Said it before, said it again, said that I’ll say it many more times, and here I am, saying it once more: the Nintendo DS was a fantastic system for weird video games. And a video game in which you take on the role of an anime-style defense attorney, defending the most bizarre clientele imaginable, from the most ludicrous murders possible (and even impossible ones, too), certainly fits the bill. Of course, the Ace Attorney games didn’t get their start on the DS, as is my understanding, they were originally Gameboy Advance games, before being ported to the DS for a more worldwide release. But I digress. And I am not analyzing the DS games, anyway. Not technically, at least. For this analysis, I will be examining the re-re-re(?)release of the three games: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (PWAAT).
PWAAT is a collection of the first three Ace Attorney games, but they are not straight ports. All the art (and I think the music?) has been remastered. Everything looks much cleaner, less pixelized, and overall nicer. As someone who’s played the original trilogy on DS many, many times, I actually found this cleaner look to be a bit jarring. While everything is technically smoother and more pleasing to the eye, certain characters seem to have lost some of their original charm in the process. The protagonist Phoenix Wright, an the Judge, in particular were the worst offenders to me. Their facial expressions were somehow off. They looked… bored. For lack of a better way to describe them. And other characters were decidedly more creepy. But that’s neither here nor there, and has very little to do with the gameplay. Just something I needed to address. For those going into this series fresh, the updated visuals would probably be welcome. Onto the analysis.
So, what the heck is an Ace Attorney game, anyway? Well, in a nutshell, it’s very much a visual novel, point-and-click, adventure style of a game. The gameplay itself is broken up into two distinct styles of play: courtroom trials and out of court investigations. As a defense attorney, it is the player’s job to prove their clients’ innocence. That said, the game has a lot of mystery solving elements to it. However, this ain’t Clue. Often times, the mystery to solve isn’t “whodunnit?”, but rather “how can you prove they did it?”
This is established in the very first case of the very first game (in PWAAT you are free to choose any of the three games from the get go, but you can only access the cases within the games in order [there are 4-5 cases per game, cases themselves can go anywhere between 1-4 chapters, with multiple parts per chapter, it all varies]). Before the case even begins, before the player is introduced to Phoenix Wright, they are first treated to a “cut scene” (in these games, there is rarely any actual movie style cut scenes, but rather still images with speech text), in which the culprit of the murder is shown committing the act, and then planning on framing one of Phoenix Wright’s friends to take the fall.
Like I said, there’s no question of “whodunnit?” in this case. You, the player, already know. Of course, Phoenix (Nick), does not enjoy your omnipotence, and is in the dark. But he always believes in his clients, and he uses the evidence and witness testimonies at hand to prove his clients not guilty. How he does this is all shown in the very first case, the tutorial of the game (the first case in each game is always this way, a simple, short case that acts as a tutorial). Before the trial begins, you are introduced to the key players, the rookie defense attorney Phoenix Wright, his (soon to be murdered) mentor Mia Fey, and his childhood friend, and in this case, client, Larry Butz. After a brief pep talk, and reassuring the ever problematic and scatterbrained Larry that he’ll be okay, Phoenix and company head into the courtroom.
Once in court, the Judge (what his actual name is remains a mystery to this day, he is simply “Judge”) will ask Phoenix a few questions regarding the case. This is done to teach the player how to access the Court Record. The Court Record is a collection of all evidence collected (autopsy reports, murder weapons, etc.) and people associated with the case. As this is the first case, and is very short, there is not much there in the Court Record. But it is a good way to learn how to access it and understand its purpose in the game.
With the Judge’s questions answered, he is satisfied that they can begin the trial. Now, I’ll say this now, trials in PWAAT do not work the same way as they do in real life. Not by a long shot. After all, that would be horrendously boring, an this is a video game, where the rules of reality don’t apply. That said, trials work thusly: the first witness (usually the detective in charge of the case), will give testimony explaining the case at hand. In the first case, however, there is no detective to bear witness, instead, there is a civilian witness that explains what he saw. Fittingly, the first witness is Frank Sahwit (PWAAT loves their puns), the actual murderer.
