N-Philes

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All

Posted February 2nd 2007 by Ben Wood.

It's been a little over a year since Phoenix Wright took on his first cases as a defense attorney. He and his colorful cohorts breathed new life into the DS point-and-click scene with the remake of Gyakuten Saiban, which was originally a Japan-only GBA game. Fortunately, gamers embraced him to the point that Capcom sought to release this second game in the series, dubbed Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All.

As in the first game, Justice for All puts Phoenix Wright at the heart of four murder cases. As the defense attorney in the streamlined and entertaining legal system of the future, it's your job to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that your clients are innocent. The environments aren't destructible and there's nowhere to hide, but the courtroom is still a fierce battleground. Phoenix regularly squares off against Franziska von Karma, a sadistic prosecutor who loves whipping everyone, a bumbling judge that is easily swayed by the German dominatrix, and a plethora of sketchy eyewitnesses who can't keep a straight lie even when their lives depend on it.

When Phoenix isn't contradicting testimonies in the courtroom, he's out collecting evidence and getting to the bottom to the debacles plaguing his clients. This guy speaks to the dead and braves hungry lions just to find the missing pieces to his clients' innocence. To aid in his quest, he now possesses that ability to question people about others involved in the case. The witness' sister died a few years ago because of the victim, you say? Ask the witness about the victim. It's surprising that this obvious and welcome mechanic isn't at all in the first game.

Of course, nobody's going to tell you their life story even if you ask them nicely. You have to emotionally beat it out of them, just like in real life. Another new detective technique in Wright's arsenal is the Psyche-Lock. Through spiritual mumbo jumbo that tangibly involves the medium family of your assistant, Phoenix can tell if characters are hiding secrets. These guys don't give up real secrets about their alcoholic tendencies or sexual fantasies, but if you wear them down enough, they'll tell you details important to solving the case at hand. The Psyche-Lock is essentially a cross-examination tool used outside of the courtroom. It adds an air of realism to the world of Phoenix Wright.

The courtroom is also spiced up with the addition of a lawyer life meter, as opposed to the discrete exclamation points that dwindle as you present the wrong evidence at the wrong time. With this system, you can lose a case with one slip up, even if your performance to that point had been flawless! This punishes random guessing and forces a more cerebral strategy, especially later in the game.

These new mechanics make it more interesting to solve the cases that Justice for All presents. As a result, they feel more exciting and more hands-on than the cases in the first game; there's a greater sense of accomplishment when you put one and one together and finally see where the game is leading you. Another effect of the deeper investigations is that each case feels a bit longer. Capcom also did a great thing by giving more characters different motives to committing the murder at hand. Things are more ambiguous that way, but also much more exciting.

The cases are also more episodic, more independent from one another, than in the first Phoenix Wright outing. In that game each new case felt connected to the last, whether with evidence, characters, or circumstances. There's less of that this time around, which admittedly is a bit of a letdown.

The story in Justice for All still hearkens back to what unfolded in the first game (Gumshoe's radiolocator comes back in a big way), but not to the point where you have to have played it to understand what's going on; the continuity is used more of a Valentine to fans of the original. Justice for All plays out like a great compilation of murder mysteries; if it were a book, it'd be a page-turner. My DS was constantly charging as I ploughed through the game, which easily took 20 hours to complete.

While some of the characters and locales reprise their roles in this sequel, there's plenty of room for new faces and new places. If anything, the cast has grown much more colorful this time around, beyond the addition of a circus of clowns. The solid script and impressive localization add to the characters' individual quirks and over-the-top personalities, making them feel completely different from one another.

The story and cases may be different this time around, but one thing that may be somewhat of a let down to fans is that Justice for All's flow shadows that of the first Phoenix Wright a bit too closely. Without going into much detail, there's the introductory case, the paranormal sister story, a stand-alone trial, and a celebrity case. The last case unfolds unlike anything in the first game, but it takes a bit too long for that originality to come out.

The big disappointment with Justice for All is that there are only four cases. The first game had a fifth DS-exclusive trial that really pushed touch screen gameplay beyond what could be executed on the GBA. It was easily the best case in that game, yet this time around, there isn't any extra content that compares to it. If Capcom wants to wet our mouths for what the Ace Attorney series can become on the DS, it's something that should have been here somewhere.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Phoenix Wright looks, sounds and navigates pretty much as it did a year ago. Visually, the game pulls together detailed sprites, painted backgrounds, and simple menus into one decent-looking adventure. A lot of the music, tense and upbeat, is also reused. But all this recycling shouldn't be taken as a bad thing, as everything about the game's presentation is timeless. It could be from five years ago just as easily as five years from now. It's the type of uniformity that binds together the first three games in the series, and changing it may have done more harm than good.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All feels like the second season of a surprise television hit. It offers up more of the same without venturing down a dramatically bold and new direction. This makes it feel a bit like Phoenix Wright Remixed rather than Phoenix Wright 2. You know what you're getting, and you either like it or you don't.

Steady Beat - No objections here [kek]

There may be more emphasis on the Ace Attorney part of the name than there is on Phoenix Wright, but by no means does that suggest that the brazen lawyer with spiky hair isn't the center of attention. Along for the ride is a cast of great characters with fun mysteries to solve, and really that's all that matters. Not everyone likes the linear point-and-click style, but there's a solid, and dare I say addictive adventure to be found if you don't mind reading (lots and lots of reading). Playing the first Phoenix isn't required, but the lack of a DS-exclusive level in this otherwise enhanced GBA port is disappointing for those who have. What Capcom needs to do is give us the third game in the Phoenix Wright saga as soon as possible so that we can quickly get to an Ace Attorney game that's built to utilize the DS' potential.

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