Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

This enhanced remake of the first game in the Japan-only "Turnabout Trial" (Gyakuten Saiban) Game Boy Advance visual novel trilogy was the opportunity for it to see an unexpected, surprisingly good localization. You follow the novice lawyer Phoenix Wright and his quest for great justice, facing Japan Los Angeles corrupt law system. Instant success, and sequels ensued. It added an additional chapter using Apollo Justice engine.

Notably, it also made the game far easier than in the GBA version... where the save file created upon quitting the game was a temporary, single-use one: Screw up once, and you lose the whole case. Realism at its finest.

Unused Animations


An unused sprite of Phoenix "in love" can be found in the game's graphic files. This was most likely meant to be used when Phoenix sees April May on the stand for the first time. However, because Phoenix first meets her during the investigation, using this would not have made sense. It was featured in the gallery in the bonus Gyakuten Encyclopedia cartridge bundled with the Japanese release of the third game.



An unused sprite of Edgeworth taking damage, analogous to his equivalent in-court animation. It seems that it was simply never put to use, for reasons unknown; it would have fit various situations in the game.



An unused sprite of Larry seemingly surprised, shouting, or both. Why they created this animation is anyone's guess.

Unused Music


The game contains an unused piece of music. It sounds somewhat like the credits music for the fourth case; perhaps it was an early version of said track.

Japanese Version Features

 * If the game detects the GBA version of Gyakuten Saiban in the GBA slot while opening the Japanese DS version, the first four cases are unlocked from the beginning. A similar feature exists for the second and the third games in the series. The GBA-slot support was removed from international releases.


 * In the Japanese version of the first three games, there is an English language function available. Selecting it changes the title screen to the US version. While the text boxes have room for two lines while selecting the Japanese option, They are expanded by an extra line when selecting English in order to accomodate the larger script, along with the Evidence descriptions. The translation itself is an early, far more literal version than the one used in the US version, and has many typos.

French Version Censorship
Jean Armstrong (Called Kaoru Fond-De-Veau in the JP version) is a gay restaurant chef which gets a brief cameo as a poster in the first game bonus case, and later appears as an important witness in the third game. Capcom USA may have changed the Von Karma nationalities from American to German, but this guy is clearly supposed to be French even in the Japanese version.

The French translators didn't like this apparently, so they changed the text Lana said upon examining his advertisement in the first game so that he became "a Lebanese Chef". However, after a change of the French Translation Staff after the second game, he becomes Italian in the third game, and is called "Luigi Labocca".