Apollo Justice looks to be everything the Phoenix Wright trilogy was and more.
Those of you who still refer to the series as the "Phoenix Wright series", stop it. It's the Ace Attorney series. Phoenix Wright was simply the series' featured character for a while. Now players assume the role of Apollo Justice, a rookie attorney out to point his big finger for the sake of justice. Apollo Justice, Ace Attorney is the first Ace Attorney game developed exclusively for the Nintendo DS. Those of you who played Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney (the first game) might remember that there was an exclusive fifth case that featured touch screen gameplay mechanics unseen in any of the game's sequels. All of those gameplay mechanics and more return in Apollo Justice, making it the deepest game in the Capcom's now long-running and incredibly hysterical court series.
The game is divided into five chapters, each including their own court case with a very interesting background story. As Apollo Justice with the help of Trucy Wright, Phoenix's 15-year old daughter, it's your job to gather evidence and snoop around for clues to help defend each client. Along the way you'll meet a lot interesting suspects, both new and familiar. Getting things done in the investigation phase is pretty simple, as the only means of gameplay are pointing with your stylus and reading text throughout the menus in the game.
The bulk and real fun in the game lies in the courtroom. Never played an Ace Attorney game before? No problem! The first chapter immediately has you in the middle of a case, and the tutorial is spot-on and very helpful. After gathering the proper information and talking to all the right people, it's up to you to use the knowledge that you picked up to solve the case. Witnesses on the stand will provide their testimonies, and it's your job to dissect each testimony by pointing out all the lies and contradictions provided in their words. Presenting the right evidence during the right time during a Cross-Examination will allow you to delve deeper into the case until you reach that "Not Guilty" verdict.
75% of the gameplay is pretty much identical to that of the previous games, but as stated before you do have the DS-exclusive features at your disposal. Each piece of evidence you gather, with the exception of information, maps, pictures, and diagrams are in full 3D. That being said, you have to search every nook and cranny of your evidence closely making sure there's nothing strange about any of them. You also have the ability to dust for finger prints during select cases when needed. This is done by choosing the item you have, and then loading it up with dust, and finally blowing away all the dust to discover those prints. These rather new features make the game more realistic and it's good to finally have an Ace Attorney game that makes legit use of the DS capabilities.
The game looks just about the same as every Ace Attorney game before it with the exception of each character being new or having distinct changes since it is essentially 7-10 years following the events of Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. While its respectable to abide by the "if it's not broken, don't fix it" rule, the game could deal with some more changes visually. On the other hand, the game makes use of the ActImagine codec which produces high quality CGI cutscenes which look so much better than the "cutscenes" of previous games.
Like the game's visual style, the sound hasn't changed much at all as well. While the sound is still extremely effective (this has essentially always been the strong point of the Ace Attorney series), it could still do with some upgrades here and there. A lot of games now are starting to have voice acting, so it would be quite fitting to have more voice acting aside from all the "OBJECTION!"s, "HOLD IT!"s, and "TAKE THAT!"s. The court case music is different in every game but stays the same in each game as well, but again, it could deal with some change. Maybe use every court case song in different cases, perhaps?
Despite what may be setbacks with the lack of true blue changes to the graphics and sound, Apollo Justice looks to be everything the Phoenix Wright trilogy was and more. The background stories within each chapter remain as interesting as ever, while also being longer and much more challenging than they ever were (the first case took almost 3 hours; the first case of the first game was lasted around 45 minutes at most). That being said, unless you absolutely hate games that have a lot of reading, it's extremely hard to not recommend Apollo Justice-especially if you're a hardcore Ace Attorney fan. If you're new to the series, it's best advised to start with the first game, so you can have more of a grasp of what to really expect. This story-driven title has a lot to offer, including the specifics on how Phoenix Wright lost his attorney badge-oh, darn. One of the story elements has been leaked, and now you're pretty much forced to pick this up. TAKE THAT!