm
Posts: 4213
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles has gotten me thinking about the series as a whole and if this was a wise decision on the developers' part. As much as I love Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice,
this video (contains spoilers from the second case of the first game) from Ratatoskr touches on what I think are some good points regarding how sticking with Phoenix and those around him for so long has become a hindrance to the writing; there's still things that you can do with Phoenix, Miles, Apollo, Athena, and others, but there's so much already established about them that it's hard to develop them any more, which in turn presents the danger of them becoming flat characters. There's also the problem of spectacle creep (for those unfamiliar with the term, Extra Credits has
a video on the topic); Phoenix and co. have in the past two games ended a culture of corruption that gripped the entire legal system and dethroned a usurper. Where do you go from there?
By moving to a new setting with new characters, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles gave the writers much more room to maneuver now that they were no longer bound by established characters. I'm reminded of how the Fire Emblem series rarely keeps a particular setting and cast of characters around for more than two entries and think the Ace Attorney games could benefit from a similar approach. I don't know how much more room there is to develop The Great Ace Attorney's cast and setting before it runs into the same problems as the main series, so I'm not calling for a new setting and cast just yet. Rather, I just think Capcom would be wise to keep in mind the value of starting fresh every now and then. As someone who has written fan fiction, I think there's also value in leaving the fans with some gaps to fill in the way they prefer.
I'll always love you, Max.