The Great Ace Attorney - internal Q&A session with Shu Takumi

Q: How did this new project, Dai Gyakuten Saiban, start?

A: It started when they asked me early 2013 if I wanted to make a Gyakuten Saiban seperate of the numbered series. I proposed a game with Sherlock Holmes and that how it got rolling.

Q: So Sherlock Holmes was there from the start?

A: I had considered other ideas. For example, I also looked at civil trials as a hook. But I realized the game would be about rather ugly topics, like "Mediation between family members fighting over an inheritance" or "Settling Things Out of Court In A Case of Being Falsely Accused of Molesting", cases with no clear-cut conclusions.

Q: That's true (laugh)

A: Originally, I came up with the idea of Gyakuten Saiban because I wanted something else than just choosing options. I thought about a way to have the player input their own deductions themselves directly, and the answer I came up with was the system where you point out contradictions between testimony and evidence.