Saturday, March 13, 2010

Review ~ Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Saddest sentence ever.

I'm a big fan of the Ace Attorney series - I've played all three Phoenix Wright games as well as the Apollo Justice title. Miles Edgeworth has always been my favorite character, so when I heard they were making a game all about him, I knew I was going to be all over it. Who else can pull off a fuchsia suit and a caveat and still be awesome?

This game is not like the other games in the series - you are never actually in court. Instead, Edgeworth, Gumshoe, and a cast of new and familiar characters cracks cases by investigating and taking testimony out in the field.

Gameplay - You're investigating crime scenes now, and you actually get to move around. No more just pointing to stuff on the touch screen, unless Edgeworth decides to go in for a closer look. As you can see from my above screencap, you still get the sprites and all their amusing quirks. You can still shout objection if you so choose. And you're still presenting evidence and pressing people when their testimony doesn't quite add up. What's new is the "logic" feature. As you investigate, Edgeworth will occasionally come to a conclusion that will be added to the "logic" section you can access in the upper left hand corner of the screen. You can then put two together and come to a conclusion that pulls you further into the investigation. The new features in the game aren't much of a departure from past titles, and I feel it's much better then that perception crap you had to do in Apollo Justice where you basically got up in someone's face to see if they were slightly sweating on one word. Ugh. Hated that. Logic is an easy system, both to use and figure out. There's not too much mystery when you're trying to put two and two together.

Characters - Edgeworth, obviously, is the focus of this game. You're accompanied most of the time by your old pal Gumshoe, who I always enjoy seeing. There are a bunch of new characters in the game but there are also a lot of familiar faces as well. I was happy to see what characters came back for a spin in this new game. But if you're expecting to see Phoenix...don't get your hopes up.

Story - I would have to say this is probably the weakest part of the game. That isn't to say it's bad by any stretch, but compared to past games, it's a little lacking. There are five cases in the game, and they're all tied together. You kind of jump around taking on the cases out of order, which can make your mind spin a bit. The storyline is clear and enjoyable, but not particularly engaging like in past games, even though all the cases are related in this case. I found many of the cases were pretty short, except for the last one. In the true tradition of an Ace Attorney title, the last case goes on and on and on with no end in sight. And by the end you're screaming at your DS. Fun times.

Graphics and Touch Screen - The graphics are the same as they've been for the other titles. Touch screen use is pretty much the same too. You can use it to advance dialogue or move (or you can use the control pad) and you use it to access your evidence and sometimes make a response or too. You can also interact with specific pieces of evidence by zooming in and turning them around - but we've seen this in past games already too. There's really nothing new to report. Unfortunately there's no cool luminol or other crime scene tests like we've enjoyed sporadically in the past.

I really enjoyed this game - but I think I enjoyed it more because I'm such a huge Edgeworth fan. If you're a fan of the Ace Attorney series though, regardless of whether you're an Edgeworth fan or not, I think you'll enjoy it. Yes, it's a little different and I did miss being in court a little bit, but overall it's more of the same enjoyable experience with a few new twists.

8 out of 10 (The fact that Edgeworth was the main character jumped the score about half a point)

No comments: