#ME ME ME WHEN THE GAME TAKES PLACE A MONTH AFTER THE END OF AA3 AND A MONTH BEFORE PHOENIX GETS DISBARRED RAHHHHHHHHHH

[doctorsiren]

I’ve been playing Investigations (I’m on the last case)

[theclarkystuff-blog]

Ace Attorney 6 : Spirit Of Justice

The Ace Attorney series has always had a strange relationship with it’s audience outside of it’s native homeland, Japan. With the series origins going back to 2001 on the GBA , it would not be until 2005 until the original Gyakuten Saiban would be released outside of Japan,  now under the name of Ace Attorney on the DS. Ports of the original GBA trilogy to the DS would favor functions the DS offered such as the touch screen and microphone input and a new soundtrack, the series would continue primarily on the DS with 3 new games emerging and would see various games in the series get ported to IOS, Windows (Japan exclusive), 3DS and Wii.

The series would continue to see releases outside of Japan although a number of games such as Ace Attorney Investigations 2 and The Great Ace Attorney would stay in Japan for reasons ranging from changing market environment and what some speculate could be a difficult localisation with the series already skating on thin ice with it’s current location setting it somewhere in California despite the series nods to it’s Japanese origins often on display, the titles that would make it outside of Japan however would only be available via the 3DS eShop, the only game to get a physical release being a cross over with Level 5 series, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

In 2016 Capcom would release the latest mainline entry, Spirit Of Justice, on 3DS to which I decided to pass up on buying straight away due not having enough free time to commit to this game but Capcom put a tiny deal on it and I’m thinking great, if I want more of these games to release outside of Japan I have to buy this so I cave in. Starting the actual game up we get what I feel is a standard now with the series, short anime cutscenes to help explain the story, the usual events of a crime taking place and slowly being introduced to the setting, the story starts off with series main man Phoenix Wright traveling aboard to the country of Khura'in, a country at civil war being ruled over by a dictatorship like monarchy which has enforced the Defense Culpability Act, legislation which allows lawyers representing clients found guilty in any crime will face the same sentence as there clients, including being put to death,  which has made being a defense attorney a frowned upon occupation. 

As usual in this game you spend a good chunk of time in a court room having to defend your clients claims of innocence by presenting relevant evidence or pointing out inconsistencies in testimonies given by witnesses or the accused. Returning are old tricks our attorney team can use to find the truth including Apollo Justice’s bracelet which will point out people in distress to him and allow him to use his perception to pick on nervous traits your subject may show when reflecting upon there actions. Athena Cykes brings along her therapy sessions which questions people upon their emotional state during events and with her help you can help recover memories from patients suffering from traumatic events. New for this series is the fountain of truth, an event which will allow the court to see the victims last moments through their eyes in the hopes of finding clues to convict the real murderer. For the other half of this game you will play in the investigation mode which will allow you to explore various areas associated with the crime scene and question witnesses and investigators.

It did not take long for the usual charm of the series to kick in, punny names, stranger than fiction murder plots, colourful characters, although by about the third case into this game I felt that some of the experience was dragging along, being the 6th entry into this series it is but hard to imagine fans have already seen a majority of it is about and the game did feel a little like I had been there and seen a bunch of it before. It never helped that during my playthrough due to a mishap involving forgetting to save and leaving the battery on my 3DS to run out I had to repeat a large chunk of the trial again which turned me off so much that i took a short hiatus from this game, I would pick up the game again a month or 2 later after beating Breath Of The Wild and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

I pushed through with case 3 again I was then greeted with perhaps one of the worst cases I have ever seen in an Ace Attorney game. This case felt like it was put in here just to give Athena some kind playtime, I feel this case has little to no bearing for the rest of the game and just kind of exists for no reason like a commercial break at the third act of a movie. You can imagine my frustration losing my steam for this game due to my save blunder although coming back at the shittest part of the game but then we got to case 5 and it completely turned me around. The concluding chapter of this game was that good I would say the rest of the cases seem like a long drawn out intro. This case puts you in the position of Apollo Justice as you enter into one of the most complex murder plots within the Ace Attorney series which involves spirit mediums, assassinations, black mail, smear campaigns, broken families, there is a while lot to take in, think a friend who played the playthrough commented the case lasts like 14 hours.

As this story is progressing I soon realise I am playing a case as good anything Trials & Tribultions ( AA3) as a whole offered, that story wrapped up many things which i felt were left loose and showcased how many of it’s cast had grown, questioning the motive of there characters and giving Phoenix his defining moment, that moment where you felt he had learned all he could from his mentors and had become the ace attorney he had wanted to become. As the game goes on and draws closer to it’s conclusion I realise that I may have played the “Apollo Trilogy” and while Dual Destiny’s may not have outright focused on Apollo I seem to recall moments in there which helped branched his character forward which makes his story all the more meaningful. The penny drops for me in how this game even follows a similar course to Trials & Tribultions in how the cases are presented to you and how we get told this story from at least two perspectives.

If the series goes on ( I have no difficulty in believing it will) I suspect it may begin to focus on Anthea but it leaves enough open stories to keep older fans interested in hopes of them being resolved but this is Capcom we are on about, they ain’t no problem leaving loose ends open like several of the MegaMan series stories.

My conclusion on this is that Spirit Of Justice stands at least level with Trials and Tribultions, which was already a favorite of mine in the series. This game crafts a wonderful story about character growth and facing up to our responsibilities for the greater good of society and with the political story that feels like it mirrors parts of todays political climate I can’t help but feel the story in this game registered more with me more than perhaps it was ever intended too. Ace Attorney despite coming close to being fifteen years old manages to hold up well with its new stores and bright and vibrant characters, I guess I will dive​ into the DLC at a later date and hope that I will be able to find an excuse to play through this game again, this game comes highly recommended by me.