After a witness testifies, it is then the player’s turn to tear that testimony apart. Often times, a testimony will contain something that is in contradiction to the evidence on hand. In this case, you scroll through the text of the testimony (which is divided up into blocks of individual statements) until you find the contradicting statement, and present evidence from the court record. In so doing, you will often force the witness to change their testimonies (in Frank Sahwit’s case, you are revealing his lies, and forcing him to come up with new lies, each more shaky than the last). You may also glean new evidence, as pointing out contradictions will produce new evidence either from the witness, or the prosecutor, who was choosing not to reveal said evidence, unless it was absolutely necessary. Prosecutors in PWAAT are often adversarial, and could be considered minor villains of the game. After all, they are trying to get your client found guilty.
Pointing out contradictions is the crux of PWAAT, and will eventually lead to the truth, getting your client off the hook, and putting the real culprit behind bars. However, this is hardly a quick or easy process. Sometimes new testimony will only cloud the issue, resulting in new witnesses being needed, or more investigations being performed (more on that later). It’s only really cut and dry in the “tutorial” cases.
And then, there will be times when a witness’s statements won’t be contradictory at all (for the record, not all witnesses intentionally lie, sometimes they simply misremember or have been misled, themselves). In these cases the player will need to “press” the witness for more information.
Pressing a statement is (usually) much safer than presenting evidence (more on that in a bit). When pressing a statement, you are simply asking for more information. Sometimes statements are vague, and pressing will result in a new or more clarified statement. These new statements will often be the one needed to present evidence, shattering the witnesses claims. Pressing irrelevant statements, on the other hand, will often just result in a waste of time. You might see some comedic dialogue, but from a gameplay perspective, you won’t gain anything that allows you to progress the trial.
As I said, pressing is safe, but presenting has risks. There is a punishment system in place for wanton presenting (and winking…). Should you present evidence on a statement that has no contradictions, or if you present the wrong evidence on a contradictory statement, you will be penalized (this is a video game, after all, there should be some risks involved). The penalty system itself has always varied from game to game, but in this remake, it has been consolidated to a single bar divided up into ten sections (often shown in the top right corner). What this means is that the player is allowed to screw up a total of ten times (or fewer, some cases up the penalty, depending on the severity of the situation) before game over. Should you get a game over, your client is found guilty, and you’re booted back to the main menu, where you can reload your last save (saving really takes the risk out of the game, fwiw, just save before presenting evidence, and you’ll always be in the clear).
But, you’ve little to fear in the first case, at least. As I’ve said, it’s all very easy and obvious, even if you didn’t watch a cut scene revealing Frank Sahwit as the actual murderer. But the kid gloves come off fairly quickly after that first case, so fret not. It does get trickier. In fact, sometimes it gets too tricky. There are times when the evidence needed is so obscure, you’d only know what to present if you’d already played the game. In other cases new witness statements won’t be available unless you press other statements in a specific order. And finally, my favorite worst case scenario, in certain cases, you need to press for more info, getting new statements, but present evidence on older statements, but only after new statements are made. It gets muddy…
Phoenix isn’t alone in this, though, as he can get hints and advice from a friend. As he almost always has someone at his side, whether it’s his boss and mentor Mia Fey, or Mia’s kid sister and spirit medium-in-training Maya Fey, or Mia’s channeled spirit after she’s passed away via Maya or her little cousin and fellow spirit medium Pearl, or so on (hey, I said the game was weird). Most of the time the advice is a little too vague to be helpful, but there can be times when it proves useful in leading the player to the right conclusions.
Advice is only given when you reach the end of a witness’s testimony and have not found the contradiction and presented the evidence, though. So, the player always has a chance to figure it out on their own, first. Should you reach the end of a testimony, though, it will simply repeat ad nauseam, one statement after the other, through the click of a button. The player can also reverse, going back to prior statements as needed. Sure, it may be odd for a person to repeat themselves, and talk backwards over and over, but that’s how the game works.
Aside from pressing and presenting, occasionally you’ll be given the chance to answer questions from the Judge or others. Such as if you do or do not have a problem with what the witness just stated. These questions are almost always in a “yes/no” format and are presented in such a way that you simply choose the appropriate text box choice. In almost every case, the answer to these questions are painfully obvious, and even if you do choose the wrong response, you will simply get chided before the game continues on to the point of what would have happened if you had chosen the correct answer.
