The Ace Attorney series returns with Dual Destinies, set a year after Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice in the overall chronology. In reaction to the series' slipping sales figures after the wild success of the first Ace Attorney in the West, and teething problems with a new protagonist in Apollo Justice, Capcom has decided to release AA:DD in digital only form and to market AA:DD as a Phoenix Wright-focused release. Now that I've had time to think over AA:DD, and consider its place in the series as a whole, I think Capcom are on the right path to recapturing the magic of those first few Ace Attorney games. It would be a shame if not enough people notice in this part of the world.
First off, AA:DD is not a Phoenix Wright game. Though Phoenix is playable in some of the cases, this is more accurately Apollo Justice II with some fan service inserted. Though this isn't a bad thing, it may lead to some disappointment in those who weren't swayed the last time. Characters like Kristoph Gavin and Trucy Wright appear with little explanation, there is more referring back to the events of Apollo Justice than the original trilogy, and old faces mostly disappear. To be fair to Capcom, they do a greater job of selling Apollo and new protagonist Athena Cykes this time around. The story intricately ties Phoenix, Apollo and Athena into a murder conspiracy starting with a court explosion and ending in a cosmic murder, with all three taking their turn to slap that bench and scream Objection! The addition of animated cutscenes also do a great job of immersing you into the world, feeling like suitable rewards for cracking that tough little lie in a testimony. I felt that the story dipped around case three when too many elements were added and too many characters returned, but by the end I was smiling at how Capcom managed to bring all the cases together and tie all the loose ends in a satisfying way. After all, what's a gruesome murder mystery without a few heart-warming feel good moments?
Gameplay is the same as always, which is a good thing. The Ace Attorney series has always been a visual novel first and point and click adventure second. Though you are tasked with defending a client in court, you often feel like you're stumbling through to every answer through a series of weak connections, which means all three protagonists have to be written in a bumbling fashion. This worked with Phoenix, but now all three protagonists feel eerily similar at times. While there are a few new wrinkles, like Athena's ability to sense out of place emotions by listening to testimony, most of the "gameplay" is reading text, detecting a lie, proving it's a lie, rinse and repeat. Investigations in the field now let you swing around 3D environments in order to assess a murder scene from other angles. There a few minor puzzles and object hunting this time. All of these add flavour to what is sometimes a monotonous grind through walls of text. While I understand why this series is often derided as being little more than a novel with menus to tap through, I've always loved the pun-filled silly writing that the translators lovingly craft with each entry in the series. If I have one complaint this time, it's that AA:DD is too easy. I remember agonising over choices and being stumped over what evidence to present in earlier AA games. In this one, characters tend telegraph what the solution is explicitly telling you the solution, or if you are struggling you can now consult your assistant to basically be told the answer. I didn't get stuck once in AA:DD and, while I feel the writing was up to the usual level, the added assists made catching the perp in a lie feel kind of hollow. Still, watching the murderer freak out and collapse once you unravel his or her lies never fails to be entertaining.As this is Phoenix Wright's first appearance on the 3DS, Capcom has overhauled the graphics and audio. Now backgrounds are subtly animated and sparkle with personality rather than looking like static drawings. The characters are no longer jerky two-frame sprites, transforming into fluid 3D models bursting with personality and colour. However, older characters maintain their original animations and mannerisms, especially Phoenix, who is still locked into his eight or so reaction animations as before. But what great reaction animations! I'll never get sick of them and Capcom does a great job making the old look fresh. The same themes return on the audio side but now with more orchestration and some voice acting in the cutscenes. The voice acting does a poor job overall, sounding like people from around the Capcom office showing off their best "anime voice" and the writing turns from witty and irreverent in-game to generic anime staples like "SO IT'S YOU" and "YEAH! BRING IT ON!" during cutscenes. Although they are gorgeous and fun little scenes, I'd hope next time Capcom brings some of the tone of Ace Attorney into their animated pieces to tie up with what we see as we play. Honestly, if that happened, I'd also love to see an Ace Attorney film in anime form.
Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies is a strange release. The original Ace Attorney trilogy as a whole is firmly planted in my top five video games of all time and Capcom knows they can never touch that trilogy again. With every new release they look for side-stories, new protagonists, HD re-releases, anything but tarnishing that trilogy. As we've seen with slipping sales and lukewarm reception of AA titles post-Trials and Tribulations, tackling the problem has led Capcom towards embracing the old and leading us to the new. As Capcom moves ahead into an Apollo Justice future, I think I'm finally ready to move on myself. AA:DD is a wonderfully solid entry in the Ace Attorney chronology and gave me warm fuzzies inside more than any game in recent memory. If this is where Capcom is going with this series, I'm more than happy to tag along.
Oh, and Giant Bomb mods?
