With the NA reprint and release in the EU region, I'm sure more of you have now been able to experience the awesomeness that is Phoenix Wright. (And if not yet, consider yourself square!)  So, in light of the poll from last year, perhaps more can participate in some ripe PW discussions?  I'll yank from the topic before as a starting point, with a few updated answers of my own in a bit:

1) Which chapter in Ace Attorney was your favorite? Why not list them in order of preference?

2) Got any favorite characters? Ones you disliked?

3) Got any favorite moments?  Which moments shocked you the most?

4) Music is tops, of course; got any favorite songs?

1)Hmmm...I'd say case 4 was my favourite even though it bugged me that obvious evidence wasn't allowed to be brought up right at the start (number of shots fired). VonKarma was brilliant. I really liked the Samurai one but it went on just that little bit too long.

2)I loved the director guy just for his 133t speak. I'd say there were a few people out there who had no idea what he was saying and I felt slightly embarrassed that I did. Also, like I said, I loved VonKarma. OBJECTION from hell.

3)Favourite moment is actually a line - "Heed my exposition!" Given that I was working on a script at the time and had a really nasty bit of exposition to try to hide, that had me laughing for several days afterwards. I did love just about every part of the game that had OBJECTION! every couple of seconds - there was one in particular that was a Phoenix/Edgar volley that was very entertaining.

4)I don't know the tracks but I did love the music that kicked in just as you were about to take someone down. Usually at the end of every case.

It's probably clear from my answers that my memory is pretty shakey...

1) Case 4.
Order I liked: 4,1,3, 2, 5.
Case 5 i barely had the patience to get through.
That was probably b/c i had been playing for a couple hours already.
The DS-linked features were well-implemented though.

2) I love Phoenix.  He's so cute when he does his little sweating pose.
I just hated Von Karma.  Yeah you were supposed to but damn everytime he yelled objection, I was just feeling the same as Phoenix.
I liked Angel Starr and her bentos.   She looks nice at one angle but cruel in the other.
The director's L33t speak, i don't understand at all.
April May is like a classic anime character with those "volatile" emotions, and the boobs.

3) My favorite moments were with Dee in Case 3. 
"Don't ? me!" 
".........." x 3
"Well can you try to remember?".
"no"
just had me laughing for hours.

Shocking moment: When "she" died in Case 2.

4) Cornered/Pursuit and Examination Allegro DS version.
When the suspect is sweating and getting nervous and then pow you try to take him down.

The GS 2,3 versions of Cornered were good but still GS 1's is best.

Regarding Gyakuten 4, did you guys see the new character designs?
I wonder if that new character is the new rival or.....Phoenix's offspring or something.

Phoenix Wright is a really fun game with a lot of humor.
I'm glad i picked it up.
Looking forward to GS4

I heard some thing about the US version of PW being transferred to cell phones.

There's some great midis on VGMusic.  They're buried in the "NEW FILES" section.

Great comments already, guys!

1) Which chapter in Ace Attorney was your favorite? Why not list them in order of preference?

Originally, I had chosen an order that went 2, 4, 5, 3, then 1.  Now, after having replayed the cases an extended number of times, I think I'd like to switch my order to: 4, 5, 2, 3, then 1.  Case 4 being the resolution to the overarching DL-6 story line, it ties up the many plot threads from the previous three cases in a drama-paced bombshell of a finale.  We learn much more about Edgeworth, not to mention Wright, and a little more background of the Fey family.   

Although Case 5 feels a bit more drawn out than it should be, and a bit less polished in terms of writing and grammatical accuracy, the intertwining of the SL-9 Incident and Goodman's case leads to a consistently intriguing barrage of dramatic twists toward the end which makes it worth sticking out for.  Just seeing Wright and Edgeworth cooperating to bring down Gant was a great dynamic.

2) Got any favorite characters? Ones you disliked?

