Second Cross-Examination — Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

As the title implies, this is the second review. For the first, check out Angela’s earlier review.

The unofficial itinerary of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth‘s existence is Capcom’s, and the Ace Attorney team’s, intention to prevent the usual Ace Attorney franchise formula from stagnating. It’s a proclamation from a company intent on proving that they’ve learned from their mistakes of the past with their other franchises. Investigations? It shouldn’t surprise you that the game has this in spades. Intense, heart-pounding court cases? Nope, not here. But in its place are nearly-as-intense battles of logic that will happen in any location. It’s mostly implausible, sure, but it shouldn’t bother you with a franchise rife with spirit mediums and magicians.

Though the previous games took elements from classic PC adventure games of yore, AAI embraces them from an alternate direction. Investigation sequences are no longer first-person, but are now switched to third-person in order to show the player that these characters really do have legs. Ostensibly, it doesn’t sound like that would make any significant changes to the investigation sequences, but it actually gives them an alternate (but not necessarily better) sense of vivacity. Enough of one to make it feel like a fresh experience, comparatively.

At this point, the AA games shouldn’t surprise you with their sweeping drama. Time and trouble never stall for prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, a man who happens to run into trouble upon arriving back from a trip overseas. Greeting him in his office in the early morning darkness is a dead body and a gun-toting individual enshrouded in the shadows. There’s no time for rest, as Edgeworth has to get to investigating immediately.

The interesting aspect of AAI’s story is that all of the chapters are connected. There are no trials or story sequences that serve as a respite period between the actual plot, or just for comedy relief. That is not to say that there isn’t any comedy, of which there is plenty. The overall story depicts a smuggling syndicate that’s working from behind the scenes, and the earlier happenings are what lead Edgeworth and his companions to fully investigate it.

Like the previous games, the localization is exquisite. It’s definitely a challenge for the team behind this game to shift the location of the game from Japan to America, and changing the names and jokes while keeping their intent intact. By “intent,” I mean the Japanese versions of all the AA games are rife with jokes and puns that only people fully ingrained in Japanese culture, or have dedicated an ample amount of time studying it, would comprehend. The challenge for the localization team is making those jokes relatable for an American audience, and on that front, they’ve succeeded admirably.

If you’re the kind of person that’s had a problem with the form of logic that’s impeded the games before, then you’ll also have a problem with this. Though the game requires less spurious leaps of logic – it’s a bit easier than the previous games – they sometimes find their way in. But the best approach to this is to not expect anything fully grounded in reality. And honestly, I sure hope you don’t approach games expecting full realism.

Common points of contention with the last game, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, were the lack of returning characters and memorable new characters. It’s evident that the AA team took this criticism to heart here, because it rectifies both of those problems. There are plenty of returning characters from the Phoenix Wright titles, and the new characters introduced here have a better lasting impression. Every AA game seems to require that the main character have a cute, bubbly sidekick, and Kay Faraday fills this role here. But her very existence isn’t purely for eye candy and jokes, she actually has some excellent uses. And while the well-intentioned Interpol agent Shi-Long Lang will try to approach Edgeworth with some haphazard logic, he’s still helpful.

The main question posed by series fans is whether court cases would hinder its enjoyment. Unfortunately, it does, but not as much as you’d expect. Battles of logic are nice, but those sessions lack the desk-slamming fun between an attorney and a prosecutor, along with the hapless (or opposite of hapless) client or witness caught within. And then, you’d also have the judge making his eyebrow-raising comments. It’s a feeling completely gone from this game, but again, it’s not as detrimental as it sounds. You still have your “Objection!” “Hold it!” to deal with. Pressing people and watching them go crazy is almost as fun to watch.

The Ace Attorney games, starting with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All, contain a gimmick that involves the main character using extrasensory abilities to put the situation together. Phoenix had a magatama to use in breaking Psyche-locks, Apollo needed to Perceive to find the answer, and Edgeworth must use Logic. Presumably as a demonstration of how smart and level-headed he is compared to the rest of the loonies in the cast. It works pretty well, and it’s probably the most realistic of the aforementioned examples. It’s also the easiest to use, though that’s in-fitting with the rest of the game’s comparatively lax difficulty.

The music, provided by Noriyuki Iwadare (with some assistance from Yasuko Yamada), is great, and practically begs for its own Gyakuten Meets Orchestra installment. I’m sure the big Apollo Justice orchestral production will wait until another one or two games are released in that series (if ever?), but the music here is so good that waiting for one is going to be a pain.

If you’re a fan of the older games, you know almost exactly what to expect here. Heck, you’ve probably already played this game! And if you haven’t yet, I’m just going to assume there’s a good reason you haven’t gotten around to it. We just came off a ridiculously crowded first quarter for video games, so if you unfortunately missed it, it’s still around.