One of the primary Western influences of Ace Attorney is the American crime drama series "Columbo", of which series creator Shu Takumi is a professed fan, and who based his character profiles on the sharpness and secrecy of Lieutenant Columbo:
"I don't touch upon Phoenix's past in the games, and the players don't even know where his parents are. Fans often ask me about the birthdate of a character, or their bloodtype or favorite food, but I don't talk about them on purpose. On the other hand, my own personality might be shining through my characters... In the game, Phoenix's thoughts are shown as monologue, but those inner monologues are just my own, personal thoughts. So when people say "Phoenix is actually quite sarcastic", they're actually talking about me (laugh)."
In the 2015 interview the above quote came from, Takahiro Ookura, writer of the Japanese crime drama series "Enter Lieutenant Fukuie", commented afterwards:
"I can feel the influence of "Columbo" in "Ace Attorney". For example, there's the thing with the IV drops in "Turnabout Succession", episode 4 of "Ace Attorney 4". I won't go into details, but the part where it goes "the only way you can know about this if you were there at that time", that's a type of logic often used in "Columbo"."
Additionally, the character design for Detective Dick Gumshoe is likely modeled off of Columbo's actor Peter Falk; Gumshoe's squint and uneven eyebrows mirror those of Falk, whose signature squint was the result of using an artificial right eyeball stemming from a childhood eye surgery.
NetherRealm Studios was able to get the likeness rights of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Terminator guest character, but he was not able to provide the voice for the character. Instead, Schwarzenegger himself chose voice actor Chris Cox to be hired to voice the Terminator according to senior UI artist Daanish Syed.
The name of the main boss Kronika may be a reference to Chronos, the personification of time in pre-Socratic philosophy, often mistaken with the ruler of the Titans in Greek Mythology, Cronus. While this is a recurring historical and philosophical mistake, this might have inspired the idea that Kronika is a Titan, much like Cronus. Additionally, the word "Kronika" is a Czech and Slovenian cognate which translated to English means "Chronicle".
In South Korea and Australia, the game was rated their respective equivalents of a Mature rating due to the inclusion of casino banking/gambling games like Blackjack, Texas hold 'em poker, and Riichi mahjong.
In the Japanese release of the game, there is hidden meaning in the game's ending. Spoiler:Big Boss is portrayed by voice actor Chikao Ōtsuka; father of Spoiler:Solid Snake's voice actor Akio Ōtsuka.
Hideo Kojima has claimed that the two had fallen out years before and had not spoken to one another since, and Kojima intentionally cast Chikao in the game hoping to help patch things up between the two.
According to president and co-founder Sugiura Hirohide, the company was formed after the release of the Squaresoft film "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" proved to be a box-office bomb. With the film losing $94 million at the box office, Squaresoft had very little money left to create a sequel to Xenogears, thus causing Hirohide to leave the company and create Monolith Soft along with Tetsuya Takahashi, also a former employee at Squaresoft.
Prior to the start of 2017, there were 976 known Banana Coins in the game. In early January of that year, a speedrunner discovered a widely undocumented 5-Banana Coin hidden in Fungi Forest while looking at how the game formats its save data. While looking through the stage's flags in the BizHawk emulator, the speedrunner noticed that the flag for 5-Banana Coins was incomplete, and used script analysis tools to reveal a DK Dirt Pile hidden under tall grass located near the Tag Barrel by the exit to the Chunky Minecart. Walking over the pile would cause the player to slightly bob upwards from the grass in an easy-to-miss moment, and slamming it revealed the 5-Banana Coin, bringing the known total to 977 Banana Coins.
Hidden in the background of the song "Adam's Apartment" used in that area, a quiet, distorted sample of dialogue spoken by actress Sean Young from the 1982 film "Blade Runner" can be heard, specifically the scene where Deckard meets Rachael after a replicant owl flies across the room and she asks him "Do you like our owl?"
