5/5 ★ – Jack_Outside_The_Box's review of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Visual novel games were never really on my radar until Ace Attorney landed in my Nintendo DS as a kid. Growing up, I was way more into video games which offered action or adventure. The idea of a video game primarily based around reading text was something I found boring, mainly because believe it or not I struggled with reading. It wasn’t until my school helped develop my reading and writing skills through the world of books that I started to appreciate the genuine intrigue of text-based adventures. Writing in its purest form is able to help us imagine and in turn understand the worlds or scenarios being presented to us. I think it takes a major amount of skill to base an entire video game in which the primary narrative and gameplay is presented through text, and it was through my time playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney that I came to appreciate that. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a visual novel puzzle game which was developed and published by Capcom. Originally released in Japan on the Game Boy Advance as Gyakuten Saiban in 2001 and then later ported to the Nintendo DS as Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten in 2005; the series saw massive success which soon justified it’s push for a western localization. Its sales were notably high considering its small budget, as only 7 people worked on the game over the course of a minimal 10-month period. The director of this title is one Shu Takumi, a developer who has contributed to a number of high-profile Capcom games before it like Resident Evil and Dino Crisis. With free-reign to create any game after his work on Dino Crisis 2, Takumi and his small team got to work on conceiving a detective-based game with high focus on deduction and contradiction that soon led to the very first Ace Attorney game being born. The story of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is set in a fictionalized interpretation of America with a lot of Japanese influence (To account for the original Japanese version being based in Japan). Within this world, law and order is judged through the District Court, in which trials are only permitted to proceed for 3 days. You play Phoenix Wright, an up-and-coming defence attorney working under the guidance of his mentor Mia Fey, a prolific defence attorney in her own right. The games wider narrative follows Phoenix Wright as he soon tragically loses Mia Fey’s tutorage and must step out to face the justice system on his own. Making this difficult for him is Miles Edgeworth, a rival prosecutor with an infamous reputation for getting guilty verdicts. Soon after his first case, Phoenix also meets Maya Fey, the younger sister of Mia and a spirit medium in training. Employing Maya as his assistant, the duo set forth to solve a number of independent cases together while slowly working their way towards the shadow of a dark case which ties all of their fates together in both the past and present. The thing to understand about the narrative structure of Ace Attorney is it’s presented in an episodic format. The minute you start the game you’re shown that each of the game’s cases are separate to one another, with their own independent crimes to solve and characters to interact with. While that is primarily the basis of the game’s structure, there is a core narrative that does run throughout these 5 cases presented in this game. As the original Game Boy Advance game only consisted of 4 cases however, the 5th case (Which was introduced in the Nintendo DS version) serves as a semi-epilogue to the game and helps bridge its narrative to the events which unfold in the sequel. I think the mainline narrative that runs throughout the course of this game is incredibly tight when you consider it’s limited to a 4-case structure, especially when you consider 1 out of those 4 cases is mainly a tutorial. The way Takumi and his writing team were able to subtly establish a running narrative over the course of the separate cases while tying it all together in a big finale is a testament to how well-written this game is. There are two main things that stand out for me on why the game’s writing is so good and that is the characters and the cases they get involved in. The cast of characters that inhabit this game are all presented so well that they instantly establish a memorable impression. The main stays of the cast like Phoenix Wright, Maya Fey, Miles Edgeworth, Dick Gumshoe, Mia Fey and even the Judge himself all cement themselves as significant with how much they are able to fill up a scene with their unique personalities while keeping the unique narrative moving forward. There’s just so much quality behind the writing that defines these characters that helps makes them so memorable and fun to engage with. Follow the main cast with each of the 5 case’s range of supportive characters and you have a game which knows how to present its interesting cases to you through characters which feel organic to the world they inhabit but still wildly different to one another as well. Each of the games five cases are also written in such a clever fashion, even the tutorial case itself while simple to grasp has a unique premise to appreciate. It’s incredible to me how each case is able to feel distinct from one another with their premises and settings. Each case primarily revolves around a simple murder, but the further you progress, the deeper the ties and secrets you’ll uncover. There’s a clear amount of effort to define these cases to offer a lot of engagement while not feeling needlessly padded. The general progression of each case proceeds at a gradual pace and you’ll feel the game start to pick up in line with how close you as the player are to figuring things out. If I had to rank my favourite cases out of the five it would be as follows: Turnabout Goodbyes Rise from the Ashes Turnabout Sisters Turnabout Samurai The First Turnabout. *Interesting side note, growing up I never really cared for Rise from the Ashes, on account of its length and complexity, but I found myself genuinely enjoying its setup and twists a lot more this time around. The way you’ll engage with the game’s writing is presented on two different fronts. On one side, you’ll be in court, cross-examining witnesses as they testify on cases they are involved in. In these segments you’ll need to navigate their testimony in sections, with the ability to press the witness for further context or present evidence which contradicts with what they’re saying. When you’re not in court however, you’ll be visiting a selection of locations relating to the case with the ability to examine the environments, collect evidence and interview characters. It’s through your investigation you’ll be able to build up a case that you can then pursue in court when the trial gets underway. These are two fundamentally simple systems, but the way they operate offers the player a lot of opportunity for engagement. I like how they both compliment one another as well. The investigative portions help you get a sense of the case by exploring and talking to a range of people, collating evidence and testimonials which can help you form some understanding of the case. It’s not all that expansive when it comes to gameplay but considering the hardware it was originally based on, it’s still impressive you got to do what you could in these portions too. My favourite aspect has to be the court segments though, as it presents the player with the great opportunity to showcase their own understanding of the logic of each case by analysing what someone is saying and work out a way to point out the flaws in it. The game trusts you as the player to let you press or present depending on how you feel the testimony went, it’s a genuinely smart system that defines so much of the franchises core formula even to this day. On the presentation side, this game soars magnificently. Obviously as a visual novel, it has to present itself with a strong art style or it would risk losing its identity. In Ace Attorney’s case it’s more than that however, when you consider this game was originally a GBA game, it’s incredible how much of an impression this game is able to set artistically. Characters are rendered and animated in a lot of unique detail which helps them establish their personalities and reactions so well. Part of what has defined the franchises reputation is the character breakdown animations and they are so well realised here at the very beginning. Locations and backdrops are drawn and detailed intricately to help you get a clear apprehension of the scene and allow you to investigate it at your whim. One of, if not the best highlights of the game for me though is the music. Masakazu Sugimori and Naoto Tanaka clearly turned water into wine here, because even with the limited GBA and DS soundboard, they were able to craft some of the best tracks to ever grace the world of video games; Pressing Pursuit – Cornered is right up there in my top tracks of all time. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a game I have played numerous amounts of times. I know all the cases like the back of my hand and yet, every time I play this game I feel like I’m experiencing some element of it for the first time. There’s nothing and I mean absolutely nothing I can take away from this game, it delivers on its format and premise with an unprecedented amount of confidence. It’s absolutely insane that Shu Takumi and his small team were able to output such a phenomenal title with so little time or budget. I think it’s even more impressive when you consider in light of the game’s small origins, it has defined itself as one of Capcoms most popular IPs to this day along the likes of Resident Evil or Monster Hunter. When you hear people say this is one of the best games ever made, you’ll find no objections from me that’s for sure.