I still love Maya and her child-like enthusiasm; her second and third stomachs for steak and sweets, when she 'quizzes' Cody on that particular episode of The Steel Samurai, her understated heroism for when she saved the trial in Case 4 by crying foul on Lotta's testimony, and when she took the stun gun hit from Von Karma.  Mad props to Gumshoe for proving his worth later on, particularly when putting his butt on the line to let them go into Gant's office for investigation - and his celebratory attitude for when both Edgeworth and Lana Skye are proven not guilty.

Dislikes?  Still Von Karma, but in a way that you LOVE to hate him.  You're right, Crystal, he certainly has "his share of objections," and really, he's just pure arrogance - even more so than Gant, I thought.  And yes, that voice.... forged straight from hell indeed.

3) Got any favorite moments?  Which moments shocked you the most?

Frank Sahwit's toupee toss, Von Karma's head banging in defeat, Edgeworth's 'accidental' banging of his desk when objecting to Wright banging on HIS desk when Vasquez asked him not to, Missile gobbling up all of Larry's Samurai Dogs, Maya's accidental sneezing which triggered off Lotta's sound-sensitive camera, cross-examining Polly, Wright having to defend himself against Redd White, and Wright's farewell to Mia and forging partnership with Maya after that case was over.....  Yanni Yogi (as Uncle) proclaiming that Edgeworth was the killer - and when Wright questions this assertion, Yogi suddenly pops out of his dazed senile self with a self-assured "Dead certain, Keith!!"  Vasquez calling her Mafia goons to "erase" Wright and Maya.  The flashback memory of Vasquez for when Hammer accidentally killed Manuel five years ago.  Phoenix's class trial flashback with both Edgeworth and Larry.  Discovering that Larry was the one who actually stole the lunch money.  Wow, I could go on and on. 

Shocking moments?  Mia's murder, of course.  It's generally a tough thing to accept after seeing she and Phoenix's relationship beginning to strenghen in the first case, and then having her get snuffed out so early on afterwards.  Also, the dynamics that began to pick up when it's revealed that Ema may have been the one that killed Neil Marshall; the revelation and reaction from everyone was point for point fantastic, especially when Lana starts breaking out in denial, and we get to the crux of her behavioral reasoning.  And when Cody reveals that the Steel Samurai "didn't win," with Jack Hammer's role being ultimately reversed. 

4) Music is tops, of course; got any favorite songs?

I've come to love the entire soundtrack, save for "Kaiji Ganto" (Gant's Theme) and "Recollection - SL-9 Incident," which, for some reason, irritated me to a large degree.  (Maybe it's because they were so excessively used in Case 5.)  All of the court battle music is awesome, in particular the crucial testimony theme "Examination - Allegro 2001," and the intensely-dramatic "Tell The Truth 2001."  The main theme of the entire series trilogy "Mayoi Ayasato ~ Gyakuten Sisters' Theme" (Maya's Theme) and its touching counterpart "Ballad of The Gyakuten Sisters" have become mainstay favorites, and "Auspicious People" (generally referred to as April May's Theme) and "Oo-edo Soldier Tonosaman" (that's The Steel Samurai to you and me) break the barriers of addictiveness.  Jake Marshall's "Detective From The Wild West" feels somewhat overstated, but it's still a nifty piece of composition, and "Victory! - The First Victory" makes for a delightfully sweet case finisher.

The thinking is that Gyakuten Saiban 4 is not going to be considered part of the original three GBA game trilogy.  It's supposedly starting the series anew, with a new protagonist and a new cast of characters.

As for cell phones, here's hoping we really do see Saiban 2 and 3 localized - since it's looking less and less likely we'll be getting them on handheld consoles proper.  The story is just too rich and engrossing for us not to experience in some form or another.

I need to go back and finish this.  I've done the first three cases so far, and I'm a huge advocate for this game (just got three of my friends to buy it from NCSX).  If slave driver Kawashima lets me take a break from activating my prefrontal cortex, perhaps I'll be able to squeeze in some Ace Attorney time. ;-)

Wow, NCSX has sold out its stock in about a month and has to wait for another production run from Capcom USA.