In the Super Mario World official guidebook interview, the game's composer Koji Kondo was asked how he came up with Mario's main theme, and revealed that it was originally very different, and went through multiple iterations. He commented:
"My first image was of “walking around an open grassy field.” That got me thinking about how carefree it must feel, and I wrote a relaxed, light melody to match. However, when I played it back alongside the actual game, it didn’t match the speed of the game or its rhythm at all! I tried adding a swing feel to it, but many people told me this made the melody sound weird, so that was out too. After trying this and that, I came up with the idea of a “cha cha cha” melody, and it all expanded from there."
According to the PlayStation Blogcast with Seth Killian, Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series nearly got in the game.
He commented: “We were committed to try and provide some extra content to Sony and we were excited about looking at the different roster and seeing who was out there, and you know you’ve got all sort of cool characters like Nathan Drake, but you know Nathan Drake has kind of a nice Han Solo kind of everyman and he’s a comical guy but the Japanese team got really excited about Cole and the flexibility of his powers, projectiles, grabs, and all sorts of cool stuff.”
The original Xbox release of Shrek is noted as being the first commercial game to use "deferred shading," a technique where light is only calculated for the pixels it actually interacts with, meaning multiple light sources can be used at a lower cost than standard shading techniques and allowing the game to better imitate the ambient lighting of the original film. This technique would later be seen in Battlefield 1942, another game developed by DICE and released the following year.
In The PlayStation magazine interview with the game's art designer Kazuma Kaneko, he was asked about how the game's title 'Sin' (Persona 2: Innocent Sin) and the main theme of 'rumors' tied together in the game's story. He responded:
"My definition of “rumor” is when a person makes a judgment based on their own preconceptions and prejudices, and then recklessly disseminates that to the wider world. When that stuff circulates and circulates, you know… it could eventually become a sin. Even though we never intentionally think we’re committing a sin, I bet in our everyday lives this kind of thing happens a lot. A careless comment you make could have a major impact on someone else’s life. Those ideas are intertwined with the story of Persona 2."
Raz's Archetype is voiced by Rosearik Rikki Simons, the voice of GIR from the American animated series "Invader Zim", as a direct compliment to Raz's voice actor Richard Steven Horvitz, who was the voice of the titular Zim, in order to recreate their character dynamic from the series.
The last two sets of challenges in Paprika World in Challenge Land are named "Wario... Where?" and substitute the Rhythm Heaven characters for guest appearances by characters from the WarioWare series, a nod to how both series share the same artist and character designer Ko Takeuchi.
Scorpia is the pseudonym of a video game journalist who was most active from the early 1980's through 2009 and was known for writing controversial and harsh reviews of adventure and RPG games published in Computer Gaming World magazine. One of her most notable reviews was a lukewarm review of Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World that supposedly angered the game's designer, Jon Van Caneghem, so much he wrote a lengthy response defending the game and lambasting the review that was also published in the magazine. He then named an enemy after Scorpia in the game's sequel, Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra. In a 2019 interview with Kotaku UK, Scorpia stated there was never any true bad blood between her and Caneghem, but expressed disappointment that he didn't make the monster she was named after "big and nasty".
Upon completing the game once on any difficulty, additional costumes for Heather become unlockable via cheat codes entered on a new menu accessible from the title screen. Exclusively for the PlayStation 2 version of the game, 14 codes were released as promotional tie-ins with 8 North American and 6 European video game media outlets, with each outlet's costume adorned with their respective logos. The participating companies and the codes to unlock their costumes include:
North America: •Electronic Gaming Monthly, an American magazine, "EGMpretaporter" •Game Informer, an American magazine, "gameinformer" •GamePro, an American magazine, "ProTip" •GMR, an American/Canadian magazine, "GMRownzjoo" •Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, an American magazine, "SH3_OPiuM" •PlayStation Magazine, an American magazine, "badical" •IGN.com, an American website, "IGN_pickleboy" •GameSpy.com, an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware, "iaml33t"
Europe: •13ème Rue, a French cable network, unlocked with the code "Suspense" •Game Reactor, a Scandinavian magazine, "SH3_Wrestlarn" •Play, a British magazine, "sLmLdGhSmKfBfH" •G@me Network, an Italian cable network, "IwannabeaGJ" •Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine, a British magazine, "extra_thumbs" •PlayStation 2 Revista Oficial - España, a Spanish magazine, "MATADOR"
Dark Cloud was first released in Japan on December 14, 2000. It was localized in English and released in North America and Europe the following year and was touted by Sony as being 30% larger than the original Japanese release. The additional content included an updated battle system, extra weapons and monsters, improved AI, additional Duel battles, and a 100-floor post-game dungeon exclusive to the English-language release called the "Demon Shaft". Spoiler:Defeating the final boss of the dungeon, Black Knight Pendragon, will award the player with the sword "Chronicle 2", which can also be found in Dark Cloud 2 by building up the original Chronicle Sword into it. While the original Chronicle Sword also exists in Dark Cloud, it cannot be built up into Chronicle 2.
