I find the game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations,
VERY. SOLID.
Trials and Tribulations or T&T for short, is the third title in the Ace Attorney trilogy. Coming off the heels of JFA, T&T still didn't have to do much to truly make a great sequel. All that was needed was a good set of cases with difficulty balanced correctly, a unique storyline that ties into the series as a whole, add some new gameplay mechanics, and most importantly to improve upon JFA. Overall, I think T&T did a remarkable job taking on the challenges of a proper sequel, but wanted to push the envelope just a bit further and close the trilogy off with a massive bang. On that note, I believe Trials and Tribulations bit off more than it could chew, but managed to mostly earn that ending note.
Before we can talk about the ending however, let's talk openings. The first case of each of these games is a tutorial case to try and get the potential new player to understand the game mechanics without having played the previous games in the series. However, there is a lot of important aspects to an opening case. To be good for both a new and returning player, an opening case has to explain all of the major characters, the main mechanics, and should be something completely fresh to keep things interesting. In JFA, Phoenix Wright was given amnesia to fit the need of trying to reteach the player which led to the case feeling incredibly dull and not living up to the narrative design aspirations the series loves so much. In T&T however, the first case you play as a younger Mia Fey on her second ever case after a long break from the courtroom. Immediately, this gives a far more interesting and compelling reason to reteach the old mechanics again. It's a "new character" taking on the courthouse without being as in the know as they should be. On top of this, the opening case introduces us to a unique backstory we never knew between Phoenix and Mia making the case incredibly appealing to veterans as well. And perhaps more remarkably, the opening case sets the stage of the entire game-length narrative without being in your face about any specific details. This leaves the prospective player in a position of curiosity for the future cases yet to come. So, the opening case is pretty good, but what about the rest of the game? Well, overall the game does a great job holding up the quality for the rest of the title but a few issues crop up here and there.
There really isn't a great way of taking these criticisms step by step as each one is very intertwined with one another, so to start I'll discuss what is perhaps the biggest issue with Trials and Tribulations: Justice For All. I know, I know. It seems odd at first, why would the game prior to this seemingly be the cause of issues here but it really is. Firstly, characters from JFA crop up a fair few times over the course of T&T and each time they do we get a decent explanation of who they are and why they know Phoenix and Co. On the surface this makes sense, of course you would explain who someone is so that players who haven't played would know them. However, it is far more than that. In short, for most of the runtime of T&T, the story and characters of JFA do not matter. For the aforementioned new player, they make it so T&T can be played without any knowledge of JFA which directly shafts the whole of JFA's attempt at a storyline... or so it seems until you hit case 5. Once you hit case 5, seemingly out of nowhere, JFA is important...maybe. It's extremely bizarre how the game flip flops between wanting players to remember and understand the character arcs and stories from JFA and then turning around to regurgitate similar arcs and stories in T&T. I'll deep dive into case 5 in a bit, but know for now that the case heavily leans on JFA's story and characters when the rest of the game doesn't. Lastly, JFA's Psyche-locks are back in T&T and still are just as terrible as they were in JFA. To briefly reiterate those points here: AA1 had an incredible game design structure that allowed the player a specific amount of mistakes per trial which would get reset per trial. JFA changed things and made it so the mistakes you have are carried throughout the entire case, only being reset on a case by case basis. And if you wanted to regain mistakes you would get them back from Psyche-locks but the whole system was pretty fucking terrible. Read my JFA review if you want a deeper explanation. Here in T&T, Psyche-locks are still around and basically completely unchanged. They still make the experience be very save-scummy and not very forward-thinking in nature.
