Developed by Capcom
Published by Capcom
By Curtis Westman
A hush falls over the dimmed courtroom. My client stands accused of that most foul of crimes — murder. And not just any murder; the defendant is charged with murder in the degree of zero. That’s right. She allegedly killed a man while channeling the spirit of his dead associate.
She walked into my life a year ago, and made herself nice and comfortable. Now I’m paying the price.
Sweat beads on my forehead and my hands tremble. The prosecution delivers its evidence via its sole material witness, a bumbling gumshoe by the name of Gumshoe. Dick Gumshoe. We’ve had run-ins in the past, none of them pleasant. I shoot daggers with my eyes. Somehow, he fires back a ham sandwich with his. He holds up the murder weapon, a dusty black revolver with fingerprints all over it, as if my client had been in a serious relationship with the barrel.
Suddenly, it strikes me.
I bang my fists on the desk and interrupt the detective mid-sentence with a maddening war-cry: “OBJECTION!“
And to think, it’s only Phoenix Wright’s second year in court. Last year, Capcom published the critically acclaimed first installment of the series, entitled Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. The game was a port from the Japanese GBA version, Gyakuten Saiban (roughly, ‘Turnabout Trial’). The basis of the oddly unique title was simply to solve court cases as a hot new defense attorney. It sounds boring. It’s not. This year, Capcom ported the sequel to the DS, and the same flare for both humour and drama is present in Phoenix Wright’s latest adventure, Justice for All.
I won’t get too much into story out of fear of giving anything away, but needless to say, not only is it well-written with several twists, but most of the plot points actually feed into the unfolding drama of Phoenix’s life, much like the first game. The antagonist is a prosecutor by the name of Von Karma; fans of the first game will recognize her as the daughter of the daunting prosecutor from the final cases of Ace Attorney, and she’s just as tough. Sadly, she is especially tough to get into bed.
The game’s mechanics are straightforward. Gameplay consists of two segments: the courtroom, and the investigation. The investigation involves traveling to crime scenes and other areas of the city, as well as interrogating people who might turn out to be surprise witnesses, pumping them for information. Generally, this isn’t all that exciting, but it serves to extend the story between courtroom segments, which are the real meat of the game. It’s in the courtroom where you get to show off your skills as an attorney, cross-examining witnesses and presenting evidence to refute their shoddy testimonies. You have a health bar, and each time you make a mistake, it’s lowered by a certain amount — when it reaches zero, your client is pronounced guilty on the spot. If only the O.J. Simpson case had worked that way.
The game is not for everyone, unfortunately. The slow pacing of the adventure and the cute anime style of the graphics will turn off a lot of people. So if you’re one of those people I wouldn’t recommend this particular title.
Since it’s really just a port and translation of a Japanese game, some of the localization is a little off. There are also a significant amount of spelling and grammatical errors in the dialogue that could easily have been corrected. Compared with the humour and writing quality of the first game, Justice for All seems a little lax in just how tight everything is tied together. That said, the first game is incredibly tough to live up to — and this title has much of what made Ace Attorney so great.
If you liked Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, you’ll definitely like Justice for All, and you’ll be pleased to note that the translation of Gyakuten Saiban 3 is already underway. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to return to pumping information for my upcoming case.
