Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All

"Phoenix Wright is in for even more trouble this time...."

Capcom is a company who usually makes one really, really good game, and then if the game is successful then they make just about 100000 sequels which can either be even more outstanding than the original or just really bad games. Just about every big series made by Capcom got one games that's a little better than the others and one game that isn't good at all. The first game about Phoenix Wright the Ace Attorney was popular enough, so why not give the game a few sequels? But can the first sequel live up to the original.

This game just like the original was a Gba game that then got ported on the DS. But the first game on the DS had a case that wasn't in the Gba version, so the story in this game seems to act like the final case didn't happen, or at least nothing important happened.

The game takes place just about a year after the original. Our hero of the innocent Phoenix Wright is having a nightmare, when suddenly his cell phone rings and he wakes up in his office. Someone hits Phoenix in the head and he faints. He then wakes up in a courtroom and it seems like he's just in the middle of a trial defending a female police officer of murdering one of her partners. Phoenix is also suffering from some amnesia.

The first case is your typical tutorial case, as you get to know what to do in court in order to prove that your client is innocent.. If you have played the first Phoenix Wright game then you might think that this case is boring, but think of those who haven't played the first game, they wouldn't know what to do. And besides even if the first case is more a of a tutorial, I had to think a few times before I present any evidence and the game made it clear with this case that the game would actually be a little more difficult than the original.

Just like in the first Phoenix Wright game there are two kinds of different type of "stages" in this game. Either you are in court and try to prove that your client is innocent, or you are doing some detective work trying to find more evidence and clues which will prove that your client indeed wasn't the murderer. Yeah that's right just like in the first game, all your clients are accused of murderer and it's up to you to find them Not Guilty.

There hasn't been much that changed in the courtroom from the original. The prosecutor will call in a few witnesses and they will tell what they either saw, how they know the murderer or any other important details. Then after they've done that it's up to Phoenix Wright to find any contradiction in that the witness said. It can either be to press the witness with questions, which sometimes shows that they just forgot some important detail, or you can show some evidence that they are lying.

However be careful when you are showing evidence, because if you on the wrong track than you will lose some points on your health bar, and once that is empty the judge will found the defendant guilty no matter what, which is the same thing as Game over in many other games. And if you haven't saved your game, then you might have to redo the whole case, and we don't want that do we? It's good to think hard before you present any evidence to the court.

There's one new thing about the evidence in this game. In the original Phoenix Wright you could only present items as evidence, but in this game it's also possible to use profiles of the different characters as evidence. Usually your are supposed to use this when the witness didn't describe a character correct. Personally I think this is one of the great additions this game have compared to the original.

Now for the other type of "stages", the detective work. In order to be able to do anything in court, you have to investigate the crime scene to find more evidence. You also get a chance to talk to everyone who got any connection to the case. You can even show them evidence to known more about it. The only way you are going to finish a case is if you ask everyone about everything.

An interesting thing that Capcom added in this game is the Magmanata (maybe I spelled it wrong but who cares) pendant that you can use to press people for even more infomation if they got a so called Psyco-lock. If they are lying or hiding information from you, you can use this thing and then Phoenix will ask them other questions and then you have to have any some kind of evidence to back this up. Once you break their Psyco-Lock, you will get even more important information that might be the key to solve the case.

Once that you have gathered enough evidence, Phoenix will say that he think he now has enough to be ready for court. You can't miss something important and then go to court and be screwed because you missed something important. But it isn't so obvious what you are supposed to do in order to advance in the court, so it's great that you can at almost any time press start and save your game. You also won't have to read through the same text over and over again if you save often because unless you read a FAQ you will present wrong evidence at the wrong time sometimes.

And that's one of my main complains about this game. Sometimes it's next to impossible to figure out what evidence you are supposed to use so will either look it up in a FAQ or save and then keep showing all your evidence until you get it right. For example there are times when Photographs are used as evidence in a really weird way.

And just like I said in my review of the first game, it still bugs me that there's only one way to solve everything. Lets say you see a clear fault what the witness just said and you even got evidence to back you up, but the game developers didn't think of that, the judge will still say Phoenix is on the wrong track and he will look like an idiot. Couldn't they at least have give you a hint that this is not quite it, but you're close?

And another and the main complaint about this game is that the first three cases are kinda uninteresting. The original had at least three excellent cases while the first three are not quite as interesting to solve. Since the story and solving the case are big thing about these kind of games, that makes the less enjoyable compared to the original. However the last case is really, really interesting, full with different twists. It makes up for the other cases.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All is just like many other sequels of Capcom's series usually is. No big changes, those who liked the first Phoenix Wright game will also like this one, those who didn't like the first game won't like this either. But if you haven't tried any of them then start with PW, and then play this.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/20/08

Game Release: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All (EU, 03/16/07)