Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice For All (Nintendo DS)

 

 

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It's kind of hard to rate a game like Phoenix Wright: Justice for all. The reason for that is, like my title implies, it's VERY similar to the first one. So much for originality...

But is that necessarily a bad thing? The reason I bought Phoenix Wright 2 is, precisely, because I loved the first one and I wanted some more. So if you played and enjoyed the first game of the series, there is no doubt you'll also appreciate this second episode.
Like before, your aim throughout the game is to prove your client not guilty, by investigating and searching for clues but also, in the court room, by presenting decisive evidence to unveil some of the witnesses' false testimonies. The gameplay hasn't changed a bit, so you still have to move from place to place by selecting the appropriate location on the touch screen, to examine items to gather information, and to talk to people by selecting different options with your stylus.
The game's trademark humour is of course back, together with some characters from the first game, and to be honest this is my favourite aspect of the game. While newcomers will be perfectly able to play and understand the game without having played the first one, older fans will be delighted to see familiar faces.
So yeah, like I said above, a lot of this game is just more of the same as before.

The main addition to the gameplay is the "Psyche Lock" system. Sometimes, when investigating, you'll have to talk to people. And sometimes, when talking to people, you'll realise that they are hiding something from you. Your aim will then be to break their "locks", using evidence, so that they open up to you and tell you their secret, which is always crucial to the case you are defending.
While it does sound fun at first, I found the Psyche Locks to be just another way to make the game longer... Because in practice, it is just this: you get to use evidence, not only in the court room, but also while investigating. Yay. Mind you, it's not that bad either. EXCEPT... that while you are in the court room, you KNOW you have all the evidence you can possibly have (the game doesn't let you proceed to the court room if you don't), so all you have to do is figure out how to use it. With the Psyche Locks though, you may, or may not, have the evidence you need. And there is no way you can tell! So you'll have to be much more careful and to think more about your next move, since sometimes the best solution is to give up, investigate some more, and only then come back to the Psyche Lock.

Which leads me to the next addition to the gameplay: the life bar! Each wrong piece of evidence you present, both in court and for Psyche Locks, will cost you a certain amount of life. So you can't just try at random lots of different pieces of evidence when unlocking a Psyche Lock, because each wrong one costs you life. Ok, you can't die from unsuccessfully having a go at a Psyche Lock, but seeing how your life bar is NOT replenished when your enter court (you have the same life bar for each episode), you'll want to think carefully about wasting it away.
To make up for that though, you get 50% of your life bar back for each Psyche Lock you unlock.

So, in the end... I loved this game, but be warned, it's pretty much exactly the same as the first game. As a stand-alone game, I would give it 5 stars, however as a sequel, because of its lack of originality and its similarity to the previous game, it doesn't really deserve much more than 3. Which is why I gave it 4 stars.

If you're not sure what this game is, I'll start by clarifying: it is, in effect, an old-school graphical adventure game. If you're too young to remember those, it basically means your character goes to different locations, you pick stuff up, you converse with people, and you try to interact objects in your inventory with other things (in this case, just people).

That doesn't really do the game justice, though. This really is a thinking man's game, and the vast majority of the time you can use reason to work out what to do next, rather than the random experimentation (and let's not forget mouse-sweeping) characteristic of the genre. The story seems more involving for the emphasis on deduction.

The game is split into four cases, where the pattern is generally that you spend a while investigating and gathering evidence (in the process working out about half of what happened) and then spend a while in court, unable to go anywhere and trapped in one conversation in which you can "die" (your client gets found guilty) if you make too many wrong guesses, though in some cases you do get to go out and do more investigation. In contrast to the "health bar" that can only diminish in court, while investigating you can't "die" in that sense (though you can reach zero "life"), and can recover "life" by breaking what the game calls "psyche locks", which are in effect just the normal get-information-out-of-people routine, only harder (and requiring more objects as evidence). By making a wrong guess with a psyche lock, you lose "life" just as you would in court, but when you finally get someone to reveal their secret, 50% life gets added, so starting the court part with very low chances happens rarely.

This is a Japanese game (as quickly becomes clear if it wasn't already), so you do have to deal with the occasional translation inaccuracy (it's about 99% correct, and always clear) and rather odd "localisation" which involves the characters declaring that they are in the US, despite the presence of a clearly Japanese village in the game, and a rather bizarre conversation in which a character says they imported a British car (obviously in Japan this was an American car) at considerable expense because it's basically big, loud, fast, and shiny.

Being basically linear, there is a definite end to this game, and it probably will come sooner than you'd like (though that last case is rock hard), but you're still talking about several hours, normally. Sometimes while playing you do hit the traditional adventure game flaw of "this should work", where there is an object with a property sufficient to do a task, but you actually have to use something else - in this case, you'd object (and lose life) while thinking, "the testimony DOES contradict the evidence!". With a limited number of guesses that you can make, this does make the game frustrating at times, and for that I'm popping a star off its rating.

Overall, it's very good fun (I suppose dependant on you being into mysteries, crime shows, or the like), with a few noticeable flaws holding it back. Just try to resist googling for a walkthrough, because it'll ruin the fun!

