It’s rare that hearing about a new game release makes my heart soar and yet causes intense nervousness simultaneously. I have such fond memories of playing the first Ace Attorney trilogy; I was blown away by the cleverly woven stories, the kooky and interesting characters, the simple joy of spotting contradictions and deducing answers, whilst shouting ‘objection!’ in unison with Phoenix Wright. And pointing. So much enthusiastic pointing. There have been a few sequels and spin-offs since then, of varying quality. Would The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, a jam-packed prequel to the classic deduction-based visual novel-style mysteries, be as much fun as the first trilogy, or a disappointment and missed opportunity? I needn’t have worried. These games are eminently worthy successors, with improved graphics, satisfying puzzles and more twists and turns than a twisty turny thing.
This package is actually two newly localised games in one: The Great Ace Attorney Adventures, and The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, originally released in Japan in 2015 and 2017, respectively. In-game events begin in Japan as well, in the 1880s; this in itself was a little surprising to me, given that many western versions of previous games kept up a strange pretence that Phoenix Wright was American and the whole thing was in the US, despite the stories quite clearly taking players to traditionally Japanese locations. Here our protagonist is Ryunosuke Naruhodo (‘Naruhodo’ being the original Japanese surname for Phoenix), a student at the Imperial Yumei University. Ryunosuke finds himself accused of murdering a visiting British professor, and it’s up to his best friend, fellow student (and somehow qualified lawyer) Kazuma Asogi to defend him.
As if there weren’t already enough at stake, the school is threatening to revoke the permission recently granted to Kazuma to learn abroad if he fails, meaning his dream of studying in Great Britain would be forever lost. Could Ryunosuke live with himself if his friend’s future were jeopardised, or – with minutes before the trial starts and no time to find another lawyer – is it time to step up and hope that there’s no truth to the old adage “a man who represents himself has a fool for a client?”
Game information
Our Verdict:
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is two deduction-based adventure games in one, set over a hundred years prior to the original Phoenix Wright trilogy. With improved graphics, fun new characters and enthralling cases to solve, it more than lives up to the legacy of its classic predecessors.
The Good:
- Beautiful backgrounds and fluidly animated 3D cast
- satisfying deduction-based core gameplay loop
- wide array of interesting characters
- well-written stories with compelling twists
- stellar soundtrack
- two substantial games in one.
The Bad:
- Eventually it had to end.
GAME INFO
The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures is an adventure game by Capcom released in 2015 for 3DS, Android. It has a Stylized art style, presented in Realtime 3D and is played in a Third-Person perspective.
