Phoenix Wright is an attorney with spiky anime hair. Unfortunately, he lives in a world where defense attorneys not only have to prove their client didn't do it (innocent until proven guilty? What's that?), they also have to accuse someone else. And prove they did it. With motive, though there's never one for your client. Phoenix's life is sort of messed up. Welcome to the world of Ace Attorney.
Ace Attorney is one of the best adventure game series for the DS. You play as Phoenix, who has to investigate his cases and find the real murderer if he has any chance of getting his clients free. Today we'll be looking at the first game in the series.
For background, Ace Attorney was originally released for the Gameboy Advance, so the first few games were all rereleased for the first time out of Japan. As such, while the graphics usually look nice, the GBA has a smaller color pallette than the DS, and it sometimes shows. For instance, they seemed to have a limited number of greys, making Phoenix's hair look more old mannish than was probably intended. This problem also applies to one of his partners, Maya Fey- Black hair just doesn't show up right. However, sound is excellent- most sound effects are good to start with, but the best ones are, by far, the actual voice recordings for characters shouting "Objection!" This is made all the better by the best use of the DS microphone ever... But more on that later. Also, the music is far more epic than courtroom antics should be allowed to have. Not like I'm complaining, the score's awesome. My favorite is probably the Steel Samurai theme.
Gameplay is divided into two parts. The first is trials- You hear witness testimony, cross examine them, and find discrepancies between the evidence and their testimony. The second is investigation- go to the crime scene, talk to people, search for random stuff that stands out, rinse and repeat. Simple? Yes. Fun? Oh, SO much. Provided you like story in your games. I love story in my games. Basically, the gameplay is mostly for delivering story. Fortunately, it feels quite natural- Evidence searching is done with the stylus and d-pad, and dialogue can be advanced by pressing A or the giant button on the bottom screen. All of this feels perfect for the DS- there's a reason it's ruled the point-and-click adventure genre. But the best use of DS technology has to be the microphone, basically used for nothing much for most games... In this case, you can shout Phoenix's lines ("Hold it!", "Take that!", and the awesomeness that is "OBJECTION!") into the mic. Sure, you don't have to do that, but saying it's by far the most rewarding.
Finally, the story. OH THE STORY. Without spoiling too much, Phoenix tends to get involved in murder cases, squaring off against prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, AKA fancy magenta cravat guy. He has to solve the mystery of who murdered X (though the opening movies say so several times) and how they did it. Needless to say, slightly difficult. The highlights are actually the characters- wackiness ensues. Wonderful, wonderful wackiness. There is nothing more entertaining than watching a guy be forced to cross examine a nutso secretary in pink. Or his own client, who happens to be the biggest loser in existence.
There's one thing that's an exception to all of this, Case Five. The original GBA game ended after Case Four, but for the DS rerelease an extra was added. This case uses the DS hardware to its full extent with forensics minigames and better graphics for the new character sprites and backgrounds- notably, they're bigger. It's one of my favorite cases in the series, and turns up the character ridiculousness (they get weirder in later games) to, oh... Seventeen on a scale of ten. It's a blast, with the game's most complex characters and a convoluted plot. Well worth it.
So yeah, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. May not be my favorite game on the DS. Certainly in the top twenty. Stay tuned for reviews of Justice For All, Trials And Tribulations, Apollo Justice and Investigations.
Final score:
Presentation: It looked good on the GBA, and it looks pretty good here. Case Five makes the rest of the game look a bit more dated by comparison, but the game is still colorful, energetic, and rather eye candy-like. And the sound is fantastic across the board.
Story: The first three cases are a bit slow, but when it picks up in cases Four and Five, it seriously picks up.
Gameplay: If I hadn't told you- meaning if I'd never looked it up online- you wouldn't have known this wasn't made for the DS. The system and game fit each other perfectly.
8.5/10
