So I’ve been watching some classic mystery shows due to..
(soft, sad piano music plinking)
...looking for something comfortable to watch. You know, like, Murder She Wrote, Poirot,
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. But out of all of the mystery shows I’ve watched there’s been
one show that’s caught me...
red-handed.
Columbo. Columbo is a detective show from the ’70s that
feels less like a cop show and more like a drifter solving murders and leaving to the next Crimetown…
But something about this Ronin detective show really struck me:
Every episode of Columbo just reminded me of the first case in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I began to
wonder if this show had more in common with my favorite game than just this schlubby guy?
I love you Dick.
Columbo was created by Richard Levinson
and William Link in 1971. It was very different from other mystery shows for one important reason:
instead of keeping the audience in the dark until the very end,
the murderer is revealed at the beginning of the episode.
This “inverted mystery” concept dates back to The Case of Oskar Brodski by R. Austin Freeman in 1912
but it was still a pretty novel idea for a TV show in the ‘70s. Each episode of Columbo follows the
same formula. In the first act, we witness the murderer commit ...
...tHE PERFECT CRIME.
The killer is usually someone in power, like a politician,
studio executive, or even a scientist. In the second act, Columbo enters and begins
what William Link calls “The Duel.” You know, the stuff we think police detectives do in real life:
alibi-checking, pavement-pounding, questioning witnesses. The third and final act is “The Pop,”
(pop!)
or the big breakthrough that allows Columbo to solve the case.
This often involves Columbo catching the murderer in a contradiction and becoming so cornered that
they can’t help but confess to the crime.
- And I thought I'd performed the perfect murder...
- Perfect murder, sir?
Oh, I'm sorry, there is no such thing as a perfect murder. That's just an illuuuuusion.
- HOLD IT!
(Phoenix slams his hands on the wooden stand)
(little digital blip sounds of text appearing in Ace Attorney)
- (Josh speaking) The First Turnabout is the first case in the
Phoenix Wright series and it uses the same “inverted mystery” style of storytelling.
The player sees Frank Sahwit committing murder by Thinker. He believes he can pin his crime on
Larry Butz, as he was the last person to meet with the victim. Sahwit enters the trial as a witness.
The trial of Mr. Butz continues as Phoenix Wright cross-examines Sahwit’s testimony and
begins The Duel. Phoenix Wright works through the testimony and uses contradictory evidence to prove
that Frank Sahwit was the murderer all along. Sahwit confesses to the crime, and “POP!”
The inverted mystery style works well for this case since it’s effectively the tutorial.
The goal isn’t to figure out who did it – it’s to gather enough evidence to prove that they did it.
Later in the game, the dynamic switches back to the classic whodunnit-style mystery.
Still, it makes me wonder how Columbo and other mystery stories
influenced a Japanese studio known for zombie and fighting games? For that,
we have to figure out how Sherlock Holmes ended up in Japan
and not the 22nd century.
(sober orchestral music!)
Detective stories have been around since we stopped accepting murder as something that just
“happens”.
So of course the late 1800s.
Sherlock Holmes made his debut in 1887 and went
to Japan a few years later with the translation of “The Man with the Twisted Lip.”
After the turn of the century, Japan started translating the detective stories of Arthur
Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, and Edgar Allan Poe in short magazines. One of the first Japanese
authors published in these magazines was Tarō Hirai, also known by his pen name Edogawa Ranpo,
who wrote "The Two-Sen Copper Coin" in 1923. Ranpo was at the forefront of Japanese mystery
fiction and is considered a creator of: the Honkaku mystery! A Honkaku mystery
is a detective story that focuses mainly on the process of a criminal investigation, and the fun
comes from trying to solve it yourself. Honkaku mysteries usually include diagrams,
floor plans, and maps that give readers all the info they need to solve the mystery.
In the years following WWII, writers refined the form,
moving it further away from the simple who-dunits that Doyle had popularized.
In the ’70s Japanese writers began translating episodes of hit American TV shows such as Kojak
and, of course, our schlubby detective himself in
BOOK FOOOOOOOOOORM.
Columbo hit Japanese TV in 1974,
and its similarities to the Honkaku style made it an instant hit. Also,
anime references kind of solidify that. One of its biggest fans was none other than
Shu Takumi, the creator of Ace Attorney.
(Pat reads this quote aloud) - Shu Takumi: When I was a kid, I used to record
the audio of "Columbo" episodes on a cassette tape and listen to them in my room.
I did the same thing with Scooby-Doo episodes, but you don’t see me making Scooby-Doo honkaku out here.
Anyways back to Shu.
Shu Takumi: There were twelve
of us of my year in the consumer division alone, and one by one, people got picked
out for teams like Resident Evil and Breath of Fire, and so half a year passed and then
a year…… I stayed until the very last, watching over my seat in the training room (laughs).
Before entering the game industry, Takumi wanted to write mystery fiction
but was rejected by publishers. A friend from college told him about a game he was pitching,
and Takumi decided to try. In 1994, he joined Capcom.
The first game Takumi worked on was Scary Rumors at School – Hanako-san is here!!
in 1995. A game about a magical ghost girl doing stuff like this.
(menacing violins whining)
(girl yelling about ghosts)
After the game was released, Takumi moved over to Shinji Mikami’s Production Studio 4.
And after wrapping up a director stint on Dino Crisis 2, Capcom decided to give Takumi free rein
to do whatever he wanted with a small team and small budget. So he got to
work on — what else? A mystery game. Takumi is a Honkaku purist at heart who
looked down upon most mystery games as “passive experiences.” One of the exceptions
to that was Myst, which didn’t have the “appearance” of a mystery story but
successfully captured the “essence” of one.
Shu Takumi: How can I change the passive reading
experience of detective games into one where it truly feels like you solve the mystery yourself
based on your own reasoning?” From there I arrived at the idea of pointing out contradictions in
utterances of other people, and that was how I first arrived at the idea of an “attorney."
- Phoenix Wright was released in 2001 on the GBA in Japan. And while it performed okay there,
sales in the US were... pretty dismal! Despite that, Capcom greenlit more sequels, and
the series eventually gained momentum through word of mouth. Each game adds new elements to enhance
the investigation and trial gameplay. But the central theme remains consistent through
all six games in the series. It's what Takumi references as a “puzzle plot mystery,” where the focus is on
logically and methodically solving a mystery. In his musings on mystery fiction, he brings up
the idea that there are two roles: “The Great Detective” who figures out the truth, and
"The Reader,” who is surprised by the truth. When a person watches an episode of Columbo,
we’re watching excellent detective work... but we don’t get the satisfaction of being “The Reader.”
We’re not surprised because we know the truth from the beginning by the nature of the show. Columbo
is both The Reader and The Great Detective. By contrast, in Phoenix Wright, the player takes
on the role of The Great Detective AND The Reader. We're solving the case, and in doing so,
we’re surprised by the outcome. In Phoenix Wright, you’re the Columbo
of the courtroom, and the only thing that you can’t ask is
(raspy Columbo imitation) “One More Thing.”
(upbeat musical flourish! with 70s flavor!)
(a driving, upbeat little song, chugging along)
(oooh there's a little solo synth weee-ooooing in!)
(oohhh now it's a little more dramatic, but still with a driving beat)
(HORNS!!!)