Shu Takumi, the creator of the original Ace Attorney trilogy, was largely inspired by the works of Arthur Conan Doyle. In the spin-off title The Great Ace Attorney, Sherlock Holmes (or Herlock Sholmes) is one of the main characters. In fact, the design philosophy of the entire series can almost be summed up in the famous words of the master detective himself: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” However, it wasn’t until “Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth” for the Nintendo DS that a “real” Sherlock Holmes game in the series was released. Now you can relive the adventure on the new consoles and even try your luck with the sequel, “The Prosecutor’s Gambit,” which has never left Japan.
Before we look at the two spin-off titles, let’s recap what Ace Attorney is all about. The series is known for its quirky characters and dramatic storylines that go off in all sorts of directions. This is especially evident in the games’ iconic trials, where you have to pressure witnesses and present evidence at the right time to save your innocent clients. But the series also has what I think is a somewhat less successful investigation section, where you prepare for said trials by gathering witness testimony and evidence. These sections are reminiscent of early Japanese adventure games from the mid-80s and early 90s in that you have to exhaust all conversations and interact with almost every object on the screen until you move on to a new scene and have to do it all again.
So what makes this collection more “Holmesian,” or at least more detective-like? First, there’s the protagonist himself, the brilliant district attorney Miles Edgeworth. Like Conan Doyle’s famous detective, Miles is both confident and extremely intelligent, as evidenced by his enthusiasm for expounding his own reasoning while wagging his finger condescendingly. Thankfully, his friends, like the kind-hearted Detective Dick Gumshoe and the ever-hapless Larry Butz, keep him grounded. They’re both returning characters from the main series, and their personalities are as fun and sparkling as ever, but it’s the new characters that really bring out the best in them. I particularly liked the teenage thief Kay Faraday, who becomes Edgeworth’s assistant, and Eustace Winner, a cocky but totally incompetent district attorney, but even the supporting characters show plenty of personality in their animation and dialogue.
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The gameplay itself has also taken a new approach, more reminiscent of magnifying glasses and deer hunters than Law & Order and the anime genre. Instead of a static first-person camera, you now see your characters as small sprites moving through the environment. However, the game switches to first-person when, for example, you’re examining a dead body or a larger, more suspicious object. In these cases, you may even have to point out a connection between an observed part of the screen and a piece of evidence in your file. In practice, this doesn’t change much, as you’re still scanning the screen for clues, but it does make the investigation more immersive. The same goes – for better or for worse – for the unique mechanics introduced in this collection.
In Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, the biggest innovation is that you not only collect evidence for your case, but also do a mental inventory of what you observe. Using Edgeworth’s sharp logic, you can make connections between these observations and come to new conclusions. In the sequel, The Prosecutor’s Gambit, these mechanics are complemented by Mind Chess. It sounds pretty fancy, but in reality it’s nothing more than a standard interrogation where you force your opponents to talk by choosing the right dialogue options, thus “checking” them. There’s also a unique mechanic tied to your assistant Kay Faraday and one of her tools, but I’ll refrain from giving any spoilers.
Both mechanics are beautifully presented, featuring spectacular transitions and effects – lightning whizzing across the screen, puzzle pieces falling into place, and chess pieces exploding – as if it were a prime-time television game show. You really You feel like a brilliant detective, but in reality I find both mechanics somewhat lacking. Making connections between observations is always very easy and doesn’t allow for juggling alternative interpretations (like in Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes titles), whereas Mind Chess is nothing more than complicated mazes of dressed-up dialogue that you often end up forcing your way through. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, as all the brain power you didn’t use while researching will be used up while you reason.
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These are basically condensed versions of the trials from the main games, where you have to poke holes in the testimony of witnesses, suspects, and even rival investigators or prosecutors. The game isn’t afraid to wear hand-me-downs, so to speak, as it even uses the same courtroom interface as the main games, and the characters often joke about what it’s like to be in the courtroom. The silence of the audience and all the fancy suits may be missing (except for Edgeworth’s, of course), but the quality is top-notch as always, and you’ll never cease to be surprised by the mastery with which the plot is developed, as you always know enough to present the right evidence at the right time. In short, the main improvement to these arguments is that they’re shorter than normal trials, but they’re more frequent. This makes the pacing of each case more balanced than in the main games, and the whole thing feels more cohesive as a result.
I haven’t said anything about the individual cases or the overall stories yet, as I think they’re best experienced with as blank a slate as possible. But I will say that the gameplay seems more cohesive, as does the story. Each game consists of five episodes, and while they can be played independently, there are so many threads connecting them that Capcom must have used a sewing machine. In fact, this applies to both games. Although Fiscal’s Gambit was released two years after the original in its native Japan, the events of the two games are set no more than two weeks apart, and many of the main characters appear in both.
The third episode of Prosecutor’s Gambit is a standout. Here you alternate between playing Miles in the present and his father Gregory in a flashback. There are 18 years between the two cases, but they are still masterfully intertwined, and although the premise is typically silly (a baking competition turned deadly), the plot is surprisingly complex and emotional. In short, Ace Attorney Investigations is one of the best stories in the series, and that’s saying a lot.
I’ve mentioned a few times before that the collection marks the first time Ace Attorney: The Prosecutor’s Gambit has been released in the West, but that’s not entirely true. In 2014, a team of dedicated fans released a translation of the game, subtitled “Prosecutor’s Path.” This translation has already won the hearts of many fans and honestly, after playing both versions, I find it hard to pick a favorite, as both have a lot of personality in every line. Even names are often a coin toss; I prefer Tabby Lloyd from the official translation to Nicole Swift for a nosy reporter, but I don’t think Eustace Winner beats Sebastian Debeste because of the aforementioned delusional prosecutor.
As for the new content, the mediocre extras (a music player, some concept art, a character gallery, and additional achievements) betray the games’ poor translation to the new consoles. Most of the textures remain the same but look noticeably sharper, and the small character sprites have been completely redrawn without looking out of place. It helps that the original games were beautiful, even on the Nintendo DS. The scenes are full of detail, the animation is top-notch, and the locations are varied: you’ll visit a theme park, a prison, and an airplane, to name a few. Some of the games’ theme songs are available in rearranged versions, and while the soundtrack is a little more subdued than in the main series, it’s still excellent.
As this is the fourth Ace Attorney collection in just over five years, it’s questionable whether Capcom is satisfying the series’ many fans or simply teasing them in a very cruel way. It’s been eight long years since we got the last game in the series, Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice, and a new chapter has been long awaited. Capcom hasn’t announced anything yet, so the wait will likely be even longer, but at least the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection gives us something to do in the meantime with its 60 or 70 hours of great gameplay and narrative.
