Phoenix Wright Brings Courtroom Drama to DS
The rookie Defense Attorney with serious cross-examination skills makes his second debut in his newest installment "Ace Attorney: Justice For All." The storyline picks up about six months after he’s successfully won five big case victories and established himself quite a formidable reputation. Now with four all-new and nearly unsolvable cases before him and the recent arrival of a ruthless prosecutor in town touting a reputation as iron clad, Phoenix Wright must once again pull out all the stops and prove to unbelievers that in this law world the defense never rests.
The original Ace Attorney game was well-received overall for its well prepared and clever case situations as well as its humorous bits of comedy. Justice For All is in many ways very similar to its former predecessor but does boast a significant amount of new content to call itself a sequel.
The game starts out as Phoenix is awakening from a bad nightmare in the lobby just outside the courtroom. He’s very disoriented and doesn’t quite understand everything going on around him. Suddenly, a slightly hyper and crazed policewoman appears in front of him praising him for all his past accomplishments and such. Of course, he has no idea who she is but rather than be rude he lets her continue to ramble on. As she continues, he begins to realize that he is supposed to be defending this woman in court today in a case involving the murder of her boyfriend. The only problem: He doesn’t remember anything about the case! He’s got amnesia. About the time he figures that he’s up to eyelids in trouble, the court is suddenly called back into session. This should definitely make for one interesting case.
Phoenix is, of course, at a loss for words at the start of the trial and even unfamiliar with the formalities of his job. Both the judge and his client quickly become frustrated with his sudden inability to perform and so they drop him bits of advice to jar his memory throughout the case. This is how players slowly become familiar with the basics of Ace Attorney and how to maneuver around the courtroom.
Much of the basic game play elements from the first game are still present in this game so veterans should be able to pick it up and run with it, at least at first. The trial usually starts out with an opening statement from the prosecution and the presentation of any key evidence from the crime scene. The evidence is placed in a "Court Order" folder which players can access at anytime during the trial and present during the case.
Following this a key witness for the prosecution is called to the stand. They prosecution will question the witness and then ask them to give their eye witness statement about the events leading up to this case. The witness’s statements almost always appear to be air tight and totally detrimental to the defendant".almost.
That’s where Phoenix comes in. It’s the player’s job to help Phoenix prove that his client is innocent no matter how damaging the evidence stacked against them is. Now comes the time for the cross examination. The witness will once again repeat his last statement for the defense to hear. The fun comes in as players have to mentally break down each segment of the witness’s statements and expose the real truth or catch them in a lie. You’ll find as you go along that there is more than one way to skin a rat.
First, it’s important to examine closely every piece of evidence in your court order folder including profiles of the individuals involved in the case and autopsy reports. Any of this evidence is potential ammo for the defense. The key witness will repeat his entire statement back to the defense in segments. If you spot a contradictory in part of the witness’s statement that conflicts with a piece of evidence from your court folder then you can press the "Present" tab in the right hand corner of the lower screen or hold the "Y" button down and activate the Nintendo DS’s internal microphone to yell "Objection!!!" and then look for evidence within in your court folder that will back up your objection.
You should be very careful though, about the beefs you start as Phoenix has a health bar of his own which is also representative of the judge’s patience with him. If you’re right in your objection you will have your witness shaking like a fish out of water on the stand and the prosecutions head spinning in circles. However, if you’re wrong then the judge will become angry and penalize you by knocking a decent sized block off of your life bar. If the bar reaches empty then the trial is over and know matter how much evidence you have stacked in your favor, the judge will rule your client guilty as charged.
The other way to catch your witness in a trap is to press them for information. When you think a witness in holding back key information in his testimony or letting on more than they know then you can hit the "Press" tab in the left hand corner of the lower screen or again hold the "Y" button down and yell "Hold It!" into the DS microphone and have them adlib more on that particular segment of their statement. If you guess right you may successfully intimidate the witness into telling you valuable information critical to your defense which might have otherwise been overlooked. It’s also possible to unlock new key evidence for the court order folder to help bolster your defense. Again, though, you should be careful sometimes when you have your witness on their heels not to press them too hard as they’re statements make backfire on your defense and do more harm than good.
The fun really picks up when you’ve got a key witness backed against a wall and shaking in their shoes because you’ve just exposed or trapped them in a lie or contradiction. The jury will start talking wildly amongst themselves and the judge has to bring the court to order. The music which is a little tranquil and cheesy throughout the trial picks up really vibrant and fast paced sort of building on the emotion. That’s when the judge usually chimes in and asks you to submit your most damaging piece of evidence to close the case out. Everything gets really silent while you skim through your court folder looking for that golden piece of evidence. When you find it you can simply press the Present tab in the center of the screen or you can do things Phoenix style and yell into the mic, "Take that!" and from there the rest is history.
Once you pass the introductory trial, the game really opens up a bit. You’ll discover the "Detective" mode of the game where you go out and collect evidence, speak to suspects, friends, and other witnesses, as well as travel between several places. Anything that you find of use will become a part of your court folder and be available for the next upcoming trial. It’s definitely a different perspective building your own case from scratch but there is a sense of accomplishment when it’s all there and prepared on court day.
A cool new feature added to the game this year to help make things interesting is the new "Psyche-lock" feature. There are some witnesses which guard deep secrets within. Once you acquire a mystical tool called the "Magatama," which allows Phoenix Wright to see these tight-lipped witnesses bound in chains and locks from a spiritual realm, you can expose their hidden secrets by breaking one psyche-lock at a time. The more secrets they have the more locks they will also be bound by.
What’s surprising, though, about a game like Ace Attorney: Justice For All that has a lot of good things going for it is the fact that the fun only lasts so long and I think there is one huge reason if nothing else for the inevitable post boredom that seems to follow a short time later. The reason is the fact that it feels like it take EONS for the all of the conversational dialogue between the action to play out.
There are times when you could be idle more than 10 minutes waiting to move on to the next thing. Even during the trial it just seems like everyone has something lengthy to say. All in all, the excessive dialogue feels like a cheap fix to help flesh out the game and make it appear like it has a little depth when in actuality it does not. I think the game would have gained major kudos if they thinned the dialogue out just a bit and used all of that spare time to incorporate a few more cases to the game’s skimpy four. The original version of the game had more content featuring five distinct cases.
None the less, we reach the bottom line and the results are in. Ace Attorney: Justice For All starts out a blast to play. It’s got decent graphics and audio, though there are times when the music gets a bit cheesy. The concept of the game is clever and a lot of fun once you get the hang of it and the new psyche-lock feature is awesome. Building your own case from the ground is satisfying in itself and it’s an adrenaline rush every time you’re about to nail your witness to the wall. The major downfall though, is the unnecessarily lengthy dialogue. It just leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth and can begin to choke the fun out of the game after only a couple hours play.
All things considered, my ruling on this one is going to have to be an above average 3 1/2 Gin gems.