Amidst the hustle and bustle of the show floor at the San Diego Comic-Con, I sat down with Minae Matsukawa, producer of the Phoenix Wright games, to discuss the latest entry in the DS series, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. Working through a translator, she was more than happy to answer my questions about the upcoming title and the series as a whole.
Phoenix Wright has gained a cult status of sorts in America. Did you ever expect the series to become this popular when you decided to bring it to the United States?
Actually, I had no idea that it would become the kind of hit that it has. We were here a couple of years ago showing it off - the first one, before it actually came out - and we were worried: are people actually going to stop and check it out? At first it was very slow. The game eventually came out and sales were slow, but the fans who tried it out got it and really liked it and started to spread the word and I think word of mouth is what helped it to become what it has. I really had no idea when we released the first game here.
What do you think it is about the game that makes it attractive to so many people?
I think it might be the characters in the game that people like so much. In Japan, the characters are very Japanese, their names are puns on different words in Japanese, and we took a lot of care and time when we localized it so all of the humor and all of the puns - if there's supposed to be a pun on something, we made a pun in English. So I think the characters and the humor of the game is what really draws people in.
What was the process like in "Americanizing" the humor of the game? What major changes were made in the localization?
Well, the main change was moving the game's setting from Japan to America. So instead of Naruhodo in Japan, it is Phoenix Wright in Los Angeles. We moved the setting. In the process of localization, we had all these unique characters, and they would have different accents from different parts of Japan: they might be from the country, or Western Japan, or Eastern Japan. So we had to come up with ways to maintain the image of the characters and their feel. And so we would give them, you know, a New Jersey accent or a Southern accent or an Australian accent. It was a question of how do we keep the character and personality within the text. That was really the main change - maintaining that and translating at the same time.
Knowing that you now have this huge American fanbase, have you tried to cater to them in the translation of the later games with in-jokes or anything of the sort?
Not so much what you were talking about, but the localization team, instead of just translating the text and putting in different kind of accents or whatever, they really sat down and though about: These are the kind of characters we have, these are their personalities in Japanese, and how do we go about these characters in English to give them personalities as fleshed out as the Japanese version. So it really changed my perspective on localization, just thinking about making their personalities into personalities and not just text on the screen. A lot of what they did was they took the personalities and made sure they sounded like normal Americans, like wherever they were from, and focused on just getting natural dialogue and natural conversation.
You've mentioned adapting the humor and the characters for an American audience, but has there been a time in which you actually had to, say, change a puzzle because of cultural differences?
The one thing we did have to spend a lot of time on was because part of a case involves going on vacation in another time zone, making sure the times match up and so when you solve the case, it actually works out to be the correct time. That was kind of hard, since we went from Japan to LA. The Japanese game is set in Tokyo, which is 8 or 16 hours different from here, so matching up all the times was the one thing that had to be worked out.
Do you feel that the strength of the game and its character development comes from the game's episodic structure?
We put most of our focus on character development. If you think of them like a comic book, when you have a comic book and on the DS you play it in short periods of time. So we wanted to have something more digestible rather than trying to put a Lord of the Rings-style book into a comic book that you only get ten pages each. So we wanted to have short, digestible chapters, and that helped us with the gameplay and so it was too long and you don't get enough events as you go along, and you don't have the satisfaction of finishing a chapter, it might get kind of boring. So to focus on characters we went with the chapters, to have then feed off of each other and built that sort of dynamic.
Do you feel that this pick-up-and-play aspect is very important to the game, or would you ever consider a console version of Phoenix Wright?
Because of the gameplay style, we really wanted to have it on the Game Boy or DS, and that really determined what kind of game turned out. For us, the portable game system is something that is great because you can just pick it up and play on your way home from work on the train. And in your home, it's a much better environment for reading rather than sitting on your couch and reading - people don't like to read games usually. Because we had the portable system, that allowed the game to evolve in that direction. So right now we don't have any plans to put it on a console. I don't know if it would fit on a console in the same format it is now.
The third game in the series, Trials and Tribulations, is coming out very soon in America. Are there any new added features, such as the bonus case at the end of the first Phoenix Wright?
Although we were able to add some more stuff to the first game when we brought it here, that was kind of a bonus because we wanted to draw new players in. With the third game, it's a very complete, polished story and it's a very complete package. We didn't want to detract from the game itself. But, you know, the fourth game just came out in Japan, and we want to localize that very soon. So once you play three and get into four, the story goes on, and it will be very exciting I think for the fans.
Working on a series of games set in the same universe, especially a series so character-driven, what sort of bond do you feel with the Phoenix Wright cast?
Everybody making the game, me and the director and the whole team, feel very attached to these characters. I mean, we've worked with them and built them up and feel that these personalities. We like them very much and hope the fans do as well.
What is your favorite character from the series?
First, I love Phoenix Wright. Also, there is an old lady - she's pretty noisy and she appears in all the games. She's my other favorite character.
At some point, would you be interested in creating a game, perhaps with similar gameplay mechanics but set in a completely different game world with different characters?
We're not making a different kind of world or anything, but number four, which is out in Japan, that takes place seven years after number three, so it's changing things up a lot. Today we're just talking about number three, which is coming out soon, so...
Not counting titles you've worked on, what is your favorite game?
Ice Climbers [for the original Nintendo]. You break the blocks and climb up.
Is there anything else you want to say to your fans?
Two years ago when we first started Phoenix Wright in America, we had no idea it would turn out to be such a cult hit and there's such a great community out there, very dedicated fans. We have the cosplayers - we have a contest tomorrow for the Phoenix Wright cosplayers. It's great to see how dedicated these fans are and to know that they understood the game. We're really touched by it and are very happy that has happened and hope that they will all check out number three and have a lot of fun with it.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with us!
Thank you!
This article was originally published at GameWorld Network on August 1, 2007.