Ace Attorney became a hit IP only because Capcom pushed past the “failure” of first game, according to former dev

Pains me to hear it called a failure, it's such a delightful game. While the Western release years after was not part of initial development, it's also a landmark game in English localization history. The script brilliantly handles the puns and other specific quirks of the original Japanese while also setting a standard tone for this series and similar games that followed. For example, I don't know if Kansai-ben was translated into a US Southern dialect in a video game before this one.

They weren't nearly so patient with Okami around that time. They barely communicated around it, killed the studio, then commissioned a port they...barely communicated around again, and then they complained the game was doomed to be a commercial failure because... I don't know.

It's basically like one of the better classic Legend of Zelda games, only with a unique universe and charm and about twice the size of those.

It was criminally overlooked on PS2, but they have zero excuse for not turning it into a major hit for the Wii. One of the best game on a console with an absurd install base and that had almost no competition for it at that point.

If anyone is done with the official series and wants some more, some indie games that nicely follow its success:

Gyakuten Live, a fan game based on Love Live School Idol - three cases in, generally based around lower-stakes crimes but with surprising escalation

Occult Crime Police, a series based on small town paranormality

Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane, takes place in a world of magic where rules of spells are often a form of evidence.

I don't want to came off as simping for Capcom because they're are a corporation and thus are only profit-driven. But I do want to give credit where credit is due. Greenlighting a sequel despite the first attempt being a flop is not something that many publishers would do. This wouldn't be the last of Capcom's unorthodox decisions. When the industry was laying off workers left and right, Capcom actually increased their employees pay. If that increase was actually a substantial increase or not I don't know but other companies won't even consider increasing employee pay by a cent.

While the final case is probably not as good as other final cases in the series, it probably has one of the best filler chapters with the Steel Samurai

Is there a way to play these games on PC or at least on the Switch or something? I know obviously I could pirate them but I was wondering if a proper port had ever been made.