Why these sections were ever included in the game still eludes me to this day. They offer nothing in terms of gameplay. They do not make the player think, at all. Sure, the wrong choice sometimes offers some comedic dialogue, but there is almost never any penalty or risk associated with it. And in the rare instance where there was risk involved, it made the non-risk questions seem all the more pointless, and confusing. It seemed to me, like a frivolous addition to pad out player input content. Which I suppose might seem necessary in such a text heavy, visual novel style game.
At any rate, that is the basic set up of the courtroom gameplay. Even in court, you play more at sleuthing than lawyering(?). You figure out what statements are off, which need pressing, and what evidence is needed in order to find your clients innocent, and to find the true culprit of the murder (pretty much all PWAAT cases are about murder, and if they aren’t at the start, they soon will be…).
But that’s all courtroom stuff. Which is only half of the series. The other half takes place outside the courtroom, where, as Phoenix Wright, you investigate the crime scene and various other locales in an attempt to find evidence, interrogate witnesses, and so on. In more ways than one, this game is really more about detective work, than about being a lawyer.
When outside the court, you are free to travel to a variety of locales. But as this game is mostly first person view static screens, traveling is not done through controlling a character and moving about an area (like in other visual novel style games like Hotel Dusk), but by simply pressing a button on a menu, and selecting where you would like to go (similar to point-and-click games like Shadowgate or Time Hollow).
That said, travel can still be a bit convoluted. In more complicated cases, you’ll be going to a lot of different places, to speak with different people and gather evidence (more on all that in a bit). But to get to those places, you sometimes have to go to other locations first. For example, in one case, you might want to go to a certain room at a hotel. Instead of just clicking that room from the list of places to travel, you must click on a series of locations leading to that room. In this case, starting at the Wright and Co. Law Offices, you must go to the hotel lobby, then through the hotel ballroom, the the hotel hallway, then finally the hotel room itself. While that may make logical sense, it can be a pain clicking location after location, going through areas of no interest or importance, just to get somewhere else. And in cases where the roundabout traveling makes no sense, its even more frustrating.
Once you are at the location you wish to be, you have a set of options available to you: Examine, Move, Talk, Present.
We’ve already discussed “Move” in great detail, so let’s move on to “Examine.”
Examine is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. When choosing this option the person on screen (should there be one) will disappear from view, and give you full reign to examine your current surroundings. This is done by pulling up a small magnifying glass “pointer.” Clicking on anything with the pointer will result in Phoenix examining the item/place/etc. Sometimes this will result in finding a critical clue or solid evidence. Other times, you’ll just get some funny or interesting dialogue. And other times, you’ll just be wasting your time as there are “no clues here.”
It’s worth noting that during examine periods, this is basically the only time where the static screen has the chance to be more than just one screen. Occasionally crime scenes will be too big to fit on a single screen, and you therefore have the option of “sliding” the screen left and right, to view the other half of the crime scene. This is as big as it gets in this game, though. It’s never more complicated than one or two screens worth of a location.
One very helpful addition that they added to this remake is that the magnifying glass highlights in yellow when there is something of actual interest to examine (whether its useful or not is a different story). Not only does this help eliminate needless guesswork, it also revealed to me certain examinations that I had never seen before, despite the fact that I have played these games dozens of times. Let me tell you, finding something new in such an old game is something special.
Another helpful new tweak is that there will be a red check mark over the pointer when hovering over things you’ve already investigated. This is very useful when ensuring that you’ve done your due diligence, as the “investigation” portion of the game cannot end unless every clue has been found and every witness has been interrogated.
Speaking of interrogating, let’s talk about “Talk.”
As it sounds, the “Talk” option allows you to talk with witnesses and others involved in the case. If there is a person present at the location where you are, you can speak with them. Of course, this being a very scripted game, all you’re really doing is selecting predetermined topics, and allowing the characters to divulge information on those topics. It’s all just a way of progressing the narrative and applies very little in terms of gameplay. But as not all cases are as obvious as the first case, this dialogue is often crucial for the player in determining the who’s, what’s, where’s, why’s and how’s.
