Being an Ace Attorney fan is rough sometimes.
We can never quite tell whether the next game in the series is actually going to be released
outside of Japan.
There are STILL some entries that have been stranded there for years, and most of the
recent games that have made it overseas have been relegated to digital-only releases.
Although the series has enjoyed some long running cult success, arguably being the most
famous visual novels of all time, it’s never clear whether Capcom views the series as profitable
worldwide.
But despite the shaky status of entries like Investigations 2 or Dai Gyakuten Saiban, the
most recent entry in the main series, Spirit of Justice, has made its way overseas in relatively
short order.
But does the game live up to the high standards set by its predecessors?
Before we get into that though, there’s one major question that needs to be answered:
is Spirit of Justice a good starting point for those wishing to experience the franchise
for the first time?
As a fan of Ace Attorney since the DS releases back in the mid-2000s, I unfortunately have
to say that newcomers won’t get nearly as much enjoyment from Spirit of Justice if it’s
their first step into the Ace Attorney world.
This is a series that’s all about its story and characters, so jumping in at game six
is kind of like starting with the final book of an expansive trilogy.
While the game does attempt to ease new players into the series by quickly summarizing key
character’s roles and backstories, it’s never as effective as experiencing the older
games for yourself.
And considering that much of the drama in Spirit of Justice revolves around previously
established relationships, the story just can’t be as effective to a newcomer as it
would be to someone who is intimately familiar with the previous titles.
Much like the other Ace Attorney games, the narrative of Spirit of Justice is its main
draw.
The story begins with Phoenix arriving in the new Kingdom of Khura’in, where trials
are determined by a ritual known as the Divination Séance and acting as a defense lawyer can
get you killed if your client is found guilty.
Phoenix is once again roped into another set of trials in this new land, while Apollo and
Athena deal with their own trials back at home.
The splitting of the characters and the harsh rules in Khura’in certainly ups the stakes
of the proceedings quite a bit, and the unique culture presented can be intriguing.
As the game began, I wanted to learn more about Khura’in, and find out more about
the country’s history.
The premise did a lot to draw me in.
For those already acquainted with Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice’s past adventures,
much of Spirit of Justice is going to look pretty familiar.
The game’s engine and interface are based heavily on the previous title, Dual Destinies,
with all of its improvements intact.
You can still move to any location at any time, there’s still a case brief for when
you need a refresher on the basics, and you can still easily tell what has and hasn’t
been examined while investigating an area.
Just like in Dual Destinies, these improvements are a welcome addition that makes the gameplay
more user-friendly in comparison to previous games.
In addition, Spirit of Justice brings back the ability to investigate any room in the
game, whereas Dual Destinies only let players investigate crime scenes.
What might seem like a small change adds hundreds of lines of dialogue, providing plenty of
world-building, character development, and plain-old entertaining reactions.
The removal of this feature made Dual Destinies feel like it was “missing” some of the
original series’ magic, so I’m very glad to see it re-implemented here.
The graphics have mostly been lifted straight from Dual Destinies as well, and the character
models are just as vibrant, colorful, and full of life here as they were there.
In a welcome addition, Spirit of Justice makes an effort to feature more scenes of the characters
moving around, instead of simply standing and talking like in the previous entries.
Not only is it a nice reminder that the characters aren’t just walking torsos, but the added
movement allows for some scenes to have much more impact than they would have compared
to previous Ace Attorney games.
Unfortunately, while the graphics have seen a boost in quality, the soundtrack did not.
Spirit of Justice has one of the weakest soundtracks in the series, which is a shame considering
the quality of the music that came before it.
None of it is straight-up terrible, but no melodies stuck with me afterward.
There is some interesting use of instrumentation in the tracks for the new Kingdom of Khura’in,
but all that really does is make it clear that one track is a Khura’in track and the
others are not.
Nothing sticks out otherwise.
The voice acting hasn’t seen much improvement either, as it still comes across as stilted
and unnatural.
Thankfully, it isn’t very prevalent, so its relatively poor quality isn’t much of
an issue.
But the most entertaining part of any Ace Attorney game is the trial sections.
Much of the gameplay is similar to previous titles, with you pressing the witnesses on
the stand to get more information and presenting evidence whenever you find an inconsistency.
There’s a sense of satisfaction when you finally figure out what the correct solution
is during cross-examination that is unlike anything else in gaming, and at its best moments,
Spirit of Justice can still invoke that same reaction.
The visit to Khura’in is for more than just aesthetics though, as the trials taking place
there introduce a brand new mechanic that acts as Spirit of Justice’s biggest addition
to the formula.
This addition is known as the Divination Séance, and unfortunately it falls somewhat flat.
The Séance allows people to look into the victim’s last moments, not only seeing what
they saw, but also experiencing what they felt, heard, and even smelled.
During these sections, it is up to the player to look into the visions and see what elements
are inconsistent with the prosecution’s case.
Unfortunately, there were many points where I felt it wasn’t clear enough on how I was
supposed to present the given inconsistency.
There were numerous times when I knew exactly what the problem with the vision was, but
I couldn’t get the game to recognize the issue.
This specific quirk can pop up from time to time in normal Ace Attorney gameplay as well,
but it has never been as prevalent before as it is here.
The Divination Séance is meant to provide some amount of variety to the trials in Khura’in,
while the returning Mood Matrix is used to shake things up in the trials back home.
Unfortunately, neither of these mechanics ever feel as cohesive as they should.
These sections are always treated as being separate from normal cross-examination, which
has the side effect of never allowing these elements to interact with the traditional
mechanics in any substantial way.
