Out of all the games in Ace Attorney series, I feel like this one is easily the best one in terms of writing while expanding on the gameplay of the first Investigations game.

That said, I guess I'll start things off by a small rant and say that Capcom should've released this game in the West. There's no reason for them not to localize it when it's such a good game everyone needs to try, especially if they enjoy Ace Attorney. The cast of characters is absolutely fantastic, the overarching plot is great, and the gameplay is unique (as it relies more on investigating the crime scene than courtroom debates- that said, the player is still challenged by other investigators and the villains for an exciting battle of wits).

However I feel like there's one thing that makes Investigations 2 stand out from the rest of Ace Attorney games- and that has to be the consistency in it's cases.

Prior to this game, every other entry in the AA franchise had at least one mediocre if not a downright bad case (Turnabout Sisters, Turnabout Big Top, Recipe for Turnabout, Turnabout Serenade, The Kidnapped Turnabout....). Investigations 2 avoids this issue by making every, and I repeat, EVERY case important to the plot.

Turnabout Target is easily the best tutorial case- Shelly de Killer makes a comeback and it's way better than I expected, the culprit is smart, and Kay's selfie is a meme material.

The second case, The Imprisoned Turnabout wasn't as enjoyable due to it's slow pacing and a weak culprit, but it was still very good. New characters get introduced, such as Sebastian Debeste, Justine Courtney and Raymond Shields, who play much bigger roles in the upcoming cases. Plus, you even get to play as Gumshoe for one moment. Who wouldn't want to play as Gumshoe?

The 3rd case, The Inherited Turnabout breaks Ace Attorney from the "Third Case Syndrome" as it isn't the worst case in the game- in fact it's actually one of the best (some even say THE best) cases in the game. The player gets to play as Gregory Edgeworth, the father of Miles Edgeworth. This case ties well not only to the game's plot, but also sort of serves as a prequel to the DL-6 Incident from the original trilogy. The culprit is also taken down by one of the most big-brained ways possible- the player uses actually uses law to corner him, which to this point happened only once in the series, at the end of Rise from the Ashes. It's satisfying.

The penultimate case, The Forgotten Turnabout gives more reasons for us to care about Kay Faraday and also deepens the bond between her and Edgeworth. And it also has one of the game's best moments, that is when Edgeworth gives in his prosecutor's badge as a means to free himself from Courtney's blackmail in order to capture the culprit who caused Kay's memory loss and the murder of Jill Crane. Enter Blaise Debeste, one of the game's central antagonists- the game tries it's best to make the players hate him for what he did to his son, as well as how his actions literally kickstarted the original trilogy. Blaise is an asshole, but a very well-made one at that.

The Grand Turnabout is the game's final case with a really self-explanatory title. This is the end of Edgeworth's character arc and start of his prosecutor's path. But besides Edgeworth, Sebastian Debeste gets a moment to shine when he mans up and prosecutes his father in the court, in one of the most epic moments in the series as well as a great instance of Ace Attorney's character development. After that we get to unravel the mystery of SS-5 incident. You thought Blaise is the final boss of this game? Turns out that the true culprit is someone you know and probably don't suspect him because of his extremely shy, weak nature... which only serves to hide his true self. And not only is he out of all people the killer, he masterminded the events of this entire game, all for the sake of revenge against those who made his life miserable.

To sum it up, Investigations 2 is a gem in the Ace Attorney franchise, and it's a shame that many Ace Attorney fans probably never played due to only being released in Japan.