Previous Japanese incarnations of our beloved Gyakuten Saiban series, a.k.a. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, a.k.a. the greatest courtroom drama in the history of mankind, have included an English language option for those who wanted to get their fix early. In fact, savvy importers were able to play the superlative Phoenix Wright 2: Justice For All back in October, months before their blissfully ignorant counterparts.Alas, it appears that the next installment of the series, Gyakuten Saiban 4, will not contain an English language option for importers. However, we would like to note that GS4, though the third title in the series to be released on the DS in Japan, is precluded by the currently GBA-only Gyakuten Saiban 3, which has not yet been localized in any form. According to preliminary reports, the storylines of GS3 and GS4 are not directly related (GS4 doesn't even star our man Phoenix), but you never know with those crafty writers.
For people not completely obsessed with Phoenix Wright,
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[Via Siliconera]






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-27-2007 @ 6:40PM
Scott said...
I've been torn on if I should import the title or not. I've been taking Japanese for two years, but my comprehension is far from perfect. I got GS2 around Christmas and I've been trying to get through the game in both languages. First I play the game in Japanese until I have come to a point where I am completely lost. Then I switch over to English to catch up on what I missed up until that point before switching back to Japanese.
In some ways, I like the Japanese dialog better then the English. Harumi-chan (Pearl) is much more adorable in Japanese then she is in English. But it takes SO LONG to be able to get through it in the foreign language. I got the game back in December, but I finished it only a couple of weeks ago.
But as for now, there doesn't seem to be any indication of a localization for GS4 in the US. And even if they decide to do it, it will take a long time for it to come out. So I think I'm going to bite the bullet and import it next month. Hopefully someone much more fluent in Japanese will make a kick-ass walk through to help get through the more difficult areas of the game.
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3-27-2007 @ 9:15PM
Frip said...
I thought Capcom localizing GS4 was a given. They were just tossing around the idea about whether or not to localize GS3 first, which I guess they will given the "Plead Your Case" contest.
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3-27-2007 @ 10:15PM
BPM said...
Is it really a surprise that Gyakuten Saiban 4 is Japanese-only?
In the case of the first two DS GS games, they were enhanced ports (with an additional case added to GS1) of existing GBA games. So, pretty much all of the resources for the DS versions already existed. Very little had to be made from the transition to GBA to DS. So, they figure they should add an English option to the game, to give the DS version an incentive for owners of the GBA versions to buy the game again.
But, GS4 is completely new. A brand new story, new characters, etc. Why delay the release of the game for the Japanese audience just to make an English option for it? Wouldn't make much sense to me.
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3-28-2007 @ 2:21AM
Guy said...
It's a real pity, but not a surprise. We still need to wait for the (upcoming hopefully, now let's wait for CAPCOM to give us news) Phoenix Wright 3.
Just wanted to say, though Phoenix Wright is NOT the star of Gyakuten Saiban 4, he does appear in the first case... as the defendant.
Ema Skye and Winston Payne are also in the game as well (see www.court-records.net for more details) as a detective and a prosecuting lawyer, respectively.
Oh well, I might as well import the game. After all, it looks like the Limited Edition will sell out quickly.
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3-28-2007 @ 4:02AM
Snail said...
It is already almost impossible to obtain limited edition of GS4 in Japan. I've been looking for months :(
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3-30-2007 @ 1:14PM
Ridwan said...
@ Scott
You'll probably get the walkthrough, but I've taken Japanese for four years and lived in Osaka for a year and I still consider GS a bit too hard; it uses some semmi-complex kanji and grammar and while the former can be pretty easily looked up (though I like using the DS to look up kanji so it becomes a bigger pain), the grammar is much harder to find.
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4-12-2007 @ 3:32PM
Adrian DX said...
Its because GS4 is a completely new game while Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten and Gyakuten Saiban 2 are re-releases of old GBA games from 2001 and 2002. One of more reasons these were ported to DS was because Capcom decided to release the games with english translations for the english-speaking countries in the world. But the Japanese audience would get pissed if Gyakuten Saiban 4 got held back because they had to translate it into english.
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