My Thoughts on Ace Attorney Apollo Justice (so far)

It’s no secret that Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice is considered the black sheep of the Ace Attorney series, so I was more than a little hesitant about trying it out. However what sold me on playing the game was when I discovered that Ema Skye plays a big role, and since she’s one of my favourite Ace Attorney characters, I’d give it a shot just to see more of her. I’ve played the first two cases now, so I’m ready to shell out some thoughts on the game. Is it as bad as people say? Let’s take a look.

Now admittedly Apollo Justice doesn’t start out very well since it starts with the typical Ace Attorney first case against Winston Payne in a courtroom only case. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Winston Payne, but let’s be honest, all of the other prosecutors are way more interesting than him. That’s not the only issue with these first cases though. There are other annoying things about them, but Apollo Justice suffers the same problem the original Phoenix Wright did. Since you’re a rookie, you aren’t confident, and your helper does most of the work for you. It didn’t help the case very much that it was a bit overly confusing for the first case. Though as I mentioned in my Layton blog, I’m not very good at following stories, so maybe it’s just my vastly inferior brain talking there.

I’m not exactly a fan of Apollo’s in-court sprites, since he looks pretty dumb in a few of them, especially when he presses his finger against his forehead and closes his eyes, straining to think as if he’s trying to take a crap. Granted this is extremely nitpicky, so let’s move on.

Spoiler alert, Phoenix Wright appears in this game, and I gotta say that he’s a billion times cooler than he ever was in his games. Sure he looks like a hobo, but he’s still a total badass. I was a bit disappointed that he hogged all of the spotlight in the first case and Apollo didn’t do shit, but I guess it was needed to satisfy the fanboys who’d be pissed off if Phoenix didn’t appear in court at all. Still, I couldn’t help but feel we were still playing Phoenix’s game for a little while.

However things got much better once the second case rolled along, and it was back to the standard Ace Attorney formula of me starting a case, and not turning the game off until 4:00 AM because I wanted to see what happened next.

In the second case we’re introduced to Phoenix’s daughter named Trucy, and she will be our female sidekick for this game. To get straight to the point, Trucy is a million times more enjoyable than Maya, and while I may get some flack for that, I stand by my claim. Trucy is cuter, smarter, funnier, more useful, and has a better theme song than Maya. In court she actually does stuff, and she can actually be way smarter than Apollo at times. Also her funny dialogue isn’t as forced as Maya, so she isn’t funny for being dumb, she’s funny for being young and naïve. And of course while not to sound like a creeper or anything, she’s just way more adorable than Maya ever was. I’ve heard people call out on Capcom and say “She’s just jailbait! Capcom is gross!”, but I don’t think that’s fair at all. Yeah, she may be a bit blatant in showing off her charm, but that’s just part of her personality. It’s not like she’s intentionally showing off or anything, that’s just how she is. I think the people who cry out on that sort of thing are thinking too hard about it. There are a lot of girls who are like that, especially at that age, so just because she’s a young, perky female sidekick doesn’t automatically make her fanservice or anything. Besides, these kinds of characters are important in the Ace Attorney games, so if she wasn’t like this, the game would be a lot less enjoyable.


Fan-service? Maybe to some, but she doesn't mean it to be.

I really like the “perceive” feature of the game. In the older Ace Attorneys I would indeed look at the character’s movements to try and figure out when to object, and it worked with mixed results. In this game, they actually put that to use as a key part of the gameplay. You use the perceive feature to zoom in on the witness, and their testimony will slow down. You’re kind of in a weird trance where you can see the witness’s every movement, and during parts of the witness’s testimony, the witness will do a nervous twitch. When you find it, you highlight it and point it out. That twitch is when you know the witness is hiding something, and when you point out to them that they’re doing it, they get all defensive and give you further info. It’s a really cool feature that is actually pretty fun to use.

The second case didn’t have any particularly awesome characters, though Little Plum and that Stickler guy were pretty fun. What the case lacked in great characters it made up for with a good story. A lot of Ace Attorney cases, to be honest, just aren’t written very well. Sure they’re interesting what with the fun characters and plot twists, but a lot of times the basic premise of the case just isn’t that interesting, no matter how likable the characters are. This case was actually pretty interesting, and had a pretty cool plot twist about where the murderer was at the time of the shooting. It was a much more simple story than a lot of Ace Attorney cases, and while I know Ace Attorney is famous for its plot twists, sometimes a story is just better when it’s kept simple.

If there’s one big complaint I have at this point, it’s that the prosecutor for this game is completely boring. I fully admit that no Ace Attorney “villain” will ever top Godot, but this guy is just flat out boring. Maybe he’ll get more interesting later on, but for now, he really makes the court room a lot more dull than other Ace Attorney games.

The other complaint I have is something I haven’t encountered, but I know about. Apparently there’s a good ending and a bad ending, and I’ve been trying to figure out without spoiling anything if there’s a lot I have to do in the final case to get the good ending. Some of my friends say there’s a handful of things you need to do, while others say that all you have to do is choose the right verdict at the end of the trial. If anyone can tell me if the later is true or not, I’d greatly appreciate it. Just don’t spoil anything regarding the plot. If there’s other stuff I have to do, I’ll just use a spoiler free walkthrough for that case.

So those are my quickly thrown together scatterbrained thoughts on the game. I might post another blog when I finish the game, but for now, these are my views. So far I’m liking Apollo Justice, and I’m starting to think the only reason it gets hatred is that it doesn’t star Phoenix Wright. It was the hatred from the fanboys who played the series from the beginning, and didn’t like the new characters. I’ll admit the prosecutor stinks, and Apollo is a bit of a wuss, but Trucy is such a fun and lovable character that she alone makes the game worth checking out. Besides, I think there are enough cameos from the old games to satisfy the fans, so I really don’t see the problem. But please, if there are genuine problems with the plot or characters later on, refrain from talking about them here, because I despise spoilers with a fiery passion.