Simple but unique and intuitive mechanics, a story that remains constantly interesting and entertaining, and features vivid locations, expressive personality filled animations, and two of the best pets in the medium.

A puzzle mystery game where you wake up with no memories after having recently been killed only to witness an assassin threatening a woman near your body and discovering that you have developed special powers. These "ghost tricks" allow you jump between and manipulate objects, travel through phone lines to other locations, and to travel back in time four minutes after a person has died to change their fate which also allows you to speak with them in the past and once they are safe in the present. In one night you attempt to keep your potential friends and allies safe from a group of assassins, discover the truth about your powers and others who have gained similar abilities, and learn of a decade old event that ties together your former life, the police, and foreign spies.

Each stage has you using your ghost tricks to manipulate objects in a way that will effect the environment or people in the environment in a way that leads to you completing your goals. This can have you moving and manipulating objects to increase your reach allow you to jump into new things, manipulating lights or sounds to attract or distract people, leading a character through a dark room while avoiding assailants, or timing multiple interactions to create a particular sequence of events that will aid you. There are some new mechanics added over time but little gameplay wise changes over the course of the adventure. This can normally be a bad thing but each area is designed in a way where they are interesting and amusing to explore, the story that remains the highlight is allowed to progress quickly, and none of the events ever become overly cluttered, confusing, or tedious to deal with in a way that would detract from the enjoyment of the game and its strongest elements. The narrative over time explaining why certain thing can't or couldn't be done in a way that fits for the setting and often in ways that make more sense as more elements of the story reveal themselves.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1782596763070976441

Crams in a huge amount of story and gameplay without any filler. A couple of the internal logic to the puzzles threw me off, one was moving to a specific object automatically always triggering a timed event no matter what, which I hadn't really noticed in other missions before this point so I figured I was just not moving fast enough. I just looked up one or two very specific moves I had to make, but I probably would have got it eventually if I kept on with it.

The generally light tone was very well executed considering the amount of death but I did find it hard to feel much impact from anything going on until near the end which, to be fair, is easily the most important to get right for any story. The mystery itself still served as an excellent main hook.

You can tell how much Ace Attorney is in this thing with how unique each character moves and acts, each with little quirks that you have to take advantage of - I would have loved for this very specific aspect to be drilled down on a lot more but the puzzles themselves are still very clever and interesting considering how much planning would have gone into them just to have them work and make sense at all.

I really enjoyed my time with it. I wasn't swept away as much as others but it's really a faultless game and it's impressive how it gels all of it's many moving parts together so neatly. The brisk pace kept me coming back daily until it was complete. Being a handheld game in scope really helped narrow the focus but that didn't stop them from achieving anything they could with the concepts and characters they created for themselves.

I think this whole review was me trying to figure out why I couldn't give this a perfect score despite the game being objectively perfect. It is very, very good.

really great game! I went into it a little worried that trying to cram a whole game of story into one night would make it unfulfilling, but once I got a little ways in it was clear that wasn't the case at all. this game oozes charm so hard and every ounce of it is engaging and exciting. the overall story was great, and it always felt like it was keeping me on my toes - leaving enough head room to draw my own connections while also constantly surprising me, yet never feeling cheap or forced. I got really attached to the main cast as well. the gameplay is also really unique and fun, and the variety of puzzles is outstanding; there are a couple I was less fond of (see: prison. lol) but I think all those really needed was an undo button or something since it was just the constant re-doing puzzle setups to get back to a point to try something different that was a bit of a pain. but that's barely a stain on this wonderful experience - would love to see more games like this!

I spontaneously felt like replaying this and yeah, it's still amazing. I forgot enough of the puzzles for them to still be fresh, but I remembered enough of them for the game to not be frustrating. Hell, the stealth section in Chapter 9 wasn't even that bad this time around. The visuals and music are as great as ever, and the story is just as good, if not better. I noticed so many cool bits of foreshadowing now that I knew all the plot twists, and I even cried at a couple points. I'm still not sure whether this is my favorite Shu Takumi game over TGAA2, but I do know it is an absolutely phenomenal game that everyone should experience at least once.

Amazing game, lots of other people have gone into detail about exactly why that is so I don't have to! One thing I will specifically praise though is the mystery crafting- I liked that there was a good balance of things I could guess through observation/deduction + things that had to be "revealed" to me. A lot of mysteries struggle to walk the line between obtuse and obvious but this nailed the balance.

And even though the main story gets wrapped up in a neat bow at the end, I liked that (this is too vague to be a spoiler really) the exact natures of a few of the phenomena/characters were left somewhat ambiguous. Another hallmark of a good mystery is knowing when to stop answering questions and leave it to the imagination!