Years ago I wrote an article about Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies and how it disappointed me.
Though fun, it wasn’t nearly as good as the games before it and had a
lot of issues holding it back. Since
then I’ve played the latest game, Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice.
Talk about a total 180.
Spirit of Justice does everything right that Dual Destinies did wrong
and may be one of the best games in the franchise. My big praises for Spirit of Justice can be
broken down to these key points:
1. Chronological order
None of that nonlinear storytelling junk. The
first case takes place first, the last one takes place last, so you never know
where the plot might go. Not that it goes much of anywhere until the end,
but it makes the cases made to fill in the gaps between the main plot feel less
like they were thrown in.
2. Cases as short as they need to be
While the cases in Spirit of Justice haven’t gotten any
longer, it’s much better at pacing and setting things up to make each case feel
complete rather than leaving me wanting more.
3. Unpredictable
Spirit of Justice consistently kept me guessing. It set things up for the plot twists without
making the pieces of the puzzle obvious until new information presented
itself. Perhaps because of the added
element of mysticism and its rules, it didn’t have the same clichés you’d see
other whodunits and rather than the “duy” moments that plagued Dual Destinies,
once I figured something out, the characters weren’t far behind and there were
a great many “eureka” moments, which is always the sign of a good twist. It understands subtlety, with the occasional
glaring exception, mainly in the last case.
Pro tip: Don’t hide someone’s age in the profiles, even if
they’re in disguise. It is an obvious
tell. That didn’t work in Investigations
either.
Ga’Ran being the killer was also obvious. It wouldn’t be an Ace Attorney game if an
insufferable tyrant didn’t get dethroned or arrested.
I can let slide some of the points where I was more ahead of
the characters because I know more on some subjects than the characters and the
average player are expected to. For
example, I figured out about the twins early on because body doubles are
usually used for teleportation tricks and when the doubles aren’t concealed in
some way, that likely means they’re identical twins, which are invaluable for a
magician that needs a convincing double.
I also figured out the prosopagnosia from the notes and the
séance confirmed it, but unless you played 999 or studied psychology (I minored
in it), you probably have no idea what it is.
Oh Kitajima. You and your
psychological disorders.
4. Thinking things through
In Spirit of Justice, things made sense and there were very
few times where I questioned something that the characters did. This
includes how this game dumps the unnecessary evidence. In Dual Destinies,
evidence was unloaded in extremely asinine ways, the most worst being someone
taking them from Apollo and ripping it up, where that should’ve resulted in its
own lawsuit. Or two.
In Spirit of Justice, the evidence is given to trusted
individuals when the character you’re playing as wants to clear their pockets.
That makes sense because they aren’t just dumping something they might need
later, even if the game is never going to use the evidence again.
There are still a few parts of the story that bugged me
though. One of the most glaring is the second case, where there’s the
most obvious and most in-your-face contradiction even a 13-year-old could point
out: the stab wound.
The entire case is about insisting that Trucy stabbed
someone from the side of her coffin with a real sword. The stab wound was in the victim’s back, his
fingerprints in the coffin showed his position inside of it and at the height
the stab went he would have to be crouching or sitting down with his back to
the side of the coffin. Not only is it
unlikely he could fit in that position, let alone comfortably, but it’s at
least implied that he collapsed after falling out of it, which means he had to
have been upright! At no point does
anyone call bullshit on this! It would
practically blow the case wide open if anyone had any common sense!
 |
| And Trucy never points out the wound wasn't there when he fell out of the coffin! |
I also had a hard time believing the final case’s twist on
the killer. Somehow that queen who looks
like I could snap her in half with a good kick dressed, undressed and dragged
around a guy strong enough to take three bullets and keep moving and big enough
to necessitate being voiced by Jamieson Price.
That’s a stretch. A normal-sized
body on its own is incredibly heavy.
And finally, I must be the only person miffed at the
Disassociative Identity Disorder reveal and the way everyone in the courtroom seems
to accept it. Again, psychology minor
here. Whether or not the condition truly
exists in and of itself is debated and it’s never actually passed in court. Furthermore, the argument that DID exists is
usually attributed to abuse in which the person makes up another personality to
take it as a sort of denial of the pain they’re going through. An imaginary friend stand-in might be a way
of putting it in layman’s terms.
In fiction we’ve seen this with characters like Marik Ishtar
or Shinobu Sensui, but how is this relatively well-treated rakugo artist
supposed to develop that? To improve his
act? It would make some amount of sense
that he would develop a split personality that way, with some suspension of
disbelief, but entirely different people in his head with their own memories is a lot harder to buy. The real kicker in all of this is that Athena and Blackquill study psychology! They should know this! At the very least Sahdmadi could make a legitimate argument to dismiss his testimony.
