Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice For All

For a game that’s essentially a courtroom-based text adventure with a few cursory graphics thrown in, it’s rather amazing how popular the Phoenix Wright series has become. True, shouting ‘Objection!’ at your DS to provoke a reaction is immensely satisfying, although the fact that the Japanese GBA versions were cult successes before such a feature even exists defies all logic. After all, at its heart Phoenix Wright is an incredibly basic and linear ‘lawyer’ adventure with only one path to victory and plenty of confusing ‘puzzles’ along the way. Of course, with the original game proving to be a cult hit worldwide rather than just in Japan, it only makes sense that Capcom should make a bit of effort with the DS sequel; where the GBA follow-ups only added new cases instead of altering the core gameplay, Justice For All makes some crucial tweaks that change how things play out. The most important of these alterations is the addition of an ‘energy bar’ for Phoenix that remains constant throughout the entire case you’re currently working on – whereas before you’d be given limited ‘chances’ to question each witness during the cross-examination only, now you can be penalised at other times too and these penalties carry over until the judge reaches a verdict. Thankfully, this bar can be topped up by successfully unlocking Psyche- Locks, the game’s other new addition; certain characters hiding information have ‘locks’ that need to be sprung with the correct evidence, after which they’ll spill the beans.

Unfortunately, it’s the thought demanded of the player that actually spoils Justice For All – not because you need to actually put it in, but rather that the logic behind some of the ‘prove me wrong’ puzzles is completely warped at times. That there’s only one answer to each situation means that even evidence that seems perfectly accurate can sometimes be wrong, which is annoying when the correct article actually turns out to be something you’d never have thought of. That said though, anyone willing to plough through lots of text will find a rich and rather rewarding adventure game that, if it wasn’t for the GBA and DS, would have died off long ago.