Zvarri! May not be the best, but still a fitting end to a great trilogy.
Anyway, you start off as, oh! Mia Fey, Phoenix Wright's mentor! This case actually involves a college era Phoenix Wright, and why is he wearing a pink sweater? Well, you'll have to find out. So the only thing I'm gonna say about this is that it involves a really complex new character that will literally haunt the next few cases!
You go through the paces of the tutorials as well, making this game accessible even if you haven't played the first 2, and the backstories of the existing characters are summarized, so not that much need to worry, although there are times when you have to play the first 2 to get something that's meant to be funny.
Anyway, it's the same gameplay as the first and second where you'll only point and click through several options such as "Talk" for selecting a topic to talk about to someone, "Present" for presenting evidence to a person, "Move" to go to another location, and "Examine" which is for examining the location for clues, in its investigation phase, and in the courtroom stage: the "Press", which you can do for getting more information from a witness' statement during a cross-examination, and "Present" which is for presenting evidence that contradicts the testimony. Present the wrong evidence, and a green bar will be depleted, much like an energy bar in fighting games.
You will also encounter the "Psyche-locks", a feature first introduced in Justice For All. They appear if a character is hiding something from you, and it's due to the green jade charm called Magatama. You present this Magatama and you should be able to present sufficient evidence that will make a person spill the beans.
It was a nice refreshing change of gameplay in its predecessor, but it's not now. The elements in this game are totally recycled-- even the cons of the past two games are recycled as well! The game still only follows one story and one story alone, so it's linear. Choices to be made are mostly not different from one another except in one time during one cross-examination, and if you want to proceed to another part of the game, you have to do one thing first before it gets initiated. So sometimes, you get stumped looking for what to do, presenting every little piece of evidence to every person and check whether a new topic has unlocked. It's almost always like this, and it's pretty much confusing for the novice player.
The save system is still the same: you can save anywhere, and once again, it puts the penalty system to the back-burner. I mean, you can always save before making a choice or presenting a piece of evidence when you're not sure, so if you lose and get a Guilty verdict for your client instead, you can go back to where you left off, literally. Still, this is, once again, a portable game so the save system is more of a blessing than a real curse.
But what saves this game from being really boring is, once again, the engaging characters. Yeah, there are some really annoying new characters that appear (RON IS THE EPITOME OF ANNOYING!) and some returning characters that get pinned for the same crime again (MAGGIE?! I'm defending you again?!) and for most of the cases, Larry Butz just has to testify (and he is, by the way, the first client of Wright in the first installment) in his wishy-washy, annoying way! Of course, me complaining about them is also attesting to the fact that even with only 3 or 4 frames of animation in a character, they can convey much emotion, and that they have their own individual personalities which is further made to stand out due to their own respective "theme songs" that play in the background when you converse with them. The writing is very much great as well, and there are more pop-culture references than ever!
Moving on, the sound and artwork, even though mostly recycled, still do the job, and heck, Pearl is one of the most adorable characters ever! And here's another quirky character: the new prosecutor Godot. He is key to many cases, and the last case is simply very explosive! He's a coffee-addict, to be sure, but he has a very interesting past, and he is just a really interesting character, and a good reason to get the game.
Overall, the game feels like Justice For All all over again, but the only thing difference is the inclusion of Godot and "that girl". Actually, this is more of a game for the fans, but it's still accessible for newbies who don't know the whole picture. The writing is still nice and funny, the music still nice, and the gameplay still good even if it's recycled. I mean, they could've at least put a new game mechanic in this one, but speaking as a fan, I still find this game really nice, and still a worthy recommendation. Heck, the finishing blow of this game is pretty satisfying and not too over-the-top, and that's because it's simply that way in real life as well. You win a case, you eventually get another.
But if you haven't bought the first one yet, buy that one first, then play through the second and eventually the third.