Phoenix Wright returns to the DS after a year's absence. This time round, he's no longer a rookie defense attorney. Instead, having achieved some seemingly impossible victories in the courtroom last time round, he's now quite a celebrity. Which is why, when a policewoman is charged with murdering his fiancé, she turns to Wright for help. Unfortunately, just before the trial, he was attacked by an unknown assailant. He wakes up with amnesia, and is then pushed straight into court to fight the case. An impossible case again, perhaps? Not exactly, because by examining every piece of evidence, pressing every statement from the witnesses, and pinpointing every contradiction that are present, the ace attorney has return to yet another famous victory.

The above basically sums up Phoenix Wright's premise. Justice for All, which begins soon after the end of last season's sleeper hit, employs primarily the same gameplay features from its predecessor. The game is still divided into two parts - investigation and trial. During investigation, you will still go from place to place, talk to NPCs, and gather clues. During trial, you will still press witnesses, present evidence and, more often than not, bluff your way through. Nothing really changes here when it comes to the basic nature of the gameplay.

Capcom does attempt to make things a little more varied though with the new, but rather tedious "Psyche-Lock" system. This time round, secrets that are guarded by NPCs (even your allies) are typified by on-screen locks. These prevent important conversations from happening. You will need to gather enough information before you can unlock these Psyche-Locks. A wrong deduction will expectedly lead to loss in health, even during the investigation stages. This is a change from the previous game, in which you could only get "hurt" in court. The system is not exactly bad, since it does make the game more challenging. But it also slows the game down, and adds more backtracking efforts to a game that is already filled with various backtracking requirements.

To complement the Psyche-Lock system, your health in Justice for All is also changed from the "Five-Exclamation Marks" bar to a more conventional health bar - something that you usually see in most action adventure games. Now, this is definitely a good move, even though the exclamation marks present more uniqueness. The good thing with this new health bar is that damage taken is varied. Some mistakes will hit you minimally; while others may totally wipe out your health (beware!). On top of that, you can also recover loss health by successfully unlocking a Psyche-Lock. Ah, now you know why I said that it complements the Psyche-Lock.

The fun in Phoenix Wright is not restricted to the gameplay, of course. Interactions with quirky characters are part and parcel of the investigation and court proceedings. In this instalment, you will take on clowns, magicians, and even a radio transceiver. Many of these encounters provide great comic relief. Especially the one with the clown, but I will leave that to you to find out. The game also features returning casts from the previous game - those interested in the Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth sub-plot will be happy to know that he has a major role to play in the intense finale of the game.

On the topic of intensity, you may also want to know that Justice for All has a much more compelling story than its predecessor. Even though it doesn't have a bonus case like the last game, the cases are generally longer here, which more or less compensate for the absence. Murderers are also smarter, more ruthless, and will continue to frustrate you through well-constructed lies. These generate a great sense of competitive tension - if you're the emotional type, you may find yourself totally immersed into the game's universe. The final case, in particular, will test your resilience as well as your conscience. The only gripe is that some parts of the game are a little too draggy. It's almost as if these moments are lengthened just for the sake of lengthening the game.

In conclusion, Justice for All is another great entry in the Phoenix Wright series. It doesn't rock too much of a steady boat, and prefers to focus on its strength of delivering a deep and compelling murder mystery. Fans of the adventure genre would better gear themselves up for another round of sleepless nights as they engage to solve these murders. As for those who haven't played the previous game, I'd suggest picking that up first to fully appreciate the story in this one.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Nearly perfect
I enjoyed this game almost as much as the first one in the series, but some of the cases seemed unnecessarily protracted which became annoying when you just wanted to wrap up the... Read more

Published 9 months ago by rosyglow

5.0 out of 5 stars No OBJECTIONS here!
I played this game over a year after completing the first one, so I didn't feel like I was playing a similar game to the original and was glad of the refresher trial at the... Read more

Published 23 months ago by Sky

5.0 out of 5 stars Ace Attorney Part 2
This is Phoenix Wright's Second Amazing Adventure!

This game features 4 cases for you to explore.

It is different to the First Game. Read more

Published 23 months ago by J. S. Hope

4.0 out of 5 stars Fans may be disappointed
In the brilliant ace attorney series, Justice For All is perhaps the weakest game.Not to say that means it terrible, no quite the opposite. Read more

Published on 31 Jan 2010

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic experience...
I have just finished this wonderful game and felt the need to comment on it...This is the second in the series and the sequel to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

The... Read more

Published on 12 Oct 2009 by R. Speechley

5.0 out of 5 stars Guilty of being Great
This has been the first Phoenix Wright game I played, but I can guarantee it won't be the last. Even though 'Justice For All' is technically a sequel to the first Ace Attorney... Read more

Published on 16 Aug 2008 by The Andian

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, if you like reading
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All is the sequel to the courtroom Drama Ace Attorney.

First, lets look at gameplay: Talking Talking and talking. Read more

Published on 10 July 2008

3.0 out of 5 stars Good game almost buried under tedious dialogue.
A good game but it's buried underneath sooo many screens of tedious dialogue you have to keep skipping through.
And the dialogue isn't very good sadly. Read more

Published on 14 May 2008 by NP

4.0 out of 5 stars Slightly Disappointing
The first Phoenix Wright was a tour de force and one of the most entertaining games available not just on the DS but on any platform. Read more

Published on 28 April 2008 by tsp397

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good sequel
Not quite as brilliant as the first game to be honest, but still holds its charm. I actually bought this when i was near the end of the first one, as i wanted to be able to pick... Read more

Published on 31 Jan 2008 by J. Everett

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