Rated CBAM!: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (Review)

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (Nintendo DS)

Rated “T” For “Teen”

In the Ace Attorney series, players had only been able to play on one side of the bench; the defense attorney side. But just like a coin, there are 2 sides to this story. In Ace Attorney Investigations, players now take on the role of the purple perfect prosecutor Miles Edgeworth as he investigates and solves cases without the confines of the courtroom.

=====Story=====

After returning from a trip, Edgeworth is met by a gunman in his office. Even though the gunman shies away, Edgeworth realizes that there is more to this mysterious appearance and theft of his office than what meets the eye. Events starting before this have slowly been turning and all lead to a smuggling ring and the notorious Great Thief Yatagarasu. Edgeworth has been embroiled in cases before, but this time there is more in store for the perfect prosecutor.

=====Gameplay=====

The staple environment of the Ace Attorney series, the courtroom, is no longer your main setting. As Edgeworth, you are actually at the scene of murders and crimes and are looking through all the nooks and crannies to find crucial evidence and hints to solve things.

You do still have your standard menus to cycle through. You can check your organizer to go over notes that Edgeworth has jotted down or look over certain pieces of evidence again. The 3D evidence is still a used function allowing you to further examine a piece of evidence closer for possible finger prints, blood stains, or any other thing that may look suspicious.

While menu navigation is still around, traveling is actually done by freely controlling Edgeworth and making him walk/run around the various settings he happens to be in. This adds more for exploring and examining as you can actually walk to almost any object or talk to any person at the scene to hopefully get extra hints towards solving the crime.

You also get a sidekick to tag along with you most of the time, but their use isn’t necessary. They provide more dialogue in the main parts of the story so that Edgeworth isn’t always having an inner/outer monologue. Showing them evidence or asking them questions usually doesn’t lead to anything important.

Another new addition to gameplay is the Logic system. Throughout investigations, Edgeworth will make mental notes of situations or things witnesses have said and store them away. Once a few pieces of Logic are available, it’s up to you to connect the pieces correctly so that new revelations will come about to help your pursuit of the truth. Connecting Logic pieces incorrectly as well as presenting or incorrect evidence will incur damage to your truth meter bringing the case to an abrupt halt and a guilty victim.

=====Difficulty=====

The Ace Attorney series has always been on the same level of difficulty. Ace Attorney Investigations is no different. The real difficulty comes from trying to get from Point A to Point B the way the game wants you to. While you might figure out who killed who with what and where, if you don’t unfold things in the right sequence, you will not get to your final conclusion. It may come from that piece of evidence you overlooked or maybe you didn’t examine a certain part of a room to find something important. These and the guilty criminals are what make your investigations a bumpy road.

=====Content=====

The 5 turnabouts in Ace Attorney Investigations brings loads of hours of play (15-20). That is pretty standard in the Ace Attorney world. Other than great stories and new interesting characters, Capcom has provided tons and tons of fan service.

Cameos of past Ace Attorney games return in big roles and minor roles or are sometimes just in the background. While some are important (Gumshoe), some are there for a little bit and then never seen from in future turnabouts.

Some familiar music comes at the right time. Those familiar tunes do a great service to the new tunes for Ace Attorney Investigations. The new songs are just as catchy, but fans of the series will have momentary times of joy when a favorite familiar song properly accompanies the scene.

There are a lot of references to other themes and settings throughout the game including foreign lands, badgers, dogs, foods, studio names, and a certain “person” that Edgeworth never acknowledges by name. All this fan service will have ace Ace Attorney players wondering what else is in store for them as they investigate onward.

=====Final Thoughts=====

While there isn’t much of a difference in the true gameplay style, the formula still works. Instead of being confined to the courtroom most of your game like in previous Ace Attorney titles, you’re in a different setting, but doing the same thing. Rebuttals are the same as Cross Examining. Deducing is just like showing an example in court by showing why a picture/item is contradictory with another piece of evidence. The Logic system is a nice addition as it allows you to link things together instead of always have facts and evidence stand alone and are what they are and nothing more.

And speaking of being outside of the courtroom, it’s a nice touch. Not just for the fact that you get a good number of environments to explore and interact with, but it also doesn’t “time” your turnabout. By “time” I mean that in previous Ace Attorney games, you knew it was going to end in court by the 3^rd day if it goes that long. With these investigations, you can tell you’re making progress towards the end, but the end is almost never definitive. The only cues to know you’re close to wrapping things up is through guilty character actions/reactions or by the change in music.

Another nice new touch is the angling of characters presented. Rather than how previous installments had witnesses and other figures talk at you during investigations, all major talking characters are displayed one or two at a time at an angle to where they are talking to each other rather than at you (similar to when talking in court). It's not a revolution by any means, but it shows more details in the characters and portrays more of the interaction going on between characters. And it is nice to see past characters do their familiar gestures at a different angle. These gestures carry onto the sprite characters who you actually get to see move and run around instead of...nothing.

Edgeworth's voice may sound like it has gone through a few voice actors (in America). Just comparing his "Objection" to his "Eureka" sounds as if someone else was chosen. His "Objection" sounds mighty, but anything he says beyond that sounds weaker and not fitting of him.

The ability to play as the almighty Edgeworth is a big draw for fans. While some would’ve like to have played as him behind the prosecutor bench, this is still a great way to play as him. Being Edgeworth helps you understand why he is the way is and why he thinks the way he thinks. At parts, Edgeworth might seem out of character (and could be easily substituted for a spiky-haired defense lawyer), it only seems right to do so. Playing as a cold and calculating character (awesome as that sounds) might not serve well as a proper purple perfect prosecutor protagonist.

Fans already know to get the game or they already have it. New fans of the series starting with this title will most likely not get all the nods towards the other titles. Minus the tons of fan service, Ace Attorney Investigations still delivers in having a great story that the series is known to have. Ace Attorney Investigations also opens up the door for potential Investigations sequels since Edgeworth is not the only prosecutor with a thirst for justice.