For Great Justice

[davidn]

I have no idea why I have this picture. I feel I must have saved it to my hard drive months ago with some sort of purpose in mind, but that purpose has long gone from my memory. Nevertheless, the pointing action might be somehow appropriate to head this post, because the first DS game that we've got out of Gamefly is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

As futile as it is to assign genres to these things now, the game is a sort of adventure type thing starring Phoenix Wright, a junior defence lawyer with the haircut of Falco Lombardi, who over the course of the storyline has to go up against various prosecutors to rescue apparently obviously guilty defendants. The "Ace Attorney" part is something of a misnomer, because his investigative method consists of being a colossal doofus, thinking aloud to himself far too much, putting up with his annoying teenage spirit medium assistant, and stealing anything that isn't permanently fastened down from the immediate vicinity of the crime scenes. "Ace Kleptomaniac" would seem more appropriate sometimes.

A while ago I detailed a CSI game that we Whitney had bought and had then been hastily returned. Somewhat insultingly, I'm going to compare it to that, because this game shares much the same play style - the course of investigating a case involves you wandering around clicking on everything that looks remotely interesting and exhausting everyone's conversation options, then repeating the process until you get somewhere. The execution of it is naturally a lot better than the polygonal disaster that I had previously seen, of course - Phoenix Wright instead goes for a hand-drawn middle-of-the-road Japanese style, with only a moderate number of unfamiliar visual idioms. !!! However, there's one thing that begins to grate very quickly - I don't know if it's just because I'm getting older, but the game shares the same !!! sort of epileptic presentation that I find makes it very uncomfortable to watch most American television, hitting you with !!! full-screen flashes for little reason very often, complete with explosion sounds and screen shakes when any part of the conversation invites anything approaching mild surprise. They often appear in the mid!!!dle of sentences when you least expect them, making it like trying to read while someone is throwing flash grenades into your lap.

But where the game really comes together is the courtroom scenes. Even though they're about as realistic a depiction of a trial as CSI is of police investigation, anything involving computers, or the world in general, and as much as a slog as the adventure sections can sometimes be to get there, the hilarity of them makes it all worthwhile. This unbalanced fictional version of handling a trial involves a prosecutor presenting a witness to the permanently bewildered bearded judge (who I find best if you mentally voice him as Brian Blessed) and you having to scroll through parts of their testimony, press them on suspicious points, search through your inventory (or Court Record) for items that contradict the sentence that you're examining, and ultimately present that as evidence. This triggers the now-famous shout of "OBJECTION!", which is still funny even though its meme status has been and gone now, and if you've got the clue right, the background music will stop, Phoenix will thump his hands on the bench, and then perform the patented Phoenix Wright Point, signalling the player to prepare for the oncoming baguette beatdown.

It even manages to avoid becoming repetitive with a sequence of increasingly unlikely surprises and turns of events, once going as far as putting you through the whole Game Over sequence before you're miraculously rescued. It's also a nice touch that said Game Over sequence just announces that the suspect's case will be forwarded on to a higher court, alleviating any guilt that you've just killed someone or anything, but with my experience from the visa process I have the feeling that being hit with the reams of paperwork as a consequence would somehow be worse. And as the prosecutor and witness often share positively Arnold Rimmer levels of smugness, it makes it all the more satisfying to watch them try to wriggle their way out of any contradictions you find - the whole thing has a glorious exaggeratedness to it that's almost equal to the average episode of Iron Chef America, and is a good application of the unique Japanese sense of mania.

And I laughed for several hours after discovering the catchphrase of one of your clients, the Steel Samurai, was "For Great Justice".

Comments

[kjorteo]

The entire Phoenix Wright series is full of hilarious references and charmingly manic characterization. In the first game alone, Dick Gumshoe went from being the token homicide detective at the scene just because, you know, there probably needed to be a token homicide detective at the scene, to the homicide detective with perpetually hilarious lines, to possibly my favorite character in the game. Trials and Tribulations managed to have a token fail option in the adventure scene (you know, when you try to present something to someone you're talking to and it has nothing to do with anything) that absolutely must be seen to be believed--it's such a brilliant reference that I'm going to refrain from spoiling it, even though it's a "Sorry, I don't know anything about what you're showing me" type line that thus obviously has nothing to do with anything plot-related.

