Would you believe me if I always wanted to play the series of Light Novels Phoenix Wright for its investigation and trial side, but I never could because I didn't have the 3DS?
Would you believe me if I told you that this saga was entitled to a kind of prequel tracing the origins of the first lawyer of the family of the protagonist of the main series?
Would you believe me if I told you that these 2 prequels were entitled to a compilation on Playstation, Steam and Switch?
Whether you believe me or not really doesn't matter! What matters is that I'm giving you the proof of what I'm saying to explain to you why I didn't hang on to what I had hoped for all these years to be a breath of fresh air in terms of concept and gameplay.
Yes, no suspense in this plea, gentlemen of the jury, sir, because I come to you with the humility of disappointment.
But before convincing you, allow me to recall the facts. The Great Ace Attorney Adventures is a spin-off of the series Phoenix Wright released in 2015 on 3DS and which narrates the misadventures of Ryunosuke Naruhodo, an ancestor of the protagonist of the main series. This game had a sequel called The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve which was released for 3DS in 2017. The game never officially crossed Japanese borders until the release in July 2021 of the compilation of these 2 games, compilation which is placed in the dock today.
A multiple disappointment, as I said above, starting with the location.
You see, I have been learning the English language since I was 6 years old and with some success. So I can say without shame that I'm not doing too badly in this area. And despite this, I find it serious that Capcom has not deigned to translate the game into French. Not even in languages other than English, for that matter. Serious because the linguistic level - entirely textual - used here is too important to be accessible by the majority of people with terms either old (the game takes place at the end of the 19th century), or complex (lexical fields specific to business or to the legal field), or even both. This is a barrier that will be difficult for many people to overcome. Especially since this will increase the impact of the second point: the rhythm.
Indeed, the game being a Light Novel, there is text. Lots of text. Too many texts! The game accumulates blah blah blah not necessarily relevant in fairly heavy and tedious texts that the player is forced to stuff himself in order not to even spot clues because the staging of the game highlights the crucial moments far too much for each word needs to have its importance. And, even if over the course of the business (5 per game) the player has a little more freedom and is a little less directed, it remains however no less soporific to remain so passive in front of his TV. The basic concept being well thought out for a mobile game, but for hours of non-stop play on the couch, boredom quickly comes to the fore. There are certainly the passages of investigations, collection of clues, Point 'n Click interrogations which include the player more, but the blah blah blah is too present, each character going there from his commentary on each point , even if it is to express his silence. You will often find "........" as a text for example, multiplied by the number of participants in the scene. In itself, it's not so bad to find this transcribed silence, but it's symptomatic of the narration which seeks every excuse to drag on in an extremely slow rhythm, in favor of a desire to offer predictable twists to leagues, which ends up annoying.
So imagine that we add on top for someone who has an even average level of English, the degree of linguistic complexity and you will have two points which amplify each other and which could have a very negative impact for a player.
That said, you see ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am not a player like the others. Because behind this teubé who ironically renders a soporific text with lots of superfluous blah blah blah to complain about the superfluous blah blah blah and the soporific rhythm of the game, hides a guy who loves investigations, mysteries and who is difficult to surprise so much he over-analyzes everything. And for people like me, those who are fond of observations, analysis and investigations who have to hang around hours of text and minimalist animations on an equally minimalist soundtrack to complete an investigation when they have , in 5-10 minutes, already spotted everything that is wrong in the testimonies, clues, proofs, it becomes an ordeal to have to wait for the moment to intervene or receive the clue already spotted at the very beginning of the case. Calvary which, I must admit, made me stop the game many times so I was bored by the slow pace and the low level of the puzzles and needed animation and action to be able to resume later .
If only the characters at least spoke with voice and not text, maybe the game would play better and be more alive on the big screen. But the absence of voice (original 3DS requires), the minimalist and repetitive sounds, as well as the rather discreet music, even if it highlights what is happening, makes the drowsiness more and more strong.
To conclude this plea, Your Honour, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the big concern with this compilation, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, is that the game concept is not very suitable for home consoles and that it does not has benefited from no real adaptation for this type of support. A lazy compilation, if you will. Not even counting the exhausting pace of the game caused by my arguments above. Therefore, I kindly ask the court not to consider purchasing a compilation that does not even strive to make itself accessible to as many people as possible, however likable the basic concept may be.
- Playstation (tested version)
- Steam
- Nintendo Switch
