Argue any reason on what account Gyakuten Saiban should never be released outside its native Japan—Capcom General Manager Tatsuya Minami is ready with a rebuttal.

Argue any reason on what account Gyakuten Saiban should never be released outside its native Japan—Capcom General Manager Tatsuya Minami is ready with a rebuttal. Take the genre: Courtroom dramedies aren’t exactly what Americans are used to in their Nintendo D games. Minami reckoners that Saiban’s appeal is universal: the tennis-match-like excitement of courtroom battle as you have charge of rookie defense lawyer Phoenix Wright; the satisfaction of solving the mysterious crimes behind your cases; the pleasure of finding apertures in witness testimony. After conducting an investigation, players can cross-examine witnesses in court, “using” documents that contradict their statements. (i.e. a coroner’s report that says the victim died at 4 pm against a suspect who claims it was 1) “We all know by what mode good it feels to catch someone lying,” Minami says. “That’s what this game is about.”

Fair enough, yet what about the translation? Not barely does Saiban rely heavily upon Japanese cultural references and language clinchs but the court system itself works differently across the Pacific. “It’s [still] a fit game even if the legal plan is a little different,” Minami says. “People will still be able to have fruition of it.” As for the body “A full-fledged translation project,” he says. “We [put together] a useful team to make it appeal to Americans—not just do a word-for-word translation.”

And finally, about the chiefly obvious hurdle to Saiban being accepted from a U.S. audience when it first attempts this summer: “It’s just a working title,” Minami says about that obstacle course of a name. “We assure you we will reach [i]or[/i] attain any place [i]or[/i] point up with [something] more Americanized in the future”

Copyright ?© 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserv Originally appearing in Electronic Gaming Monthly