Siliconera reporting on an article from the Japanese “Nintendo Dream Magazine”:

The first reason for this was that, due to the 3DS’ surround sound capabilities, bringing over the DS sounds as they are would have been extremely difficult due to tuning problems.

Another concern was that the staff wanted the game sequences to work with the anime scenes, which are also fully voiced.

Old Gameboy and NES games sound pretty good on my 3DS, so I’m not sure what tuning problems are being referred to here.

Call me old fashioned, but giving voice to characters is not always a good thing. And in the case of the Ace Attorney series, it may actually be a bad thing. The use of short voice clips like the occasional “OBJECTION!!!” or “HOLD IT!!!” have become staples of the 11 year old series and are usually followed by awkward silence or triumphant music as the player reads the on-screen text. Throwing some voice acting into the mix will surely take away from that signature Ace Attorney sensation players have come to love.

[UPDATE]

Capcom’s Dread Hellston tweets:

Saw some posts saying AA5 will have full voice acting – not the case. Just those iconic key phrases! Maybe a mistranslated interview?

False alarm.