Gyakuten Kenji 2 - What Is This I Don't Even

[Weimann]

So I just found out that the second installation of the Gyakuten Kenji series, in Europe and the US knows Ace Attorney Investigations, was released in Japan on 11/3 2011. This is great news! It's been long since we got a new Ace Attorney game, and while I believe that the best games in the series has already been made (by which I mean, the three first ones, with actual Phoenix Wright), I will certainly buy this one once they finish translating it.

Speaking of which, I wonder if there's any ETA on that?


Capcom's Christian Svensson recently confirmed that there are currently no plans to release Gyakuten Kenji 2 in regions outside of Japan.http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/6000001/images/1253859333121.png

Why!? Why would Capcom do this!? I have no doubt it's pure spite-


The costs of localization are higher than the forecasted return.Oh.

Sound business models. Why must you foil me?

So here I sit, feeling some kind of mix between sad, angry and... well, it's stupid, but I guess I'm feeling a little bit betrayed. The first Ace Attorney game was one of the major reasons I bought a DS in the first place. I have every game in the series, I have some of the manga, I even wrote a fanfiction (which I promptly deleted, cuz damn that thing was horrid). The series has stood for some of the best gaming moments in my life, and while I wasn't a kid when I played it, it's as close as I'm getting to nostalgia.

And now... I'm separated from it. For entirely valid reasons. It hurts that I can't even blame this on anyone, someone being obstinate, someone making irrational decisions, someone just being an enormous bastard. But the decision is rational. Capcom can't go around knowingly losing money. That'd be stupid.

I can only scream at the stars, but not only is that futile, I'll wake everyone in the neighbourhood up. So I scream at the Playground instead.

[tyckspoon]

I'm.. kind of surprised. Not that the return forecast for it is weak; it's a niche widget (Weird Japanese Thing- WJT) game. But unless they're doing something very different with this one it also shouldn't be all that expensive to localize. It's all text translation, no or very minor voicework to be redone, art assets used as is (admittedly the series is used to a pretty high standard of translation, and I don't know how just how much that costs.) And the Ace Attorney/Ace Investigator universe has a fairly dedicated fanbase, with enough sway that the newest edition of Marvel vs. Capcom has Phoenix in it. I wouldn't think it'd be all that hard to make a bit of money on the game.

Edit: And when I say dedicated fanbase, I mean this is one of those fandoms like Super Robot Wars and Earthbound where you could probably crowdsource it and get a decent, free or nearly-so localization for nothing more than time and a "we thank the following people for helping us bring this game to you" credit.

[Weimann]

Reading further about this, I note that Christian Svensson says that he doesn't rule out other distribution channels for GK2 in the future, and later that this should not be interpreted to mean that no other Ace Attorney titles will be localized to the west from now on.

On the one hand, this is better than nothing. On the other hand, it's not very much better. These statements reeks to me of an official trying to calm the raging hordes by making statements that sound reassuring but doesn't actually mean anything. Yeah, this doesn't have to mean that we'll never get another Ace Attorney game. It doesn't mean we will, either, if one is even made. It's easy to promise looking into things, but it's even easier to fudge the results of such investigations since the public has zero insight. He's basically saying "we may or may not release this game and/or any potential sequels in the west." Hooray?

Yes, I'm bitter. I should go to bed.

[Nerd-o-rama]

It's because Edgeworth is just too damn fabulous for our feeble Western minds.

Too bad, too; I liked AAI just on the principle of changing the gameplay at all relative to the main series.

[Tengu_temp]

I'm pretty sure all the previous games sold well enough that this one should give them decent profit too. It's just that Capcom seems to participate in a "make as many bad business decisions as possible" contest lately. Cancelling Megaman Legends 3, anyone? Or threatening not to release the new Darkstalkers game if Tekken vs Street Fighter doesn't sell well enough? And there's much more of that.