Topics that have already been discussed also show a check mark to them, like in examining. But that’s nothing new. Helpful all the same, though. Should you want to read the dialogue again, you are, of course, free to click it again. Useful if you missed something, I suppose. I do wish this remake had included a chat log (a feature present in more modern Ace Attorney games).
Finally, there’s “Present.”
Similar to talking, you can present evidence (and sometimes profiles) to a person. This will have a variety of effects depending on what you present and to whom. It may open new dialogue topics to talk about, you may glean new information about the evidence, or, you may just be wasting your time. I often found presenting pointless evidence to be a good source of laughs though, so it was never really a total waste.
Time spent outside the courtroom is crucial to understanding and building your case. And it will only end when you’ve “checked all the boxes,” so to speak (a literal checklist of things needing doing is another more modern Ace Attorney feature missing from this collection, sadly). To the uninitiated, it may be confusing as to when you know you’re done for the day. But Phoenix will always wrap it up by saying that he’s done all he can. This will only happen when you’ve found every clue and exhausted every path of critical conversation. Missing out on something is not an option during your investigations. And once you are done, its onto the next chapter, in the court once more, better prepared for the coming battle.
It’s worth mentioning that most cases only last a matter of days. Usually in the pattern of Day 1: Hearing about the crime/Investigation. Day 2: Court, followed by out of court investigation, Day 3: Court/end of case. That’s not to say its in real time or anything, that’s just the usual pattern. And it remains the pattern throughout the trilogy. The first case is tutorial, the second case introduces investigating. And the latter cases are increasingly more complex.
Now, if it sounds like the latter two games may be a bit… repetitive, well… they are. In the original trilogy, innovation was not exactly key to the series. They found what worked, and largely stuck with it. The games are more narrative focused than gameplay, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. That’s not to say they’re bad. Just, that innovation wasn’t really a focus. With a couple rare exceptions.
In a special fifth case in the first game (which was added for the DS remake, and not included in the original game), they added a new twist to investigation: Science!
Instead of simply clicking on things and getting clues, in this special case you could examine the evidence more fully, rotate it 360 degrees, examine certain aspects of it in further detail, and so on. You could also use new tools like dusting for fingerprints and spraying luminol to find hidden blood stains.
This was an interesting addition to the game, and made gameplay a little more varied. It was fun. But seeing as it was only included in one case in the entire trilogy, and never seen again (until later entries like Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, which we will discuss no further…), it ultimately felt like a pointless tease.
Another innovation, which felt less pointless as it has been a mainstay since the second game, is the magatama. A gift from Phoenix’s lovable assistant Maya, powered by the adorable little Pearl, the magatama is a magical item that allows Phoenix to see when people are lying to him.
Now, there are so many plot holes when it comes to a device that allows a lawyer who plays detective to see the secrets of another person’s mind, but you kind of just have to suspend your disbelief and go with it, more often than not.
Mechanically, how it works is pretty similar to presenting evidence in court, but out of court. During your investigations, you may run into someone (or multiple someones) who has a secret they do not want you to know. When this occurs, a series of red locks and chains will appear around the person (unbeknownst to them). By presenting the magatama at these times, you engage with them in a sort of courtroom approach where you must present the right evidence during key points in the conversation in order to break the “psyche-locks” and reveal the truth.
Like in court, though, if you present bad evidence, you will be penalized. If you do not think you have the right evidence, though, you can back out at any time. Unfortunately, if you were in the middle of a multi lock session, and had to back out due to lack of evidence, when you do back later and try again, you need to start over from the start, which felt incredibly pointless to me. A checkpoint system would have gone a long way.
Should you succeed in breaking the lock, and should you need it, your penalty bar will be refilled by five points. Which is the only way to refill the penalty bar (with the exception of starting a new case, you always start fresh). So, in that, this was a fantastic addition to the series.
Aside from that single mechanic, though, there’s really not much more to say about the innovation in the trilogy, or about the games as a whole. Lack of innovation or no, they’re a fantastic set of games. And for those new to the series, this trilogy is a great, modern way to play them. Though I lament just how true to the original games they stayed, though. Where visuals were massively updated, and small additions were made to make life easier. Other quality of life improvements already present in past games were oddly missing. Faults and flaws aside though, there’s no denying that the core fun and charm of the original games is still present, and that will always remain.
