Amazon has cut the price of Phoenix Wright: Justice for All, the sequel to everyone's favorite court-based adventure game, bringing it down to $19.99. We don't expect this deal to last for long, so race your shopping cart to the checkout lane as fast as your feet will allow.
If for some reason, God forbid, you haven't played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney yet and are hesitant to start the series midway through, don't forget that you can also pick up a used copy at GameStop or EB Games for as low as $21.99! We admit, that's still pretty expensive for a game as old as this one, but it's better than paying full price. All you'll need to take advantage of this sorta-bargain is the coupon we posted earlier this morning.
We were just coming down from our adrenaline-fueled reverie over Contra 4 when this came along and OBJECTED its way into our lives. TAKE THAT!, normal heart rate! It's a trailer for Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations!
What's more, Capcom USA bloggers promise frequent updates on the official blog and in the forums! It's so nice when a company thinks about all of us non-E3-goers who just want to see some cartoon arguing.
Sometimes the Internet randomly drops some delightful content on our laps. Depending on our mood, we feel that either the forces of the Intertron love us and are giving us wonderful gifts, or that they're conspiring to keep us from working.
Case in point: we knew about Court Records and all of the good works they do for those of us afflicted with Gyakutendonitis. But until GoNintendo pointed it out, we hadn't realized that there were fan translations of official GyakutenSaiban/PhoenixWright manga available on the site right now. We'll, uh, try to keep posting while we read.
We hinted in the Phoenix Wrightcovers post that we're completely in the thrall of the preorder bonus. Sometimes, a free thing that we don't really want will help tip the scales in favor of buying a game. We were totally going to get Gyakuten Saiban 3 anyway, but now we're feeling more pressure to get our preorder in expediently.
Have you felt this way? Are you drawn to free stuff that isn't really that great, because it's free, and because it's got pictures of characters from games you like? Does it influence your decision to purchase the game? Reallycool stuff we understand, but we're talking about a 'meh' bonus that drives you to change your purchasing habits. We'll put it another way: Who's got the Pokemonstylus holder?
If you buy the Japanese Best Price release of Gyakuten Saiban 3-- cue the chorus of "don't buy it or Capcom won't localize the next one"-- you may be entitled to a set of reversible box covers for the whole series of DS releases. It looks like they're designed so you can store 2 games to a case.
However, the Gyakuten Saiban series already uses a consistent boxart design in Japan, meaning that all four of the DS games already match. And on top of that, the design for these bonuses is significantly less interesting than the original boxart. Of course, we're still getting this thing.
We wish it was nicer-looking, but it's lovely of Capcom to hand out bonus stuff in general. We hope these get included with import orders (that's right, we're ordering the import!)
Anyone care to join us in a mournful, dejected "OBJECTION!"? We don't necessarily object to the release of a soundtrack CD for Gyakuten Saiban 4-- quite the opposite! We object to the Japan-only status of the release, and the similar lack of availability of its counterpart game. We haven't even heard the music from the game to know if it's worth buying, but the two US-released games have had great music. We just ... needmorestuff with cartoon lawyers on it, because we love the cartoon lawyer games so much!
While we're throwing useless objections out, we'd like to register our disgust with the prices of Japanese CD's. 3150 yen ($26) is actually on the low end of CD prices.
We still get occasional comments from confused readers who can't decipher which Gyakuten Saiban games correlate to which Ace Attorney games. This has been especially confusing recently, as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations (based on Gyakuten Saiban 3) was announced for the US at the same time as Gyakuten Saiban 4 was being released in Japan.
4cr must have gotten similar confused comments, but, unlike us, they decided to do something about it. Well, we're doing something about it now, but it's just linking their article, which is much easier. They've written a history of the series, detailing exactly which games were ported from the GBA, and the US and Japanese titles of each game. If this is too academic, you can always buy every lawyery-looking game you see, and figure it out when you get home.
Don't object to our speculation, but Capcom has registered a trademark that sounds like it may have relevance in our daily lives. "Apollo Justice" ... hmm. The first name is taken from a mythological figure, one associated with law and truth, and the last name is also legal-themed. Oh, we got it-- this is the name of the next Resident Evil game.
Oh, or Ace Attorney. "Apollo Justice" would be a pretty good name for Odoroki Housuke, the protagonist of Gyakuten Saiban 4. And if that's what the trademark is for, then it's a good sign for those of us hoping for a localized version.
Unfortunately, when we were getting ready to install the tiny chips into our heads to allow us to fluently speak and understand Japanese, we accidentally grabbed the German chips by mistake. Es kann sehr nützlich sein, but it doesn't allow us to play Gyakuten Saiban 4 anytime soon. Luckily, the guys at Siliconera have our backs.
