A Game is Afoot!
It was back in September 2016 that the latest entry to the Ace Attorney was released for the 3DS. Since then, I have been awaiting the series return and as a long time fan, the wait has felt much longer than 5 years.
Even though the wait unfortunately continues, the announcement that two Ace Attorney spin off games that never made it to the states would finally be localized was welcome news indeed.
Despite not knowing much outside of the fact that it features Sherlock Holmes, or rather- Herlock Sholmes in one of its main roles, I was eager to point my finger and voice my objection once again.
He sure has a striking resemblance to a certain defense attorney.
MSRP: $39.99
Platform: PS4, Switch, PC
Length: 45~ hours
Caught in a series of extraordinary circumstances, Ryunosuke Naruhodo and his judicial assistant Susato find themselves practicing law in Great Britain during a tumultuous era of explosive scientific and judicial growth in the world. Little did they know that their presence there would challenge all their preconceived notions about justice and mark the beginning of change for Britain as well as their homeland of Japan.
Taking place in the tail end of the 19th century, the setting present in the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is certainly an interesting one especially with the introduction of Herlock Sholmes as a major character in the events that transpire during the two titles. Despite what the name and fame would have me believe initially, Shlomies is hardly a facsimile of the character from the Arthur Conan Doyle novels as here, he is often portrayed as a bit of a bumbling fool that often makes terrible deductions and is played for comic relief regularly.
Still, despite his somewhat reduced intellectual standing, he is a fun character that steals the scene whenever he shows up and his many ridiculous deductions that require course correction by Naruhodo were a highlight during investigations.
Everyone needs a helping hand now and then, but for Sholmes, it’s more like ALL THE TIME.
The other side of the coin for the defense, the prosecution was helmed by the menacing Lord Van Zieks who is known as the “Reaper of Bailey”. While his initial presence was intimidating, after defeating him in court a handful of times, it became difficult to take him seriously as an opponent. Luckily, by that point the balance shifted in an intriguing way and even though he is not one of my favorite prosecutors in the series, he is hardly the worst.
As mentioned before, the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles includes both entries in the spin-off series and this was a very good move on Capcom’s part as the first title felt more like a tutorial for the second game in a lot of ways with simpler cases that spent much of its run time setting up for payoffs to come in the finale and taken individually, the first game would have admittedly been one of the weakest stories in the series thus far.
Taken together, it’s an intriguing story with fun mysteries to unravel that had me guessing almost to the very end.
The twist is that Van Zieks is a real vampire. I’m kidding of course. UNLESS!?
As for the gameplay, it’s mostly what one would expect of an Ace Attorney title as despite being a spin-off, the actual mechanics remain identical to other standard AA games. There’s investigating various crime scenes looking for evidence, talking to witnesses and other characters of interest and taking all that information to court to cross examine witnesses, point out contradictions with evidence and ultimately get that “Not Guilty” verdict.
There are some new mechanics like the introduction of the Jury where they might decide to pass judgement prematurely and would need to be convinced otherwise but these events were always scripted and not tied to how well/poorly I was actually doing which made them feel uninteresting, serving only to slow down the pace of the trials instead of injecting variety into the proceedings.
Also, having recently completed multiple visual novels that featured full voice acting, having to sit there reading for dozens of hours really made me wonder what the experience would have been like if it was fully voiced.
Hell, I would’ve taken fully voiced only during court segments to be frank given the sheer quantity of text but alas, it was not to be. It’s a shame because the visual and quality of life upgrades were implemented quite well but I suppose they might be saving that feature for the new entry to the series that is surely coming ANY DAY NOW.
In the court of law, evidence is what speaks loudest!
After half a decade of playing the “will it or won’t It get localized” guessing game, to see the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles see release in the States is an event worth celebrating indeed and doubly so as it was done well for a pair of games that weave an intriguing storyline well worth reading all the way to the end.
Fun Tidbit – The Ace Attorney games have a certain energy to their soundtrack which I adore as they manage to enhance the unfolding drama in the best ways.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
