Game Review: Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney – OBJECTION!

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

CAPCOM

Free (for first two episodes) on Apple iOS and Android

CAPCOM, those rascals who brought you Street Fighter and various Resident Evil games, have brought their Nintendo DS (and Gameboy Advance) classic, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney to Apple iOS.

There are three games on offer and you can purchase all three as a bundle for £12 (yeowch), or £4 for the first game and £5 for the following two.

You can play the first two episodes for free and oh, the nostalgia.  There’s just something about over-emotive anime characters, even if the female characters are somewhat…over emphasised in Phoenix Wright.  In fact, the game in general is fairly sexist. This aside, it’s an enjoyable play through.

You play as Phoenix, a lawyer who has never been involved in a trial, who has (somehow) therefore ended up defending his friend in a murder case.  You play through listening to the testimony of a witness (Mr Sahwit – geddit?) and then cross examining with evidence to try and prove your friend (Larry Butz) innocent.  It sounds dry, but the game is silly enough that you’re entertained and you have to use enough brain power that you’re not bored; for the aspiring sleuths out there, you’ll enjoy checking evidence, piecing together facts and most of all, the shouted ‘OBJECTION!’ (in huge red letters) whenever you prompt Phoenix to challenge someone.

The graphics are neat and the game play is actually really well set out for a game which is basically just selecting options.  You can inspect crime scenes, choose to intervene, and select your dialogue options.  The silliness is palpable – the comic relief Larry makes clocks  in the shape of ‘The Thinker’ which tell the time by saying out loud ‘I..think it’s 8pm?’, and the judge is quite happy to have people suggest spurious conclusions to him during a trial, as well as agreeing on the moral character of the victim.

You only get two episodes free and £4 is pretty expensive for a mobile game but the two free episodes are enjoyable to play.