Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Kikuichimonji

Kikuichimonji

The latest chapter of the Ace Attorney series hits western shores next week. Can't wait? A playable demo of the first investigation is available online.

I'm a pretty big fan of the Ace Attorney series, so I'll be sure to grab this once it comes out. I'm not sure if it will be as good as the Phoenix Wright games, but I'm glad to see something like this instead of another Apollo Justice game, as I wasn't a huge fan of Apollo. (Didn't like the characters as much and the bracelet mechanic didn't make sense at some points and I had to consult a walkthrough at several points.) The Edgeworth "logic" function seems a lot more...logical, for lack of a better term. I also like the inclusion of elements like cross examination in the investigation portions, as the investigations in Phoenix Wright sometimes seemed quite dull to me.
 
Meh, too lazy to play through the demo, but I'm sure I'll come around playing it soon. I haven't read much about this game, but I hope that it provides some back story about the Von Karmas and Edgeworth's life with them. And yeah, Apollo Justice was fail compared to Phoenix Wright >.<
 
ACE ATTORNEY FTW BABY WOOOOO! I pre orded the game. Cant wait to play it (hope its better than Apollo justice not saying that one was bad but definitely the worst one in the series so far.)
 
remember to keep spoilers out, i'm sick of the people who told me that
kristoph was behind everything
when i played apollo justice
 
Woah, I'd forgotten about this. I was pretty psyched about it when it was announced.

I've played the demo, the series still has great music. I'm not too sure that I care for the moving around mechanic with the touch screen, but I expect that was because I used solely the mouse for working the demo, seemed a bit cumbersome to me.

Still, can't wait
 
I played the first one, loved it. Finished the third one thinking it was the second. I then realized my mistake and played the second one next. Halfway through it, I decided to stop pirating DS games...

So I still need to finish it, and then Apollo Justice. That being said, I'll prolly pick this up eventually. Edgeworth is awesome.
 
just started the 4th case, the game is amazing so far....sds, jumpluff and accent aren't finished yet either. amazing plot twist at the very beginning of this case...I'm so excited for the 5th case
 
a complaint that i (as well as accent) have is how you figure out small parts of the case as you go along, instead of just piecing it all together in the interrogation. of course this renders the logic system useless but i liked how phoenix and apollo figured out the killer at the last minute. just started the fifth case, hope it's as good as some people made it out to be
 
My friend bought it the day it came out. Apperantly he beat it in 3 days. He's pretty obsessed...
Though when I played the game, (he let me borrow it) I thought it was pretty good. Great music and charecters in the main series, to be sure.
 
I've bought it and am loving it so far, I've almost finished the 3rd case. And I don't know, I'm really liking the new logic system and gradual release of information. I think you have to remember that it is an investigation game as opposed to a courtroom game, and such the focus is on extracting the facts.

Some kid has already spoilt the plot for me.
 
I'm at the fourth chapter so far, and it's awesome. I'm really happy and impressed with the million of references to the past games it has!

My only complaint is the lack of screen touch functions... I felt there were a lot of things that could have easily used the them.
 
Finished it.

I don't know, I'm not sure I ever used the touchscreen once, apart from tapping the choice to confirm my saving when I'm winding it up for a day. I agree there were a lot of opportunities to use the touch screen, I thought the luminol in case 5 of the first Phoenix Wright was brilliant and it could have been implemented so many times in this game.

But still, it was great to play another game of the Ace Attorney series, it had me captivated this past week.
 
Finished it as well.

The gameplay felt very smooth, and I enjoyed it so much in fact that going back to the original PW games seems like a huge step backwards. Being able to move around between locations and crime scenes really made things seem more realistic and interactive.

The music, a huge part of PW games for me, was also really good and did not disappoint. I especially liked the remixing and incorporation of previous themes, such as Edgeworth's and Gumshoe's themes. The testimony music was great and the character themes fit quite well, especially Detective Badd and Agent Lang.

I also liked all the cameos from previous games, although they carefully avoided the mention of Phoenix Wright, just as they did in Apollo Justice where Maya and Pearl weren't mentioned by name but only hinted at. I've always wondered why they felt the need to do that...especially when veteran players know exactly who there are. Hell, you can even see Phoenix, Maya, and pearl riding in a canoe in Case 3. But of course Edgeworth doesn't notice them because he's blind. :P

Overall, great game. The only substantial gripe that I have is the last case. The last few testimonies dragged the pace quite a bit, and while the game was building up to this huge epic climax it turned out to leave quite a few loose ties and stones unturned. Maybe they wanted to leave it to our imagination, but I would've liked a bit more closure on certain things.
 
I have a lot of complaints about this game, even though I loved it overall (which isn't that surprising since this is my favorite game series).

Edgeworth as a hero is a little weird. He isn't as much of an asshole as he was in previous games which I kind of miss, but whatever.

Overall the writing is really awkward at points. Like I can't really be the only one bothered by the constant incorrect usage of the word 'however,' right? >_> like, right? Anyway, there were some other oddities too and it just generally wasn't as 'polished' as in past games I think. I also agree that the last case was disappointing for the same reasons as jad. I think this has much to do with the somewhat awkward writing, but more to do with more 'inherent' issues with the game itself.

