People who loves this genre of game will like it, while AA die-hard fans will love it. Buy it :D
Positive (+)
- The features of investigating are just right. We can move around to examine and talk so players can feel involved in the investigation.
- No more illogical cases.
All of the case (5 cases) is just well-written and the puzzle is logical. You have to think 'out of the box' but not 'far to the box'--or I should say, there's no more cases with only high-probability but without logical explanation, like most issues we had with JFA and AP cases.
- Nostalgic characters (for AA die-hard fans) appearances.
There are so many old characters that brings the atmosphere up, like Lotta Hart, Wendy Oldbag, Larry Butz, Sal Manela, Max Galactica, and many more. And if you're lucky, you can even get a slight glance of Phoenix, Maya, and Pearl!
- Interesting new characters: Kay Faraday and Shi-Long Lang.
Finally Capcom can introduce new characters nicely, not like in AP. I'm not AP hater, but I could say that no matter how intriguing investigation features in AP, AP is really lack of storyline. Two major characters like Apollo and Trucy feels like suddenly pop out of nowhere, and then we're 'forced' to love these characters without knowing their history and life. Fortunately, in this game, through the cases, we can see Kay Faraday's and Shi-Long Lang's past so we will potentially love these characters, or at least, 'receive' these new characters.
- Well-written story troughout cases.
Maybe soon you'll realize that Kay is like Maya, a perky assistant, and Shi-Long Lang feels like Godot, or someone else who had grudge with the main character (in this case, Miles), but you won't feel that they plainly 'replace' the old characters. Although they're in the same position, you know that they're 'different character'. That's because this game is just well-written. Nostalgic to old AA series, but not over-shadowing the new one.
Negative (-)
- Less humor.
What you can expect? Our Edgey is not like Phoenix who is naive and seek for truth since the very beginning. Not to mention that Edgey has more girls who love him (in game). Oh, wait. Don't count that one xD Miles is prosecutor who seeks for 'perfection': "to give guilt-verdict to all criminals" (but soon realize prosecutor needs to seek the truth, not the verdict, not the victory). In old AA series, we can get fun when the main character, Phoenix, get 'bullied' by others because he's not as handsome and famous as Miles, or such thing, but now, we play as character who is depicted as 'great prosecutor'. It means 'less bullied by people'. They still had the same funny sarcasm indeed, but due to Miles's edgy personality, it's just not as funny as Phoenix. Well, for me, although this game has less humor, at least I can see more Edgey faces when he's pissed off.
- Less investigation features.
In AP and the 5th case of AA:PW (Rise from the Ashes), we can do luminol, fingerprint, and also footprint tests on our own. But in this game, we lost all of those features. Personally, I'm not digging the footprint (shoes-print) tests, but I kinda like the luminol and fingerprint tests.
- Repetitive dialogue when examining.
For example, you've examined the table then dialogue occurs. Then you're in 'zoom-in' mode, and you examine the table again, and dialogue occurs again, but you can't fast-forward the dialogue as if you're examining two different things. Maybe they should fix this in the future game.
So that's it.
About the difficulty, I'm not sure. My friend said he got stuck in the 3rd case, while I can finish it easily. That's why I set it as 'just right'.
I think I can finish this game easily because this game contains more logical cases so if we follow general-way of thinking, we can see how to solve the puzzle clearly. But other people said this game is easier than the old series.
All I can say that this game is easy not because the case is easy. This game is 'easy' because the cases based on common sense, not 'because this is likely to happen that's why this murder happened' or such thing (JFA - Turnabout Big Top: This case really suffers from this issue. What happened in the case is only based on probability so this case feels bit ridiculous).
About the background music, I think the first and 3rd AA series still have the best music. They can bring the right mood for the scene. But this series still have better music than AP (in general).
The graphics is obviously improved (but that's why when I play this in emulator, it's more laggy than the old series, lol)