Capcom announced that The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles would be coming out this July on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. These two entries in the Ace Attorney series are set in Victorian England and take inspiration from classic Western mystery stories (most notably Sherlock Holmes). Given that none of the other Ace Attorney lawyers will have been born yet, there's a new attorney at the bench: Ryunosuke Narahodo.
Gamers could be forgiven for assuming he’s a completely new character, unrelated to the previous entries in the series, especially if they know the Ace Attorney characters only by their English names. However, the new “Objection!” slinger is much closer to a previous protagonist than players might think. So just who is Ryunosuke Narahodo anyway?
For those who may not know already, Ryunosuke Narahodo is Phoenix Wright’s distant ancestor, a law student from Meiji-era Japan. This is even more obvious in the Japanese release of the Ace Attorney Trilogy, where Phoenix’s name is Ryuichi Narahodo. However, because of localizations, this small fact may be overlooked by some fans.
Ace Attorney Chronicles' Phoenix Wright Characters Explained
Ryunosuke is like his descendant in a number of ways: They resemble each other closely, though Ryunosuke lacks Phoenix’s preference for spiky hair. Ryunosuke has a similarly bombastic courtroom style to his descendant. He also shares Phoenix’s integrity, faith in his clients, and willingness to put himself on the line in order to protect the innocent. It's not clear if Phoenix Wright is aware of who Ryunosuke is. Series lore has already made it clear where Phoenix developed an interest in law, and those who've played the first game in the series know why Phoenix became a lawyer, so perhaps the talent for deductive reasoning and spotting contradictions runs in the family.
Ryunosuke has a tough job ahead of him, solving cases without any of the technology from which Phoenix and company benefit. He’s also going to have to solve cases with a much less sympathetic prosecutor opposing him. For instance, Barok van Zieks can be heard in the trailer referring to Ryu and his fellow Japanese visitors as “the Nipponese” and calling them “a truly fascinating breed." So it will interesting to see how these events play out when The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles comes out on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam on July 27.
