order order everyone new frame plus is
in session by order of the patrons we
are here to examine the animation in the
Ace Attorney series so before we begin
thank you to Marina de Mar is Scout
hunter 546 and Archie Andrew ski for
suggesting this very good topic now I
realized that this might at first seem a
strange series to make an animation
analysis video about because the
animation in the Ace Attorney games is
incredibly minimal you could even argue
that it is unnecessary just a flourish a
light sprinkling of movement over top of
an otherwise static visual novel but
however non-essential the animation
might seem it is still an important
additive element and it's a big reason
why Phoenix Wright games have proven so
memorable game animation is always a
challenge of delivering the most bang
for your buck and ace attorneys
developers have historically had very
little buck to work with this is a
series whose visual identity has been
shaped by its limitations the first game
was developed by a team of seven people
over the course of just ten months the
original Phoenix Wright trilogy was
first made for the Game Boy Advance of
all things and yet despite all that
these games are loaded with expressive
characters and silly charm so how do
these games manage to do so much using
so very little to start it helps that
shoot akka me and his team chose the
perfect presentational format the visual
novel is an ideal genre for delivering
an interactive story on the cheap I mean
all you really need is backgrounds some
static 2d character art and a text box
and you can't get much more efficient
than that and if all these games had was
a handful of static poses and
backgrounds in a text box they still
would have worked I mean lots of
successful visual novels have been just
that but Ace Attorney does not stop
there the first thing that really sets a
Saturnia games apart from the pack is
the quality of their pose design
characters in these games only have a
handful of poses each and you're going
to be staring at those poses for hours
so they have to be good and they have to
somehow
vade the totality of each character's
personality
Capcom's artists have to essentially
take each character and condense all of
their body language and all of their
full emotional range down into just a
few snapshots and these games are so
good at it all these characters are so
expressive so many visual novel
characters will spend their entire game
standing in these relatively neutral
poses letting the text and their facial
expressions do all of the work but not
these folks just look at the range on
edge words courtroom posing you got
neutral smug Stern assertive very
assertive taken aback
exasperated that's not a whole lot of
poses and yet he is larger-than-life
every one of these characters makes an
immediate strong impression like you
don't need to read a single line of
dialogue from red white to know that you
hate him here I'll show you see just one
glance at that pose and that smug
expression and do you have all the
information you need heck this game has
some of the most iconic poses in all of
gaming you don't have to have played a
single Ace Attorney game to recognize
this this brings us to another important
element that sets these games apart
their approach to limited animation
because as you can see these are not
just static poses compared to a lot of
their visual novel contemporaries Ace
Attorney characters actually animate
quite a bit you see one of the common
challenges for this genre is that you
want your visual novel to be visually
engaging right because static images can
get pretty boring to look at after a
while but you got no money so you've
either got to accept that your games
just gonna look pretty static and that's
gonna have to be fine or you've got to
figure out how to liven things up in a
way that costs very little and it's
pretty fun looking around to see how
many varied solutions different visual
novels and adventure games have used to
address that problem because there are a
lot of really creative approaches out
there now in the case of Phoenix Wright
fully animating these characters on such
a tight budget and schedule obviously
out of the question so what the artists
did instead was work within their key
poses adding just enough movement to
keep the characters feeling alive I've
talked before about the concept of
limited animation which you often see
deployed in animation for TV which has
to work on a tighter budget well this is
basically that but stripped down even
further down to the barest minimum
possible so the characters will hit
these striking poses but then as they
hold each pose they will continue to
blink when they speak as their text
dialogue appears below their mouths will
cycle through a handful of talking
shapes and for certain poses characters
will even have extremely limited unique
animation just one or two additional
drawings wherever it'll have the most
