Tell me about the lawyers, Ingrid
Phoenix Wright, Ace Attourney: Trials and Tribulations
With the third installment of the Phoenix Wright series, it's becoming increasingly difficult to pass the spikey haired titular hero off as an incompetent newbie defense lawyer, and we've already seen Phoenix get hit over the head with a fire extinguisher and given temporary amnesia to excuse tutorials, so even if you weren't aware of the fourth game, with a different hero, alreayd being out in Japan, it's pretty obvious that Phoenix' series is coming to an end. Also, this time around Phoenix is only handling three of the game's five cases. In the other two, the gamer controls Mia Fey, Phoniex' now-dead mentor, back when /she/ was a rookie defense attourney - which is how you get your tutorial. Mia's first and second cases are tied into the cases Phoenix is handling in the wake of the second game, the history of the spiritually powerful Fey family, and Phoenix's new opponent in court, the mysterious coffee-addict Godot.
It's a Phoenix Wright game. No new systems have been introduced this time around, so it's all the usual stuff, with, thankfully, a greatly improved translation. It's more implausible legal system stuff, more criminal investigations and problem solving, and more ridiculous antics interspersed with moments of genuine sweetness and heartbreak. So, the real question is, how does it compare to its predecessors?
Well.
The localization and translation is much improved - aside from a few odd instances of double verbs, there weren't mistakes jumping out at me and everything else seems on par with the first game. Phoenix' three cases are, I think, twistier and involve more interesting problem solving than a lot of the cases in previous games. Surprises twists, or just plain delightfully batty premises, with a lot of what you're trying to figure out now being perfectly clear from the start. Lots of very plausible and compelling red herrings to keep you from making a beeline straight for the truth in the first day of a case. The new characters are delightful or horrible or hilarious, sometimes a combination of all of the above at once, so over-the-top perfectly Phoenix Wright that I actually laughed out loud more than once. Familiar characters from the old game pop up, too - the world of Phoenix Wright is a small one, and there are just some people you can't escape.
So if the cases are twistier and the characters are just as delightfully silly as usual, what's the problem?
Well, the two cases that /aren't/ Phoenix, where Mia is your lawyer, all take place entirely in the court room, with no exterior investigation going on, which means from an adventure game/puzzle solving point of view, they're kind of shallow and shorter than the other cases where you're doing legwork and talking to people, ontop of everything else.
In one case, Mia is defending a pre-lawyer Phoenix Wright, who is adorable but also mind-bogglingly stupid. It's the tutorial case and while it becomes interesting and ties into the overall plot of the game better than the tutorial cases in the previous games, aside from Mia and the unusually retarded Phoenix, there isn't a great supporting cast. Your prosecutor is the usual Winston Payne, and Mia's advisor is an old fat lawyer who talks a lot about his hemerroids. I can always do without jokes about butt sores. The second Mia case also ties into the cases Phoenix is dealing with in the present day, and it's a really emotionally effecting one, where you go against young Miles Edgeworth, Phoenix' raison-d'etre in the first two games. But it's still short and confined entirely to the court room, making it feel like less of a case, despite how emotional and interesting the case is. Plus, Mia's advisor in /this/ case is hot young senior lawyer Diego Armando, a man who is walking sexual harassment.
But those are only two out of five cases, really the backstory to Phoenix' major case and, weirdly enough, key to figuring out the mysterious disappearance of Maya's mother. And Phoenix' case are /awesome/ ... but Phoenix' new opposite number, the mysterious prosecutor Godot, is not awesome. While he's amusing enough (he throws his coffee cup on Phoenix' head!), he isn't /interesting/. The reason he's gunning for Phoenix is far from a compelling one and as a character, I just can't get into him. He doesn't have the depth or complexity Miles Edgeworth did, he isn't as amazingly connected to the cases Phoenix is handling, and he just isn't that interesting or likeable. He doesn't even have the fierce, angry conviction of his rightness (and a whip) that Franziska von Karma had, or her secret vulnerability. He is, basically, kind of a let down after the previous games, no matter how well-localized his dialogue is. And it seems that, no matter how interesting the cases themselves they may be, how challenging solving them is, there's just something missing when you don't care about the character who's representing the other side.
It's also really hard to beat a final case where you're fighting to save your kidnapped friend and assistant.
There are a lot of other delightful things throughout the game that really made me willing to forgive its flaws, but /damn/, I would not be the person who spoils any of those things for someone who hasn't played the game yet. Part of their charm is how unexpected they are.
Trials and Tribulations is, like the previous Phoenix Wright games, delightful despite its flaws, and still one of the only games of its kind on the market. Even if Godot is kind of lame, the overall story is powerful, one that makes you really connect to Phoenix, Maya, and little Pearl. It's funny and silly when it needs to be, and can switch to heartbreaking at the drop of a hat. It's certainly not a bad note for this cast of characters to be going out on and it did enough so very right that, assuming there's a North American port of the fourth game, I'm giving a non-Phoenix lawyer game a try. As long as you didn't outright hate the previous games (and if you did, why would you be bothering with Trials and Tribulations?), this one should keep you entertained for a week or two if you're slow, four or five days if you don't do any unnecessary things. Like go outside. Eat. Sleep. That sort of thing.
Yesterday, I watched the most /batshit/ version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Spencer Tracy in the title role (he's evil when he has eyebrows!), Lana Turner as the woman he loves, and Ingrid Bergman as the hussy with the inconsistant accent who he whips, rapes, terrorizes, and eventually murders. Good times!
For people with an excess of Mars bars, I have an /awesome/ recipe for squares which require Mars bars, if you wish to donate your Halloween excess to my kitchen.
