Phoenix "Nick" Wright, known as in the original Japanese language versions, is the fictional titular defense attorney and the protagonist in Ace Attorney, a visual novel adventure video game series created by Shu Takumi, who was an employee of Japanese gaming company Capcom. Introduced in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001), Phoenix is a young rookie attorney who the player controls in several cases to protect the clients suspected of murder. Phoenix is the main character in the first three games, accompanied by assistants Maya and Pearl Fey and Ema Skye, mentored by the ghost of Mia Fey (channeled by the first two assistants as mediums), and rivaled by Miles Edgeworth, Franziska von Karma, and Godot. He remains in a less prominent role in the second trilogy starting with a supporting role in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (2007) as an older single father to Trucy Wright and mentor to Apollo Justice, before becoming a playable character again as a veteran attorney in subsequent games, mentoring Athena Cykes, rivaled by Simon Blackquill and Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, and reuniting with Maya and Pearl. The character has also appeared in film, anime, and manga adaptations of the series, a Japanese series of musicals and stage plays, as well as several crossover games.
Phoenix Wright was created by writer Shu Takumi, who wanted a character who would spot contradictions in statements. While the series was meant to end with the third game, feedback from the fans resulted in an older Phoenix becoming a supporting character in the second trilogy. While he eventually became playable, his protege Apollo Justice remained the main protagonist. Originally designed by Tatsurō Iwamoto, the character's design remained the same for the first and second trilogy except for Apollo Justice due to a request from Takumi. Across these installments and adaptations, several actors provided their talent for Phoenix with Takumi himself playing him in the original games.
Phoenix has received positive critical reception and has been described as a likeable character with a realistic profession. His mannerisms and character design have inspired many cosplayers. However, his more minor role in the second trilogy earned mixed responses for lacking his original appeal. His other appearances in the anime series and related cross-overs were still the subject of praise.
Conception and creation
The idea of a lawyer was conceived when director Shu Takumi was searching for ideas for a game in which the player could discover lies or contradictions in statements. Takumi used his privilege as director to cast himself as Phoenix. Phoenix was a private investigator who found a body at his client's office and was arrested. As the lawyer who is assigned to his case is useless, Phoenix takes up his own defense. One staff member suggested that Phoenix should be a hamster; while this did not happen, this early version of Phoenix did have a pet hamster.
The character was designed by Tatsurō Iwamoto. In order to stand out, he was given distinctive spiky hair. Iwamoto claimed that whenever he had to design Phoenix, it had to look as his confidence shows. He draws him over and over until he can look at him and sense that he is really confident for no reason. When starting development for the first Ace Attorney, Iwamoto showed Takumi a sketch of his ideas for a suitable leading character. As Takumi's opinion of what a suitable protagonist should look like clashed with Iwamoto's, the character was redesigned again, especially as it was decided to illustrate the characters after the plot was done. Maya's design was especially praised because it fits Phoenix's character.
Takumi spent little time writing a backstory for Phoenix before writing the first game's story and instead made up dialogue and developed Phoenix's personality as he went along. Phoenix ended up being too similar to Takumi's personality. As he was too close to Takumi, one staff member revised Phoenix to be more of his own; Takumi also wanted to avoid giving the protagonist a less average personality as symbolized in Japanese by the word "ore". There was also the need to of separating Phoenix from visual novel protagonists when writing his character. Meanwhile, Miles Edgeworth was created to be Phoenix's ideal rival. Takumi came up with the partner character Maya because he thought it would be more fun for players to have another character with them giving them advice rather than investigating on their own.
Wright's Japanese given name, Ryūichi, alludes to the mythical dragon with its use of . His Japanese surname, Naruhodō, references the Japanese expression , which equates to the English "I see". This phrase is often used in Japan to express attentiveness to the subject at hand. Takumi chose the phrase to highlight Wright's inexperience; even though his name reads "I see", he may not in fact understand what is happening, something that may also be true of people using the phrase. It is also commonly used in mystery novels when investigating, which is a core gameplay concept of the series.
