Before I go any further, I've got to get one thing in the open—I'm an Ace Attorney fan. I've got a follow-on admission to that: as an Ace Attorney fan, a game starring Miles Edgeworth is basically a dream come true (particularly when it arrives two weeks early from Capcom for review.) And if it didn't deliver on those expectations, well... even when faced with a mediocre series entry like Justice For All, I'm going to enjoy myself. It would take a disaster of mammoth proportions to interfere with that.
I was a teensy bit concerned with the nature of the game, dispensing with the actual courtroom battles and all. (Much lower on the concern list was the switch from first-person investigation to third-person.) As it turned out, I did not have to worry one bit.
Ace Attorney Investigations barely even feels like the spinoff it's been said to be. It's true that Edgeworth doesn't confront anyone in a real series-trademark court battle at any time during the game, but that doesn't stop him from using the tried-and-true press/present system to extract the truth during his investigations. If you've played the demo, you got a little taste of this already; rest assured you'll be taking on testimony after testimony in chains worthy of the series' lengthiest court battles before the game is over.
The new third-person investigation system, though, does change things up a bit, and I think it does so entirely for the better. The old first-person view meant that each character you might need to talk to would "live" in one location, necessitating a huge spread of locations when things got complicated. Now, characters get to move freely with the story, letting the writers focus a lot more tightly. The Ace Attorney series being the sharply linear affair that it is—I am of the mind this is linearity is a good thing, by the way—this sort of focus benefits the proceedings quite a bit.
These proceedings are some of the most enjoyable in the series, too. It perhaps helped that the game's five episodes are all very tightly interrelated—even more so than a typical Ace Attorney game, the whole feels like one huge story. It never feels like it's being dragged down by the inanity of one case. There are a few character appearances I could have done without, but they never manage to kill the game's momentum.
I do have to pick a little bit on a couple problems that remain endemic to the series as they up once again in Investigations. As a defender of the English language, I'm going to remember such gaffes as "make due" or "training regiment" for quite some time, alongside some really oddly-punctuated sentences. (Commas, people, commas!) There was also the need to save and reset several times, particularly near the end, as I struggled to figure out not the nature of the crime, but what the script expected me to do. But, let's be realistic. Anyone who's an Ace Attorney fan is used to this by now—it's the wild, intense story that keeps us going, and we'll remember that long after the temporary pain of a few save-reload cycles has passed.
That's why I proudly keep all these games in my collection and continue to recommend them whenever I get an opportunity. They're just so entertainingly done that a few flaws quickly fade into the background. Investigations' little tweaks to the formula as well as its top-notch story makes them fade even faster than usual, leaving me with a game that I can solidly recommend. I do hope to see the courtroom return again someday, but the sheer fun of Edgeworth's outing made it something I didn't miss at all. If you're new to the series, you may still want to play Phoenix Wright's games first (though I don't think it's an absolute requirement); but those who aren't should not hesitate to go for Investigations at their earliest opportunity.
I was a teensy bit concerned with the nature of the game, dispensing with the actual courtroom battles and all. (Much lower on the concern list was the switch from first-person investigation to third-person.) As it turned out, I did not have to worry one bit.
Ace Attorney Investigations barely even feels like the spinoff it's been said to be. It's true that Edgeworth doesn't confront anyone in a real series-trademark court battle at any time during the game, but that doesn't stop him from using the tried-and-true press/present system to extract the truth during his investigations. If you've played the demo, you got a little taste of this already; rest assured you'll be taking on testimony after testimony in chains worthy of the series' lengthiest court battles before the game is over.
The new third-person investigation system, though, does change things up a bit, and I think it does so entirely for the better. The old first-person view meant that each character you might need to talk to would "live" in one location, necessitating a huge spread of locations when things got complicated. Now, characters get to move freely with the story, letting the writers focus a lot more tightly. The Ace Attorney series being the sharply linear affair that it is—I am of the mind this is linearity is a good thing, by the way—this sort of focus benefits the proceedings quite a bit.
These proceedings are some of the most enjoyable in the series, too. It perhaps helped that the game's five episodes are all very tightly interrelated—even more so than a typical Ace Attorney game, the whole feels like one huge story. It never feels like it's being dragged down by the inanity of one case. There are a few character appearances I could have done without, but they never manage to kill the game's momentum.
I do have to pick a little bit on a couple problems that remain endemic to the series as they up once again in Investigations. As a defender of the English language, I'm going to remember such gaffes as "make due" or "training regiment" for quite some time, alongside some really oddly-punctuated sentences. (Commas, people, commas!) There was also the need to save and reset several times, particularly near the end, as I struggled to figure out not the nature of the crime, but what the script expected me to do. But, let's be realistic. Anyone who's an Ace Attorney fan is used to this by now—it's the wild, intense story that keeps us going, and we'll remember that long after the temporary pain of a few save-reload cycles has passed.
That's why I proudly keep all these games in my collection and continue to recommend them whenever I get an opportunity. They're just so entertainingly done that a few flaws quickly fade into the background. Investigations' little tweaks to the formula as well as its top-notch story makes them fade even faster than usual, leaving me with a game that I can solidly recommend. I do hope to see the courtroom return again someday, but the sheer fun of Edgeworth's outing made it something I didn't miss at all. If you're new to the series, you may still want to play Phoenix Wright's games first (though I don't think it's an absolute requirement); but those who aren't should not hesitate to go for Investigations at their earliest opportunity.