Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice [Review]

Court is now in session! _{*ahem* Hi.}
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and I’ve been busy with drawing too. Here’s my Spoiler-Free review of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice.

And as a fore-warning, I’m actually NOT an Ace Attorney fan (necessarily), but I am aware of the stories of all the previous games except of a couple of Spin-offs. So any big fan of AA who disagrees with me, please don’t burn me alive! I’m more or less casual with the series.
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Even though I’m not necessarily a fan of the Ace Attorney series, it is one I’ve been incredibly interested in. I started with believe it or not, ‘Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney’ (PLvPW). I already liked Professor Layton, so I figured this game would be a good starting point, but then missed out on ‘Dual Destines’ (DD), released after PLvPW.

When Spirit of Justice was announced, I was hyped for a couple of reasons. My main reasons was because I liked the concept of the Divination Seance. Secondly: Maya Fey was coming back! I think quite a number of people were looking forward to her return. I was just curious with how they’d handle both things and now, here we are.

So, did they satisfy me with the two things I was most looking forward to with this game? Let’s find out now.
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Firstly, let’s begin with the plot.
Now for those of you who watched the Anime intro found online, you’ll know what happens which gets Phoenix Wright to the Kingdom of Khura’in.
Mr. Wright essentially decides to pay Maya Fey a visit as she’s nearly done with her training on gaining more Spiritual Power. In the Anime, it seems Mr. Wright was more urgent to go once he heard Maya scream, but in the game, it seems as if nothing happened.
Anyway, once Mr. Wright arrives, he’s greeted by Alhbi Ur’gaid, who proceeds to give Mr. Wright a tour of the place. Soon leading them to the Tehm’pul Temple where they not only got to see Rayfa Padma Khura’in performing the Dance of Devotion, but Ahlbi also got arrested and put on trial.
Mr. Wright goes to his trial and only to find that he doesn’t have an attorney to help him prove his innocence. So Mr. Wright decides to defend him.
…And that’s where the game begins.

The game goes deeper. Talking about some Revolution and the Laws of the Country. Namely that if the accused is found guilty, then the lawyer will also be found guilty… and executed.
Yeesh, that’s pretty harsh. Definitely raises the stakes. But I think this makes for an interesting premise.

Mr. Wright isn’t the only playable character however. Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes also have their share of cases and stories, as they didn’t come along with Mr. Wright to Khura’in. And to be honest, this is something that moderately bothers me for two reasons.
One reason is because Athena really doesn’t contribute anything to the plot. And two, by the end game, I actually started to question the title of this game. I’m not kidding. Certainly makes sense for say, the first half of the game.

If I was to give my opinion on the overall plot, I think it’s good, however, I think it gets incredibly slow and a bit boring by the end. Not entirely, but a bit.

If you’re thinking of having this game be your first AA game, well… don’t. Like any AA game, there’s tons of dialogue. That by itself may bore you, especially if you don’t understand what’s going on or who these characters are.
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Like any Ace Attorney game, you’ll come across a ton of different characters. Some relevant to the overall plot and some are case-exclusive.

The main new character of interest is Rayfa Padma Khura’in. A 14 year-old girl who’s to be the future princess of Khura’in. Am I the only one who thinks she doesn’t look 14 years old…? Anyone…?
Anyway, I quite like Rayfa. Not only is she cute, but I think she has a good personality. Definitely the one that gets most development as you can see her change from her ‘the Divination Seance is the sole truth’ mentality and stuff, to… whatever the end game gives us of her.

Nahyuta Sahdmadhi is the prosecutor of this game and to be honest, I don't like him that much. Like Simon Blackquill, he does have something to hide, revealed at the end of the game, but before that, I don't feel like the game does a good job giving me a reason to like him otherwise.
To me, it's always simply been the 'Let it go and move on' treatment. Gods, is this what the Kingdom of Khura'in is like?

Most of the other new, relatively plot-important characters are good and all too, though I don’t have much to say about them. Not even Ahlbi. The first person you meet in this Kingdom.
He's nice and he has a dog. That's... about as much as I can say.

For the returning characters? Namely Maya, Apollo and Athena?
Unfortunately, I don't feel like Maya got much screen time in this game. She ends up being more of a plot device. You can definitely tell she's matured a bit. A bit... But it's something I suppose. Sorta depressing to me, actually...
Apollo gets the most amount of development in this game and there's a good reason for that, but I'd be spoiling things if I said why.
Athena is... there. Worse than Maya, I think. To be perfectly honest, and not to put hate on the character, but I feel like she's still incompetent in the courtroom. I'd probably have a different opinion here if she had more than one case in this game where she was playable.

Then there’s the case-exclusive characters. I don’t have much to complain about with the normal witnesses. Most of the villains are… okay at best. Most of them have basic motives if you ask me. Jealousy or petty revenge, etc. I feel like we’ve had much more interesting villains in the past, but at least some raise the stakes.
Usually there’s around one case-exclusive character I end up liking a lot and at least Spirit of Justice has one for me.
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For anyone who’s played the other Ace Attorney games, they should be able to jump right in for the most part.
All the things that made the game easier from DD made a return. So now you know what to examine in locations without poking around randomly in investigations, if you’re lost, you have Notes in the Court Record to tell you of your next objective(s), Consulting in court, etc.

