Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

"You Can't Handle the Truth!"

When someone is having a conversation about the Nintendo DS, there is a very good chance Phoenix Wright will be brought up. After having some of these conversations myself, reading the reviews, and reading about the game online, I decided that my DS collection just simply wouldn't be complete without this game. It took a while, but now that I finally got my hands on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, I can safely say that you should definitely get this game if you own a DS.

If you tried to describe this game to someone who had never heard about it before, I'm sure they would be surprised by the premise. In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, you play as a rookie defense attorney whose goal is to, obviously, prove his clients innocent beyond a reasonable doubt by presenting evidence which you find by a variety of means.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a point-and-click adventure in the vein of those classic PC games that were always loads of fun back in the day. While you are in the “investigation” process of a case, you will be tasked with tapping your stylus all over the environment to look for evidence. The other way you collect evidence is by talking to the various characters you encounter throughout the game and asking them questions.

That being said, Phoenix Wright will sometimes feel like you're just reading a slightly interactive book. There are just mountains and mountains of text in this game and since you have to read constantly, it can sometimes get a little boring.

Of course, you can interact with these characters in other ways besides just talking to them and that is by presenting evidence that is important to them. By doing this, you can discover more evidence, get a hint on where to search next, or just get a little pointless blurb from the character.

There are a variety of locations that you travel to in Phoenix Wright in order to solve your cases. My only quip with this is that when you can't figure out what to do next it gets kind of annoying repeatedly traversing area through area because you can't just simply go wherever you like sometimes. Instead, you'll have to be in a place that's close to the place you want to go to next. It actually makes sense, but sometimes sense has to be discarded in video games in order to provide a more entertaining experience.

What would a game about a defense attorney be if there wasn't time spent in a courtroom? Obviously, the main focus in Phoenix Wright is cross-examining the witnesses that are brought to the stand, finding contradictions in their statements, and presenting the correct evidence that proves the contradiction.

The most thrilling moments in the game occur in the courtroom, where if you provide wrong evidence or annoy the judge in a variety of other ways, you will lose a point. If you lose all of your points (represented by exclamation marks) then you have to go back to the last save point. Since Phoenix Wright has a load of text, it can be quite irritating if you have to tap your way through a ton of text before you can get back to where you were, but thankfully you can save the game at almost any time.

While witnesses are giving their testimonies, you can press them for more information by yelling “Hold it!” into the DS's microphone. This may seem a little gimmicky, but it's actually quite fun. If you are presenting evidence that proves something you are claiming, you yell “Take that!” into the microphone, and if you are presenting evidence that contradicts something a witness has said, you yell “Objection!” The Nintendo DS is a handheld gaming system, meaning one of the reasons people buy the system is so they can play the game during long trips and such. Well, while you're in a vehicle, it is difficult for the DS to tell what you're yelling into the microphone, so thankfully you can simply tap your way through if you wish instead of using the microphone.

Finding these contradictions can sometimes be rewarding and they can sometimes be frustrating. Sometimes the contradictions are so out there that you would never guess it in a million years, while other times the contradictions are just way too obvious. However, the game does have some moments that are just right that truly provide the thrill of being in a courtroom.

During the later stages of the game, you can examine evidence more thoroughly since you can now rotate the evidence and examine certain parts of the evidence. The later stages of the game also focus more on the DS's unique features, such as spreading powder on fingerprints by tapping on the screen with your stylus and then blowing the excess powder away by blowing into the microphone. Sometimes I wish that the game utilized these features more though, instead of just focusing on it mostly at the end of the game.

Where Phoenix Wright truly shines is its story. The characters are unforgettable and loveable. As Phoenix Wright, a rookie attorney under the leadership of a famed defense attorney Mia Fey, you have to unravel many mysteries that all reveal more about a larger mystery in the background. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you interested and you will definitely want to see where everyone ends up.

Phoenix Wright's art style is taken from anime, and it is very eye pleasing. The characters are designed very well, but sometimes the environments looked a little bland. While barely any of the game is represented in 3D, there are brief moments where the game really shows off the DS's graphical capabilities by providing crisp, practically flawless 3D character models that bring the anime to life since they are cel-shaded. This part of the game is brief, but the character models are really that impressive. Hell, I'd say they're the best on the DS so far. If I had to choose things about the presentation that disappointed me, I would say that some of the objects in the game, when shown in 3D, don't look nearly as good as the character models did, which is a real shame. Some of the animations feel over-used and there are translation issues that can make the game confusing sometimes, but overall I felt that the graphical presentation was pretty impressive.

There are is no voice-acting in Phoenix Wright and a very limited amount of sound effects, but the background music is freaking amazing at times. Even though the music doesn't always seem like it would fit with the game's setting, the music is always entertaining to listen to and even memorable. You'll be humming the tunes from this game for weeks I'll bet. However, on the downside, the annoying little beeps the text makes as it goes along can get pretty irritating, and you'll be hearing a hell of a lot of it trust me.

When I first started playing Phoenix Wright, I didn't expect the game to last me as long as it did. This game can last hours upon hours upon hours, especially if you are having problems figuring out what to do next. One of the biggest problems about the game though is that there is no replayability at all. Once you complete the game, there are virtually no secrets for you to go back through and try to discover and there is no multiplayer functions. If the game had some quirky court-themed mini-games, I think that they would have definitely given the game stronger legs.

Every form of entertainment media showcases the courtroom drama. Television has shows like Law & Order, films have movies like A Few Good Men, books have novels like To Kill a Mockingbird, and videogames have Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. With court cases that are brilliantly plotted out and planned, fans of court dramas will definitely find a lot to love in this game. Some of the features weren't utilized to their fullest and the lack of replayability does bring the game down, but these problems can be fixed in the sequel. I can't wait to play it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/06/08

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