I make no bones about my love for the Ace Attorney franchise. I picked up the first game on a pure whim, and have been dedicated fan ever since, making sure I buy each new installment the day it's released so that I can start playing it immediately. So after a four year gap between installments, I was elated not only to have a new iteration to play, but also to see how well this franchise, known predominately for its sprite work, made the jump into full 3D.
I'm happy to say it landed feet first. If you're a fan of the series, then you know how much charm and personality ooze from the characters encountered. Dual Destinies' cel shaded models lose none of that charm. Characters look and move with just as much, if not more, fluidity and exaggeration as their 2D counterparts. Working in 3D has given the animators a lot more freedom to work with, particularly in the backgrounds, which were previously just static illustrations. Now, clouds move in the background, banners wave, and in one memorable bit, you actually interact with a character that's a part of the background. The 3D models also allow for some more dynamic storytelling, such as how the camera will zoom and pan dramatically during the courtroom segments.
Speaking of, the game play feels much more streamlined than previous installments. I've always believed that the Investigations game was meant to test new ideas out for the main series, and I was right. Like in Investigations, you can no longer examine everything in every background whenever you want. Now it's only the crime scene, and only when the game says you can. This does mean that there's fewer pieces of incidental dialogue between characters, but it also means that you don't have to go searching through every available room to find that one bit of evidence that you missed. In Dual Destinies, if there's evidence you missed, it's in the room your in.
The Logic feature also makes a reappearance, albeit in a different form. Once during each case, usually towards the end of the last court segment, the characters will attempt to solve a question by connecting the dots via summarizing the case in their minds. I was a big fan of this, because it also summarized the case for me, and given how convoluted the cases in this series become, it's easy to get lost as you're playing.
The newest feature in the game is the Mood Matrix, which allows you to detect the emotions behind a witness's testimony. The way it works is, you have to look for either sudden changes in their feelings, or the absence of emotion when it should be there. I've gotta be honest, this was the weakest point of the game for me. Too many time I felt like I could think of a reason that the emotion the game was looking for could or couldn't be there, which led to me flipping through the testimony hoping the answer would jump out at me. I would like to see it return, just after some more refinement.
So I've gushed about the graphics and the gameplay, but the Ace Attorney is known predominantly for its story. I'm not spoiling anything here. I will say, that even though the game doesn't truly reach the emotional depth of Trials and Tribulations, the last case in Dual Destinies is equal to the last case in Justice for All, without being as long-winded as the last case in Investigations.
Additionally, I said in my last blog that I think this game was supposed to star Apollo, not Phoenix. I stand by that, but as it turns out, Phoenix isn't the star either. And it's not the new character, Athena Cykes. The main character is all three of them, the Wright Anything Agency. THIS is what I would like to see return in future installments. All three have different personalities and abilities, and in Dual Destinies, we get to see them work together to solve the cases. Like an actual law firm. The header to the game title "Phoenix Wright" is completely wrong.
One last thing, to those of you who are boycotting this game because we didn't get a physical release: Buy the damn game. Yes, I would have liked a physical release too. But the fact is, digital is all we're getting, and all boycotting tells Capcom is that people just aren't interested in the series, and that will only hamper our chances of future installments being released overseas. You can either refuse to play the game indefinitely, or just download it and enjoy it. I mean, if your really did like the series, wouldn't you be happy to just get a new game in it?
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