Ok, now let's talk difficulty. Unlike the previous titles, case 1 is not nearly as much of a pushover and that's for a couple reasons. Firstly, the case intros of every case in T&T specifically are there to trick the player and make them confused and unable to plot a direct course to the killer. This is great, because it shows that T&T has confidence in itself as a sequel to treat players as series veterans. On top of that, case 1 uses it's playground-esque tutorial nature to nurture a naturally flowing case of discovery rather than a much easier think piece into direct killer-knowing. After case 1, the cases get a pretty decent spike in difficulty, but nothing unfounded. As expected the average case difficulty balances somewhere around AA1 case 5, either slightly below or above it. I think this is the perfect difficulty range for a game designed as a finale, zero complaints. Overall, I think the player-character immersion of AA1 is mostly back in this title, but still not nearly as consistent as that first adventure. I can think of several occasions where I got completely lost or thrown off the trial because the expected answer differed from my very similar answer. This mostly occurs in cases 2 and 5. Case 3 I found to be a pretty middle of the road challenge with a strong case identity that made sense. Case 4 is a weird one because of where it takes place in the game, it's harder than the tutorial case but is structured like one too. Overall though like 1 and 3 it flows quite nicely and very rarely are you stuck trying to figure stuff out.
Speaking of case 5, let's discuss it. AA1 setup the precedent of a game-ending case with its very own case 5, which had the player basically solving the game itself. JFA tried to do a similar thing with its case 4 but unfortunately that one didn't quite make the cut. T&T decided to go a step further. Instead of a game-ending case, T&T case 5 is more like a series-ending case. Rather than taking the major elements of the previous cases, case 5 instead takes the major elements of the previous games. An incredibly bold move that did not go without notice. On top of this, case 5 also intends to wrap up its own self-contained storyline AND wrap up a unwrapped side-plot introduced in JFA. While doing this it also attempts to give itself a noteworthy conclusion as an ending point of the trilogy. Clearly a lot is going on in this case and it is a massive undertaking. Unfortunately, as I said prior, I think this attempt was taking it way too far and pushing for things outside of the scope of the title. First and foremost, the focus of a finale case should be the game it is from. T&T pulls a lot of pieces from a lot of places, though I ultimately can't say many of them come from itself. In fact, most major elements come from Justice For All. This gives a pretty disjointed and rather weird experience as it makes the conclusion feel more like an attempt at recorrecting JFA's failures rather than pursuing a higher level of game-wide pants pissage. This rings especially true with the final note that the game ends on, which just so happens to be a nigh one-for-one rip from JFA's ending note. And it keeps going, because on top of being a JFA ending rip that reattempts JFA, it still for some reason brings back JFA characters and acts like that story still happened without giving nearly as much context as necessary to fully grasp and understand the story at play. This completely shatters any kind of idea that a new player should attempt to play this game after four cases of pretending they are fine! Flat out, this was a bad move... But, I can't say I hated it. At the very least, T&T case 5 manages to stick a solid ending that doesn't feel like it is in conflict with any prior narrative and character arcs which is far more than JFA can say. On that note, the game-wide story concludes on a pretty fulfilling note that makes sense. On the other hand, the series-wide story it tries to conclude nearly tumbles over, but managed to hold on just enough to be alright. And the main reason any of this was pulled off at all has got to be Godot.
Godot is the main prosecutor of Trials and Tribulations and honest to god deserves his own section. So he is getting one. As perhaps the most interesting and thought-provoking prosecutor in the series, Godot holds a position of equal interest and coolness as Edgeworth. For one, while he has his own unique quirks much like Franziska did, he is not annoying. And thank fucking god for that. It is one thing to be playing through the cases annoyed out of your mind at the continuous, game-wide joke that is Franziska and her whip. And it is another thing to be able to not only enjoy but brew over the character quirk that is Godot's coffee addiction while still enjoying the gameplay experience. Godot is the face of T&T and the main mystery of the game, while hiding the real mystery behind himself. Throughout the game, we are given small tidbits and ideas of who Godot might really be and what he is after but it is only nibbles much like the previous titles. Then in case 4 it pretty directly reveals the truth visually, but even still the game holds its cards close to the chest to hold back on the "Why?"s. Only in case 5 after slogging through the murky trials that lay out, do we really see the big picture and begin to understand the man behind the mask. Godot is as good as Edgeworth and if it wasn't for his journey, this game wouldn't be nearly as good as it is.
Trials and Tribulations is a great story and game. It does a fantastic job of holding the line on what is still one of the most unique and fascinating gameplay experiences one can enjoy. However, the heights it reaches for ultimately are what doom it to fall below the one that started it all. And worst of all, the game lives in a world where it comes after Justice For All. But if your game's worst problem is another game, then buddy, I think you got yourself a pretty damn good game.
