Nintendo Direct Reveals Returning Ace Attorney Characters and Monster Hunter 4 Japanese Release Date

Nintendo's Satoru Iwata focused on two 3DS titles from Capcom during today's Nintendo Direct. A brand new Ace Attorney 5 trailer was loaded with new information and shots of the beautifully animated cutscenes. We also get confirmation that, along with Athena Cykes' Mood Matrix ability, we will still be able to utilize Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice's abilities from past games as well. Phoenix will still be able to sense when people are lying or hiding something with his ability to feel Psyche Locks, and Apollo will still have his ability to pinpoint a person's nervous ticks and tells.

The new trailer also revealed two returning characters from previous Ace Attorney games. Pearl Fey, youngest of the Fey sisters, makes an appearance looking quite a bit older than the last time we saw her. This is the first that we've seen of a Fey sister since Ace Attorney 3 (not including Maya in Marvel vs. Capcom 3).

Apollo's rival, and younger brother of Apollo's mentor, Klavier Gavin also makes an appearance in the trailer. It's great to see the inclusion of such an important character in Apollo's story, which gives me hope that we'll have Justice's character fleshed out a bit more in AA5. Along with Edgeworth and Trucy, this gives us four familiar faces to look forward to so far. This will also be the first Ace Attorney game to earn a 15+ age rating in Japan.

In other big news, September 14th was announced as the Japanese release date of Monster Hunter 4. Two fantastic looking (in very different ways…) MH4 themed 3DS systems were also shown. Lots of Monster Hunter 4 footage was shown off, and the animations are looking better than ever.

Check out the entire Nintendo Direct here.