With the third installment of the Phoenix Wright series, it's becoming increasingly difficult to pass the spikey haired titular hero off as an incompetent newbie defense lawyer, and we've already seen Phoenix get hit over the head with a fire extinguisher and given temporary amnesia to excuse tutorials, so even if you weren't aware of the fourth game, with a different hero, alreayd being out in Japan, it's pretty obvious that Phoenix' series is coming to an end. Also, this time around Phoenix is only handling three of the game's five cases. In the other two, the gamer controls Mia Fey, Phoniex' now-dead mentor, back when /she/ was a rookie defense attourney - which is how you get your tutorial. Mia's first and second cases are tied into the cases Phoenix is handling in the wake of the second game, the history of the spiritually powerful Fey family, and Phoenix's new opponent in court, the mysterious coffee-addict Godot.
It's a Phoenix Wright game. No new systems have been introduced this time around, so it's all the usual stuff, with, thankfully, a greatly improved translation. It's more implausible legal system stuff, more criminal investigations and problem solving, and more ridiculous antics interspersed with moments of genuine sweetness and heartbreak. So, the real question is, how does it compare to its predecessors?
Well.
The localization and translation is much improved - aside from a few odd instances of double verbs, there weren't mistakes jumping out at me and everything else seems on par with the first game. Phoenix' three cases are, I think, twistier and involve more interesting problem solving than a lot of the cases in previous games. Surprises twists, or just plain delightfully batty premises, with a lot of what you're trying to figure out now being perfectly clear from the start. Lots of very plausible and compelling red herrings to keep you from making a beeline straight for the truth in the first day of a case. The new characters are delightful or horrible or hilarious, sometimes a combination of all of the above at once, so over-the-top perfectly Phoenix Wright that I actually laughed out loud more than once. Familiar characters from the old game pop up, too - the world of Phoenix Wright is a small one, and there are just some people you can't escape.
So if the cases are twistier and the characters are just as delightfully silly as usual, what's the problem?
Well, the two cases that /aren't/ Phoenix, where Mia is your lawyer, all take place entirely in the court room, with no exterior investigation going on, which means from an adventure game/puzzle solving point of view, they're kind of shallow and shorter than the other cases where you're doing legwork and talking to people, ontop of everything else.
In one case, Mia is defending a pre-lawyer Phoenix Wright, who is adorable but also mind-bogglingly stupid. It's the tutorial case and while it becomes interesting and ties into the overall plot of the game better than the tutorial cases in the previous games, aside from Mia and the unusually retarded Phoenix, there isn't a great supporting cast. Your prosecutor is the usual Winston Payne, and Mia's advisor is an old fat lawyer who talks a lot about his hemerroids. I can always do without jokes about butt sores. The second Mia case also ties into the cases Phoenix is dealing with in the present day, and it's a really emotionally effecting one, where you go against young Miles Edgeworth, Phoenix' raison-d'etre in the first two games. But it's still short and confined entirely to the court room, making it feel like less of a case, despite how emotional and interesting the case is. Plus, Mia's advisor in /this/ case is hot young senior lawyer Diego Armando, a man who is walking sexual harassment.
But those are only two out of five cases, really the backstory to Phoenix' major case and, weirdly enough, key to figuring out the mysterious disappearance of Maya's mother. And Phoenix' case are /awesome/ ... but Phoenix' new opposite number, the mysterious prosecutor Godot, is not awesome. While he's amusing enough (he throws his coffee cup on Phoenix' head!), he isn't /interesting/. The reason he's gunning for Phoenix is far from a compelling one and as a character, I just can't get into him. He doesn't have the depth or complexity Miles Edgeworth did, he isn't as amazingly connected to the cases Phoenix is handling, and he just isn't that interesting or likeable. He doesn't even have the fierce, angry conviction of his rightness (and a whip) that Franziska von Karma had, or her secret vulnerability. He is, basically, kind of a let down after the previous games, no matter how well-localized his dialogue is. And it seems that, no matter how interesting the cases themselves they may be, how challenging solving them is, there's just something missing when you don't care about the character who's representing the other side.
It's also really hard to beat a final case where you're fighting to save your kidnapped friend and assistant.
There are a lot of other delightful things throughout the game that really made me willing to forgive its flaws, but /damn/, I would not be the person who spoils any of those things for someone who hasn't played the game yet. Part of their charm is how unexpected they are.
Trials and Tribulations is, like the previous Phoenix Wright games, delightful despite its flaws, and still one of the only games of its kind on the market. Even if Godot is kind of lame, the overall story is powerful, one that makes you really connect to Phoenix, Maya, and little Pearl. It's funny and silly when it needs to be, and can switch to heartbreaking at the drop of a hat. It's certainly not a bad note for this cast of characters to be going out on and it did enough so very right that, assuming there's a North American port of the fourth game, I'm giving a non-Phoenix lawyer game a try. As long as you didn't outright hate the previous games (and if you did, why would you be bothering with Trials and Tribulations?), this one should keep you entertained for a week or two if you're slow, four or five days if you don't do any unnecessary things. Like go outside. Eat. Sleep. That sort of thing.
Yesterday, I watched the most /batshit/ version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Spencer Tracy in the title role (he's evil when he has eyebrows!), Lana Turner as the woman he loves, and Ingrid Bergman as the hussy with the inconsistant accent who he whips, rapes, terrorizes, and eventually murders. Good times!
For people with an excess of Mars bars, I have an /awesome/ recipe for squares which require Mars bars, if you wish to donate your Halloween excess to my kitchen.