impact maybe even on just one part of
the body like nervous characters will
visibly sweat detective gumshoe will do
this heavy breathing which just adds to
his sense of eager intensity
dee Vasquez will smoke her pipe Cody
Hawkins will try and fail to draw his
toy sword Luke at me will clean his
magnifying glass thing Franziska von
Karma will tensely grip the fabric of
her sleeve just like her dad does by the
way and they'll add these anticipation
frames to the poses that really need to
pop with some more energy like Phoenix's
accusatory point or the moments where
Phoenix or Edgeworth slammed their hands
down on the stand that tiny bit of extra
animation attention goes wherever it
will achieve maximum personality or
appeal or comedy like the first time
you're up against Godot and you see him
lean forward hand outstretched and a
coffee mug suddenly slides into his palm
out of nowhere if that gag is not worth
a few more frames of animation than what
is but the real value of this strong
pose design and hyper limited animation
is in the ways that they can both be
used to show a progression of emotions
over the course of a story this is a
game of comically exaggerated courtroom
drama and the posing on this cast of
absurd caricatures needs to reflect the
drama of the moment and not just for
narrative purposes but also for player
feedback in the context of a virtual
courtroom visible shifts in a
character's emotional state are some of
the clearest
back the player can get in response to
their choices like if that last question
got a big emotional reaction then you
might be on to something or if the
prosecution starts looking smug all of a
sudden now that's probably a bad sign to
show you what I mean let's look at just
one characters entire animation set over
the course of one story and to show just
how good a Saturnia spin at this from
the start let's do it with a character
from the very first episode in the
series Frank saw it now this particular
episode opens with a cutscene showing us
that Frank is in fact the real killer so
there is no ambiguity going into this
case we know for a fact that the accused
our client is innocent and that Frank is
not to be trusted so when the trial
starts and it's finally Frank's turn to
take the stand this is the first pose we
see look at this suck-up clearly he is
hoping to come in here sweet-talk his
way through his testimony and get out
without a scratch now obviously this is
not subtle characterization but it's not
supposed to be this is a game of
larger-than-life caricatures subtlety
has no place here and he's already got
some limited animation happening in this
first pose just a set of three drawings
on only his body to allow him to do that
little sycophantic wiggle and this is a
particularly great touch because that
back-and-forth movement not only adds to
the cloyingly over friendly nature of
the pose but it also gives Frank a sort
of nervous energy and of course we know
why he might be feeling nervous it's
just two extra drawings but they have a
big payoff so then the prosecutor asks
his first question and it's a pretty
simple little soft ball of a question
but Frank's response is accompanied by a
flash and a screen shake the Ace
Attorney games use these full screen
effects a lot for emphasis in this
instance it makes Frank's response feel
kind of overeager like maybe he replied
a little too suddenly or too loudly this
is also where we see the additional
drawings for Frank's talking mouth in
this pose just his default mouth shape
and three additional mouth poses playing
on a loop now as Frank starts giving his
testimony you might notice a subtle
difference in his animation during the
moments when he's speaking
he is still holding that same pose as
before but as the text appears on screen
and his mouth flaps the speed of his
wiggling increases slightly when he's
beautifully just standing there idle his
little wiggle animates on twenty frame
intervals but when he's talking that
animation speeds up so that the drawing
cycle every 15 frames or so which makes
him feel a little more active on screen
and I love this little efficiency the
artists are altering the character's
performance just through timing alone
here without having to add any new art
and we're gonna see them play with that
timing a lot more in a second so Frank
gives his testimony and wait a minute we
find an inconsistency when we call him
on it
that's when we see Frank's second pose
and it's very similar to the first one
in fact I think the body animation might
be identical which again hey efficient
but now his head is tilted downward
slightly his brows are furrowed he's
looking a little more worried he's
starting to sweat and that body
animation cycle is going even faster now
the drawings are switching on eighth
frame intervals plus we're starting to
see more screen shake on his responses
he is getting more and more nervous and
that act he's been putting on is
