There are several lifetime situations that you would never have thought would get made into a video game, because many people simply don't think they would fit, and consequently publishers just don't see them as viable. With the second release of th...
There are several lifetime situations that you would never have thought would get made into a video game, because many people simply don’t think they would fit, and consequently publishers just don’t see them as viable. With the second release of the Ace Attorney series and with two more on the way, Capcom have proven that a genre as abstract as the Courtroom Simulator could indeed be as engrossing as any other game, providing players with a deep experience that can be as dramatic as any courtroom drama you watch on TV. With the release of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All, Capcom have served up 4 new cases for willing lawyers to tackle, but one must ask, does it offer enough to justify a purchase, or is it just more of the same?
Ace Attorney isn’t a new series either, as it’s actually the localised name for Capcom’s succesful GBA (in Japan up until now) series, Turnabout Trial (known more commonly as Gyakuten Saiban). Capcom decided to bring over the series, translate it, throw in a few westernised pop culture references and re-release it on the Nintendo DS with revamped controls and an all new courtroom system. The result works surprisingly well, despite a few hiccups here and there. Justice For All is a bit of a different experience in relation to the story, as Phoenix, the games protagonist, has come to terms with the death of his mentor, Mia Faye, another high ranking defence attorney, and settled into the role of Chief of his own law firm, of which he took over for Mia after her murder in the original game. Justice For All sees a much more (relatively) confident Phoenix Wright as well as the return of all your favourite regulars that made the original so charming.
Graphically, Justice For All doesn’t really fare with several other 2D games, though it’s not really the purpose of the game either to wow with pretty graphics. The whole game is 2D sprite based, with sprites being placed in front of a rendered background when and ONLY when they are speaking to Phoenix (that’s you). Although the sprites for each character do look nice, they do the same motions over and over again and this can get a tad repetitive. The sprites themselves are brilliantly designed, ranging from a simple Japanese businessman to an extravagant David Bowie look-a-like circus performer, Justice for All does not disappoint in the artistic design department. All the characters are designed in a manner in which, combined with their personalities, you really do feel for them. Unfortunately, as there are no aspects of Justice For All designed with the DS in mind, there aren’t any really amazing graphical feats exhbited in Justice For All, although that’s really what’s not important.
What’s very strange is the lack of implementation of any of the features found in the original game. The revamped music from the original Ace Attorney game is mysteriously missing, instead replaced with the original slightly dated audio from the original GBA versions of the game. Furthermore, and once again, unlike the original game, there is no elusive fifth case designed solely with the DS game in mind. It must be asked why Capcom didn’t feel the need to implement the enhanced sound and remade content, though they could possibly just be riding the wave of success the original title had and thus felt no need to do so. Regardless, the game does feel complete without the additional case or revamped audio, clocking in at about 12-15 hours to complete as each case IS fairly lengthy. Microphone use is enabled, allowing players to yell “HOLD IT”, “OBJECTION” or “TAKE THAT” in place of pressing one button, though it’s fairly gimmicky and frankly not worth the embarassment.
Justice For All, like the other games in it’s series, can best be described as an adventure title in the form of a visual novel. Let’s get this straight – there’s alot of text and alot of reading to do in this game. There are two distinct parts. The first, which is the investigation phase, is where Phoenix and his assistant, Maya Faye (sister to Phoenix’s mentor), gather clues that they can use in their case to defend their clients, as well as talk to witnesses and people involved with the victim or suspect. Some may find moving from area to area, back and forth very tedious, others will love the elements it employs. New to the Ace Attorney series is a mechanism Phoenix can use, known as the Psyche-Lock, though we’ll touch on that later.
The core to the gameplay in Justice For All is the courtroom and trials themselves, which serve for most of the games exciting points and also provide most of the functionality for the touch screen. Essentially, witnesses are called to the witness stand by the prosecutor. They then give a testimony, and Phoenix cross examines the witness. Cross examinations consist of the witness separating their testimonies into smaller pieces, for the user to scroll through using their touch screen. Court items can be easily looked through using the touch screen also, and assist the user in gaining more insight into the case they are dealing with, as well as pinpoint contradictions between evidence and testimonies given. In fact, the crux of most of the court cases involves finding contradictions and proving the prosecutors wrong, consequently proving your client as innocent. Most of the action and suspense will occur in these segments of the game, and the music adds to the excitement. Capcom did a good job in making the courtroom an extremely dramatic environment.
Justice For All makes three key changes to the gameplay, of which one has been previously mentioned in this review. The first is that instead of JUST being able to present evidence to either a judge, during cross-examination or during the investigation phases, the player can now produce profiles of the people involved in the case. This can make the game notably harder in some parts as it essentially doubles the amount of caseload you have to work with, but it does make more logical sense, and in most parts the game tells you when they want you to present a profile (by asking “who?”, rather than “what?”). Secondly, while the first game gave the player a “static” number of errors to be made before game over, Justice for All consolidates these into a life bar. This allows the game to punish more severely if an error of greater magnitude is made.
Finally, the Psyche-Lock mechanism is introduced to the investigation phase. Psyche-Lock is a technique employed by Phoenix with the help of his assistant’s spiritual powers, which can see when suspects of witnesses are lying. When they are, a number of locks appear over their faces, which must be broken in order to expose the truth. Similar to the courtroom, the presentation of evidence will destroy these locks and make more progress. Unlike the courtroom however, should you feel you do not have sufficient evidence to break the locks, you are able to back down and stop. This element adds to the intensity of the investigation phases, and is a nice attempt to introduce some suspense to these other wise mellow segments of the game.
Justice for All does disappoint in some aspects though, and some of them are merely cultural differences. The first major difference many western players will notice is that it is assumed that the client you are defending is guilty until proven otherwise, unlike our system where it’s the other way around. Secondly, the court cases can be somewhat unrealistic in that several witnesses admit to the prosecutors tampering with evidence in order to gain the upper hand, yet the consequences for them are very much light hearted or non existant – something that would be seen as very serious issues in real life. Lastly, the translation for Justice for All is a lot more sloppy than the translation of the original game, with several spelling errors and sometimes even the wrong use of words in the wrong context, it has you wondering what the localisation team was doing with their time. Something else that is notably disappointing is the lack of touchscreen features as seen in the first game, though there is no reason that we can possibly think of as to why this is the case.
Errors aside, Justice for All is another great entry in the Ace Attorney series that this reviewer would not hesitate to recommend to someone who enjoyed the original and simply wants more. Although as an Ace Attorney fan you’ll see these flaws initially, you won’t hate the game for it because it still has that charm the original game had, and that’s the best thing about Ace Attorney – the characters, cases and dialogue are wonderfully written to keep the fans happy and coming back.
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