Television aficionados are no doubt familiar with the concept of the "spin-off," where programming execs take established popular characters and try to use them as background to push a new suite of players—now with their own show—into the limelight. It's a rather dangerous game to play, though; one can easily end up giving the popular character too much prominence, dooming the new cast, or pushing too far in the other direction, stripping the established star of everything that viewers have come to expect.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney isn't strictly a spin-off, but sometimes it does feel like one. Phoenix Wright's story had already come to a satisfying close at the end of his own trilogy in Trials and Tribulations, and the titular Mr. Justice is making his debut as heir apparent to the Ace Attorney series. This game's cameo re-appearance of Phoenix is even strangely awkward—he doesn't particularly look like the old Phoenix that series vets like yours truly have grown to love, and his unfamiliar mannerisms only serve to cement the impression that his visage was simply transplanted over a new, independently-developed character to give the new entry cred.
They didn't need him. Apollo Justice is a fundamentally good reboot of the cast and characters of the series. Although I couldn't reproduce the initial thrill I got when I first laid stylus to the original Phoenix Wright game, the writing team was clearly in their element when they dreamed up this cast. The return of the legendary Alexander O. Smith for translation duties—last seen on the series' first entry—probably helped here, though the script was in sore need of an editor with a bag of commas and the ability to pick up misused words that otherwise passed the spell-checker.
One thing I am pretty comfortable giving Smith credit for is the fact that I found myself lost far less in Justice than in previous games, stuck in court with a pretty clear picture in my mind of how the crime went down but having to guess at what evidence to present. The game could still pull off a coup de grace with flexible dialogue trees instead of static progression, but I'm quite happy with the superior flow of Apollo Justice's courtroom sequences over recent entries. As for the story, as usual, the final case is the best in the game. I got a little bogged down in the middle but am very glad I saw it through to the end.
Being the first built-for-DS entry in the Ace Attorney series, Apollo Justice has a number of DS-specific features, like being able to rotate and zoom in on 3D representations of evidence to look for clues, dusting for prints, etc. These things all work rather well and add to the game. In a bit of a contrast, Apollo's new "Perceive" power, which replaces my much-loved Psyche-Locks, does not. Perceiving lets you scan a close-up of a testifying witness for little fidgets, like a sort of mystic lie detector test; I found it both tedious and frustrating, especially when I apparently missed the cue and had to start over. Thankfully, one only has to do it a few times over the course of the game.
Apollo Justice is—Phoenix's bizarre cameos notwithstanding—a generally good breath of fresh air for the series, and I'm looking forward to future games starring him and the new cast. Keep Smith on board if you can, Capcom: he's your best weapon for maintaining interest in the series (and with some more competent editors, there would be little to complain about). Nits notwithstanding, the whole series is one of the better reasons to keep a DS, and Apollo Justice builds well on that legacy.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney isn't strictly a spin-off, but sometimes it does feel like one. Phoenix Wright's story had already come to a satisfying close at the end of his own trilogy in Trials and Tribulations, and the titular Mr. Justice is making his debut as heir apparent to the Ace Attorney series. This game's cameo re-appearance of Phoenix is even strangely awkward—he doesn't particularly look like the old Phoenix that series vets like yours truly have grown to love, and his unfamiliar mannerisms only serve to cement the impression that his visage was simply transplanted over a new, independently-developed character to give the new entry cred.
They didn't need him. Apollo Justice is a fundamentally good reboot of the cast and characters of the series. Although I couldn't reproduce the initial thrill I got when I first laid stylus to the original Phoenix Wright game, the writing team was clearly in their element when they dreamed up this cast. The return of the legendary Alexander O. Smith for translation duties—last seen on the series' first entry—probably helped here, though the script was in sore need of an editor with a bag of commas and the ability to pick up misused words that otherwise passed the spell-checker.
One thing I am pretty comfortable giving Smith credit for is the fact that I found myself lost far less in Justice than in previous games, stuck in court with a pretty clear picture in my mind of how the crime went down but having to guess at what evidence to present. The game could still pull off a coup de grace with flexible dialogue trees instead of static progression, but I'm quite happy with the superior flow of Apollo Justice's courtroom sequences over recent entries. As for the story, as usual, the final case is the best in the game. I got a little bogged down in the middle but am very glad I saw it through to the end.
Being the first built-for-DS entry in the Ace Attorney series, Apollo Justice has a number of DS-specific features, like being able to rotate and zoom in on 3D representations of evidence to look for clues, dusting for prints, etc. These things all work rather well and add to the game. In a bit of a contrast, Apollo's new "Perceive" power, which replaces my much-loved Psyche-Locks, does not. Perceiving lets you scan a close-up of a testifying witness for little fidgets, like a sort of mystic lie detector test; I found it both tedious and frustrating, especially when I apparently missed the cue and had to start over. Thankfully, one only has to do it a few times over the course of the game.
Apollo Justice is—Phoenix's bizarre cameos notwithstanding—a generally good breath of fresh air for the series, and I'm looking forward to future games starring him and the new cast. Keep Smith on board if you can, Capcom: he's your best weapon for maintaining interest in the series (and with some more competent editors, there would be little to complain about). Nits notwithstanding, the whole series is one of the better reasons to keep a DS, and Apollo Justice builds well on that legacy.