Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

"A bad game you say? Objection! Anyway....."

Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright, at first I was very skeptical of this game. A friend had told me to buy it and that it was amazing but I had my doubts. A very text driven game with close to no gameplay aside from picking commands from menus? Granted I am a huge menu, turn-based RPG gamer I still did not set my standards high for this game.

But how did I end up with this anyway? As I mentioned before my friend essentially forced me into buying this, however myself and him both knew of this game long before I purchased it. On the internet, the Objection! website hit forums pretty hard. People were in love with the thing, as was I for a while. Most of us that knew very little about its roots however and wanted to know more, and it honestly ended up as a good marketing tool on Capcom's part (even though they had nothing to do with the website). Anyway, I eventually picked up this game myself and found myself attached to it even today, playing through it many times.

First to get the topic of visuals out of the way, everything is very average really, though at the time of this game's original release (on the Gameboy Advance in Japan) it may have been really good. Each character has a waist up sprite that you see when they talk, there are a few different animations they can do but nothing incredibly special or remotely interesting. All of the game settings are a painted backdrop on which the waist-up sprites are on. The top screen has the text, sprites, and background while the bottom screen has a giant button to advance through text. Overall the transition from Gameboy Advance to Nintendo DS is visually flawless as every picture looks crisp and not outdated in the least, its good to see the developers take the time to resize images and assure everything fits well.

As I said before this game is nothing more than a Gameboy Advance port however the final case featured for you to play through was a game on its own in Japan. It was an Ace Attorney game to test the DS to see how entertaining they could make a game using the touch screen and the built in microphone. However the concept of buying a short "test" game such as this is not as popular in America and since the opportunity was so perfect Capcom decided to tack the game onto this release. The only major difference is the addition of a few cel-shaded cut scenes and viewing evidence. While the two cel-shaded cut scenes shown in this case are nothing spectacular and do not push the DS's hardware at all they are still enjoyable. The major change is the addition of viewable evidence. By clicking on a an item via your court record (which basically is an inventory screen) you get the option to view it in 3D, from there you can turn it, zoom in, and discover new secrets by opening or looking on the back of the evidence. It's a great addition and the 3D models look very nice for the art style of the game. This is a great addition I look forward to seeing in sequels to come.

Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright really makes great use of small resources. This is shown through the sound effects and music. There are about 30 separate music pieces in the game and each of these serve a purpose. Even if you do not find yourself connected to a certain song you must appreciate how well they use them. Ace Attorney easily makes the best use of music I have ever witnessed in a video game. Every single musical piece sets the tone for a certain situation. If the situation is dire, as if you could never correct what has happened there is a tune that propels this mood forward. Equally once you find a way out of this hole you are greeted with some very fast catchy tunes that give you a rush and you may find your foot tapping along and not even know it. All of this really adds to story very well and proves to me how well developers can connect certain aspects of video games to make a well polished title.

As I said this connects aspects of the game together well, in particular a good story. Being a text adventure you automatically assume there will be some sort of entertaining story involved. This holds true. The game chronicles the experiences of rookie attorney Phoenix Wright, who seems to be a promising defense attorney after winning his first case involving his best friend in the world Larry Butz who was framed for murdering his ex-girlfriend. All of a sudden after this case, his mentor Mia Fey is murdered and Phoenix finds himself defending her younger sister Maya in court. The entire game is spent on character development. There is no real plot that stretches from the games five trials as each story given to us per trial only builds a back story. This is a refreshing concept for video games as a title strongly focusing on developing a character is a rarity. By the end you will find yourself attached to each character in some way or another and new routes open for the future installments of the series.

Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright is in all senses a point and click text adventure. There is no fighting or platform jumping; in fact you never control a character to move with say the D-pad in a typical video game. Each trial is separated into two sections of gameplay. You have the court sections where you must listen to witnesses and go against what the prosecutor says to stop him from finding your client guilty, then investigations where you arm yourself with evidence needed to win in court.

The court section of gameplay is really the meat of the game that creates the mood along with moving the main story line forward in each case. They are basically a simplified version of courtroom drama today. There is no jury, just the judge to make all the calls. You are the defense attorney and face off against different prosecutors with various motives to bring the ultimate truth to light.

Trial sections play very simple. You listen to testimonies from witnesses and then press them on different parts of the testimony or object against what they say. Pressing sentences the witness says is your way to get more information and clues from them to give you a better understanding of what is going on. When that is done the objection command allows you to present evidence to counter what the witness said and eventually win the case for your client. However it is not that easy. Cases last a pretty lengthy time and you only have a small amount of HP. If your objection you raise makes no sense (there are far more of these choices then correct answers) you will be penalized with losing one HP. After losing all you're HP, your client will be found guilty and the game will end.

The game does vary sometimes though. You will find yourself staring at a piece of evidence such as a picture, pointing out a contradiction in it compared to a witness' testimony. Sometimes this is very obvious to the player, but often times it is very challenging and I have found myself stuck on one of these for days at a time. It was not too much of an annoyance though and it adds variety to the trials.

Out of the court room Phoenix drops his attorney duties for a detective hat. You literally do everything a detective would do. You go to specific places such as the crime scene and snoop around the area looking for any clue you can to be used in trials. This part of the game as fun as it is has a few flaws.

I got lost many times and ended up banging my head into a wall as I could not figure out where to progress anymore. I had clicked everything on the screen at a crime scene, presented evidence to characters for them to comment on, and asked every question I could for any information but it just did not progress sometimes. This seemed to happen often and it stumped me more then things in trials did. I really disliked it a lot and wanted to get back to courtroom drama. However, when the pace of the detective work was going smooth I found it very interesting and fun, I just wish you did not literally have close to no leads to go on from time to time, you often find yourself lost within this.

One last thing to add is the last case of the game. As I said earlier this was a title of its own in Japan for the Nintendo DS, and was ported into this game when released on the DS version. It offers a few things that make detective work much more fun and I am looking forward to doing these things in future titles if they ever make their way to North America. There are many tools such as spray to see hidden blood on objects, and a finger printing tool you use the built in microphone to blow away particles to see a fingerprint. There are tons of little things you do like this that makes the detective work feel much more like real detective work and gives it better pacing.

Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright is most certainly not for everyone. People that hate to read should steer as far away as they can with this game because the number one thing you will be spending your time in it doing is reading. On the other hand those of us that enjoy reading and love video games with a wonderful translated script, and those court drama fans should defiantly have this in their collection. As for other gamers that are skeptical about it I can not say that you will like it. The best thing to do is just try it and see what you think; you may fall in love with the ever growing series as it really is a love hate relationship.


Graphics - 7/10
Sound - 10/10
Gameplay - 8/10
Story - 9/10
End Result - 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/03/07, Updated 09/26/07

Game Release: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (US, 10/12/05)