Guest Review: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies(3DS): A return to all that is Wright

Hey everyone. I'm taking a back seat this time because this is game I really wanted to play and review, but sadly I do not own a 3DS. Thankfully a friend of Rage Quitter, the lovely and talented GoatMaiden, was more than willing to step up for this one. -- CannonMan

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The phrase “Familiar yet Fantastic” was used on this very blog by Rage Quitter’s own CannonMan to describe the 13th entry in the “Tales” game series (Tales of Xillia.) I can think of no better way to describe the most recent Ace Attorney game (which would be #5 if you don’t count Investigations.)

Here we are once again, settling in with old friends and ready to experience the predictable-yet-twisted world of Phoenix Wright: art student-turned lawyer turned-bum-turned-adopted father-turned lawyer again. Get ready for more spunky sidekicks, more accusations scrawled in blood, more torturous childhood memories and questionable law tactics… I say, bring it on!

ACE ATTORNEY: DUAL DESTINIES(3DS) 

This is the box art you won’t see here *

“HOLD IT!” - FOR THOSE NEW TO THE SERIES

This long-running saga debuted back in 2001 in Japan with the Game Boy Advance game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (released for the DS in North American in 2005) and followed through Ace Attorney: Justice for All, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. The first three games were eventually ported to the 3DS, phones, WiiWare etc. (everything except for Android devices it seems.) 

In the first game, spiky-haired rookie attorney Phoenix Wright (age 25), mentored by the buxom Mia Fey, heads into the courtroom to defend his first client. Phoenix takes on Mia’s little sister Maya, a spirit medium in training, as his assistant while battling the “demon prosecutor” and his ultimate Great Rival, Miles Edgeworth. Set in a parallel, slightly futuristic, vaguely Japanese universe, the games follow their own rules about 80% of the time (i.e. statutes of limitations are all over the place.)

Original "8-bit excuse for an attorney" Phoenix in Trials and Tribulations

(screen shot from http://www.gamesradar.com/ )

In all but Apollo Justice, where budding lawyer Apollo takes over as Wright’s protegee, Phoenix must investigate crime scenes, collect and examine evidence, interrogate witnesses, and gather character information from those around him to present his case before the unbiased if scatterbrained Judge. It’s Lawyer Sim meets point-and-click adventuring with a distinctly quirky twist. You’re not driving a car (Phoenix doesn’t even have a drivers license), shooting targets, jumping from floating platforms or finding your way through mazes in Ace Attorney games. You’re battling your inner doubts, talking to characters with names like Will Powers and Wendy Oldbag, stylus tapping your way to the ultimate truth, and eventually using various other-worldly tools such as the Magatama--a necklace Phoenix receives from Maya-- to determine if characters are hiding information.

This is a talky game, bordering on a visual novel amount of text. A goofy game to be sure, even when dealing with gruesome murders and the people who work to cover up their crimes (the dialog is hilarious for any number of reasons, from puns to odd translations to reflexive narrative), but one that relies on a player to pay attention to and care about the characters involved.

Phoenix, who you control most of the time, is, like many 20-somethings, sarcastic but unsure of himself. When you screw something up, it is he who takes the punishment, and to make this an effective deterrent, you gotta kinda side with the guy and want him to succeed. Also, so many characters reoccur in following games that it would be a wasted effort if you didn’t have some sort of emotional connection to them. 

There are two other games included in the series: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth released in 2010 and a second Investigations game released only in Japan in 2011. These two games differ from the previous in that 1.) Miles Edgeworth is the main character and 2.) the character sprites are at times shown from a third person full-length perspective, as when you are investigating a crime scene. Investigations 1 was much shorter and did not sell as well as the former four games, and thus the second Investigation game was never released in North America.

“NOT SO FAST!” – THE LEAD UP TO GAME 5

I have been an aficionado of all the Ace Attorney crew for years. I have hung on every rumor of new games coming to the US. I even signed the petition for Investigations 2 to be translated, even though the first one struck me as overly easy (yet still enjoyable since I heart Miles Edgeworth.) I bought the soundtracks. I played all the Professor Layton puzzle games after hearing that a Phoenix Wright crossover, with the original developer of the Ace Attorney games Shu Takumi heavily involved, was in the works.

However, Takumi made clear he was not planning on being involved with any 5th game in the series since he felt the original series had gone to the point he wanted it to, story-wise.

Like hell. Without giving too much away, this is how Phoenix Wright appears in Apollo Justice:

Really Takumi-san, how can you leave us with THIS as our final parting image of

the hitherto venerated Comeback King?!

So when, two years ago, I heard that Ace Attorney 5 was in development for the 3DS, with an actual playable demo at the Tokyo Game Show, shit got real.

That Christmas I got a 3DS.

After that, game news developed fairly quickly (well, relative to the five years between the original notion that a 5th game might be a possibility and the actual announcement.) The first promo art showed Wright back in a suit thank god, and made it clear he would be a central if not the main character. It didn’t show any other characters from past games, but instead a girl in yellow appeared to be a new associate.

