The Animation of Phoenix Wright

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

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I'll see you next time

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