The End is Nigh: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

By Martin Gaston

‘The End is Nigh’ is a weekly column by Play.tm’s Martin Gaston, pondering the nature of videogame endings and why we do or don’t choose to finish the games we play. This week: Apollo Justice – Ace Attorney and its novel influence.

When it comes to game endings, Apollo Justice takes an interesting approach.

If you don’t finish it, what’s the point? The game models itself on vintage trinkets society occasionally sees celebrities peddle: books. There’s a distinct structure, the heavy amount of text means characters can be developed, the protagonist’s cases end up intertwined into one colossal narrative and there’s an easily definable beginning, middle and end. Although that makes it sound more complex than it actually is.

I’ve often proportionally linked the desire for any player to finish a game to their enjoyment of the narrative. Apollo Justice deserves special recognition because, crucially, it models itself around storytelling formats made prevalent in the nineteenth century, when then-new technology allowed for a rise in mass-market fiction consumption. Consider the Victorian lending libraries – large, travelling and portable mobile libraries that functioned as the sole repository of fiction for many – and the nineteenth-century authors who learned to utilise the imminent splitting (the lending libraries separated them to allow for easier stock rotation) of their now-iconic work into three volumes: savvy authors realised that using metered, conscious rising and falling actions in each volume of their novels drove readers forward to the end. Apollo Justice, almost two hundred years later, is doing the same.

The game exemplifies its trick at every turn. The game opens on the revelation that Phoenix Wright (the series’ former protagonist) has lost his ability to practice law – a shocking plot revelation if the player has experienced the previous three games; a guaranteed way to keep them playing if they have. As each case closes, and the game’s plot progresses, Apollo muses to himself – and, of course, the player – of the imminent rising tension and eventual conflict at the end of the game. If the game has succeeded in drawing the player in, they soon realise completing the plot is only possibly by completing the game.

Gameplay is crude by comparison. Apollo Justice is a puzzler where presenting (or finding) the right items of evidence allows the player to pass through imposed junctions to progression. The right tool is usually blatant enough, and in instances where it’s not boiling the action down to repetitious trial-and-error searches results in the conundrums being simple enough to solve. It’s safe to say I didn’t complete the game, or the three former entries in the series, because of the gameplay.

It’s the final chapter that provides the game’s resolution. The ending ties together many of the game’s previous cases and reveals the overarching plot, therefore solving the mystery of the narrative. But the ending itself isn’t what’s important; it’s the realisation that the player has been tapping the stylus on the DS’s screen for hours to get to this moment. The ending is the very crux of Apollo Justice, the successful resolutions of the four previous cases are nothing more than entrées to the main course. There’s no point to the game if the player misses it.

The success of the game hinges on its ability to build up the kind of narrative you’d experience in a novel, culminating in a rarity amongst a medium that too-often longingly models itself on the event-packed storytelling of Hollywood. It spurs the player on through its precise handling of tiny details, so when Apollo presents the crucial bit of evidence at the decisive moment, which is always accompanied by a flash on the screen and a flaring of the DS’s tinny sound chip, the player feels hugely rewarded and eminently capable. Capcom are handling simple concepts with brilliant execution.

If the player warms to the narrative in the early chapters it’s inevitable they’ll finish. Satisfaction is derived from enjoyment of the narrative, and whilst it might take weeks – or, in my case, months – of repeated attempts and false starts, the player will eventually see the end credits scroll. That’s the entire point.