Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice Review

While part of me is disappointed that there is no physical release of the Ace Attorney games anymore, another part of me is thankful we’ve even been given an opportunity to play them. The thought-to-be-lost-to-Japan crossover with Professor Layton came to our shores two years ago physically. The last proper Ace Attorney game, Dual Destinies, was released three years ago. But the quirkier looking prequel, “Great Ace Attorney” looks to not be coming to the West. But never say never.

My point is, is that while Ace Attorney is a franchise that’s not always been a shoe-in for localisation (We’re looking at your, Investigations 2) it’s one that I can’t help but be thankful that Capcom is bothering to continue bringing the games to the west, retail or not. Spirit of Justice is the latest in the Ace Attorney franchise and it’s possibly one of the kookiest yet. But at the end of the day it’s another Ace Attorney game and all its strengths and flaws come with it. And that is by no means a bad thing.

Spirit of Justice focuses on a team of defense attorneys – Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes. Through their days, they defend those who need defending in a court of law. Spirit of Justice takes the series down a more, as you can probably guess, spiritual road. Phoenix travels to the nation of Khura’in, a thinly veiled Nepalese looking region to visit his medium companion, Maya Fey, who has grown up since her appearances in previous games. Khura’in is an autonomous region, where lawyers are deemed to be “unnecessary” and the visions of spirit mediums are the only evidence needed to seek a conviction. Back home, Apollo and Athena take on their own cases in a much more grounded system of justice.

As with other Ace Attorney games the characters and their development are pretty spot on in Spirit of Justice. Unlike Dual Destinies, the game divides it’s time fairly equally between Phoenix, Apollo and Athena as they take on their own individual cases. Similar to previous games, the witnesses and suspects that you’ll interrogate are weird and out there with their own little idiosyncrasies. Those new to the franchise need fret not, as the game has a healthy mix of new and old elements to make anyone playing feel right at home.

A personal thing I love about the Ace Attorney games is seeing what wacky villains the writers come up with not only in the form of the criminals but also the prosecutors. Spirit of Justice is a much more religious and spiritual take on things so it only makes sense to make its star prosecutor come from such a background. Nahyuta is the new prosecutor and he’s very cool, calm and collected. While not as corrupt as previous prosecutors he has a sharp, witty tongue and is one of the finer villains to play off against, even if his design is ridiculous.

Ace Attorney is, more or less, a visual novel series. As such it’s important that the lighter gameplay elements are counterbalanced by a strong story. Each of the game’s cases are well written, though unfortunately there were times where I personally had figured out the big reveal hours before it came. But those who are less versed in any crime fiction or drama will enjoy working things out. Capcom especially made a habit of making you doubt yourself and your clients throughout Spirit of Justice, with many pieces of evidence pointing against you rather than for you. They’re tense, that’s for sure.

Spirit of Justice follows the same formula as other Ace Attorney games. Each case is split into the “Investigation” phase and “Trial” phase. During the investigation phase, you’ll search for evidence, conduct interviews and do some forensic tests to build a case for your client. As with Dual Destinies, the game now features fully rendered environments rather than static artworks, which allows more thorough investigation of the locales. The power of the 3DS allows the developers to do more with evidence – it’s examinable in 3D space and can be manipulated with luminol and dusted for prints to get trace evidence too. It helps to really remove the sense of monotony from the investigation phases.

Investigation phases generally get a bad rap for dragging at times, but the process has been even further streamlined from the improvements made for Dual Destinies. First off, all the assistive tools are completely optional so those who want to investigate at their own pace can do so. But those who might need a little push in the right direction can do so by looking at the “Notes” area of the court file, which lists objectives in a more linear fashion. The game also doesn’t whisk you away to where you’re meant to be but rather gives you opportunity to think for yourself and get to your destination as a result of your own thinking.

Trial phases takes place in the courtroom, and is where the tension really heightens. During these, the defense and the prosecution will present their arguments and call witnesses to the stands. Witnesses can then be cross-examined. Their testimonies can then be elaborated on with the “press” command or compared with evidence in your court file to highlight contradictions. As with previous games, this system is the crux of the gameplay and the most fun – though the same caveats that have plagued the franchise historically return here. There’s some roundabout logic and a bizarre amount of leniency for lying witnesses but it feels right in the zany comedic world of Ace Attorney. A world where a parrot has given witness testimony before and a 19-year-old girl is both a lawyer and a psychologist.

Throughout the years the games have added several methods to uncover truths and most of them return in Spirit of Justice. Phoenix can use his spiritual magatama to uncover secrets hidden away by “Psyche-Lockes”. Apollo can use his bracelet to inspect body language and notice any “tells” that might give away if a witness if lying. Athena can use her psychological background to analyse the mood of witnesses as they give testimony and highlight any discrepancies between what they’re feeling and what is being said.  Finally, the “thought route” feature returns as “revisualisation” as a way to deductively review everything about a case during a critical moment. They’re all fun little gameplay mechanics that keep the trials fresh and interesting.

The newest of these is the Divination Seances, which shows players the final moments of the victim – from their field of view to their different senses. These are commonly attached to “insights” which are the mediums interpretations of events. As with the Athena’s Mood Matrix, the player must read through the insights and look for any contradictions with the feelings and sights of the deceased victim to uncover the truth of that moment. It’s a very strange addition to the series but also one that’s quirky enough to be fun, and one that makes the most sense given the more religious and spiritual angel that Spirit of Justice takes.

The cases themselves are now of variable length – some go for longer than others which is a change I cannot praise enough. Some cases require two days of investigation and two days in court. Others are just one of each. One of the cases in particular (a fun one, I might add) is just one day in court. While I felt slightly short-changed at first with this design decision, it definitely helped the games pacing. There are many times where I felt like a second round of investigating wasn’t warranted throughout this series and it’s encouraging to see the developers not scared to shorten some to help the game’s pacing. Still, players can easily get at least 16 hours or maybe even more for their forty dollars.

There were some issues with Dual Destinies where the game was simply too easy and strung you along or the evidence was specifically contrived to fit in with certain contradictions. While Spirit of Justice does make some efforts towards fixing this issue – namely by making investigation much less linear and offering penalties for getting things wrong in court – there are still some times where I didn’t feel particularly challenged. Running out of penalties in court simply puts you back to where you failed, so there’s never a true sense of difficulty here. But that’s not to say that this pulls you out of the moment – every case and exchange is just as tense as ever.

Continuing on from Dual Destinies, Spirit of Justice ditches the flat sprites and artwork for fully modelled 3D environments and characters. There are notable improvements from the previous game – though sometimes the better looking models come at a cost of a lower framerate. But the weird, zany charisma that every Ace Attorney characters seems to imbue is still intact. It’s especially fun to see witnesses slowly fall apart as their testimonies are scrutinised until they break down and let loose on the court. The soundtrack is similarly great, ramping up as the tension does too – employing different leitmotifs depending on whether the player is playing in America or in Khura’in.

Score 4/5