I wrote it up (with embedded video) here, and the YouTube video alone is here.

Cheers, Harry, thanks for reminding me how much I love this music.

I just might have to record my own instrumental version or something… I love the sparkly countermelodies, and that victorious build at 0:46. At the end of the first PW, it played all through the credits/epilogue, and I don’t think another game has made me smile for such an extended period of time.

Cheers!

You’ve actually worded my sentiments on the insular nature of the Ace Attorney series’ storyline better than I could have. I totally agree: new players may very well jump into any of the games and enjoy themselves, but they’ll undoubtedly feel like an outsider, trying to appreciate even a fraction of the persistent world elements Capcom expands between each entry.

It’s also funny you should mention the Blue Badger, as you’ll be seeing a lot more of the creepy thing in one of Ace Attorney Investigations’ later cases … but I’ve already said too much!

It’d be great to read your own writing on “Suspense”, “Won the Lawsuit! ~ First Victory” (is that the triumphant Fey theme you’re thinking of?), or any of the other countless fantastic musical numbers of the Ace Attorney games.

Unbelievably enough, I actually DID this like a year ago… woah. It took a long time, and I didn’t play Apollo Justice, but man, was it worth it. I’ve got a lot of favorite games, but I think that Phoenix Wright is my favorite franchise.

It’s partly due to the insane number of callbacks – I’m not far into Miles Edgeworth, but already I’m seeing so many great references to past games. My favorite so far is the t-shirt that Maggey was wearing in the first case. It was that horrible mascot that Gumshoe made in (maybe the bonus case from the first Ace Attorney?) It cracked me up.

But man, that is some insular humor. Newcomers might like the game, but won’t get half of the richness of the PW world.

Anyhow, I really just wanted to say that I totally agree about the music, particularly “Suspense.” I was actually planning on recording it and writing about it myself… it’s such a great piece of game music, and deserves to be recognized for all the reasons you say.

I really like all of the music from the Ace Attorney games, but that one, as well as what I think of as the “Fey Theme” from the first game (the victorious music with the super triumphant build-up just before the repeat), are my two favorites.

Looking forward to seeing Miles through this latest adventure!

In practice, that often means being more experimental and nailing one, maybe two mechanics. “Indie” is a nice shorthand for describing those characteristics (as most Indie developers do follow that model), but it isn’t exclusive – Namco and Taito have quite a few “Indie”-style games (such as Pacman CE and Space Invaders Extreme) and even Chime would be considered a great Indie game were it not released by a prominent studio.

I can spend hours looking over old games. It’s probably why I spend so much on Steam – irrespective of whether I’m ever actually going to play them, I want them. I need them!

Here’s my offbeat prediction for the week – OnLive is going to get bought by someone like PopCap. Don’t think of it as a console, think of it as an alternative (and cheap) distribution channel. Because the processing requirements are low, the incremental cost of computation in the serverfarm is also low. Latency isn’t a huge issue so they can create a more regionalised approach with their datacentres. And, if they use a subscription model in conjunction with someone like Big Fish (who release a game every day), they’ve got a watertight value proposition.

Unlike others, I’m not so worried about the lack of physical goods – the number of collectors are very small. Think how many people subscribe to cable and you’re onto a good indication about how much the majority of people care about “owning” their digital entertainment. It’s a different model and lends itself more to subscription, but it’s the future for the extended market (even if it’s simply more of a leasing or check-in / check-out model).