Ace Attorney is one of those franchises which I can´t help but feeling bad about it, because their games have a strong quality, I mean, they really are good games, the original trilogy is top tier actually, I´d even say that it´s somehow part of the popular culture, so what a shame when you see Ace Attorney isn´t as good in sales as someone would think. In case you don´t know, Ace Attorney is a videogame franchise where you play as a lawyer who solves cases, they were exclusive from Nintendo before but nowadays you can play the franchise everywhere.
The Great Ace Attorney is a spin off conformed by two games: The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and The Great Ace Attorney: Resolve. I was surprised that they released these two games worldwide because said games were only playable in Japanese, not gonna complain of couse, I really wanted to play them but the languare barrier was too much for me, now that I completed them I can talk about them as much as I want.
As I said before, this franchise is known for letting you be a lawyer and it´s the same in The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, you play as a lawyer who solves cases, you are Naruhodo, the ancester of the protagonist from the Ace Attorney games, I don´t want to get into details, that´s what you should know. True, you´ll be solving cases, which means you´ll be investigating as well, there is always these investigation sections where you examinate the corpse and see for clues that would help you in the trials, they actually implemented a new mechanic related to investigations in these games, which is named The Great Deduction.
There is this character which is named Herlock Sholmes, he´s actually Sherlock Holmes but because of copyright issues they decided to name him like that, he´ll do a lot of investigations with you and once something strange is found on the scene, he´ll start deducting things, despite being the most famous detective Sherlock Holmes, his deductions are pretty fanciful, so we must help him to do a right deduction.
It´s nothimg complicated, we´ll just have to do the right deductions based on Herlock´s testimony, the game will even guide a lot through these sections so it´s actually impossible to lose or something like that. It´s not like I hate these sectiions of The Great Deduction but they kind of kill the mood to be honest, not to say it kind of kill the pacing of the investigation, this is a mechanic that will be through the two games so you can imagine it get tiring real soon, I don´t hate the mechanic but I think both would be better without it. Besides The Great Deduction, there´s nothing else about the investigation sections, just searching evidence through the scenarios.
The Great Ace Attorney is fun when you have to investigate, but the real deal are the trials, I mean, you are actually a lawyer and you have to defend your clients at all cost, you must find contradictions in the testimonies from the witnesses through the whole trial, once you find a contradiction, you must present evidence that will destroy their testimony, evidence you found through the investigations.
When pressing the witnesses we can see the reactions of the others who are not being pressed at that moment, maybe a testimony doesn´t react in a good way to a witness, we must look how other witnesses react to testimonies so we can follow another path in the testimony, basically we must see how other people react and that´s actually something cool, wish wasn´t that easy tho.
In these trials, they added a new game mechanic which is about The Jury, this time, not only you´ll have to deal agains´t the Judge, but The Jury as well and I say it literally because Jurors are more powerful than the Judge, most of the times you´ll find yourself in trouble because no one believes you, sometimes Jurors will try to end the case because they are not conformed, I want to say it again, Jurors are even more powerful than the Judge, if all of the Jurors decide to end the case, it´ll be game over.
It´s interesting because all of this Jurors game mechanic adds an extra layer of depth to the gameplay and it gives a fresh air to the trials, convicing the Jurors to not end the trial is almost the same that finding contradictions in witnesses, it´s about pressing them so you can find a contradiction, but take into account that you have to do this with all of the five Jurors, not one or two, but five, so the thing can get a litte complicated, you´ll have to deal with them through all the trial, convicing them to not to end the trial, I know it can sound stresful but it´s actually fun, and as I said, it gives a new layer to these games.
At a narrative level, I must say I´m satisfied, the game has a cool and well written story with actually good characters, character that can get a good character development, there are some cool plot twist through the game, not only that, but all of the mystery is really cool, the cases and trials are not that difficult but you can feel the tension in the air they are actually interesting and well written, some of them are kind of exaggerated but I´m okay with that, the setting and the atmosphere of the game are pretty great as well, I actually think this game is on the same level as the original trilogy, I haven´t played the games from the 3Ds but I don´t think they would be as good as The Great Ace Attorney to be honest.
What about the second game? The Great Ace Attorney: Resolve? Well, it´s more of the same to be honest, the closure to the story, it has the same game mechanics, I´d like to talk more about it but like I said, it´s the same and I don´t want to talk about the story that much, the only thing I can say is that I felt the story of this resolve is a litte rushed, if I´m honest, I have a feeling that The Great Ace Attorney was meant to be part of three games but they just managed to do two games instead, it´s not as bad as it sounds but it felt a little rushed to me, the cases and trials are more complicated than the first game and even longer I think, it´s not as hard as someone would think but one can´t deny the difficulty there.
I just don´t have too much to complain, my only issue with the first game is one certain chapter but can´t say too much because of spoilers, if I´m strict, I felt like the game takes you a lot by the hand, which implies it gets really easy from times to times but besides that, no complains. The second game actually fixes -more or less- what I´m saying about taking you by the hand but I felt like the story was kind of rushed, they are not perfect game but if you ask me, they are at the same level as the original trilogy.
All of the screenshots were taken by me
