What a wild experience this was, playing the original Ace Attorney game and finally seeing what the hype is about with this series. Thank you Game Pass!
For the most part, I absolutely loved the courtroom segments of this game. They are the meat of it of course, and solving puzzles, finding contradictions, it's so much fun. The music goes along with this perfectly, I love it so much. Each case has some absolutely wild twists that kept me on the edge of my seat all the way to the end. Investigations are a different story though, these mostly just drag. In universe, trials must reach a verdict within three days, and most of them here take up all of that time. This means you'll be asked to investigate three separate times, running around the same areas and solving puzzles to progress. It gets draining after a while, even if there are some big WOAH moments here and there.
This game also has some pretty ridiculous writing if I'm being honest, such as requiring you to do something stupid so that Phoenix is left at a disadvantage in the coming day in court. These range from walking up to the person who you're going to accuse of murder and waving evidence at them, to Phoenix being too stupid to turn a piece of evidence around and look at the other side until he's about to lose a trial. It's baffling honestly.
With that, I guess I'll just give my opinions on the individual cases. Cases 1 and 2 are pretty solid, I enjoyed them a lot even if they were pretty simple. Case 3 is alright but it definitely drags. The investigation segments here aren't really fun, but the final day in court might just make up for all of that honestly. Edgeworth is the best. Case 4 is absolutely incredible. I loved it to bits. Everything just fits together so well and I was glued to the screen during it, there are so many amazing twists, and it's a perfect conclusion to the story.
However, in all rereleases of the game, there is an extra case to play. This was originally meant to take advantage of the Nintendo DS and encourage buying the game a second time, even if we never got the GBA version in the west. Case 5 definitely screams DS though, and it leaves me pretty split on it. Investigation segments take FOREVER here because there are added gimmicks meant to take advantage of the touch screen and microphone. These have been reworked for the HD version, but they still just feel like a waste of time. The courtroom segments are pretty great though. I love the story here and all the new characters. It was super satisfying to finally fit all the pieces together and it adds a lot to Edgeworth's character, which is great.
I know I complained a fair bit here but I really did enjoy myself playing this. The game is a little rough around the edges but there's nothing quite like the feeling of figuring out a contradiction and watching everything fall into place as the music ramps up, it's AMAZING. I am most definitely interested in playing more of this series, because if the original game is this well put together, that's a great sign.
Also Phoenix and Edgeworth are definitely gay holy shit.
For the most part, I absolutely loved the courtroom segments of this game. They are the meat of it of course, and solving puzzles, finding contradictions, it's so much fun. The music goes along with this perfectly, I love it so much. Each case has some absolutely wild twists that kept me on the edge of my seat all the way to the end. Investigations are a different story though, these mostly just drag. In universe, trials must reach a verdict within three days, and most of them here take up all of that time. This means you'll be asked to investigate three separate times, running around the same areas and solving puzzles to progress. It gets draining after a while, even if there are some big WOAH moments here and there.
This game also has some pretty ridiculous writing if I'm being honest, such as requiring you to do something stupid so that Phoenix is left at a disadvantage in the coming day in court. These range from walking up to the person who you're going to accuse of murder and waving evidence at them, to Phoenix being too stupid to turn a piece of evidence around and look at the other side until he's about to lose a trial. It's baffling honestly.
With that, I guess I'll just give my opinions on the individual cases. Cases 1 and 2 are pretty solid, I enjoyed them a lot even if they were pretty simple. Case 3 is alright but it definitely drags. The investigation segments here aren't really fun, but the final day in court might just make up for all of that honestly. Edgeworth is the best. Case 4 is absolutely incredible. I loved it to bits. Everything just fits together so well and I was glued to the screen during it, there are so many amazing twists, and it's a perfect conclusion to the story.
However, in all rereleases of the game, there is an extra case to play. This was originally meant to take advantage of the Nintendo DS and encourage buying the game a second time, even if we never got the GBA version in the west. Case 5 definitely screams DS though, and it leaves me pretty split on it. Investigation segments take FOREVER here because there are added gimmicks meant to take advantage of the touch screen and microphone. These have been reworked for the HD version, but they still just feel like a waste of time. The courtroom segments are pretty great though. I love the story here and all the new characters. It was super satisfying to finally fit all the pieces together and it adds a lot to Edgeworth's character, which is great.
I know I complained a fair bit here but I really did enjoy myself playing this. The game is a little rough around the edges but there's nothing quite like the feeling of figuring out a contradiction and watching everything fall into place as the music ramps up, it's AMAZING. I am most definitely interested in playing more of this series, because if the original game is this well put together, that's a great sign.
Also Phoenix and Edgeworth are definitely gay holy shit.