VERY. SOLID.
Trials and Tribulations or T&T for short, is the third title in the Ace Attorney trilogy. Coming off the heels of JFA, T&T still didn't have to do much to truly make a great sequel. All that was needed was a good set of cases with difficulty balanced correctly, a unique storyline that ties into the series as a whole, add some new gameplay mechanics, and most importantly to improve upon JFA. Overall, I think T&T did a remarkable job taking on the challenges of a proper sequel, but wanted to push the envelope just a bit further and close the trilogy off with a massive bang. On that note, I believe Trials and Tribulations bit off more than it could chew, but managed to mostly earn that ending note.
Before we can talk about the ending however, let's talk openings. The first case of each of these games is a tutorial case to try and get the potential new player to understand the game mechanics without having played the previous games in the series. However, there is a lot of important aspects to an opening case. To be good for both a new and returning player, an opening case has to explain all of the major characters, the main mechanics, and should be something completely fresh to keep things interesting. In JFA, Phoenix Wright was given amnesia to fit the need of trying to reteach the player which led to the case feeling incredibly dull and not living up to the narrative design aspirations the series loves so much. In T&T however, the first case you play as a younger Mia Fey on her second ever case after a long break from the courtroom. Immediately, this gives a far more interesting and compelling reason to reteach the old mechanics again. It's a "new character" taking on the courthouse without being as in the know as they should be. On top of this, the opening case introduces us to a unique backstory we never knew between Phoenix and Mia making the case incredibly appealing to veterans as well. And perhaps more remarkably, the opening case sets the stage of the entire game-length narrative without being in your face about any specific details. This leaves the prospective player in a position of curiosity for the future cases yet to come. So, the opening case is pretty good, but what about the rest of the game? Well, overall the game does a great job holding up the quality for the rest of the title but a few issues crop up here and there.
There really isn't a great way of taking these criticisms step by step as each one is very intertwined with one another, so to start I'll discuss what is perhaps the biggest issue with Trials and Tribulations: Justice For All. I know, I know. It seems odd at first, why would the game prior to this seemingly be the cause of issues here but it really is. Firstly, characters from JFA crop up a fair few times over the course of T&T and each time they do we get a decent explanation of who they are and why they know Phoenix and Co. On the surface this makes sense, of course you would explain who someone is so that players who haven't played would know them. However, it is far more than that. In short, for most of the runtime of T&T, the story and characters of JFA do not matter. For the aforementioned new player, they make it so T&T can be played without any knowledge of JFA which directly shafts the whole of JFA's attempt at a storyline... or so it seems until you hit case 5. Once you hit case 5, seemingly out of nowhere, JFA is important...maybe. It's extremely bizarre how the game flip flops between wanting players to remember and understand the character arcs and stories from JFA and then turning around to regurgitate similar arcs and stories in T&T. I'll deep dive into case 5 in a bit, but know for now that the case heavily leans on JFA's story and characters when the rest of the game doesn't. Lastly, JFA's Psyche-locks are back in T&T and still are just as terrible as they were in JFA. To briefly reiterate those points here: AA1 had an incredible game design structure that allowed the player a specific amount of mistakes per trial which would get reset per trial. JFA changed things and made it so the mistakes you have are carried throughout the entire case, only being reset on a case by case basis. And if you wanted to regain mistakes you would get them back from Psyche-locks but the whole system was pretty fucking terrible. Read my JFA review if you want a deeper explanation. Here in T&T, Psyche-locks are still around and basically completely unchanged. They still make the experience be very save-scummy and not very forward-thinking in nature.
