La saga de Ace Attorney se había vuelto tan popular rumbo a finales de los años 2000, que Capcom había empezado a trabajar en un spin-off sin Phoenix Wright, protagonizada por el personaje de Emma Skye, que, eventualmente, se transformó por el favorito de todos: Miles Edgeworth.

El juego te vende que es diferente a los otros, no solo porque se llama "Investigations", sino porque aquí sí controlamos al personaje en un escenario, el cual puedes explorar más libremente, en vez de estar anclado a la perspectiva ominosa más "visual novel" de la saga principal. Sin embargo, eso se traduce en prácticamente nada distinto, y el loop de juego es bastante similar al de la saga principal de Ace Attorney. Investigas, y luego te metes en una pelea verbal. El cambio más importante es que igual coleccionas pistas que debes conectar usando "lógica", cuyo concepto me parece increíble, pero que luego no se aprovecha tanto como me hubiera gustado.

Realmente, el problema más grande que tiene Investigations es narrativo, y no tanto porque la historia me parezca mala. Es más, pensé que siendo el primer juego escrito por Yamazaki, quien toma la rienda a partir de este juego (aunque no de todo porque Shu Takumi siguió trabajando en juegos de la saga), me parece que a nivel de PLOT, el juego es muy interesante. El problema real, y que mucha gente menciona de este spin-off, es que se alarga mucho todo el rato. No sé si es por el loop, por el hecho que no sabe medir bien cuándo ya fue tiempo suficiente para amarrar el caso, o bueno, algo tiene, pero varias conversaciones se llegan a sentir muy alargadas.

A mí sí me gustó el caso de los Badgers, porque amo el diseño de los Badgers y me dan mucha risa. Repito, diría que a nivel argumentativo todo me gustó, pero el juego sería mil veces mejor si durase 1/3 menos de lo que dura, a mi parecer.

¡Seguiré con la saga Ace Attorney!

i feel like AAI as a whole struggles from the problem that many of the less fun traditional ace attorney cases struggle from.

many of the case-specific characters aren't all that good, sometimes case logic can get thrown out the window, investigations can get tedious at points, the usual. none of these problems are deal-breakers on their own; i can put up with shaky logic or slow investigations or mediocre characters. unfortunately, all 3 for most of the game makes it just kind of... boring.

all the cases being connected by one large overarching enemy, that being the smuggling ring, is an interesting twist on the AA formula. unfortunately, i can't bring myself to care about this smuggling ring when i have 0 fucking clue what they're smuggling until the final case. the problem isn't the premise; it's the execution.

the logic and deduction mechanics are pretty interesting, but i think the way they're used is... just kind of odd. it never feels like you're ever connecting the dots when it matters; the deductions you make never feel all that challenging.

once again, none of these problems ruin the game on their own; it's a death by 1000 paper cuts-type deal. the ace attorney games of the past deal with a couple of these problems, at most, while AAI has all of them, all at once.

now, this is still an ace attorney game. many of the positives of the series are still here; witty writing, excellent main characters (especially kay, she's great), great visuals & music.

i can't call this game bad. i can and will call it the most flawed of the traditional ace attorney games i've played so far (i say traditional because the layton crossover is an abomination). i would still absolutely play it if you enjoy the series, because it is still more ace attorney. it's not by any means bad; just more obviously flawed than the rest.

A different kind of Ace Attorney game starring Edgy boy himself.

This game replaces Phoenix and Maya with Edgeworth, his new companion Kay and sometimes Gumshoe! I miss Gumshoe so much...

Other than that, the biggest difference about this one is that it completely drops the trial half of the Ace Attorney games and instead it's just uuuh... The investigation.

For that, this is probably the Ace Attorney game that has left less of an impact on me, since the trials are some of the most memorable parts of the Ace Attorney games.

That is not to say this is a bad game! It's still really enyojable imo. If you like these characters, the Ace Attorney style of writing and this weird world they have constructed; chances are, you are still going to have a fun time with this one.

Idk what Capcom's deal is with these games specifically tho. Release the damn sequel overseas so I can play it you fuckers!

throughout ace attorney, there is the “bubbly loud girl ” (BLG we will call them) character to assist the main character. maya, trucy, athena (kind of, i guess she’s a protagonist but also there’s too much going on to make her actually feel like one). kay is also one of these. but honestly, i think this BLG tope works least well with edgeworth. her antics and jokes just don’t bounce off him that well and make their relationship feel not that special when it’s easily compared to other BLG. to the point that i think it actually tanks the overall quality of investigations— not that this story is kino regardless, it’s a fun little game, but it feels like nothing special, and i think kay’s characterization is no small part in that.
i think miles needed a mean girl or a girl who makes little to no jokes but has her own kind of quirk about her. basically franziska. they are funny all the time and gumshoe could have been the government mandated joke machine.

i do like kay though. do not get this twisted

Has 3 quite good cases and 2 absolute slogs of cases that are hardly entertaining in the slightest. Case 3 and 5 are the ones I refer to. I never want to see the Blue Badger ever again, and the big final villain is such a damp squib that gets shown up by the reveal directly before him, it's quite sad. And of course, both of those cases are quite important to the game's more central ideas and overall plot. Attempting to prosecute someone above the law or using it for unjust means has grounds for a cool plot for a prosecutor, and it's kind of squandered. Ironically all 3 of the cases I enjoyed far more were ones where that theme was not quite as present. Kay and Lang are both quite weak characters, neither appear until the third case which is hardly a good introduction. You only use Little Thief three times in the entire game, which would be really cool! You get to point out discrepancies in statements with accompanying visuals, and then 1/3 times it's used, it's a cop out to get you into the haunted mansion that just got closed off, so it may as well only be twice. Logic is also kind of an undercooked mechanic, but it's also kind of funny that messing it up damages you still. Edgeworth just goes "ah I must look like an idiot for thinking the wrong things" and not even saying anything aloud. I wish there was some kind of mechanic that would allow Edgeworth to do something different during testimony to separate himself from the lawyers you play as in all the other games. I hear Investigations 2 is a better package than 1, so I'll try that out shortly.

