Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice

Spirit of Justice switches up the Ace Attorney formula by placing its main action in an authoritarian foreign country where defense attorneys have, hilariously, been outlawed and prosecutors rule the land. There are shades of Myanmar and Tibet, but in true Phoenix Wright fashion the game eschews any real political commentary in favor of ridiculous puns.

I have played all the Ace Attorney games that have made it stateside. They are formative games for me. I was a late adopter on the 3DS, so have slowly been catching up the latest generation of Ace Attorney games for the last couple of years. The thing about the 3DS games is the developers' perhaps justifiable pride in their 3D character models and animation. In that sense, Spirit of Justice totally builds on what Dual Destinies did before, moving to elaborate 3D models and multiplane visual effects from the 2D sprites in the DS releases. This type of model work is fairly uncommon for the visual novel genre to which the Ace Attorney games have always (sort of uncomfortably) belonged. As a result, every minor character here has some sort of elaborate movement sequence that is impossible to skip. The more over-the-top these become, the more languid the game feels. Specifically, there is a dance performed by a character that is central to how this game unfolds. It is very impressively animated for this hardware, but the game's designers use it so often it becomes annoying. The same animation is used twice in one episode and three times (!) in another.

What makes Spirit of Justice more ambitious than previous entries is that it splits time between Phoenix, Apollo and Athena (the most cartoon-like protagonist, introduced in Dual Destinies). At first these episodes feel only loosely connected but they come together in a mostly effective way by the end, and put a button on Apollo Justice's arc. I have always found Apollo a little less appealing than the characters that populate the first three Ace Attorney games, but here he finally gets a chance to shine.

It's another Ace Attorney game, and I'd rank it somewhere in the middle of the pack. Some great cases with Apollo here, but Athena gets the short end of the stick (and gets treated like she's never run a case during her one trial). I think these games are starting to get a little stale for me, but even so I felt like this was a worthy addition to the series. The new divination seance segments are an interesting method of looking at a case, but I hope they don't return. I feel these games are more fun when they have only sparing use of their mystic elements in trials. The new side characters are mostly lame and forgettable. But getting back to Apollo, I felt this was the first title in which we really learned what makes him tick as a lawyer. I was satisfied with his character arc here, as well as his sendoff. I suppose they could bring him back in spin-offs, but I doubt the fans are clamoring for it.

I would only recommend this game to folks who have played the other games, but I doubt anyone would jump in on this one anyway.