Collection essentials #596-602: Ace Attorney series (DS)

A new record for most games covered in a single post! The reason why I’m lumping so many of them together is because these posts are spoiler-free, so I can only talk about these story-heavy games at a surface level.

Made by the legendary developer Capcom, the Ace Attorney games are often described as “visual novel adventure” titles, somewhat related to the old-school “point and click adventure” genre that was popular among ‘90s computer games. In these games, there’s no fast-paced actions to speak of and reflexes of the player are never tested. In fact, gameplay is arguably not the main focus, as the story and characters are the biggest selling points. As these games involve solving mysteries, players must choose where to go, who to talk to and what to examine in the environment in order to advance the story. And then, there are courtroom scenes in which players must effectively use the evidence they have as well as witness testimonies to prove their case in court.

The first three Ace Attorney games, included here in the photo, were actually not originally on the DS. They came out earlier, on the Game Boy Advance between 2001 and 2004, but only in Japan. Then, as the DS hit shelves later in 2004, Capcom apparently saw it as a good platform to remake the first game on, particularly to give it an English localization for the first time. The DS version had much better audio quality than the original, and the extra screen on the DS was put to good use when navigating the player’s item inventory. The original game featured four cases to solve, but the DS version added an entirely new fifth case which was much longer than any of the first four, and even had some segments that made special use of the Nintendo DS’s touch screen capabilities for activities like dusting for prints.

The first three Ace Attorney games place you in the shoes of Phoenix Wright, a rookie defense attorney. The game begins with a murder, as Phoenix’s childhood friend finds himself framed for the killing of his own girlfriend. It’s Phoenix’s first case ever, so this case serves as the tutorial as he learns the ropes from his boss, a young woman named Mia Fey. As it's just a tutorial, that case is pretty simple and straightforward. At the start of the second case, Mia is murdered, and the blame is placed on her sister Maya. Phoenix chooses to defend Maya, and opposing him is his rival Miles Edgeworth, a former childhood friend who has become a cold and calculating prosecutor. The game quickly becomes very story-driven, as Phoenix slowly learns about a notorious unsolved murder case from years past that had large implications for certain characters. 

The story and murder mysteries are a large part of the appeal of Ace Attorney. But I must emphasize that a huge part of the appeal of the game is its characters and dialogue. This game is packed with a ton of personality and various eccentric characters with a whole bunch of animations and amusing quirks. There’s lots of humorous and/or memorable dialogue. I’d go into specifics, but again, I don’t want to spoil anything at all. These are games that are best experienced when you don’t know anything going into it. The most iconic thing about the series is when Phoenix presents evidence to point out a contradiction in someone’s testimony and shouts “OBJECTION!”, which is displayed in large red letters.

The biggest fault of these games is a pitfall that many in this genre tend to fall into. Since these games are rather linear and feature very specific ways that the story must progress, it can sometimes be very obtuse what specifically you’re supposed to do next. Many who have played this game can tell you of a time when they just felt like they’ve hit a brick wall, resorting to trying random stuff until magically stumbling upon the one not-so-obvious thing they must do in order to move the story forward. It’s certainly frustrating. In that situation, many resort to just looking up the solution on the internet, and it’s hard to blame them.

The series was originally supposed to end with the third game, and that game certainly does have what feels like a worthy finale. However, I suppose due to its success, Capcom decided to bring us more. The fourth game, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, takes place years in the future and features a new protagonist and not many returning characters. Since it’s the first game made specifically for the DS, it features more touch screen gimmicks. Apollo also has a new ability in the courtroom to closely examine the actions of a witness on the stand in order to find some kind of “nervous tic” to indicate that they’re hiding something.

The fifth and sixth games are “spin-offs”, the two “Ace Attorney Investigations” games, featuring Miles Edgeworth as the protagonist. These games stand out because there are no courtroom sections. Instead, you can freely control Edgeworth as he walks around the environment (as opposed to a fixed first-person view like in the other games) to look for evidence and talk to people. Despite this difference, these games play very similarly. There may not be actual courtroom segments, but Edgeworth will sometimes clash with characters and scrutinize their statements just like Phoenix and Apollo cross-examine witnesses in court. A lot of characters from the original trilogy return or at least make cameo appearances.

I remember when the first Ace Attorney game came out on the DS, as I probably saw coverage of it both in Nintendo Power magazine and on the internet. At first I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it, but before long a friend of mine told me how good it was, and that made it a priority for me. Unfortunately, I found out that the game had a very limited print run that had already ended, and it was going for high prices on eBay. Soon, though, I was able to use GameStop’s web site to find a store in nearby Connecticut that had a copy in stock, so my parents brought me down to get it (the same copy you see in the photo). I fell in love with the game, and became aware that there were two sequels only available in Japan which I badly wanted to play. It turns out that I wasn’t alone, as the game quickly developed a strong cult following among American gamers despite its low availability. Pretty soon, Capcom both issued a reprint and also announced that they would be porting the second game to the DS with a U.S. release date in January of 2007. There would be no additional content like there was for the first game, but that hardly mattered, as me and other fans were absolutely ecstatic. The third game soon followed as we figured it would, and then the brand new sequel was announced as well. Later on, the spinoff Ace Attorney Investigations was announced and released, but unfortunately it didn’t meet sales expectations outside Japan, so the second Investigations game was relegated to Japan-only status. After three years on Japanese shelves, fans released an impressive English translation patch for it.

It’s unfortunate that I have to be so vague in a post like this, because there’s so much to say about these games. They are incredibly memorable, and they can really linger in your mind years after you experience them. When my youngest sister was in her teen years, I had her play the series, and she similarly enjoyed them greatly. The series is a favorite conversation topic between us as we discuss and debate the story and characters and quote memorable lines. 

Thankfully, these games have been made accessible in recent years with ports and remakes to newer platforms. All the games covered in this post and more are available on the “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy”, “Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy” and “Ace Attorney Investigations Collection” which are widely and readily available in modern times. If you play the series, just make sure that you play the games in proper order, as that’s very important and Capcom unfortunately dropped the numbers from the titles upon localization for some odd reason. Even with those modern versions, the DS versions of these games are my favorite iterations and I associate them closely with the platform. These games on the DS are stone-cold and beloved essentials in my game collection!