It’s very weird to see a series that has until now had such a small, tight team with a very clear authorial voice jump in prestige so that we’re now several rereleases out and firmly in the realm of originally unintended sequels and spinoffs. I didn’t realize that Apollo Justice actually preceded this game in release or I WOULD have played that one first and even now that I’ve committed to cleaving the series in half by trilogy with this little stop off in Investigation town in between. my brain is beginning to itch a bit. But it’s a neat exercise to get such a hard break in style from the original games and this one, which sees Takeshi Yamazaki (who came onto the series during the DS rerelease period and seemed like mostly an odd job guy before getting a planning gig on Apollo Justice) as the scenario writer, working closely with relative series newcomer Motohide Eshiro in the producer role to innovate the gameplay quirks that define this subseries. The fresh writing alone gives the game a very distinct vibe from its predecessors for better and worse.

The shift towards investigating with the intent to prosecute crimes places a greater focus on the methodology of the acts you’re looking into, and cases are generally speaking really complex in this game, and less structured, which I think is good. Investigations are more dynamic to begin with just by virtue of moving a little guy around a usually pretty limited screen, which drastically reduces pixel hunting – but they also only go as long as they need to because you’re not inhibited by the two-or-three day long trial system. It leads to a more natural progression. Edgeworth’s special logic minigame where he pieces together little bits of information in his mind as he collects them is unfortunately simple the whole time but it doesn’t ever stop being satisfying in the way that getting an answer right in these games almost always is. That’s the saving grace of the game – the act of playing Ace Attorney simply feels good.

The grace needs to be saved because the PACING is completely dreadful the entire time. There’s no punch, no drama to any of the cases here. Not even one time do you nail a villain at the end of a chapter with a big drop of a huge reveal or a satisfying click of a puzzle piece coming together. More than once I was caught off guard when I finished a case because I didn’t realize that the small, mundane piece of information I’d just revealed was going to be the clincher. This is at its worst in the final case, which might be the longest finale in the series, or maybe it only FEELS like it is, because it is so deeply tied to the previous case and it completely solved all of the emotional arcs of every major character roughly two hours before the game ends. Yeah you wrap up your spunky teenaged sidekick’s traumatic backstory, you earn the respect and friendship of the interpol detective who hates prosecutors, you solve the decade-old mystery of the phantom thief that’s haunted the game.

But what’s this? You have to catch the guy who runs the smuggling ring! Who killed….some guy! And it’s SO easy. Not once in this sequence did I find myself unable to immediately guess the correct answer to a riddle fifteen minutes before I was allowed to present it, and we are CONSTANTLY being interrupted by new characters storming into the room not to save the day but to do comedy bits. It doesn’t really spoil the mood though because there’s NOT really a mood to spoil because like I’ve mentioned nobody really cares at this point beyond the basic principle of not liking asshole murderers getting away with it!

On the subject of Too Many Characters, this is a place where the game strikes me as particularly insecure. This game is a nonstop parade of guys I Did Not Need To See Again. Why is Maggie Byrde making her third appearance? Why is Officer Meeks here for one scene? How do we, as a polite society, keep letting Wendy Oldbag have bigger and bigger roles in these games even though she continues to have One Joke and it Sucks Ass??? It’s tough because it sucks in both directions. On one hand, everybody involved in this series (including Shu Takumi, he is not innocent here) should be tried in a criminal court for the character assassination of Larry Butz, who in the first game was a kind of mean and stupid guy who is unlucky in love but ultimately has a heart of gold and is a key person in the lives of both of his friends and over time has become a moronic creep who will try to fuck any child he meets and doesn’t understand most of the things that come out of his own mouth. On the other hand I would love to spend more time with Ema Skye, I would love to check in with her, see what she’s up to, hear all about what she’s got going on. There’s a lot of potential for that character, especially free from the shadow of her big story in the re-release of Ace Attorney 1. Why is she only in one screen of the entire game?? If she’s gonna be here she should be here. It feels weird and desperate, like they’re scared I won’t like the game if they don’t constantly jangle keys in the shape of guys I remember in front of my face.

It’s a shame too because I do think the original characters are the actual best part of the game. I like Ema but I think in her original appearance she’s way too much of a Maya clone, distinguished mostly by having a Different Gimmick rather than a different personality. Kay Faraday is a completely different genre of spunky teen sidekick than either of the previous girls, and I find her endlessly funny and charming. Aggressively weird and goofy and cool and with a very fun gimmick that she clings to based on a series of genuinely affecting tragedies. Everyone in her orbit rocks too, Callisto Yew and Detective Badd both hall of fame Ace Attorney guys. Lang’s drama is not convincing to me but his connection to Shih-na is and his reactions to how their relationship evolves salvage him for me, and his affection for his subordinates is by far the funniest joke in the entire series. The original stuff here is consistently the best shit in the game. I wish it felt like they knew that.

For the first game that as far as I know had zero involvement from the series creator, it’s really interesting to see how it feels the same and how it feels different, and where it’s successful and where it’s not. I think the flaws are desperately glaring, and they are unfortunately mostly play-related, but the moment-to-moment act of Doing Ace Attorney is maybe the best it’s ever been. I just wish it was remotely as impactful as it ever had been in the past.