On Maya and the new assistant:
"Well, he she might be back at her home village for more training," Yamazaki laughed. "This new girl is certainly a key part of the story, but designing her was a pretty rough process. She looked almost alien-like at first, which was partly due to the fact that her background was a lot different than it is today. Yellow was always her theme color, though — she really has a drive to win, so in that respect she's a fair bit different than Maya."
On other returning characters:
Any other characters from previous games set to appear? "Well, the world setting is the same as the other Ace Attorney games," Eshiro noted, "so without going into detail on whether anyone appears or doesn't appear, I will say that the story is set in a world where they all exist."
On 3D:
"Part of the visual appeal of Ace Attorney stems from the fact that it's in 2D, after all," he explained. "We were limited in how many animation frames we could put in the first few games, so at first there were maybe only one or two variations on the 'Objection!' word balloon. That wound up giving the game this sense of speed and sharpness that we couldn't have gotten otherwise. To recreate that feel in 3D, we're deliberately messing with the pace, inserting pauses and skipping over other things. With 2D we played around with perspectives — drawing Phoenix's hand larger than usual when he's pointing at someone — and we're taking measures to recreate that sort of thing in 3D."
On the game's darker tone:
Phoenix's first case in the new Ace Attorney involves defending a sweet-looking little girl against accusations she set off a bomb that destroyed the courtroom where previous games have taken place. His first opposing prosecutor, the younger brother of Winston Payne: the punching bag that players have fought (and usually beaten soundly) in the first chapter of previous titles.
"He's a little bit more villainous than his brother," Yamazaki said, "the sort of guy who isn't afraid of using dirty tactics. Sort of a 'dark Payne,' in other words. The theme of this story overall is 'dark days in law'. Phoenix was talking about this in Apollo Justice a bit, along the lines of 'Dark days are coming for law, and we have to do something to fix it.' Partly because of that, this game begins with a courtroom bombing, to sort of symbolize that."
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