Saturday, December 10, 2016

Play Log: Ace Attorney

In the absence of longform review posts, I figured I'd try and at least get the occasional blog out, with some blurbs about what I'm up to, in terms of anime, games, comics, and other things.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - With almost every AA game up through Spirit of Justice loaded onto my 3DS, I've begun a quest to play through the entire series, one by one.  I've already played through the original trilogy (I've played the first game in particular twice), but in the case of Justice For All and Trials and Tribulations that was a pretty long time ago, and my memories of the cases are foggy.  I finished my replay of the first game last month, and finished the last case of Justice for All last night.  Anyone who's even dipped their toe into the Ace Attorney fandom will know that JFA is generally considered to be the worst among the original trilogy, and one of the poorer entries in the franchise, overall.  Having freshly completed it, I can understand why.  The only case in JFA that I can say I really liked was Turnabout Big Top, which had a really interesting mystery, fun characters, and one of my favorite villain motivations in the franchise.  The others...
  • The Lost Turnabout was just meh.  Not terrible, but really forgettable.
  • Reunion, and Turnabout was actually decent, and probably probably would rank below Big Top in my book.
  • Farewell, My Turnabout had a great ending and some thought-provoking themes, but was otherwise the most mundane and tedious case in the game.
Justice for All also had some minor changes across the board that I didn't like.  For example, there are a couple of instances during cross-examinations where you have to press statements repeatedly and in a specific, arbitrary sequence in order to move forward.  I also felt like Phoenix himself became a bit more standoffish in this game.  In the first game he would play along a bit with Maya's teasing, but JFA he was more likely to just shrug that stuff off.

And then there's Franziska Von Karma.  Though she has plenty of good moments, overall I think she's mostly just irritating.  There's nothing strange about prosecutors being assholes in court, but Franziska really pushes the envelope.

Anyway, at the end of the day I did enjoy playing Justice for All, just like I enjoy playing any Ace Attorney game.  It definitely doesn't quite stand up to the first game though, and I have a feeling it won't compare well to Trials and Tribulations, either.


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