Substantial improvement over Trigger Happy Havoc in nearly every way. The cast is so endearing and lovable, and much more consistently written. Even people who I disliked or didn't care for at the beginning ending up completely changing my perspective of them. When the murders eventually start happening, it genuinely hurts to see a character you've gotten to know so well either die or be found out as the culprit - there's some real emotional gut-punches to be found that just aren't there in the prequel. The gimmicks within investigation periods are also brilliant; the separate game to find out the culprit, the funhouse, the main idea of Case 5, it all feels really experimental and it definitely paid off, every case (excluding 3) is superbly written and so damn engaging. The trials are much more involving as well; attacking with the correct piece of evidence and figuring out the culprit is actually more challenging since you don't have someone like Kyoko giving away all the hints, the addition of agreeing with someone in Nonstop Debate is also a clever addition. The Run-2/3-esque Logic Dive is fun as hell to navigate. The truth blades... kind of fucking suck and feel redundant, I would much rather just play another Nonstop Debate, and well Hangman's Gambit will just always be complete shit - but somehow they made it worse here. Really the only other aspect that THH does better in, is the setting and atmopshere. For what it's worth, Goodbye Despair is a near perfect sequel.

Unlike Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow is a much more tightly constructed, wonderfully interconnected world. It plays it a lot safer in a lot of areas which for me acted as a bit of a detriment but it is still a great game.

The soul system is a sick idea but due to it being mainly luck-based, it leads to some areas being a bit more difficult due to not having a specific enemy's ability, and switching between movement abilities on the fly sometimes feels a bit redundant since you have to go to the menu every time, akin to some games on the N64 cough Ocarina of Time cough. The game understands the Metroid formula really well for the most part, usually whenever you obtain a new item or ability there will immediately be an area that will spring to the forefront of your mind where you can use your newfound powerup.

The difficulty for the most part is fine, there's never really a point in the game where you feel overwhelmed excluding sequence breaking and going to an area where you should obviously not be (which I did multiple times on accident). Now when I say for the most part I mean practically all of the game except for the absolutely bullshit fight which is with Death, and holy SHIT is this fight completely unfair, I spent around an hour trying to beat him - which is about 1/6th of how long it took me to complete the game - and that should put everything into perspective.

The story is a story, at least with the regular ending that is so abrupt that it genuinely made me laugh when I first got it, but the true ending is pretty damn cool. The characters all have amazing designs, and the animation is gorgeous but it's Konami so this should be expected. My main gripe is just that the characters aren't too interesting or memorable, and a lot of conversations feel rushed or pointless.

Compared to SotN the soundtrack pales in comparison, where Alucard's journey took pride in beautiful, haunting pieces that were each unique in their own way and extremely memorable, Aria of Sorrow's feels derivative and honestly I can't really remember any of the music.

Overall it's a solid game, textbook Metroidvania - short and fun as hell - but whoever thought the Death fight was balanced, fuck you.

Absolutely fucking immaculate. This game is far and away my favourite Ace Attorney experience so far and one of my favourite games ever, and I would be extremely surprised if something manages to top this.

For starters, almost everything is improved on from the original trilogy: The cases are more intriguing and there's hardly one that's not "good", the characters are so so much better (excluding maybe the prosecutor), the investigation periods are less tedious, it's funnier, and holy shit I thought Trials & Tribulations was well planned out, this game one-ups it in every single damn way, tying in practically every case in the outstanding culmination that is "The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo".

If that wasn't enough the plot twists are batshit crazy, genuinely stuff I'd never expect especially the one(s) in the final case that left me practically speechless. The time period allows for more insightful topics like Case 1 of TGAA2 although perhaps we could tone down on the slurs. For the characters, I LOVE Susato to death, she is so much more interesting than Maya (not to say that Maya is necessarily a bad character) and she doesn't explicitly give you answers and appear at the most random moments when you are about to lose (like a certain someone). Herlock Sholmes is the greatest character ever and there is no debate - I would honestly replay this game just to laugh at his antics and his stupid ass dialogue and faces. Barok Van Zieks is such a brilliant prosecutor, his reasoning for hating the Japanese is pretty ridiculous but putting that aside I love how he doesn't fuck around, he almost always has a reason to contradict what you might have found out during a summation examination or something and it feels so real, he doesn't pretend to get faked out like the prosecutors in the originals. I love Iris as well and the whole thing to do with her family is just so beautiful. The entire side cast is just so damn good it's honestly unreal that it obliterates the original trilogy, a game that already had a fantastic and endearing cast.

Ryunosuke is genuinely light years better than Phoenix as a character as well, his whole thing to do with resolve may come off as corny or uninspired at times but when it hits, it fucking HITS. When he just goes from being nervous to not giving a shit and doing anything possible to unravel the truth is so damn satisfying, especially with how quickly it tested his spirit and questioned a lawyer's morals in TGAA1.

For the gameplay it stays mostly the same although the new additions are mostly welcome, I do enjoy the summation examinations although sometimes the jury's reasonings are just complete bullshit like "Well he looks like a nice man"??? But obviously, the best addition here is the Logic and Deduction parts which are just so much fun, the music just gets you hyped up, and even though it's mostly simple it is so enjoyable to solve cases with Herlock.

The animations felt jarring at first, but once you get used to them they almost overshadow the goofy static ones from its predecessor, it allows for so much more expression from characters and makes certain parts a lot more memorable (Susato punching the air or Barok Van Zieks throwing a wine bottle for the 30th time). And god damn the music is such a banger, Kazuma's theme, Susato's, pursuing a contradiction, even indoors the music is so cozy, it's all so perfect.

It's so fitting that it's called the Great Ace Attorney since it truly is that, a game that just improves upon everything that made its predecessors so loveable.