Capcom should reconsider its position on this series and localize the other games...

Right on, bro.  It'd be a delightful surprise if we heard any news of the sort come E3.  Just finished Gyakuten Saiban 3 myself, and it's a deeply involving and stunning finale for the series.  All the major prosecuting and defense attorneys from Paine to Mia play a role -- not to mention many of the secondary characters make cameo appearances.  The constant switching between past and present time periods is particularly well implemented, and is effective in telling GS3's overarching story.

The soundtrack is a constant in my player too, with my favorites being the testimony pieces "Examination - Moderate And Allegro 2004," the now-quintessential 'cornered' theme "Investigation ~ Cross-Examination," and...... "Takabishiya Department Store"!

For  those who liked GS 1's music,
this is a Gyakuten Nindori Cd.
http://rapidshare.de/files/19987959/Gya … 7.zip.html

I picked this up last year but i didn't really know what this series was.
Now I do.

Most of these tracks are on the GS 3 bonus disc. But some of these have been spliced and diced into separate tracks.
But the music tracks here are extended.

Not exactly a great cd, but there ya go.

Awesome!  Gotta free up a night to give this a download; perhaps when the E3 madness dies down a bit, if you're so inclined to keep it up for a little longer. :)  Thanks!

So, GS3 is a series finale?  That would explain why GS4 has a new lead character.

Revival of the Revival! Just finished this sucker last night. I think it might just be my favorite game, EVER.

1) Which chapter in Ace Attorney was your favorite? Why not list them in order of preference?

From a case perspective, each one was better than the last. The last day in court on Case 5 in particular (all three parts) was absolutely f---ing brilliant stuff. From a comedic standpoint, though, Case 3 is my personal favorite.

2) Got any favorite characters? Ones you disliked?

I liked every character I'm not listing in the next paragraph, even the villains. Cut-above favorites would probably be Edgeworth, Gumshoe, Maya, and Ema.

Grossberg was probably the most disposable character in the thing, and him selling out Misty like that made me hate the stuffy old whale. Didn't care much for von Karma. He's not nearly as fun to piss off as Edgeworth, and he sorta brought the fun I got out of the trials way down...until the end, that is. Ba ha ha.* Angel Starr was annoying in that I can understand Marshall's motives for pursuing Skye and SL-9, but all she lost was her job, making her vendetta against Skye pure pettiness.

3) Got any favorite moments?  Which moments shocked you the most?

Anything that made me laugh. Too many to count, but some that really stick out were Edgeworth swearing to kill Oldbag, the OBJECTION where he hadn't yet thought of anything, Maya vs Lotta's camera, "I WANT TO CROSS-EXAMINE THE SUSPECT'S PARROT", Ema's notetaking, Gumshoe blowing up as Wright crumples his ID, and Udgey's "you mean even with his formidable appearance...he plays with puppets?", and the murderer's cackling meltdown at Case5's end. Great stuff.

Oh, and my favorite line is Edgeworth's, in refence to the Blue Badger blocking the useful parts of the video in Case 5: "What the hell is this wriggling piece of plywood?"

Shocking: The cross-examination of Cody in Case 3 which turned the trial neatly on its head was my first big wow. Case 4's opening and subsequent dissection of said scene was also a wow-er. But that last day in court on Case 5, man, that just blew everything else away.

4) Music is tops, of course; got any favorite songs?

The Steel Samurai theme, baby. The objection theme is also good, and other favorites would be Maya's theme, the jail theme, the 'look at this chart' theme, and the victory theme.

I tried pacing myself, really I did. January never looked so far off...

* - speaking of von Karma, by the by, did anyone equate his 'blood-curdling scream' with Slimer's howl from Ghostbusters as he charges Venkman?

