Showing posts with label Ace Attorney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ace Attorney. Show all posts

Wednesday 2 September 2015

First Impressions: Ace Attorney 6


Thanks to Falsely Profound for joining me on this Impression on the game, the franchise and Tokyo Game show (Yeah, we got a little sidetracked...)

You can find her Tumblr here: http://rancorousnerd.tumblr.com/

Wednesday 3 June 2015

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: "There's a contradiction in this puzzle"

Time to get back into non marathon reviews that also goes back to my second review ever... and probably my worst written one as I don't think the joke works in a text based format...

"Puzzles and contradictions abound when legends meet". To say that it was a shock to see these two franchises meet is an understatement. Both the Professor Layton and Ace Attorney games are some of the most popular small franchises for the Nintendo DS, but that's just it, small franchises. If I asked a Nintendo fan to name 10 games in the DS's library, its a pretty safe bet that neither of these would be thought of... unless your the friend of mine who I borrowed this game from in which case they would probably be in the Top 3. It would take two years for the game to leave Japan, and like a lot of games recently, it would be in the US last (though why it took 5 months after Europe and Australia is beyond me). Time to return to the courtroom to see how well these two play nicely with each other. Any objections?

Friday 30 January 2015

Turnabout Musical: This is what happens when you hang around with a group of friends who like Ace Attorney

Over the years, as one uses the internet more and more, you start to become less and less surprised at thing. More and more glitches in Sonic 06: meh. People discovering a way to transfer Gen I and II Pokemon into Gen VI: its only happening now? A musical based on the Ace Attorney games: ... what? This was one of the things I genuinely went "this can't be a thing", as you can probably guess, it is a thing. Now for the purposes of this, as I haven't been able to find all the songs at time of writing (27/1/2015) nor an actual viewing of the musical itself, I'll be reviewing the Highlights CD which includes a decent portion of the songs. I will however revisit this when/ if an actual performance is shown.

Wednesday 19 March 2014

Case 1: Turnabout defense. A review of the Ace Attorney main series


*please note that I try to keep my reviews G-PG


This is one of the franchises I thought I’d never look at simply because of the genre. But thanks to a few friends of mine, I have played most of the games in the series enjoyed what I played and thought it might be time to look at gaming’s lawyer. The prosecution is ready, the defense is ready, court is now in session for the review of the Phoenix Wright “games”.

The Prosecution’s opening statement: To the keen eye, the “” around games was no accident. Some people struggle to call these games games. These are more visual novels and no matter what you do, you have to play the story out to the end. In the story, you are, for the most part, Phoenix Wright, a defense attorney who, start the start of the series, is starting out and becomes better as the games progress.

“The prosecution calls its first witness to the stand.

The testimony and Cross Examination: Before most cases (the first case in every game is a exception) you have an investigation, or to me it’s a “touch every ware on the screen” mode. While you investigate, you can search the area for evidence, talk to people who are in the room or move to another room, the more complicated the case, the more rooms you have to go through and the more backtracking you have to do. While it isn’t a problem in Duel Destinies, the newest one for the 3DS (at time of review), in the GBA and DS games, you can only progress to a specific area in a specific order, for example, to get to the boat keeper’s house in the first game, you have to go to the lake and to get to the lake, you have to go to the entrance to the park. While it might not seem that bad at first, it quickly becomes very annoying (something I’m glad they fixed in DD). Another issue that is fixed in Duel Destinies is a small prompt on your curser that shows you what you have already investigated and what you haven’t another thing I’m glad they fixed.

“OBJECTION!!!. This conflicts with the script, there is more to this then the witness is telling us”

If you give me a minute, I can explain the next phase

After you have investigated all that you can on a given day, you can begin the trial for that case, what I believe to be the best part of the game. In the trials, you have to present specific evidence at specific points in witness’s testimonies. In the testimonies, you can either question points further or present contradictory evidence, such as an autopsy report if the witness’s statement doesn’t match the report or people’s mug shots if again, the testimony contradicts the evidence. At first, the cases are pretty simple but as you progress through the games, bigger and bigger trials are accessible and require more and more evidence, it becomes a memory game trying to remember what evidence you have used already. The game is a bit vague overall when it comes to finding the contradictory evidence but it makes it more satisfying when you find the right one. The music is always fitting when you find the right evidence as well. As soon as you find the right evidence, the music cuts and a special track will play when the defense points out the flaw which, to me, makes you feel accomplished, as soon as I hear the music cuts out, you often think “Gotcha you lying jerk”. Which leads to another great thing about this, the animations of the characters, while the original trilogy might only have 32-bit sprites, the animations they make are really well done and its always satisfying to see their breakdowns (my favorite being Damon Grant’s from the 5th case in the first game). The sprite reuse can come off as a bit lazy but I’m willing to let it slide as they are still high quality.

“HOLD IT!!! Who are the main characters?”

Again I’m getting to it. Aside from Phoenix Wright, you will also be running into Miles Edgeworth, the main prosecutor, Detective Dick Gumshoe and Maya Fey in the original trilogy, Trucy Wright in the second trilogy, Apollo Justice, The Judge and several other characters that I will leave as a surprise.

“In conclusion your honor, the defendant has told me that he believes that these games are good assuming you’re not looking for any actual game. This review hasn’t covered the Edgeworth games as they need a separate review. It’s a entertaining story that Point and click enthusiasts would enjoy.”

“Then I find the defendant…”

NOT GUILTY And worth playing