80% of the time though, the game is good at keeping things
in a believable context, especially the way the Khura‘in cases affect the
country’s society. You’d think the queen
could just change the laws however she damn well pleases because she’s the
absolute authority, but if she did that without making the rebellion leader
into a criminal, the people would only sympathize with him more. It never suspended my disbelief past the
breaking point barring the aforementioned stab wound and DID, but
even with those the cases overall are still very entertaining and that says a lot about the overall writing.
 |
| Things like this are faked for insanity pleas. |
5. Better Final Villain
While it’s made obvious she’s a villain as unsubtlely as
possible, Ga’ran is a better final villain than the Phantom. She gets a lot of establishment and did a lot
of plotting to get to where she is.
She’s also a good prosecutor and having her be the former minister of
justice as well as the queen makes her an intimidating adversary.
 |
| That doesn't make her look evil at all. |
Unfortunately I think she’s still one of the weaker Ace
Attorney villains. The best ones are the
ones that always seem to be in control until they’re picked apart or something
they didn’t predict messes up their master plan. I don’t get that from this one. Her whole plan was about other people
covering up her messes. I guess her
reliance on using others is supposed to be her big weakness, but rather than
come off as cunning she comes off as an idiot.
For a final villain, she doesn’t leave much of an impression. Still, better than the previous one.
6. Enough perceiving
The divination séances are just one of several unique
mechanics to add on to Ace Attorney’s long list. Spirit of Justice
somewhat evenly spreads out the mood matrix, perceiving and séances so that it
doesn’t feel like the attention they get is uneven. The mood matrix
doesn’t get as much as the other two, but players probably got enough of that
from Dual Destinies’ focus on it. Now the focus is on Apollo and Kurah ‘In
so it only makes sense it would lean more toward their aspects.
However, the perceiving parts themselves aren’t very
challenging anymore now that I think about it. In Apollo Justice it was
never that difficult to see where someone’s tell was because there are only so
many places that could move (except with that goddamn mother-chucking Spark),
so the real trick was keeping your eyes peeled for what statement it would be
in as well as where the movement was. In the 3DS games, it’s scripted on
specific statements so the hardest part is no longer a factor. Still, it
mixes things up and I’m glad it’s still here.
7. Proper Concern
The guilty party in Spirit of Justice is never obvious about
their guilt and never do anything flagrantly incriminating in front of the
courtroom. When they get into their agitated
alternate looks as they’re being caught it’s more like they’re frustrated or
excited rather than desperate and egging the defense on like they usually were
in Dual Destinies. If there is still a
jury, it’s believable that they wouldn’t be convinced from that.
It doesn’t convince the judge, at least. The one in Khura’In is more like the judge
from the previous games than the usual judge.
Now the usual judge in Japamerica is actually smart, reasonable and
offers his own insights on occasions, but still has some silly moments that
make him as lovable as always. I like
it. It makes the debate between the lawyers
more focused.
8. Difficulty Raise
Spirit of Justice is pretty hard by Ace Attorney
standards. It’s hard enough to make me thankful for the hint system and
slap-on-the-wrist reset for losing all your penalty points. The game
gives hints and nods toward the answer, but like the original trilogy it
doesn’t make things so obvious, even when they throw you a bone with the hint
system and show you which statement the contradiction is in. Not even the
first case is a walk in the park. It’s the hardest opening case yet, as
if they know the veterans are going into into this one. It also might be
the best, as it sets up the whole scenario and the premise of the game instead
of throwing you right into the courtroom like with the other games.
The séances really add to the challenge factor and require
you to be especially observant and aware. Guesswork will absolutely not
work there and it makes you consider what you can do with the new information
you get as you figure things out, when nothing much actually changes except the
séance’s context. It was like an advanced
version of the cases where you had to carefully watch a video, and say what you
will about Turnabout Serenade, but I really like that.
9. Blackquill
I am so happy they made that fourth case. Sure it’s shorter, has nothing to do with the
plot and could have just as well been DLC, but it gave the spotlight to a
couple of characters that were needing it this time around: Athena and
Blackquill.
Blackquill is my favorite lawyer in the whole franchise and
seeing him and Taka in the courtroom again is always a highlight. His passive-aggressive callousness plays off
Sahdmadi’s straight-faced serenity extremely well and even through his
backhanded sarcasm Blackquill really does care about the outcome and about
Athena. He may not be the star, but he
makes the case more than fun enough to forgive the DID nonsense I mentioned.
10. Correctly Rated
This is a pretty dark game by Ace Attorney standards. Not only do you see people’s moments before
their deaths, but blood is all over the place.
Blood drips from someone’s head while they’re suffocating a victim,
there’s a whole pool of blood in a fountain and a guy is shown being shot
several times onscreen.
Add in some actual mentions of the word hell and alcohol consumption and you have a
game that may have even more mature content than Dual Destinies. And since Dual Destinies is rated
M it only makes sense that this game is also rated
……. T?
There are still some gripes, the least of which being that
you’re still forced to download the damn thing, but Ace Attorney: Spirit of
Justice is a strong contender for the best Ace Attorney game since the original
Phoenix Wright trilogy. Everything that
was wrong is right again and I highly commend Capcom and Kitajima for it. Once the Sengoku Basara DLC comes out it may
very well exceed every other game and be the best Ace Attorney game there is.
Is Sengoku Basara 4 out yet?
No comments:
Post a Comment