Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

February 25,2008 - After nearly three years with three games each as exciting as the last, Phoenix Wright has established himself as arguably the funniest and most dramatic defense attorney in all of video gaming. However, all good things must come to an end, and we experienced the last chapter of Phoenix Wright's Ace Attorney trilogy late last year. Now a new defense attorney has risen, and yes—he gives Phoenix Wright a run for his money.

Those of you who still refer to games like Justice for All or Trials and Tribulations as games in the“Phoenix Wright series”, stop it. It's the Ace Attorney series.  Phoenix Wright was simply the series' featured character for a while.   So you might as well refer to it as the Phoenix Wright trilogy if you insist on using his name.  Settled?  Good. Now players assume the role of Apollo Justice, a rookie attorney out to point his big finger for the sake of justice. Apollo Justice, Ace Attorney is the first Ace Attorney game developed exclusively for the Nintendo DS. Those of you who played Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney (the first game) might remember that there was an exclusive fifth case that featured touch screen gameplay mechanics unseen in any of the game's sequels. All of those gameplay mechanics and more return in Apollo Justice, making it the deepest game in Capcom's now long-running and incredibly hysterical court series.

The game is divided into four chapters, each including their own court case with a very interesting background story. As Apollo Justice with the help of Trucy Wright, Phoenix's 15-year old daughter, it's your job to gather evidence and snoop around for clues to help defend each client. Along the way you'll meet a lot interesting suspects, both new and familiar. Getting things done in the investigation phase is pretty simple, as the only means of gameplay are pointing with your stylus and reading text throughout the menus in the game.

The bulk and real fun in the game lies in the courtroom. Never played an Ace Attorney game before? No problem! The first chapter immediately has you in the middle of a case, and the tutorial is spot-on and very helpful. After gathering the proper information and talking to all the right people, it's up to you to use the knowledge that you picked up to solve the case. Witnesses on the stand will provide their testimonies, and it's your job to dissect each testimony by pointing out all the lies and contradictions provided in their words. Presenting the right evidence at the right time during a Cross-Examination will allow you to delve deeper into the case until you reach that “Not Guilty” verdict.

75% of the gameplay is pretty much identical to that of the previous games, but as stated before you do have the DS-exclusive features at your disposal. Each piece of evidence you gather, with the exception of information, maps, pictures, and diagrams, are in full 3D. That being said, you have to search every nook and cranny of your evidence closely to make sure there's nothing strange about any of them. You also have the ability to dust for finger prints during select cases when needed. This is done by choosing the item you have, and then loading it up with dust, and finally blowing away all the dust to discover those prints.  The new detective, who happens to be a more mature Ema Skye (from the original game's fifth case) also possesses a kit that allows you to read footprints by pouring out a mold with your stylus, drying it, and then covering the sole with ink to find a match between the prints and their respective characters. These rather new features make the game more realistic and it's good to finally have an Ace Attorney game that makes legit use of the DS capabilities.

But they don't end there.  One of the new features resides in Apollo's left arm.  Apollo has a bracelet that allows him to focus in on witnesses, noticing strange body language habits to gather more information in order to unlock secrets.  Think of it as an alternative to the Fey Magatama of previous Ace Attorney games.  With this "perceiving" ability, Apollo adds "GOTCHA!" to the list of available catchphrases in the game.  Also new to the game is Crime Recreation.   The ability is introduced in the opening trial but isn't used until after the second turnabout (each chapter is called a turnabout, if you were wondering). This mode allows Apollo to recreate the scene of the crime.

The game looks just about the same as every Ace Attorney game before it with the exception of each character being new or having distinct changes since it is essentially 7-10 years following the events of Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. While it's respectable to abide by the “if it's not broken, don't fix it” rule, the game could deal with some more changes visually despite the fact that the visuals are a bit more "polished". On the other hand, the game makes use of the ActImagine codec which produces high quality CGI cutscenes which look so much better than the “cutscenes” of previous games.

Like the game's visual style, the sound hasn't changed much at all as well. While the sound is still extremely effective (this has essentially always been the strong point of the Ace Attorney series), it could still do with some upgrades here and there. A lot of games now are starting to have voice acting, so it would be quite fitting to have more voice acting aside from all the “OBJECTION!”s, “HOLD IT!”s, and “TAKE THAT!”s. The court case music for Apollo Justice is different from all the other titles, but the same track is again played for every case. Capcom could've used the case music from all their Phoenix Wright titles to add a little variety to the cases. 

Despite what may be setbacks with the lack of true blue changes to the graphics and sound, Apollo Justice looks to be everything the Phoenix Wright trilogy was and more.  While the game only includes four chapters, the background stories within each chapter remain as interesting as ever, while also being longer and much more challenging than they ever were (the first case took almost 3 hours; the first case of the first game lasted around 45 minutes at most). That being said, unless you absolutely hate games that have a lot of reading, it's extremely hard to not recommend Apollo Justice—especially if you're a hardcore Ace Attorney fan. If you're new to the series, you're best advised to start with the first game, so you can have more of a grasp of what to really expect and understand every inside joke. This story-driven title has a lot to offer, including the specifics on how Phoenix Wright lost his attorney badge—oh, darn. One of the story elements has been leaked, and now you're pretty much forced to pick this up. TAKE THAT!

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