Nina Aquila

Steam banner of the first season in Nina Aquila

**Nina Aquila** (stylized in title as **Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle**) is an American adventure episodic game using the RPG Maker MV program. The game was created by Tanuki-sama Studios, founded by Ethan Fox.

The first chapter was originally released as a browser game on Dec 8, 2018, now expanded into the addition two stand-alone chapters in 2019 and 2020 before enhancing into the definitive version from the older versions are packaged as *Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, Season One.*

Fox revealed the fourth chapter is in development.

## Gameplay

Like most of RPG Maker games, the player controls Nina Aquila to explore any environments and places. Each chapters take the form of a tutorial that introduces the player to game's mechanics such as courtroom, trading card, and racing mini-games as varied.

## Premises

### Chapter 1

An overweight young woman, Nina Aquila, was qualified as rookie defense attorney and now take step in her final supervised case as she defends a fire mage cosplayer. Nina believes her to be innocent, but the others who accused of arson and witchcraft. To prove this, she and her friends journey to different areas around Fledge City, gathering evidence, before going to court to fight for her client's cause. She will need to trust her friends and forge new alliances if she is to fight for justice and uncover the truth.

### Chapter 2: Broken Wings

Weeks after the first chapter, Nina became frustration over loss of cosplayer's penalty after the court's objection. Afterwards, a visitor named Dylan came in her office to help investigate the clue at the High Flyers Casino, which someone commit murder over a children's trading card game titled "Dragon Fantasy Arena". Both were surrounded by hot-blooded heroes and dastardly cosplaying villains; Nina will need all her cunning if she's to make the best of a bad draw or her client's going to be sent to the graveyard.

### Chapter 3: Legal Stages

Nina and Dylan have founded their business, Aquila Defense & Law, and have been looking into the events surrounding a key trial and arrest, but the volume of evidence is large, and weeks have already passed without any leads. Later in the middle of night, a mysterious man who called himself "The Jack of Diamonds", tells them that his longtime racer, Clara Mass, known as "The Ace of Spades", has been murdered during a race, and three other racers accused of causing the death of Mass. However, Nina and Dylan defend three racers and are forced to take up the case through the world of Fledge City's Street Racing.

## Development

The game started in late 2018, initially as a prototype project to see if it was possible to produce a courtroom drama visual novel within the RPG Maker MV engine. The initial prototype was much simpler, but it soon led to the creation of a scenario that resembles the version that exists in the final game. This early version was uploaded to itch.io and following an immediate positive response. The case presented in this first chapter of the game is a courtroom tutorial with a straightforward setup and courtroom battle and should take approximately one hour to complete and was developed further into the first release that is still available on itch.io at present and was enhanced for the Steam release.

Funds raised will initially go towards the unique assets required to create the future cases, with a long-term goal of replacing all the visual aspects of the game with unique character and enhanced environment assets. Future cases will be based around unique themes that serve as pastiche or parody of popular anime genres and geeky activities; for example, a murder at an underground club for players of a collectible card game, or a theft that will see Nina and her friends get involved in illegal mountain street racing.

### Influences

*NALE* incorporates film genres such as courtroom drama and adventure, also centered on themes of murder mystery, and satirizes the anime and manga-related television series and video games such as *Ace Attorney*, *Case Closed, Gundam Build Fighters,* *Initial D*, and *Yu-Gi-Oh.* According to the developer, *NALE* is originally intended as an independent successor / homage to the *Ace Attorney* franchise.

## References

1. ↑ Enjoy Courtroom Drama with Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle Season One (en) (2021-07-12).