I think the biggest issue with the game is that they apparently thought they didn't have to put as much effort into the new characters if they just made the investigation phases good enough. Which I guess is true, but I mean, they didn't really end up improving the investigations all that much. It's like one of the old games, except you're interacting with the new characters a lot less and getting... sort of better investigations. The next game could be really really good if they either make it more like the old games, or less. As it is now, it's a bit of a watered-down version, although all of the old characters except Edgeworth are in top form and there are certainly some very entertaining new characters too.
 
Would someone be able to tell me the order of all of these games?

Cos I finished the first one, now am about halfway through I think is the second one [Justice For All] and I'm a bit confused about which one is the next.
 
lol I see Thorns has kept people updated on my progress in the game :P

gingbino, it's:
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (1)
PW: AA: Justice For All (2)
PW: AA: Trials & Tribulations (3)
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (5)
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (4)
That's the order in which they were released; the numbers indicate the chronological position of the games.

Anyway, I finished AAI... I liked it, but I'm still hugely disappointed. I mean it's a great game but I find it to be a lot worse than the rest of the Ace Attorney series... which makes me even more frustrated considering how much I love these games.

After finishing AAI, I started the first AA again, to see if my thoughts were founded or not, and it turns out I was far from the truth - it was even worse than what I remembered! I'll explain.

In AAI, here is the basic progress:
-examine the scenes, find ~2 pieces of evidence and ~4 bits of logic
-connect the bits of logic (when you have only 4 it's pretty obvious)
-talk to a key character, who gives you a testimony made of 3-4 statements
-if you miss the statement you have to object to, just wait until the end of their testimony, since the answer will basically be told to you via Edgeworth's and Kay's dialogue
-if you still don't find it, you can try everything since the penalties are NEVER dangerous
-manage to raise an objection that makes you progress a tiny little bit into the story

In the previous games:
-go from place to place, with minor guesswork since the next place to visit is heavily hinted at
-talk to people, present one item, unlock two dialogue choices, maybe find a piece of evidence in the scenery
-in trial: the testimonies are often 7-8 statements long, sometimes even longer (granted, some are pointless but it's still harder to find the one you're supposed to counter)
-you often have only a slight idea of what you should present, and aren't sure at all
-you are only allowed FIVE MISTAKES (even AA2, 3 and 4 are way more severe than AAI)
-when you finally find what to present, you unlock a pretty big part of the story, with deductions you sometimes hadn't planned (but it fits since Phoenix hadn't planned anything either, he was just bluffing)

The result is that in AAI you feel like the game is holding your hand through the whole story, guiding you from A to Z, and you lose the feeling that the main character's success depends on you. And that's only from a systemic point of view, but scenaristically it's also weak.

You almost never feel the danger, the seriousness of the situation. In AA1, the situations you are in are very stressful and Wright often has a huge task to overcome -
Maya, Edgeworth and yourself are accused of murder; you risk contempt of court; you see the Guilty verdict fall with no way to avoid it; you are even attacked by Von Karma and Maya risks her life -
while in AAI you are never in a very stressful situation on a personal level. The only thing at stake is either something that's not directly related to Edgeworth (a political conflict...) or a feeble answer to his emo questions ('what is my purpose in this world' and such).

The characters are pretty bland. The AA series were famous for their colourful, larger-than-life characters that made the cases so hilarious at times... but in AAI, it looks like the designers tried to make them look more real. What's the point? I mean, sure, Badd is cool, but come on, where are the spirit mediums, the geek directors, the pervert doctors, the clowns, the gay chefs...? And there are also no good sprite changes, apart from the one in the first case. A pretty important part of the trials in the AAs were when you finally managed to break the culprit and he revealed his true identity, often with a clever sprite modification. That doesn't happen anymore - well it does but it's not 'clever', it's just 'obvious'. To be honest the sprites also look subpar from the start (I mean, look at the mouths - wtf?). Actually the cases themselves are pretty bland...


Anyway I think I could find even more things that disappointed me in the game, but I'll stop here, it's enough already. And don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the game, and in some respects it was the best in the series; going back to the Examine, Talk, Move, Present buttons is a pain for example - the dialogue is much more well done in AAI, you can just walk to someone and present something immediately... but overall, it's far from being as good as any of the previous episodes imo.
 
Blame Game said:
Overall the writing is really awkward at points. Like I can't really be the only one bothered by the constant incorrect usage of the word 'however,' right? >_> like, right? Anyway, there were some other oddities too and it just generally wasn't as 'polished' as in past games I think.
Click to expand...
Awkward translations are nothing new to the Ace Attorney franchise. That being said, I think that most of the games are pretty well-localized.
 
This game made Edgeworth officially on my list on the characters with the most definitive character development on the series. This game is really great. Definitely a good way to rest from the courtroom and explore the investigative aspect of the series.

By the way, Turnabout Ablaze is also one of the best cases in the series so far.
 
I honestly thought that AAI just flowed much, much better than anything we've seen from the series so far, and it was a real treat to see all the cases tie into each other once. I still love T&T just for the twist ending, but AAI had so much going for it that it wouldn't be crazy to call it the best Ace Attorney game yet.
 
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