And he was wearing glasses to show that time had passed.

I've got a lot of mixed feelings about this game. I frequently found myself annoyed at a case because of a convoluted twist that it had taken, or a very obvious clue which was ignored until much later. I don't think the games are exactly stranger to this kind of thing, but I think that they just felt that much clearer to me, or that the timing between when I as the player noticed them was much earlier than how it was arrived at in the case.

The actual mysteries were overall quite solid though. They did a great job at taking many of the tropes and elements of traditional murder mysteries and really working them through before you could arrive at the truth. My favorite was probably 5-2, a locked room mystery which brings you through almost every different kind of solution to the classic problem before you arrive at the truth.

Blackquill is a treat, Fulbright is pretty great. Loved to see Pearls and Trucy again! The other supporting cast was hit or miss for me, which is more than fine. Athena was my least favorite of the new main cast, but she's still fun to work with, if a bit flat. Splitting the playable cast across the three attorneys hindered them I think. They're spread too thin. It's still fun and enjoyable, but I feel less connected to the events in the game because of all the jumping back and forth.

The DS sprites are still far and above my favorites, but the new models in this game offer some cool visuals and animations, especially at the witness stand. Environments actually use the 3DS' 3-D feature which look nice also.

It's hard for me to not love an Ace Attorney game, and I don't want to say that this game is weak. It just… doesn't land as strong.

Edit: Started playing Spirit of Justice and I forgot another big complaint I had: they completely butchered the investigation controls. Literally I do not understand why they completely revamped these controls, they were perfect and intuitive in the DS games and now you're using the touch screen to move a cursor on the top screen and it's so much harder!

This game is cute and offers a perspective often overlooked in gaming circles. It unfortunately suffers from unclear directions and loose, unexplained connecting logic between certain information points. It's understandable, based on the game's limited scope, but it does mean if you don't "get" something right away you might feel stuck for a good bit; and even if you do manage to get something you may not really understand why, which somewhat diminishes the educational value this game appears to want to foster.