In English versions, Wright's name was localized to present a similar meaning to English-speaking audiences. His first name is also a mythical reference: to the phoenix, known for "rising from the ashes", an allusion to his almost impossible comebacks, or "turnabouts", during trials. This is referenced in the first game, in which the fifth case is titled "Rise from the Ashes". His surname is a pun, allowing for wordplay (such as "Right, Wright?" and "Phoenix Wrong"). Early brainstorming suggestions for Phoenix's name included "Cole" and "Wilton", but "Phoenix" was chosen as a name that would "stand out". The nickname "Nick" (used by his partner, Maya Fey, and his best friend, Larry Butz) was chosen based on its believability and similarity to the sound of "Phoenix".
As Takumi wanted the first three Ace Attorney games to be part of one larger work, he did not want the first game to look outdated in comparison to later ones, so it was decided to keep the same graphics for main characters such as Phoenix, Maya, and Edgeworth throughout all their appearances and not make updates to them. Takumi wanted the series to end with Trials and Tribulations, as he had explored Phoenix's character fully and wanted to avoid the series becoming "a shadow of its former self", saying that he thinks it is important to know when to end a story.
Because the dialogue-integrated tutorial in the first game had been well received, it was considered a major point for future games in the series. In the first game, Takumi had Phoenix being guided through his first trial by the judge and Mia, and for the second game, he had Phoenix suffer from amnesia. When writing the third game, Takumi did not know what to do, as it would not seem credible if Phoenix had amnesia a second time. Eventually he came up with the idea of using a flashback to a case where Mia had just become an attorney; he developed this idea further and ended up using flashbacks as a major theme for the game's story. In order to allow Edgeworth to be the player character, the first thing he did was "get rid of" Phoenix by having him fall from a bridge into an icy river. He enjoyed writing from another character's perspective, who thought differently from Phoenix; he also used the case to explore the relationship between Edgeworth and Gumshoe. For this game, the team had difficulties with exploring Phoenix's girlfriend Dahlia Hawthorne as her design had to fit the protagonist's likes. Wright and Maya happened to be Takumi's favorite characters to the point he believed he fully understood them.
Second Ace Attorney trilogy
For Apollo Justice, Takumi did not plan to have Phoenix appear in the game, but his colleagues wanted him in the game in some form, which led to him being the accused in the first case in the game. In Apollo Justice, Wright wears a new outfit, as Takumi did not like him as a veteran attorney. He then asked artist Kazuya Nuri to change him to the point of being unrecognizable, and subsequent requests only served to make him look even worse. However, promotional materials quickly revealed Phoenix's identity. Originally, the former protagonist would suffer drinking problems and be actually involved in gambling, but Takumi changed it after receiving advice that the concept would not be appropriate for all ages. Takumi himself also found it more difficult than he had expected to handle such themes in the story. This resulted in Wright just showing a preference for grape juice in general with the poker concept. It was relatively simple to change the concept so that Wright simply enjoyed grape juice, but it took a long time to adjust the gambling concept before it was finalized to be purely competitive with only pride on the line.
For the second game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Dual Destinies, it was decided Wright's return to law. His role was instead changed to that of the "newbie chief" of the Wright Anything Agency. His new character design had to be similar to his appearance in Trials and Tribulations, while keeping signs that it was set after the first trilogy. Many potential designs were put forward, including versions that had glasses, wore his pendant around his neck, wore a sweater hand-knitted by Trucy, or had a small goatee. It was decided that he should be well-dressed in a suit, but even the design of said suit had many variations. In the end, the game's art director, Takuro Fuse, wanted to make him look older by altering his classic look subtly and giving him a small tuft of his hair poking out in the front. This look was meant to add a little wildness to his design, while the waistcoat and pendant were meant to give an additional air of maturity. The balance between his face and expressions was also tweaked in the illustrations and 3D models for the game. The game's scenario director, Takeshi Yamazaki, felt that Wright is the embodiment of the "revival" theme of Dual Destinies.
Due to Dual Destinies being made long after the previous main game in the series, the developers felt that they needed it to make a big impact; they knew from the start that they wanted Phoenix Wright to return as the game's main character and as an attorney, since they had hinted at it at the end of the previous game. Additionally, they wanted to retain Apollo Justice as an important character and not steal the spotlight from him, as he had already been established as a new main character. Feeling that Apollo's story had not been explored enough in the previous game, they focused on developing his character further in Dual Destinies and added the character Athena Cykes as his junior.