The game's realism is also a perfect example of the MST3K mantra in action: everyone knows that the job of completely scouring a crime scene, stealing everything that isn't nailed down and at least making a good try on the things that are, interrogating the witnesses, and even prosecuting the actual murderer goes to the defense attorney, right? Shut up; it's fun.

Also, I have no idea where you got that picture either, but I can't help but notice the New Mexico flag on the podium!

[davidn]

I'm sure I meant to use it for something specifically because he was pointing, but I've now no idea what that might have been, and this just about makes an acceptable substitute.

I found myself liking a couple of characters a lot more as the game went on - the detective and Miles Edgeworth, who looks like he's from Castlevania, especially. (The same has not yet happened with me to Maya...) But it's a sign of how well done it is that it can make you change your mind like that. And seeing as it took me a year from that last post to get to playing this first one, it may be a while before I discover what you meant in the first paragraph...!

I meant to say, actually, when I first went back to look at the first description you gave me of it, in a comment to the post I linked from this one, I then had to re-edit an enormous amount of this post because it turned out that a lot of it was word for word what you had said a year ago. So I think that your summary of it stuck with me as well.

[kjorteo]

That's good; it means it's living up to expectations. I'm glad you're enjoying it as much as I had hoped you would. :)

And Edgeworth may look a little Castlevania-esque, but if anything, he's the halfway point between normal people and Manfred von Karma.

[kaedeko.livejournal.com]

BOOT TO THE HEAD! (http://www.cybermoonstudios.com/PhoenixBoot.html) (Sorry, I couldn't help myself.)

[davidn]

Hah :) That was actually surprisingly well-animated for a Flash synchronization - I've seen one of the Phoenix Wrong series on Youtube, too, which was also surprisingly well-done even though it was utterly demented.

[stubbleupdate.livejournal.com]

This is the fourth time that I've watched that.

I just love the Canadianness; there's something about the word aboot that just pleases me.

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for posting this - it's reminded me to get a copy of Trials and Tribulations next time I'm in town! (I was after it when I finished Justice For All, and was annoyed to find out it was only out in Japan and the States at the time.) Apparently (or so says Wikipedia, anyway) it came out over here in October last year, so I should be able to find a copy now! Phoenix Wright was one of the first games I got for my DS, and I have to admit, I got hooked on it. :P (Yes, when I first got it, I was shouting "OBJECTION!!!" into the microphone; DS games, helping you make a prat of yourself in public since 2004.)

Also, if you haven't reached them yet, I highly suggest playing through the final cases of both Ace Attorney and Justice For All; Edgeworth's Castlevania-ness pales before that of Manfred von Karma (the final prosecutor in Ace Attorney), and the final case in Justice For All takes the "alleviation of guilt that your client's gonna get the chair" theme and throws it out the window entirely - I screwed it up the first time, and felt horrible, and had to go back and replay it 'til I got the 'proper' ending! (That sentence had to be carefully re-written a couple of times to avoid dropping spoilers the size of small star systems into your LJ. :P)

Also, Kjorteo, your Missile avatar is awesome. :P

D.F.

[davidn]

What! I had no idea that you could use the microphone - this is a disadvantage of getting things through an online rental service and going manual-less! I'm going to have to try that the next time I'm in a trial scene.

I've met Von Karma, as I'm halfway through the fourth scenario (or Turnabout, as they're somewhat cryptically known) and grown to really like kicking him in the teeth with correct objections. There's a real satisfaction the game gives to winning the trials...

I never actually considered the fact that now that I'm in America I have a hope of seeing games that come out in Japan within about a year. That's quite a nice thought! :)

[kjorteo]

:D