In the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game, the Dog Shrine is bulldozed and a Dog Casino is built in its place, containing a similar slot machine side quest that can unlock decorative items and 11 Xbox achievements. One of those unlockable items is a poker table featuring Sans, who can comment on your prizes found in the room. Spoiler:During a Pacifist run following the final boss fight, the player can return to the Dog Casino to find Mad Mew Mew in Sans' place, who will also comment on your prizes.
In the Nintendo Switch version of the game, the Dog Shrine from the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions appears abandoned and in shambles. The only new addition is a red and blue door referencing the Switch's Red and Blue variant Joy Cons which are used to open it. The door can be opened Spoiler:following the Mettaton EX boss fight and allows players to access a boss fight exclusive to the Switch version, Mad Mew Mew. Spoiler:This character is implied to be the spirit of Mad Dummy after it possessed a "Mew Mew Kissy Cutie" doll belonging to Alphys.
If you stare at a Boo for around 13 seconds, the Boo will make a funny face back. If you stare at a Big Boo for around 25 seconds, the Big Boo will briefly peek out from hiding in its hands to see if you are still looking.
One of the primary Western influences of Ace Attorney is the American crime drama series "Columbo", of which series creator Shu Takumi is a professed fan, and who based his character profiles on the sharpness and secrecy of Lieutenant Columbo:
Prior to the start of 2017, there were 976 known Banana Coins in the game. In early January of that year, a speedrunner discovered a widely undocumented 5-Banana Coin hidden in Fungi Forest while looking at how the game formats its save data. While looking through the stage's flags in the BizHawk emulator, the speedrunner noticed that the flag for 5-Banana Coins was incomplete, and used script analysis tools to reveal a DK Dirt Pile hidden under tall grass located near the Tag Barrel by the exit to the Chunky Minecart. Walking over the pile would cause the player to slightly bob upwards from the grass in an easy-to-miss moment, and slamming it revealed the 5-Banana Coin, bringing the known total to 977 Banana Coins.
The last two sets of challenges in Paprika World in Challenge Land are named "Wario... Where?" and substitute the Rhythm Heaven characters for guest appearances by characters from the WarioWare series, a nod to how both series share the same artist and character designer Ko Takeuchi.
Scorpia is the pseudonym of a video game journalist who was most active from the early 1980's through 2009 and was known for writing controversial and harsh reviews of adventure and RPG games published in Computer Gaming World magazine. One of her most notable reviews was a lukewarm review of Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World that supposedly angered the game's designer, Jon Van Caneghem, so much he wrote a lengthy response defending the game and lambasting the review that was also published in the magazine. He then named an enemy after Scorpia in the game's sequel, Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra. In a 2019 interview with Kotaku UK, Scorpia stated there was never any true bad blood between her and Caneghem, but expressed disappointment that he didn't make the monster she was named after "big and nasty".
If you stare at a Boo for around 13 seconds, the Boo will make a funny face back. If you stare at a Big Boo for around 25 seconds, the Big Boo will briefly peek out from hiding in its hands to see if you are still looking.