starting to feel less charming and more
desperate and does that not feel
satisfying of course he does come up
with a lie to dig himself out of that
hole and he reverts to that original
smarmy grin but then he gives revised
testimony and aha another contradiction
and with another flash and screen shake
Frank is cornered again
Phoenix calls him out on this latest lie
and that's when we see a brief glimpse
of pose number three an expression of
furious shock kind of like when a cat
digs their claws into your leg it's only
onscreen for a second but it's a telling
sign we are beginning to break through
the act and there's a little animation
to this pose too so long as you don't
blink you might see his toupee flap off
of his forehead just a little it's a
little bit of foreshadowing for you
so Frank digs himself out of this lie
also but this time he doesn't go back to
the smarmy pose he sweats through his
entire third attempt at testimony and
when we call him on yet another
inconsistency this time we get pose
number 4 anger he's shaking his fist the
screen is shaking a lot on his dialog
now his eyes are blinking just
lightly out of sync which mmm that's
good we are seeing a new side of Frank
come out the true Frank who can't keep
his anger in check we've almost got him
you see what I mean about this animation
acting as player feedback Frank's
emotional state and also the emotional
state of the prosecutor which is very
fun to watch functions as evidence of
your progress in this case and these
emotional outbursts also weirdly
function as a kind of celebration but as
you wear the witness down with more and
more of your very good lawyering they're
escalating nervousness and anger is your
reward and if you can manage to keep
pressing them and break through their
last few desperate lies then
the game will celebrate your victory
with a relatively elaborate meltdown
this is almost always the most animation
you're going to see on these antagonist
characters Frank's little toupee throw
here requires a whopping seven new
drawings or I guess closer to twelve if
you include the hair and also Phoenix's
expression it is no wonder players love
these meltdowns so much because they are
immensely satisfying moments that you
worked so hard to earn and the actual
animation of these moments isn't even
that impressive by most standards this
would probably be considered kind of
poor but the over-the-top comedy of the
outburst still makes for an incredibly
satisfying surprise but Frank's not done
yet now that he's had his outburst we've
got a sixth pose of pure rage and it has
a lot of movement on it the Frank that
started this trial is nowhere to be seen
and when you deliver the final final
blow the game has one more reward for
you
a court case won by knockout that's some
good lawyering we just did and that's it
that's all of Frank's animation just
seven or eight poses with some extremely
limited movement thrown in for emphasis
compared to most other hit games that's
barely anything and yet it achieves
everything it needs to in fact this
style of limited but exaggerated
animation is so effective that modern
Ace Attorney titles are still using it
the characters may all be 3d models now
and the snippets of animation may have a
bit more detail than they used to but
everything is still built on simple held
poses accented with extremely limited
specific motion and I'm actually shocked
at how well this works in 3d
granted the models aren't able to hit
those old poses with quite the level of
appeal as the original pixel art and
drawings had but they do get like 95% of
the way there and the constant use of
unusually static poses makes the
flourishes of animation even more
appealing by contrast the animation in
ASA tourney games is simple and
impressive all at once aesthetically it
has to strike this extremely delicate
balance of adding just enough movement
to keep things feeling alive and
expressive without that simplistic
movement just feeling like bad animation
to be cheap without feeling cheap
basically the line between limited
animation and bad animation can be
extremely thin and Phoenix Wright does
drift over that line with some frequency
if I'm honest but when you're posing is
this strong and when your characters are
this expressive and their reactions are
this satisfying I'm not sure any amount
of clunky animation can ruin that like I
said at the end of the day the eternal
challenge of game animation is in
delivering the most bang for your buck
and very few teams succeed in achieving
this much while working with so little
thanks once again to my patrons for
choosing this topic this was not a
franchise I was planning to dig into but
I'm very happy you gave me the
opportunity to do so if you would like
to suggest a topic for a future new
frame plus episode then consider
supporting the show like all of these
beacons of justice over here thank you
for watching
I'll see you next time
[Music]