In all transparency, I am no good at any Ace Attorney game. They’re brutal, mind-bending at times, and extensive in their complicated construction. And yet, I cannot give them up because they’re so damn good.
While I have told this story countless times over the years in my reviews about my relationship with this series, I will say it again – I have thoroughly enjoyed them. Back in 2005, I remember missing several E3 appointments and drinking way too many Phoenix Wright cans of coffee in the Capcom booth so that I could stick around to play more of their soon-to-be-released title on the DS called Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I had never played a logic-based court room game before that moment, and I still can’t put them down even after 19 years thanks to that initial experience. They’re just too much fun. They haven’t changed that formula since that initial release, but some have tried new ways to present the old ways, especially in the Ace Attorney Investigations.
Ace Attorney Investigations Collection is a duo of Miles Edgeworth adventures that takes the logic and deduction of a regular Ace Attorney title and turns it into a more user-controlled adventure. Instead of sitting, watching, and thinking through a case, the player is now ‘doing something’ besides reading. Not that reading is bad, but in an interactive medium, it’s fun to control a character rather than just their dialogue. The combination of controlling Miles, investigating a scene, putting connections together, and occasionally having a chess match of wits against a potential antagonist, takes the series just a bit further than expected.
The collection includes the initial release of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and the sequel Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit, a game that never made it beyond Japanese shores. Both games bring a different experience while built on the same backbone.
So, brush up on your law, get your eyes properly watered to look around at a scene of a crime, and let’s have no objection to starting this review!
No objection to gameplay shift
While I know this set of games comes from the mid-2000s, I think they certainly had some interesting ideas on how to spice up the gameplay. If you’re not familiar with the Ace Attorney series, it has been essentially a ‘reading dialogue’ structure. The game gives you a scenario where a murder, robbery, or whatever has been committed, then you learn all the facts and try to figure out who exactly is the guilty party. Typically, it’s just dialogue being read, evidence being presented, and nothing outside of ‘select that thing’ as actual interactive gameplay. It works just fine this way and is within the construct of what the game is trying to do, but it can be a bit monotonous if you’re not used to that type of gameplay experience. These games changed that formula.
The Ace Attorney Investigation games shift the typical gameplay elements dramatically without taking away from the original concept. While you will still read a countless number of dialogue and dialogue choices, the game does a couple of things differently to bring a new type of gameplay construct. The first big shift is how the investigations are handled.
Normally, you would just be told about the scene of the crime and provided with a picture of it which you would have to scan with your eyes to find clues or inconsistencies. While this concept is still prevalent within this collection’s games, the gameplay changes from animated sequences to third-person user-controlled investigations within the actual crime scene. This means you take control of Miles and wander around trying to find clues but in a more interactive way. While it doesn’t change what you’re trying to do with the gameplay elements presented, it does make the game a bit more interesting and less ‘read-y’. I enjoy a good book, but I don’t like too much of it with my interactivity.
Another gameplay element shift in both titles is how Miles can connect clues. As Miles gathers up evidence and forms conclusive statements/facts about the crime and the scene, he starts to keep those pieces like a puzzle (literally — a puzzle). When he has four solid clues, the player can connect two pieces at a time to create a conclusive assumption about what happened. It’s a shift in just reading and pointing out dialogue inconsistencies or clues, and it simplifies what typically is a slow uphill process of elimination. It’s certainly a very cool way of making the gameplay a bit more interesting as well as magnifying smaller elements of interest, putting them together, and creating a bigger clue from them.
Each game in the collection works this way with additional gameplay elements helping along the way, including a device called Little Thief, which recreates the crime scene virtually, and a gameplay element called Mind Chess, where Miles goes up against someone to break them down in hopes they will admit details not yet heard. The latter is a game of chess with branching dialogue choices and one that helps speed up the investigative gameplay quite well.
The tonal shift in gameplay and the picked-up pace using new gameplay elements actually make this one of the more exciting Ace Attorney gameplay experiences I have gone through. While not all of it is gold and sometimes the third-person investigation can be a bit frustrating when you think you looked at everything and the game won’t let you break from it until it is satisfied, the changes made the series better in my opinion. They certainly made the amount of reading and reasoning a bit smoother and less tedious. Don’t get me wrong, the original gameplay concept and structure never leave, and I’m grateful for that, but adding new ways to play to the mix is sometimes a good way to keep games fresh. This isn’t a QB cone-type decision (see Madden for details), rather it’s just taking the same formula and finding a newer way to make it more interactive and interesting.
Anyway, the gameplay shift and additions worked well for this duo of games. I think that it certainly made the process of investigation just a bit more outrageous and brought enough variety to the gameplay to make it far more interesting. The introduction of these gameplay elements left a mark on the series as Apollo Justice proves. Hopefully, with future titles, the trend of trying something new will continue, but only if it doesn’t interfere with the original gameplay concept.
Good to see a second take
To tell you the truth, my kids are huge fans of this series and gave me the skinny about this collection. I do my Ace Attorney research through them as they have some weird connection to the series. They’re pretty accurate. They were quite well-informed about why this collection exists. I was surprised to learn that the second game never made it to the U.S., as the series itself is still a relevant and cross-generational hit here in America. Okay, maybe not a huge hit, but a consistent hit with the kids these days. This series is certainly playing the long game.
Anyway, it’s nice to see that the second game became localized finally, as it brought new stories, characters, and some fun situations amid tragic ones. The second game was a good continuation of the first and introduced some gameplay elements that echoed throughout the rest of the series, as you have undoubtedly read in the rambling above.
The second game in the collection is difficult, and fun, and it’s always exciting to play as Miles Edgeworth, who is typically Phoenix’s rival, or at least was for that one game. His cocky demeanor and cold shoulder do enough to make the game interesting in a different, less-hero-like way. Plus, it gives the character more dimension, which is what you want from a traditional side character. His starring role in these games was so well done.
Anyway, it’s a good collection containing two games that complement each other well.
On that sweet note, let’s close this case and wrap it up.
Conclusion
Ace Attorney Investigations Collection from Capcom is another wonderful entry in the Ace Attorney family. It brings a new style of gameplay, two great games, and the same amount of traditional difficulty that the series hangs its hat on.
