Capcom finally acknowledge Ace Attorney Investigations again on their 40th anniversary website
An exhibit dedicated to Investigations 1+2 has short-circuited the brains of Miles Edgeworth fans everywhere.
Capcom's 40th anniversary website, Capcom Town, has launched a special exhibit in its virtual museum dedicated to the Ace Attorney Investigations games. This initially reads like a bit of a missed opportunity to promote next year's upcoming Apollo Justice Trilogy remaster, but it seems the fans wanted it that way.
A poll posed Ace Attorney fans the question of which main series protagonist they'd rather be defended by in court: Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, Ryunosuke Naruhodo, or Miles Edgeworth. It was a tough choice, but fans of Phoenix Wright's best friend slash arch rival slash official love interest per Nintendo Magazine are clearly quite the organised voting bloc, since they managed to push Edgeworth — and, by association, his relatively obscure spin-off duology Ace Attorney Investigations — to the top of the poll:
For the uninitiated, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and its sequel were a pair of Nintendo DS exclusives released in 2009 and 2011. The games feature numerous characters and concepts borrowed from the mainline Ace Attorney series, but switch up the gameplay somewhat, playing more like point-and-click adventures than visual novels. Hence those adorable and hilarious little sprites you'll sometimes see of Edgeworth running around, stills of which are now on display as part of the exhibit.
Investigations 2 has never been released outside of Japan, but a popular English fan localisation patch (featuring the talents of professional VA SungWon Cho as Edgeworth, no less!) has helped to ensure that both games have a cult status among the series' international fanbase — although opinion appears sharply divided over whether AAI2 is the best or worst Ace Attorney game ever. One thing everyone can seemingly agree on is that it's unacceptable to place it anywhere in-between when composing your tier list.
Other curios showcased in the exhibit include key art, design documents, trailers and promos, and a few other random oddities — such as a poster for a third entry in the Investigations sub-series, a 2013 stage musical featuring an all-female cast and relying heavily on time travel to make the plot work. Yes, this was a 100% real show that Capcom officially licensed, although its relationship to the canon of the games is less certain.
While this isn't the long-awaited news of an Investigations remaster, there are still reasons to be optimistic. Capcom seem to be on a bit of a kick for reviving Ace Attorney at the moment: following the relaunch of the original Phoenix Wright trilogy on Switch, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles was finally released worldwide back in 2021. Then earlier this summer we got a remaster of series creator Shu Takumi's on-theme side-project Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, rapidly followed by the Apollo Justice trilogy news alluded to above. That'll soon leave Investigations as the only non-crossover Ace Attorney title(s) unavailable to modern audiences.
And — as this poll clearly implies — all those dedicated Edgeworth fans must wield some impressive buying power. So whaddya say, Capcom? There must be some room left on your 2025 release slate to make some hella specific nerds really, really happy.