The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy finally gives console owners a chance to experience the mystery and drama of the courtroom in one awesome package. Current fans of the series may not be as desperate jump back in unless they are looking for Achievements or Trophies.
The trilogy is made up of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Justice for All, and Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations. Each game has a series of trials for you to take part in. These are broken up by investigative sections, before entering the courtroom to fight your case by questionsing and cross-examining witness testimonies. There is around 60 hours of content so if you are new to the series you are getting a bit of a bargain.
The gameplay is relatively simple, you’ll spend a lot of your time interviewing different characters to gather a picture of what has happened, it means reading a lot of dialogue, which can get a little tiresome. You’ll also travel from location to location gathering evidence, the game is quick to help you by having a cursor that changes to a search icon when there is a something to investigate and then adding a green tick to it if you have already checked that part of the scene out. It’s these bits of evidence that you will eventually make use of in court.
The courtroom is where the game gets really interesting. It’s here where the fantastic cast of characters really come to life, whether it’s the witnesses, the defendant or the prosecutors who are all out to take the plucky Phoenix Wright down. Each trial will see you try to catch the witnesses out presenting evidence to contradict their claims or pressing their testimonies during cross-examinations.
Presenting evidence is the easier of the two tactics, for example in once case there was a clear time difference in what you knew and what the witness said, presenting that evidence caused the witness to begin to get frustrated. Pressing a witness is much tougher, and because the game is so linear you have to choose the exact statement to get the witness to open up, hopefully in future titles there will be multiple paths that allow you to get through.
Even when you think you are getting somewhere the game makes things more difficult by allowing the witnesses to update their testimonies to counter everything they said, which clearly wouldn’t happen in a real court of law, but there you go. It just means you really need to be observant and find the right moment to strike,
It’s great watching witnesses begin to crack, the fantastic character art really emphasises their frustrations, and the frantic soundtrack that accompanies them really finishes things off. The console version of the game looks fantastic, you only have to download the iOS version of the game to see how much things have been improved.
The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy is a brilliantly written game, with interesting cases, fantastic characters and plenty of intrigue. New players to the game will benefit from the beautiful presentation, while returning fans will appreciate the general improvements that have been made, but for them this is the same game it always.
No objections from me, Your Honour.