Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Screenshots

Notes

It's Phoenix Wright. It's a really good visual novel series that everyone should play. It's on phones and PCs now so if you're reading this, consider giving it a go.

PW1 comes out the gate strong with the most Edgeworth we get in... any PW game I think? And there's a reason he's the breakout fan favourite.

The big problem with the game, which will persist with the DS titles although they kind of fixed it later on, is that investigation segments can be directionless and have arbitrary triggers to get the plot to progress. Very frustrating when you are missing one dialogue interaction with a character or clicking on one background elements.

Also, unique to PW1, is the 5th case they added for the DS remake. (If you're not aware, the DS trilogy are remakes of GBA games only released in japanese). It has a bunch of kind of gimmicky use of the touch screen not found in the other games, breaks the pacing of the game (since the 4th case was supposed to be the end of the game and concludes dramatically) and goes on kind of long. Could do without it really.

Now to go on a rant about what I call "Third Case Syndrome". This is a phenomenon I made up, describing the problems that the 3rd cases in all the games share. The first case in any PW game is a tutorial, easing you back into the game and introducing any new gimmicks that game is adding. The second case then sets up the major plot arc that's going to tie together the game's cases and conclude dramatically at the end. The 4th (and, if applicable, 5th) case(s) will be the dramatic conclusion of said plot arc.

That leaves the 3rd case. Generally long and involved (as the game has hit its stride), not connected to the overall plot much, it bogs the game down and represents a hump you have to get over to get to the conclusion of the game. An overextended middle which just ends up dragging. This is true in PW1, as case 3 is the Steel Samurai murder and it really has all these issues. The investigation in particular goes on for way too long, with a bunch of pointless and obtuse stuff like card trading(!), and having to click 6 times to travel between different locations. I'm not a fan.

It's worth noting how insane the justice system presented in Pheonix Wright is. A crime is committed. The police turn up and nab whoever seems the most obvious suspect without doing any investigation. That person gets put on trial the next day. The trial system is a single judge (no jury), and it's guilty-unless-proven-innocent. So much so that a defense lawyer must not only prove their client's innocence but find the real killer and effectively convict them too. Any doubt that the real killer is found and the original defendant loses and is found guilty by default. Oh, and the trial has a time limit of 3 days, after which the original defendant will also be found guilty by default.

This is very apparent in the 3rd case here where the bad guy's big final gambit is "you proved it's possible for me to have committed the crime (and in the process that your client did not), but unless you prove it was me conclusively, I get off scott free and your client is convicted". Which is just absolutely insane.

Finally, I should mention that I replayed PW1 a bit too recently, which detracted from it a little. Hopefully I will have forgotton the later games more when I get to them. But Phoenix Wright is still really good.