Phoenix Wright 3: What I did all Saturday
Phew, I just finished Phoenix Wright 3: Trials and Tribulations. There went my entire Saturday… I only stopped to go to the bathroom, eat, and nap (maybe I shouldn’t play in bed).
For those that don’t know, Phoenix Wright games are about a defense attorney named Phoenix Wright who goes around, investigating things and going through trials to clear his clients’ names. It’s basically an adventure game about a law system that doesn’t make any sense (confidentiality? evidence tampering? discovery? innocent until proven guilty? Whatchu talkin’ about??). So how does this game compare to the first two? It’s very similar to its predecessors: it’s got identical gameplay, a lot of ridiculous characters, ridiculous plot twists, and humorous script. I loved the first game, and though the second game was more tedious, I still enjoyed it. Phoenix Wright 3 is the last of a trilogy story-wise; the next Ace Attorney game will star not Phoenix Wright, but newcomer Apollo Justice. It doesn’t have a DS-specific game like the first Phoenix Wright, but I think this iteration makes it up in plot and story.
There are five cases in the game. Unlike the previous two games, where the cases are mostly unrelated to each other, three of the five cases are very closely tied together. Not only are the cases coherent with each other, the final case ties everything together in all three games into a nice, neat package with a bow on top. I found story-telling in this game to be excellent, and to have all the loose ends in previous games come together really made it great end to the trilogy. Not that the story is totally logical or anything; it wouldn’t be a Phoenix Wright game without twists and turns that are really out there. There are two cases in the middle that are their own thing, but the dialogue and plot twists keep them interesting. (One thing I didn’t like about the second game was that the stories, despite being random and ridiculous, weren’t all that interesting. You’d think a case about circus freaks would be hilarious, but somehow it managed to be the boringest Phoenix Wright case ever.) From good to bad, I’d rate the cases like this: 5, 2, 1, 4 (I like this one, but it turned out to be so short! Disappointing…), 3.
The cast of Phoenix Wright 3 is mostly returning characters, so you’ll see a lot of familiar faces. Despite this, the game seems fresh as you play through other people’s perspective in some parts, mainly Mia Fey. The tutorial case for the game is a flashback to one of Mia Fey’s first cases when she was still a law newbie. It’s weird to see her act insecure and naive (basically a Phoenix Wright with big boobs), when we’ve known her in the past as the wise and all-knowing mentor of Phoenix. While old characters are given a new spin, there are still an abundance of new ones. One of the new characters is Godot, the mysterious coffee-obsessed prosecutor that hates Phoenix and wears a mask that looks like it was stolen from Daft Punk. Totally absurd, totally typical of a Phoenix Wright character.
The gameplay is the same as the old games: walk around and investigate, interrogate people at the right time with the right questions, go trial, object with evidence on contradictions at the right time. Sometimes, it takes a lot of trial and error; you might not know what’s going on and need to try all the options, or you know what’s going on but can’t convey in the language of game actions. Luckily, options are finite, save points are generous, and the dialogue often hints at what sort of logic you should be using. It’s been a while, but I remember the first game being pretty tough sometimes, while the second game tried too hard to be… hard and was occasionally totally random in their ways of thinking. I felt the lines of interrogation in the third game were fairly logical, maybe even too straightforward sometimes. It seemed, overall, easier than the first games. There were still a couple try-everything-possible moments, and I did have to use GameFAQs for one case. Even if you know what’s going on, sometimes you just don’t activate the right things to proceed (particularly during investigations, where everything is action/event based)… an annoying trait carried on from previous games. A couple times, even when you find out the truth, it still doesn’t make any sense (or maybe I was just over thinking it).
The localization for this game was very well-done. Like the previous games, they took a Japanese game and really made it palatable to Americans. The play on words and cheesy humor I found to be entertaining and funny; I even LOLed a few times. I’ve read in other reviews that this import version has a serious problem with typos. While there were typos, it wasn’t enough to ruin my enjoyment of the game. In fact, this one felt like it had less typos than the second one, but maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention.
I enjoyed this game. A LOT. I’m really bummed the import version of Apollo Justice doesn’t have an English translation, but I can take comfort in knowing it will eventually released stateside and that it will be very, very good (9/9/9/9 from Famitsu!), being first Ace Attorney game with no cases ported from an earlier GBA game (all DS-specific gameplay). It will be a long wait for me though. Anyways, despite not having a special-for-DS game, I think I liked this more than the first Phoenix Wright (the second game was definitely the worst of the three). 9/10
If you want to check out this game out, you can import it from Play-Asia or preorder the American version, coming out in October. If your preorder the American one, you can even get some cheap-o, deformed Phoenix Wright plushie! (I know I’ve got mine preordered!) If you’re new to the series, check out the first two games before this one, since this game refers to a lot in old games. Also, this type of game isn’t everybody’s cup of tea; it’s fairly slow and not action oriented and has no replay value. But if you like story/character heavy games or adventure games, it’s certainly worth a shot.
New thing I learned today: Discovery is the phase before a trial where defense and prosecution must share unprivileged information with each other. Each side must know what evidence the other side intends to use in trial. This prevents one side from hiding information and then surprising the other side by dropping the bomb during trial.
This happens ALL THE TIME in Phoenix Wright. I couldn’t think of the word for it, so I had to ask Kelvin. I didn’t even know this term existed in law.