Ga. Where’s Maya?

“Another chick sidekick?” I thought. Beyond Maya, there’s been Pearl-Maya’s cousin, Trucy-Phoenix’s adopted daughter, Ema-a burgeoning forensics expert (who appeared at different ages through a number of games) and Kay (who only appears in the Investigations games).

Still, last October, I decided to give her a try and downloaded Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies.

Cute little chibi Apollo and Athena only appear on the start up screen (photo by Sarah B.)

“TAKE THAT!” – PLAY THROUGH

Okay, so what is it actually like to play the freakin’ game?

Even with the addition of 3D, not a lot has changed. Phoenix returns as a playable character, older, a little wiser, and brings on new recruit Athena. Being set only a year time-wise from the last game, Apollo isn’t all that different. He has a quarter-life crisis in this game and gets pretty banged up along the way, which he deals with astonishingly well.

The point of the game is to bring about an end to Dark Age of the Law, a loosy-goosy term implying that false testimony and forged evidence have become commonplace. The public no longer trusts the legal system, and it’s up to you and your merry band of lawyers to change that (whether you do or not is still debatable.)  

The character designs are attractive and the graphics are top notch. This is the first PW game where I don’t think anyone annoyed me so much I couldn’t wait for them to die, and I chalk that up to the graphics on the 3DS. I actually played with the 3D on for a while (a much longer discussion into Nintendo’s technological tactics may be in order, but now is not the time nor place.)

A plus for me has always been the Japanese-style artwork where not everyone is or looks twelve years old. New Prosecutor Blackquill’s hawk Taka is particularly striking. Blackquill’s animations are fantastic too, but I felt he lacked personality for a guy on death row.

While the limited voice acting is pretty “meh” (Phoenix and Apollo sound almost identical) there are a bunch of anime cut scenes that really do fit seamlessly and smoothly into the overall gameplay (although most of them end with someone screaming.)

Athena really endeared herself to me. Despite some childhood traumas that are a bit of a rehash, she’s not just a clone and ends up holding her own as a member of the team. Yes, she’s young and spunky like all of Phoenix’s “girls” (as he refers to them in the game) but she speaks several languages and uses her own Mood Matrix truth-finding device instead of handing it off to Phoenix. Another reviewer noted that she makes some faces that one does not expect a heroine to make.

Are there too many gimmicks? Yeah, I think so. None of them are hard to figure out, especially if you played all the other games. But between the Magatama, Apollo’s bracelet which lets him know a witness is lying, and the Mood Matrix, we are not allowed to play with them long enough to really get to know them.

Can you like this game if you haven’t played any other PW games? You can, but I think you get so much more by knowing the back story (like where did Apollo get his bracelet, who is Pearls, etc.) 

The game is not difficult. The addition of a text backscroll, the ability to save before important moments, and the fact that guessing on the Mood Matrix isn’t punished made getting stuck almost impossible. It’s great for playing 30 minutes here or there, so in that way, it is the epitome of a casual game. To use the visual novel as an illustration again, it’s like reading a book (though I challenge anyone to name an example in literature that is as unique and humorous.) It definitely slaked my thirst for the time being. According to a report, both Takumi and the team from Dual Destinies are working on new releases so we shall see what news comes in 2014.

Phoenix returns (photo from http://cubed3.com )

OBJECTION! (JUST A FEW*, AND THEY’RE MINOR)

Note that the game is only available as a digital download and cost $29.99 (there is a DLC case available for $5.99 which is money well spent.) I would’ve much rather had a physical copy, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I didn’t miss it, but reviewers have pointed out that the Jurist System introduced in Apollo Justice isn’t present in Dual Destinies. Apparently the attempt to bring jury trials back failed.

I was excited that the composer of “Gyakuten Meets Orchestra” and “Turnabout Jazz Soul”, two of my favorite soundtracks inspired by the games, was onboard for Dual Destinies, but none of the songs on initial playthrough were that memorable. The noise the Mood Matrix makes is really annoying.

Odd to me, the game is rated M for mature. I failed to see any more “blood, violence, suggestive themes or language” in this game over the others, which have been rated T. Perhaps because I’ve also been playing Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward which has more shocking deaths and over the top swearing, the fact that Phoenix isn’t dropping F-bombs everywhere struck me as quaint. There’s a scene of violence involving a child, and another scene has a woman demanding that she wanted more than a professional relationship with another woman she worked with (not by far the first such overtone in the series.) Others lament that Capcom just wants Ace Attorney to fail in the US, and that an M rating is the kiss of death for a game like this. I haven’t been able to find any statistics on North American downloads so I guess the jury is still out on this one (hur hur).  

By Sarah B.

(images from http://aceattorney.wikia.com/ unless otherwise noted)

For more work from GoatMaiden, you can read about her adventures at her two blogs http://bellethecat.blogspot.com/ and http://goatmaiden.blogspot.com/.