Awesome Review of Appolo Justice: Ace Attourney
June 29th, 2008Alright, it’s the return of the Awesome Review, where I review something that I think of as awesome. Think of it more like a recomendation than a regular review. With that, let’s begin.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
I’ve been a big fan of the phoenix Wright games for a while. In fact, had I started this website a year or two earlier, this review would probably be on Phoenix Wright. Now, as many of you probably noticed, the most recent game in the series is not a Phoenix Wright game, but it in fact called “Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.” Now, when one of the best things about a series is the lovable cast of characters, it seems like a strange move to replace the main characters with new people. For this reason, I didn’t go into this game with very high hopes, and expected to really miss the old characters. However, I was surprised to find that Apollo Justice is one of the best games in the series so far!
First of all, there’s the new main character, Apollo Justice. At first I thought this would end up a pointless change and the new character would act about the same but just look different. However, Apollo Justice is actually a very different character than Phoenix. Whereas Phoenix is the type of character who is often on the ropes in the trials, but eventually manages to make his way through, usually with the help of his dead mentor. Apollo, on the other hand, is more aggressive in court, and it’s a more even back and forth between him and the prosecutor.
This brings us to the prosecutor. He is, in my opinion, more awesome than any of the prosecutors from the Phoenix Wright games other than Godot. You see, not only is the prosecutor (Gavin) an awesome opponent, but he is also a rock star. He will occasionally break out in air-guitar in the middle of a court case before he makes a point.
The story of this game is also more in depth than in previous games. The new character allows this as the story involves his backstory as well as Phoenix Wright’s own disbarment.
Gameplay-wise, it’s still the same Ace Attorney. However, it is streamlined and the puzzles are a lot less frustrating and more intuitive most of the time. The only major exception to this was the Focus ability, where you could focus and find out when a witness is lying because of a tell. While an interesting concept, it was not done well as it mainly involved searching over every piece of every line of testimony and every part of the witnesses body to find some sign of movement which quickly became tedious and frustrating. However, besides those few moments where that entered game play, this is probably the smoothest, least frustrating Ace Attorney game so far.
All in all, if you passed this game over because they changed the main character, I would suggest giving it a chance. You might be pleasantly surprised to find it a strong continuation of the series.
Stumble it!