Ok, now let's talk difficulty. Unlike the previous titles, case 1 is not nearly as much of a pushover and that's for a couple reasons. Firstly, the case intros of every case in T&T specifically are there to trick the player and make them confused and unable to plot a direct course to the killer. This is great, because it shows that T&T has confidence in itself as a sequel to treat players as series veterans. On top of that, case 1 uses it's playground-esque tutorial nature to nurture a naturally flowing case of discovery rather than a much easier think piece into direct killer-knowing. After case 1, the cases get a pretty decent spike in difficulty, but nothing unfounded. As expected the average case difficulty balances somewhere around AA1 case 5, either slightly below or above it. I think this is the perfect difficulty range for a game designed as a finale, zero complaints. Overall, I think the player-character immersion of AA1 is mostly back in this title, but still not nearly as consistent as that first adventure. I can think of several occasions where I got completely lost or thrown off the trial because the expected answer differed from my very similar answer. This mostly occurs in cases 2 and 5. Case 3 I found to be a pretty middle of the road challenge with a strong case identity that made sense. Case 4 is a weird one because of where it takes place in the game, it's harder than the tutorial case but is structured like one too. Overall though like 1 and 3 it flows quite nicely and very rarely are you stuck trying to figure stuff out.
Speaking of case 5, let's discuss it. AA1 setup the precedent of a game-ending case with its very own case 5, which had the player basically solving the game itself. JFA tried to do a similar thing with its case 4 but unfortunately that one didn't quite make the cut. T&T decided to go a step further. Instead of a game-ending case, T&T case 5 is more like a series-ending case. Rather than taking the major elements of the previous cases, case 5 instead takes the major elements of the previous games. An incredibly bold move that did not go without notice. On top of this, case 5 also intends to wrap up its own self-contained storyline AND wrap up a unwrapped side-plot introduced in JFA. While doing this it also attempts to give itself a noteworthy conclusion as an ending point of the trilogy. Clearly a lot is going on in this case and it is a massive undertaking. Unfortunately, as I said prior, I think this attempt was taking it way too far and pushing for things outside of the scope of the title. First and foremost, the focus of a finale case should be the game it is from. T&T pulls a lot of pieces from a lot of places, though I ultimately can't say many of them come from itself. In fact, most major elements come from Justice For All. This gives a pretty disjointed and rather weird experience as it makes the conclusion feel more like an attempt at recorrecting JFA's failures rather than pursuing a higher level of game-wide pants pissage. This rings especially true with the final note that the game ends on, which just so happens to be a nigh one-for-one rip from JFA's ending note. And it keeps going, because on top of being a JFA ending rip that reattempts JFA, it still for some reason brings back JFA characters and acts like that story still happened without giving nearly as much context as necessary to fully grasp and understand the story at play. This completely shatters any kind of idea that a new player should attempt to play this game after four cases of pretending they are fine! Flat out, this was a bad move... But, I can't say I hated it. At the very least, T&T case 5 manages to stick a solid ending that doesn't feel like it is in conflict with any prior narrative and character arcs which is far more than JFA can say. On that note, the game-wide story concludes on a pretty fulfilling note that makes sense. On the other hand, the series-wide story it tries to conclude nearly tumbles over, but managed to hold on just enough to be alright. And the main reason any of this was pulled off at all has got to be Godot.
Godot is the main prosecutor of Trials and Tribulations and honest to god deserves his own section. So he is getting one. As perhaps the most interesting and thought-provoking prosecutor in the series, Godot holds a position of equal interest and coolness as Edgeworth. For one, while he has his own unique quirks much like Franziska did, he is not annoying. And thank fucking god for that. It is one thing to be playing through the cases annoyed out of your mind at the continuous, game-wide joke that is Franziska and her whip. And it is another thing to be able to not only enjoy but brew over the character quirk that is Godot's coffee addiction while still enjoying the gameplay experience. Godot is the face of T&T and the main mystery of the game, while hiding the real mystery behind himself. Throughout the game, we are given small tidbits and ideas of who Godot might really be and what he is after but it is only nibbles much like the previous titles. Then in case 4 it pretty directly reveals the truth visually, but even still the game holds its cards close to the chest to hold back on the "Why?"s. Only in case 5 after slogging through the murky trials that lay out, do we really see the big picture and begin to understand the man behind the mask. Godot is as good as Edgeworth and if it wasn't for his journey, this game wouldn't be nearly as good as it is.
Trials and Tribulations is a great story and game. It does a fantastic job of holding the line on what is still one of the most unique and fascinating gameplay experiences one can enjoy. However, the heights it reaches for ultimately are what doom it to fall below the one that started it all. And worst of all, the game lives in a world where it comes after Justice For All. But if your game's worst problem is another game, then buddy, I think you got yourself a pretty damn good game.