Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

[meteordust]

You graduate from law school. You become a defence attorney. You get to run murder trials! You get to question witnesses and investigate crime scenes and collect evidence! You get to fight for justice! Best of all, you get to bang on the table in court and shout "Objection!" Who wouldn't want to be a lawyer? XD

It reminds me of the Sierra adventure games I loved as a kid, where they knew how to tell a good story: one with characters who mattered, emotional highs and lows, and a deeply satisfying ending. Here the stakes are always high, with an innocent person wrongly accused, and the real murderer roaming free. The cases are like brilliantly plotted detective mysteries, with as many mindbending twists as Jonathan Creek. That is the real highlight of the game - the chain of revelations, each overturning all our previous assumptions, done to great effect in the courtroom confrontations. And then there is the continuity, character histories woven in so that the cases are personal, and this link between past and present makes it feel almost epic.

It seems impossible that it could get better than this. I am awed that it apparently does.

(Postscript 1: I am pleased that this is a very forgiving game, which simply doesn't allow you to clear the stage until you have completed all the necessary tasks. Unlike some other games where you can hit a dead end, because of a key you missed picking up six hours ago and have no way to go back for.)

(Postscript 2: Edgeworth was such an ass to begin with! Every time he smiled that supercilious smile and wagged his finger rebukingly, I wanted to punch him in the face. (Who the hell *does* order a second autopsy report anyway?) But, well, I guess it turns out he's a poor woobie after all.)

Comments

[-leareth.livejournal.com]

My friend gave me that game to play once. She took it back because I kept saying stuff about how "that's not that court/judge/evidence works!"

=D

[meteordust.livejournal.com]

Aww, but that's the best bit! When else are you going to get to shout "Objection!" in court? XD

[calla-s.livejournal.com]

Unlike some other games where you can hit a dead end, because of a key you missed picking up six hours ago and have no way to go back for

You forgot to pick up the armadillo when you had the chance so the alligator eats you instead! I have a long-standing dislike of puzzle-type games because of too much early exposure. Even RPG games I think I'd otherwise like have too much completely random *meaningless* "puzzles", or so it seems from watching people play various Final Fantasy. I like figuring things out but not endless trial-and-error etc.

[meteordust.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a pain when it comes down to trial and error or just being stuck full stop. Ideally a game should be challenging enough to be satisfying but not frustrating. I don't know if things have changed these days, but I do remember that a lot of the games I used to play were skewed more towards insanely difficult. Nowadays I have less patience and I'm a lot more relaxed about using walkthroughs, if it's the story experience I want, rather than the puzzle experience. (But not with Phoenix Wright - playing spoiler free! Though I've had to do the trial and error thing a few times...)