Investigations have you looking around crime scenes, collecting evidence or talking with people related with the crime in any sense in order to get more information out of them.
While Trials have you calling witnesses to testify and breaking their testimonies to reveal inconsistencies with the evidence and drag the truth out of them. Present false evidence and you’ll receive a Penalty. Get 5 and it’s a Game Over.

Investigations and Trials are more than just that though.
Within Investigations, Mr. Wright and Mr. Justice both have their own special abilities to get more info out of their witnesses if they’re lying.
Mr. Wright has his Magatama for Psyche Locks. I still think the concept is cool, but unfortunately, unlike ‘Justice for All’ and ‘Trials and Tribulations’ you can break the Locks the moment they appear, which removes quite a bit of challenge if you ask me. I’d say that’s good for me. After all, I’m quite terrible at AA games, but give me a bit of challenge. To me, this just makes investigation a bit more boring. Not like there’s any penalties either.
Mr. Justice’s Bracelet for Perceiving is there to find random twitching during a statement to see if they’re hiding anything. I don’t exactly mind these. They’re quicker than Psyche Locks at least, but I swear the game can be picky about where they want me to focus on. The arm and hand are both moving during a certain statement, but you can’t just focus on the hand. Focus on the arm in particular!
That tripped me up so badly I got confused to whether that was the correct thing to look for.

Trials give us Athena Cykes’s Widget for the Mood Matrix. A concept I think is still cool and is as good as it is in Dual Destinies, I think. However, you don’t use it anywhere near it as much since she’s no where near as playable as in Dual Destinies. Does the job though.
The new addition to Trials is Rayfa’s Divination Seance. A concept I loved when I heard about it. Letting the player see the victim’s last memories before they died, including their 5 senses. Rayfa gives her insight on what happened and it’s your job to find the inconstancies. Finding one will have Rayfa correct either her insight statement or the vision itself. I actually quite liked it though and I thought it worked well.

My main issue here is that because there are so many different characters now and showing different sides of the story, I don’t feel like any one gimmick here is given enough attention. Not even the Divination Seance. Fortunately, none of the gimmicks are hard to understand, but still, I’d rather focus on one or two.
Preferably one for the investigations, and one for the trials. But they’re so hell bent on furthering these character’s stories and developing them. This is ‘Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney’!

I have to say though, Mr. Wright was really lucky throughout the first game where he didn’t have anything on him and if the other person was lying, you just present evidence and get more out of them.
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Graphically, the game looks great. Well animated characters and models, though I think it’d very slightly darker than DD. Maybe it’s just me, but Athena’s hair looks darker here than in DD, for example.
The animated cutscenes are great, but to be honest, I kinda expected more of them. I suppose that’s where the real time cutscenes come in and I don’t mind them, but I hate how they’re not voiced at all with a couple of exceptions. 
Maybe it’s my inner Professor Layton screaming out, but I dislike reading text boxes while the game plays real time cutscenes. I don’t know, it’s just really odd to me. What I find weirder however, is that sometimes they are voiced. Rare, but some are voiced, but to me, it’s inconsistent and it bugs me.

I might as well say this too, but coming to DD late, I was also kinda shocked that not all the interjections are voiced. Only the plot-important characters ever get to say ‘Hold it!’, ‘Objection!’, etc. and have them voiced. But not even Rayfa has all of her interjections voiced. Only her ‘That’s Enough!’.
Again, it’s me coming from Professor Layton, but I’m just a bit shocked. Are you surprised?
I know that the voice acting in this game’s not the best, but come on. Capcom hired them. The fact they’re barely used at all annoys me.

Oh well. Musically, the game’s soundtrack is great. Some of my favourites being Objection 2016 and Confess the Truth 2016. There are a few other stand-out tracks to me, but compared to other AA games, I’d say this game’s overall slightly weaker. Not by a whole lot, but weaker.
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Overall, I think the game is good, but as far as I’m aware, I’ve experienced better Ace Attorney games.
Story-wise, it’s got a good concept and got me interested… somewhat, until after around the 4th or 5th Episode. By the end, I found it getting a bit… unbelievable. (I’d have to double check particularly ‘Apollo Justice Ace Attorney’ for the possible Plot Holes I’ve been hearing about)
I don’t hate the gameplay, but my main issue comes from too many gimmicks and having to focus on different characters when the game’s called ‘Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney’!
The graphics and music are fine, and really, most of these are nitpicks on my end, and I doubt all of you will agree with me anyway.

Again, if you’re an AA fan, then you’ll probably have a ton more to say about it than I do. If you’re not and this is your first game… then go back to the initial Trilogy and then some for the full story and back story of the characters here.

My Final Score is 7/10.
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I feel really bad because to be honest, I’ve been slightly spoiled by PLvPW to the point where I’m expecting more things from this game (and DD, really), but aren’t in. Most are insignificant details though, to be fair.
But I know most of you won’t agree with me, but to me, there’s something really great to me about PLvPW. So in terms of story, I end up falling back on it… as far as 3DS titles go anyway. The Trilogy beats PLvPW for sure.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and if you have any opinions you’d like to share, please comment away. Keep it Spoiler-free thank you very much.
And if any of you want to hear my opinions on the Episodes and Cases themselves (with Spoilers), then don’t worry, I plan to make another Journal with my opinions on the cases, and what I liked and disliked.

Court's adjourned!

- GamefreakDX