Quoted for truth.  At the very least, though (and if it should make it by January), it should make a stellar birthday present. ;)

1up.com's got a recent interview up with Minae Matsukawa regarding JFA, and PW in general.  She does confirm that there's no added bonus cases this time around, but also assures that the English localization is again getting top billing: 

http://1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.off … Id=3152239

I'm curious if a Japanese version is going to come out well before the English one with the English text as an option again.  If so, I'll be all over that.  January is so far away!

Actually, duckroll from NGAF just posted up news that GS2 might very well be coming to the Japanese DS as a Best Price title -- and as early as October 26th!  Whether it'll have dual language options like the first remains to be seen.

Japanese retailer GMStar has up the following: 

ＤＳ逆転裁判２（Ｂｅｓｔ Ｐｒｉｃｅ！）     
2,780 Yen
１０月２６日発売予定
物語はそのままにＤＳのタッチパネル対応として完全に再現。

Yeah, I just saw that.  If there's a limited box version I might be tempted to do a preorder, but it's iffy if we don't know in advance if there's an English mode.  My Japanese is steadily getting better, but courtroom vocabulary isn't exactly my specialty...

Capcom is wise to be refocusing the English name of the series away from "Phoenix Wright" and towards "Ace Attorney."  The big question is which will America see first: GS4 or GS3?

Well, it looks like dual-language is officially confirmed for Gyakuten Saiban 2 DS.   Check it out:

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-01-77-5-4 … -1iyq.html

So now, the big question is, who's picking up the Japanese version in October?  I'll definitely import, but knowing me, I'll also be picking up the domestic release later next year.  You know, (in a David Puddy voice) "Gotta support the team."

Yep, I'll be getting that as absolutely soon as I can. If I lived in Animal Crossing, I'd be phoning them up to reset my clock to October right now. I wouldn't care about the weeds.

I can wait for the U.S. version.  There are more than enough new games coming out this fall and I *still* haven't finished the first game (case 5 is much longer than I expected -- I've played it three days this week so far and I'm still not done).

Yeah! that's great.  They're nice to do it.

Anyways, in other news,
http://www.magicaltrick.com/  has a doujin album of GS1 out.

Listen to the samples.

Those samples are on so many levels of awesome.  Don't suppose there's any way for international buyers to snag the CD?

Seeing as I'm living over here still, I'll definitely be picking up the Japanese version on day one if it has dual language support.  I can't wait!

The doujin has more energy than the orchestral version.  I think it keeps the same musical style as the original synth while upgrading the synth.  Not everybody is into upgraded synths, I know.

Folks are making the full album available for download.  Grab the 80 MB-sized .rar file here.

Ok.  I finally beat the first game today.  Definitely a great title and a must in everyone's DS library.  Despite its obscene length and guesswork difficulty that required some tricks Mr. Resetti would not approve of, I think my favorite case was the fifth one due to the increased interactivity and all of the twists and turns in the story.  The third case, however, was definitely my favorite of the original four cases.

It's close to a year later, and after a half dozen full playthroughs of the game, I'm still discovering conversations that I never saw before.  I can't believe I never bothered to examine that poster of Mia's favorite movie -- with Mia actually present in the law office.  ;)

Ahh, after a week of nonstop playing, I've finally finished Phoenix Wright. I've been a fan of old-school adventure games since the days of Monkey Island, so Phoenix Wright was definitely right up my alley. The humor was incredibly sharp and witty, and in hindsight the amount of foreshadowing was absolutely brilliant. Definitely one of my favorite games ever from a story standpoint.

1) 5, 4, 2, 3, 1

Case 5 wins by a hair for being more interactive and twisty-turny than the other episodes. Its self-contained nature was a bit disappointing after the continuity-fest of case 4, but the newly added DS features were a lot of fun and very well implemented. I do tend to agree with the criticism that the case was overly long and involved a bit too much guesswork at times (not to mention there was way too much evidence to keep track of). However, watching the story unfold and the true murderer exposed was incredibly satisfying.