They've run through the Phoenix-less title's first case, and have gotten a fairly good idea of where the series is going. Rest assured, the quality of the plotting seems wholly intact, and the guys are enjoying the fully-integrated DS features (a la case 5 of the localized Phoenix Wright: Attorney at Law). For some more details, check out the full preview. Take that!
Well, this is just about the coolest marketing campaign ever; and, of course, after reading that, you'll be able to guess that it's for Japan only. Also, if you're familiar with our site, you should have no problem guessing what game it promotes.
Gyakuten Saiban 4, the latest entry in Capcom's Phoenix Wright/Ace Attorney series, doesn't really need any more marketing, but we aren't complaining. Capcom will be running a 5-10 minute Gyakuten Saiban TV drama, which presents a case for viewers to solve. Later, the solution will appear on the Gyakuten Saiban 4 website. If any of our Fanboy friends are located in Japan, we hope they'll watch next week and tell us about it!
Capcom announced today that Gyakuten Saiban 4 passed the half-million mark in shipped copies today, a new record for the series. It's no surprise that being on the DS boosted sales; it's likely to boost sales of anything. But let's not diminish the accomplishment. Gyakuten Saiban 4 is a hit!
This milestone has contributed strongly to another milestone: as of today, the Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright) series has shipped 2 million copies in Japan alone. That's pretty great for any series, much less a text adventure series! If there were any objections within Capcom about spending the money to localizeGS4, they've probably been shot down by now.
Excuse us if this post has a typo in it or something. We're dividing our time between writing it and packing up all our worldly possessions.
You see, it's ... well, there's a Gyakuten Saiban 4 cell phone theme for the FOMA 903i that makes your phone's menu look like the game's menu, and puts GS4 backgrounds, animations, and sounds on the phone. It even has special screens associated with things like sending mail and receiving phone calls.
Every time we use our only partially-themed phone (which only has a Phoenix Wright background and ringtone, and nothing else) causes us pain. We have to go to Japan, immediately.
What's the opposite of OBJECTION!? Oh, we know! APPROVAL! A Gamecrazy employee posted this screen from his store's computer system over on the awesome Phoenix Wright fansite Court Records. It shows a game called PHOENIX WRIGHT-TRIALS TRIBU, to be released on September 25. We'll go ahead and deduce that the full title would be Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, and that since it names Phoenix in the title and not the new guy, that this is a DS port of Gyakuten Saiban 3.
Retail computer systems aren't the most reliable sources of information, but we doubt Gamecrazy would make up a title. Plus, we've had evidence that GS3 was going to be localized for a while.
Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to go to Gamecrazy and reserve our copy of the game. If they aren't open yet, we'll just break in. No problem!
We're having a pretty hard time coping with our Gyakuten Saiban withdrawals. Ever since we learned that we wouldn't be able to play the Japanese release in English, we've had to turn to alternate means to get our daily allowance of fake Japanese law. We refresh the GS4 website obsessively, play the translated demo until it hits question-mark land, and shout "OBJECTION" at every opportunity that is even a little appropriate.
We found some screens on Famitsu to torture ourselves with. They show the intro to the second case, a witness in Chapter 1, and Chapter 2's defendant. If you want to make yourself feel bad about the lack of Ace Attorney in your life, then by all means, have a look. If you can't handle the wait, we suggest trying to put the whole thing out of your mind.
DS Fanboy pal Zachary Hinchliffe is powerfully awesome, and you can quote us on that. He's working with Croik of the Phoenix Wright fansite Court Records to translate the Japanese Gyakuten Saiban 4 Flash demo, which actually consists of part of the first case.
It's in a very early stage right now-- essentially, once you get past the intro and into gameplay, the text switches over to question-mark speak that is even less useful than the original Japanese dialogue, but you can at least watch the introduction. And you can set your bookmark now to play more as more gets translated, because we're sure you'll get to play this demo to completion in English before the game gets an English release.
Amazon has cut the price of Phoenix Wright: Justice for All, the sequel to everyone's favorite court-based adventure game, bringing it down to $19.99. We don't expect this deal to last for long, so race your shopping cart to the checkout lane as fast as your feet will allow.
Sometimes the Internet randomly drops some delightful content on our laps. Depending on our mood, we feel that either the forces of the Intertron love us and are giving us wonderful gifts, or that they're conspiring to keep us from working.
Unfortunately, when we were getting ready to install the tiny chips into our heads to allow us to fluently speak and understand Japanese, we accidentally grabbed the German chips by mistake. Es kann sehr nützlich sein, but it doesn't allow us to play Gyakuten Saiban 4 anytime soon. Luckily, the guys at Siliconera have our backs.
Well, this is just about the coolest marketing campaign ever; and, of course, after reading that, you'll be able to guess that it's for 
Capcom announced today that 
