"It Does the Series "Justice""

“Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney” is a game for the DS, being a pseudo-sequel of “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney”. You play Apollo Justice, a fresh-out-of-school lawyer who can talk really loud (“Chords of Steel”). If you have played previous games in the “Ace Attorney” series, this is old hat, and it's pretty much the same game with a few changes. But you know what they say: sometimes less is more.

The game is split into two phases, investigation and trial. Investigation consists of talking to witnesses and investigating the scene of the crime. That's it. However, the investigation system works better than previous iterations in the series mostly due to the fact that the designers made what you need to do more obvious. Characters will tell you what you need to be doing after completing certain objectives. This helps control what was such a problem with the previous games, the difficulty curve. The game always walks a fine line between frustrating and easy, and while there are a few spikes here and there, for the most part it's pretty smooth.

Court phases are almost unchanged, and that's good for the most part. You can cross-examine various witnesses and present evidence to build you case. The biggest change in the game comes in at this point. Thanks to your magic bracelet, you can zoom in on witnesses and look for various twitches or “tells” that tell you when they are unsure, withholding information, or just plain lying. Somehow, the game even made searching endlessly through testimonies for one inconspicuous twitch fun.

The DS-centric features really shine here, and thank goodness, because the game play was getting stale. For the first time since the original “Ace Attorney” you can search evidence in 3D, dust for fingerprints, search for blood and more. The main problem here is not the new features, but the fact that you get to use them so sparingly! Every case only has about one DS special feature, and since these are the most fun parts of the game it's a real bummer. My personal favorite was using a mixing board to isolate music tracks.

The graphics are much improved from the other three games in the series. The environments from previous games have all been re-drawn and look quite great. The character's animations are more fluid than in previous games, but they do maintain the cartoon-y feel of the other games. The music is quite good, and it includes some awesome songs designed specifically for a case. However, I kept wishing that the “bleep-bleep-bleep” sound of the text scrolling would just stop.

The story here is what takes the cake. For the first time in the series you have a coherent over-arching story involving Phoenix and something that happened seven years ago. I won't spoil anything for you, but the last five minutes of the game will absolutely leave your jaw on the floor. The individual cases are written much better than previous cases, but there were times where I felt they left too much unexplained, while over-simplifying other aspects. My favorite is case three, “Turnabout Serenade” that really leads well into case four.

The fourth case deserves a paragraph to itself. It starts out as a simple murder case, but quickly turns into a culminating experience that covers everything you have learned in the game. The major draw here is the ability to uncover secrets by moving through time to find what you need to know. You basically get a list of things you need to learn, than you have two options. You can go to the present or the past. Once there, you determine which of four locations in that time period you want to visit. You can move between all of the areas until you solve all of the mysteries. It does a good job of covering everything you need to know, while leaving just enough to the imagination to make you wonder.

The game is long. Not just for a DS game, but for any game. On the first play through, it'll last you 13-15 hours without using a guide, ~10 if you are using one. The game's replay value is a killer. After you know what to do, replaying is relatively simple and effortless. Yes, there are two endings, but you decide them with the press of one button. If you really want to see both endings, just save during the last trial phase and pick the other option. It's quite obvious which decision I'm talking about.

My main problem with the other games is still here. The logic is anything but logical. If you looked up “whimsical” in the dictionary, this games cover would be right there. You will notice it less, but it's like saying that an elephant has lost a little weight. Yeah, there's less of it, but it's not like you can just not notice it.

The game's localization is top notch. There are more pop culture references than even the most stuffed of news stands. Some of them are quite funny (Who would name a band “the police”?). To compliment the localization, there is some of the best writing ever in a video game. The characters are quite funny, and more tolerable than characters from previous iterations. Some of them are still somewhat annoying (End quote!), but most of them are at least interesting. My favorite is Trucy, Phoenix's adoptive daughter who replaces Maya from previous games. She's wacky, she has a really short attention span, and you will really become attached to her as the game continues.

Overview:

- Investigation (-2)
- Difficulty Spikes (-1)
- “Bleep” Text Sound (-1)
- Lack Of Replay Value (-1)
- Too Few DS Features (-1)
- Wacky Logic (-1)

+ Perceive System (+1)
+ New DS Features (+3)
+ New Graphics (+1)
+ Good Music (+1)
+ Story (+2)
+ Case Four (+2)
+ Length (+1)
+ Localization (+2)
+ Writing (+2)
+ Characters (+1)

I would highly recommend this game to anyone with a DS and some patience to get through its slight problems.

Purchase

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/07/08

Game Release: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (US, 02/19/08)