Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Review (tf2dove)
TL;DR
70/100. An okay game - the pros outweigh the cons, but just barely. Likely the weakest set of games in the Ace Attorney series. Apollo Justice is the strongest of this set, followed by Spirit of Justice, followed by Dual Destinies.
I've played through all of these games both on the DS when they first came out as well as once again when they released on Steam. I've tried to keep my review as objective as possible, throwing nostalgia and bandwagoning to the wayside.
It's worth playing through these games at least once, but of the three, Apollo Justice is the only one with satisfying replay value.
Detailed Summary
😇 GOOD QUALITIES
The dialog and humor is quite pretty dang great, got a lot of chuckles out of me throughout all three games
The 2D-drawn pictures in these games are REALLY good (e.g. case evidence, random flavor images)
Animated + 2.5D backgrounds for investigation areas are way more immersive than prior titles
The series' streak of great music continues
The "To-Do" list and redone "Move" menu during the investigation is really helpful for remembering where you were, knowing what you have to do, and accelerating where you can go to
The new realization mechanic at the end of a case is super satisfying
The reuse of certain characters throughout PW:DD's cases is done in an incredibly delightful manner; PW:SOJ does it pretty well too, but feels a bit more unnatural
Callbacks to prior games, characters, and cases was generally done in a satisfying way
😈 BAD QUALITIES
The difficulty curve between each game and each case is incredibly variable - a lot of the times it feels as though a late-game case is a linear "on the rails" tutorial. AJ:AA is the only game in this set to avoid this issue.
Skipping through dialog is a bit buggy/awkward
All of these games feel disjointed from one another - cliffhanging plot points are generally not continued
PW:DD is noticeably different compared to the other two games in this bundle. The sudden removal of the 3D inspect evidence system after AJ:AA feels weird - plus, you cannot investigate most areas. PW:SOJ restores some, but not all, of these mechanics.
PW:DD attempts to be more dramatic than prior games, but localization as a whole doesn't do well with this in the drawn cutscenes. The English voice acting especially stands out as unimmersive.
The 3D style of PW:DD's models are uncanny. They don't feel as natural as the other games - especially when they smile.
The one-off voice lines in PW:SOJ feels off. Suddenly after hundreds of lines of text, characters speak the same catchphrase multiple times.
📝FINAL NOTES
As stated earlier, this is definitely the WEAKEST set of Ace Attorney games; however, they do add a lot of important lore and character development for both old and new characters
This trilogy leaves a set of cliffhangers about Apollo Justice and Trucy Wright - heavily hinting at the need for another game and/or trilogy
PW:DD and PW:SOJ have some good twists, but are often obvious and predictable. As a result, I had to force myself to finish some cases; even when the twist/answer was obviously apparent. Unfortunately, the lack of difficulty and mechanics for these cases made them an unenjoyable experience.