AAI meets the standards for a game of the series, but doesn't stand out much.
Graphics/Presentation- 8/10
The animated sprites are a new addition to the series, and they really added in a new experience. Other than that, the usual close-up images of the characters were nice as well.
Gameplay- 7/10
Though walking around during the investigations was a pretty nice feature, you can only walk around at certain points in the game, when you're actually conducting the investigation. Another new aspect is the use of Little Thief, which helps you inspect crime scenes before or during the time the crime was committed. The logic function mostly served to help move the story along, but the deduction feature was more useful in that it actually hinted new facts about your pieces of evidence. The overall level of difficulty of this game was much easier than say, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. You don't need to have played the previous games to understand AAI (the only other PW game I've played was AA). I'd say this would be acceptable as a starting point for those who want to start playing this series.
One thing I absolutely hated was going through the same text over again after game over and starting from my save. The only time you can speed through text is after you've seen it once, but of course after game over, you see the same text again as if it's the first time you're seeing it. The slow pacing of some characters' texts (such as Detective Badd), seriously made me want to chuck my DS at a wall. It's mostly because of this that the game's amount of hours is dragged out.
Sound- 8/10
Nice variation of tracks, but of course there were a lot of recycled tunes from previous games. Some of the music really set the mood of the scenes.
Storyline- 6/10
Though all of the cases involved murder, none really grasped my interest. I'm not the biggest fan of PW, but hey, a game's story should at least try to get the attention of the gamer. Sometimes I just felt like I was pointing out the obvious in some cases. Just saying, but Capcom should try to make the cases more interesting instead of "complex".
Overall score: 7.25/10
Comments:
I'd have to say rent it first to see if you'll ever replay it. If you do plan on replaying, then buy it; if not, then just return it. Personally for me, it wasn't worth the $30. If you're a fan of the series, you'd probably like it, since the cases and style of gameplay are very similar to the previous games. No offense to fans, but tbh, the Ace Attorney series games are the only games that have made me fall asleep.