4.5/5 ★ – Lord_Hazenberg's review of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy.

What an absolute blast of an impulse play Ace Attorney was. Simple gameplay loop, fun stories to untangle, & some pretty well written characters. Never pegged myself as a visual novel guy, but putting a detective/investigative spin on it puts it right up my alley. Played this on the PS5, and it took around 50-60 hours to finish all 3 games & get the platinum trophy. Originally designed for the Gameboy Advanced, graphics are obviously not the allure here (there isn’t even voice acting) but they made up for that by having a very distinct character design style. I miss AAA games like this. Almost unheard of for the Capcom of today to assign a team of only 7 people to make a game in 10 months. I’ll give short paragraphs for each of the 3 games below. (POSSIBLE STORY SPOILERS BELOW) Ace Attorney: A great first entry for the series. Most of your defense clients are good people caught up in a bad situation while you get to law down the hammer of justice upon deserving scumbags. The big storyline with Edgeworth culminating in the game’s finale was awesome, and starting the teases that would come to fruition later in the trilogy makes this game deeper than initially expected. The extra case added from the Nintendo DS version was cool, but mainly seemed to reference characters from future games. Justice For All: A subtler second entry with a bigger focus on Phoenix’s development as a protagonist than the greater overall story. Your clients aren’t as squeaky clean as the first game, but it’s still your job to get the not guilty verdicts for the innocent. Franziska is not quite the foil that Edgeworth was, but she still has a good arc. The final case flipping around the story formula & the continuing setup for the third game still makes this a great game despite being the weakest of the trilogy. Trials & Tribulations: Probably the best storyline of the trilogy right here. Cases 1, 4, & 5 are the main story here with several payoffs from story teases in the last two games all coming to a head in a fantastic conclusion. Godot is easily the most antagonistic of the prosecutors with an important reason behind that mysterious mask. And getting to play as my favorite character Edgeworth, even if just for a little bit, was wonderful. (END OF POSSIBLE SPOILERS) TLDR; Ace Attorney might be the next series I binge because of how much fun this was. Knowing I get to play as Edgeworth in the next two games has me unbelievably excited. This Phoenix Wright trilogy usually goes on sale for around $10, so anyone who’s a fan of visual novels or detective games should definitely check these games out.