Resurrection: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Fight for your Wright…

Resurrection

RESURRECTION is a regular feature in which Resolution takes a look back at an older game. This week, Lewis Denby goes to court with PHOENIX WRIGHT: ACE ATTORNEY.

Apparently it’s Easter, or something. I wouldn’t know. Mornings have turned to afternoons, nights have turned to mornings, and the world’s been ticking away beyond the curtains. I, on the other hand, have been sitting on my bed playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for ever spare second of this week – and a fair few seconds that weren’t spare at all, as well.

As you may already know if you read the site regularly, my friend lent me her DS Lite this week. I’ve never owned one. The Phoenix Wright series passed me by. In effect, I’m not really resurrecting anything here. This is my first experience with the completely and utterly bonkers adventure series from Japan, and I cannot explain how much of a delight it is to be discovering this wonderful, wonderful game with fresh eyes.

The premise: you’re a newly qualified defense attorney whose best friend has been implicated in a moider. Despite your crippling lack of experience – which is so apparent the judge has you answer a series of basic questions about the case before you can proceed. It’s a tutorial, see! – he’s asked you to defend him in court. You accept, and you win, and suddenly your mentor’s been killed as well and you’re caught up in the most sublimely ridiculous story you could ever dare to imagine.

Raspberries

Favourite thing? The cast of characters. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is split down the middle between basic hidden-object-style examination of crime scenes (in this version of reality, it’s perfectly acceptable for lawyers to disturb crime scenes), and interaction with other people. The depth to which you can delve into the examination process is impressive, but it’s the glorious dialogue that steals the show. And when I say “glorious”, I mean “completely and utterly nuts”, obviously.

Everyone in Ace Attorney needs institutionalising. Schizophrenia is rife. Characters jump from placid smiles to furious, wide-eyed rage in a split second, then quickly drop back down to their previously contented state. And no one seems to think anything of it. This is just how things work in this crazy world. Succumbing to wild bouts of uncontrollable anger, perhaps, is what lets these people trot along so happily the rest of the time.

Then there’s the dialogue itself. Which seems to have been written by a pair of bickering six-year-olds. That’s the highest compliment I could possibly pay it. It’s fantastic. The game practically spends its time shouting, “No, you shut up!” and blowing raspberries, but it works. So well, in fact, that I’ve ended up succumbing to more wild bouts of uncontrollable laughter than I can remember while playing a game in a long time. It’s the absolute funniest of modern adventures, and that’s not because it thinks being juvenile and stupid is clever, but because being juvenile and stupid is actually clever when you nail the comedic effect.

In court, interaction moves away from a mere list of dialogue options and into the realms of ridiculous cross-examination. No reason is given why you’re not allowed to call your own witnesses, but it doesn’t matter, because Ace Attorney’s twisted internal logic works all the better for its lack of concessions to the real world. Carefully going through witnesses’ statements, you’re required to do things like shouting “HOLD IT!” or “OBJECTION!” as you pick apart the contradictions in their testimonies, or present the court with new evidence that disproves the tales they’re trying to spin. Doing so leaves the court’s attendees in absolute shock, and the witnesses with sweat literally squirting out of their brows, and it’s never anything short of gloriously brilliant.

Continues…

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