They feel more like mini-games than anything else.
Investigation sections are also bogged down with this same issue, as it feels like there
are too many interruptions to the natural flow.
Apollo’s Perceive ability makes a return, and it still feels as tacked-on here as it
did in Dual Destinies.
Having to scan over every part of a nervous witness’ body during every segment of their
line is as tedious as before, and the tells themselves aren’t that creative most of
the time anyway.
Even the Psyche-Locks fail to feel like anything more than a mini-game, as they’re all pretty
easy and can be unlocked right as you find them, whereas the previous games used the
Psyche-Locks to provide a somewhat non-linear edge to the investigations.
But by far, the least entertaining gameplay sections has to be fingerprint dusting, courtesy
of the returning detective Ema Skye.
While it is nice to see the character return, these sections were by far one of the most
tedious aspects of the entire game.
Unlike instances in the older games where fingerprinting was included, this time, you’re
dusting an entire 3D object to find the prints.
While this sounds cool in theory, the models that you’re expected to dust are gigantic,
and there’s barely any prints to find on them.
Places where there should be prints often come up with nothing, so what ended up happening
is that I would simply cover the entire object with dust, and then hope that I find something.
Unfortunately, the game knows that you want to do this, and thus puts a limit on how much
fingerprint dust you can spread at any given time.
This is compounded by the fact that blowing the dust away doesn’t actually result in
all of the dust leaving the area; small traces always seem to be left behind.
I often found myself awkwardly moving the screen around and pressing the blow button
multiple times to get as much of the dust back as possible, just so I could go back
to blindly dumping it on another part of the evidence.
It’s tedious at best and infuriating at worst.
But the occasional frustrating bit of gameplay wouldn’t matter in the long run if the story
in-between is engaging.
After all, this series is all about story and characters, and seeing Apollo, Phoenix,
and Athena make their way through these seemingly hopeless trials is the main draw here.
Thankfully, the character interaction is as great as ever.
Some of the best parts in Spirit of Justice are when the characters are simply hanging
around, talking, and goofing off with each other.
While these moments remain as entertaining as always, that doesn’t mean that there’s
a lot of character growth.
Phoenix, who spends most of his playable time in the Kingdom of Khura’in, doesn’t get
an awful lot of opportunities to have his character go anywhere interesting.
Phoenix is our eyes into Khura’in, and he’s so busy figuring out how things work there
that there’s no time for him to have any meaningful development on his own terms.
But Phoenix is not the only character who feels static, as for the most part, the returning
cast is devoid of growth as well.
Athena in particular gets the short end of the stick, as she isn’t given much to do
while Apollo and Phoenix are playable, aside from the occasional Mood Matrix segment.
She only has a major role in one case, and that case is by far the worst example of filler
that the franchise has ever seen.
Even Maya Fey, who has finally returned to the series after a two game absence, feels
sorely underutilized.
It’s refreshing to have her personality back, to say the least, but as a character
she’s only used a plot device, and has far less screen-time than you would expect.
The character with the most development going on here is Apollo, and those hoping to see
lingering plot threads from his own game to be tied up will be sorely disappointed.
Instead, the game sees fit to retcon a huge chunk of his established backstory, and makes
this brand-new information a major part of the game’s second half.
While there was a lot of potential in some of this new material, I had a hard time connecting
personally with most of the things they brought up.
In terms of the new characters, it’s a mixed bag.
The minor witnesses are pretty much what you would expect from Ace Attorney; they’re
silly, have some entertaining lines and gimmicks, and then are completely forgotten once they
leave the screen.
The standout new character is Rayfa, who conducts the Divination Séances in Khura’in.
She probably has the most believable and fleshed-out character arc in the entire game, and the
segments where she tags along with Phoenix for investigation had me chuckling throughout.
On the other end of the spectrum is the new prosecutor, Nayuta Sahdmahdi, who is by far
the least compelling prosecutor the series has ever had.
He doesn’t have anything remarkable going on about him and his personality is limited
to saying mean things towards the defense and being bland to everyone else.
He invoked no emotional response from me whatsoever.
The overarching story has its own highs and lows.
The first case got me invested in the world of Khura’in and its assorted customs and
quirks.
In addition, the second case is, for the most part, pretty well written and executed.
It even got me to feel attached to Trucy Wright, a character I’ve disliked since her first
appearance back in Apollo Justice.
But the goodwill built up during the game’s opening fizzles out halfway through, as the
third case ends in an amazingly stupid plot twist, and things only go downhill from there.
The final case in particular is perhaps one of the worst the franchise has ever seen.
All of the interesting subtleties to the morality of Khura’in’s legal system are wiped away
completely and before the final trial even began I was able to correctly predict how
most of the events were going to unfold.
I was rolling my eyes constantly at all of the major plot points and a few of them can
only be described as asinine.
What makes it even more aggravating is that, despite most of the finale feeling just plain
dumb, there were a handful of great ideas hidden in there that were immediately ruined
by poor storytelling.
It felt like an absolute waste.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice is a mess.
There are parts that I quite enjoyed, and despite coming in with low expectations, the
beginning did do a lot to pull me in and get me interested.
In the end, though, that early goodwill only served to make the ending feel even more sour
than it already was.
And because of that, I simply ended up disliking the game.
There certainly are things to enjoy here, but as a whole I was left bewildered and disappointed
with how things turned out.
I still hold hope that we’ll see another Ace Attorney game that captures the magic
of the original trilogy, but Spirit of Justice just doesn’t make the cut.
Thanks for watching, and stay tuned to GameXplain for more on Ace Attorney, and other things
gaming.