Case 4 comes in a close second just because all of the little plot points mentioned in previous cases converge so nicely. My only nitpick is that the Fey family story felt strangely unresolved. The ghost "making a mistake" ended up diminishing the Feys' roles for me, and I was disappointed that we didn't get to find out what happened to Misty (though I'm sure they'll explore that in one of the sequels...right?).

Case 2 definitely brought the shock. From playing case 1 of GS3, I already knew Mia's fate, but I didn't realize it would happen that early. Being able to avenge her death was a bittersweet moment.

Case 3 was all kinds of hilarious, though I sorta guessed what happened as soon as I went to Studio 2. Still a really solid stand-alone case, with some of the best moments in the game. I especially loved Maya being convinced of Will's guilt as soon as she saw hime.

Case 1 ends up last not because it wasn't great, but just because it was shorter and less surprising than the other cases.

2) Favorite character was Dick Gumshoe. He's just such an affably goofy guy, and the "pal" thing really was an endearing character trait. Similarly, Larry was delightfully oblivious throughout the game, and I loved his testimony in case 4.

Phoenix himself was an awesome character. I always loved the little side comments he made. And his fond rememberance of Mia mimicked my own. Speaking of whom, Mia was a favorite just because she actually seemed competent.

I thought Maya was okay, but I found myself liking Ema much more.

I also absolutely loved von Karma. His total control of the courtroom was nothing short of brilliant ("Objection sustained... Well, say it!"), and his objections sent shivers down my spine. Didn't really like his motivation for the murder, but I loved how he set things up for case 4.

I think I loved just about everyone, though. Every person was just full of personality, and that made the dialogue just so much fun to read.

Characters that I hated? Only one: the Blue Badger. The thing was freaky as hell, what with the undulating movements and all. The frozen expression on its face ate away at my soul.

3) Generally any of the shocking revelations. Also: "I'll get to that woman's bottom!", toupee toss, mafia appearance (and subsequent Gumshoe saving of skin), cross-examining Polly, Gatewater Hotel becoming a tourist attraction, any of the murderers going ballistic after being found out, and more that I can't remember right now. Also loved watching the Blue Badger FINALLY stop moving at the end.

4) I haven't really familiarized myself with the music yet, but I did love Marshall's western theme as well as the suspenseful music that plays whenever you're looking at a map.

Only music I distinctly remember not liking? Once again, the Blue Badger theme. It's a creature from hell, I tell you! A creature from hell!!!

Ahem. Overall, one of the best adventure games I've played since the glory days of LucasArts. Can't wait for the future installments.

Ah, so glad you finally got to play the game.  You *are* going to be celebrating DL-6 Day with us come December this year, yes? ;)

Oh gosh, yes.  Not to say a whole lot, but Misty does play an incredibly integral role come the next two games.  The Fey family's origin and story becomes greatly expanded in the episodes to come. 

All wonderful characters.  My one big concern for the upcoming Justice For All (and GS3, if we're so blessed to be getting that one as well) is if Capcom will be able to properly localize and accurately sustain the characters from the first game.  It's to my understanding that they're handling the translation in-house this time, so I hope they'll be able to take the groundwork put down in the first game, and continue on from there.

I remember accidentally stumbling upon message boards just after release, and people were speculating that the Blue Badger was actually the killer.  I thought, "Well, this should definitely beat all."  *_*

Anyway, look forward to more Blue Badger, at least in more subtler presentation, in the next two games.

Oh, I wouldn't miss it for the world! Now that I think about it, I've actually been stuck in an elevator before, but unfortunately not on December 28. Plus, no murders occurred while we were there.

Very glad to hear it. I think I'm even more in love with the series knowing that there's a mystery that spans across all three games. Well-planned story arcs always make my day.

At one point, I actually did theorize that the Blue Badger killed "Goodman" in the evidence room. His arm movements always looked like stabbing motions to me....