[JemyM]

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
My verdict on the popular lawyer game that have been released on numerous platforms (most recently the iPhone). I ended up playing the NDS version with it's fifth trial which I am going to speak about in this mini-review.

Story
Due to major twists early in the game I will keep this as spoiler-free as possible. Phoenix Wright tells the tale of uh... Phoenix Wright, a new defense attorney. The game is set in a futuristic fictional universe within a court that have some specific rules on how cases must be carried out, such as all cases being solved within 3 days or else... In this world it's up to Phoenix Wright to believe in his clients and make sure they end up Not Guilty by making sure that holes in the prosecutors witnessaccounts are exposed and evidence is presented that proves that his clients did not do it.

There are five cases in the game that usually begins with a murder, followed by sessions of evidence collecting and finally in court. The fifth case was added to the NDS remake. It's almost as long as the rest of the game and quite epic.

Beyond Wright there are plenty of reoccuring characters such as Wrights young coworker and spirit-medium Maya Fey, the principled but tormented prosecuter Miles Edgeworth and the dimwitted but warmhearted cop Dick Gumshoe. The game is filled with humor and the characters you meet are often odd or eccentric in some way or another. The cases can often get very personal, where not winning means loosing more than the case. Some of the cases are also connected, providing some story progression and build up the main characters and reveal more about their backgrounds.

Since we are dealing with fictional cases, where evidence pops up once in awhile that completely change the situation, there are loads and loads of twists and the stories are unusually advanced for just being a game.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
Almost the entire game uses static character portraits layered on top of static backgrounds, then a dialogue window on top of that. The characters are well drawn, but it's obvious they were handpainted and scanned into the game. If a portrait is ever animated it's animated with just a few frames. While the characters are nicely drawn, some of it's features have been lost due to the lowres pixels on the GBA which the game was originally made for. The portraits used in the fifth case of the game is of somewhat higher quality.

Sometimes the portraits are a bit odd, because the portrait carry features that doesn't fit with the situation. For example there's a kid that was drawn with a camera that is obviously evidence, and a sword on his back which he draws when he gets angry. It happens though that the game explain these contradictions out loud with some humerous remark.

The music cycle through a few tunes depending on mood (rushed tune, happy tune, danger tune, celebration tune etc). There are some sound effects too, but nothing spectacular. There are no voice acting beyond screams of "Objection!" and "Hold It!" during trial.

Gameplay
The core gameplay in Phoenix Wright is to spot contradictions in witness accounts. You get the witness story, then scroll to where you see a contradiction, then either press or present an evidence to expose lies or freshen up their memories. Between trials you go around and search for evidence, often by talking to people or examining scenes for items that the police might have forgotten. To do this you as a player need to have a good memory, since you need to keep all the evidence in your head if you aren't just going to do trial & error (which might lead to game over).

The fifth case was added to the NDS remake. The fifth case takes advantage of the NDS with crime scene investigation, namely rotating items around to find hidden stuff and taking fingerprints which requires you to pour dust on the bottom screen, then blow into the mic to remove it.

And the Verdict
Beyond being good at perception to spot contradictions and hidden items, there isn't much in terms of gameplay to be had here. It is an adventuregame after all. Usually you just go around and exhaust dialogue options. The story and fun characters is the strong point in this game. The complexity of the storylines, many laugh-out-loud sequences and characters that you remember is what Phoenix Wright have to offer. It took me a few days to finish the game. It's much longer than I had anticipated, at least if you include the 5th trial that almost double the length of the game. Most of the game is text, text, text so be sure you enjoy reading.