Phoenix Wright Ace Attourney: You're Full of Bullshit and I Can Prove It!
Written by Victoria Sosa
Published on 05/26/2007
Originally from Binary Culture / [the-lowdown.net]
http://www.binaryculture.net

OBJECTION! That word was probably burned into the mind of anyone who had the misfortune of stating something I didn't agree with after I got my copy of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. It had poisoned me with its evil, beautiful, and OH SO ADDICTING charm. Geology quiz needs to be completed? A primary document for Texas History is due? A test in Geography tomorrow, you say? Fuck that shit, I have a case to win and I'll be damned if I'm going to lose it due to studying.



You are cast as the role of Phoenix Wright, a rookie attorney who is still under the wing of his mentor, Mia Fey. The first trial is his debut trial, and it is fairly easy to win, but don't let the initial ease fool you. As Phoenix progresses in his career the cases get a bit harder and longer to solve, and some of the outcomes will leave you blurting out loud "WTFs?!" to yourself. The basic point of the trial is to cross examine witnesses, and expose any contradiction in their testimony via evidence. Which is pretty awesome to anything who has a built in bullshit detector. Don't get me wrong, as finely tuned as my bullshit detector is, there were times that I COULD NOT find a damn contradiction for hours. It got to the point where I disgustedly turned off my DS and went on a “I can’t beat this shit” hiatus. When I finally decided to try it again it took me countless DS restarts to finally find the right contradictions. It was almost as frustrating as being stuck in Zelda for hours only to find I had to lift a tree blocking my path. A FUCKING TREE! But that’s another story for another time…

Since we are on the topic of the trials, I’ll give you a basic idea of how they run. All the cases are murder cases, which disappointed me a tad initially, but they are all different and grow more complex which keeps you interested. Phoenix is a defense attorney, so his objective is to make sure his client gets a verdict of “Not Guilty”. During the trial, the prosecutor will call upon witnesses to the murders and it’s your job to prove that they are dirty stinking liars.



Ok, well, not all of the witnesses are out to bust Nick’s balls, but some of them are put there to do just that. Initially, the witness will give their first testimony, and you will be able to cross examine them afterwards. Don’t worry about memorizing their testimony word for word, as you will be able to go over each text block as many times as you like. It’s a good idea to press the witness on parts of their testimony, and more often then not, you will gain more information to work with. The tricky part of this is finding the right part of the testimony to present the right evidence with. Each time you mess up though, the judge will bitch slap across the face with a penalty. You only have five penalties to waste so once they are gone it’s a guilty verdict for your client and a game over for you.

Aside from attempting to save your client from a date with the electric chair, you have other duties outside of the courtroom. In between trials, you have the oh so joyful task of investigation areas for clues and interrogating witnesses for more information. This is an area in the game in which I can see players potentially getting turned off. The thing that sucks about this “pretrial” phase is that it WON’T let you go on unless you’ve talked to everyone you possibly can and if you get all the possible evidence you can.

I think one of the main qualities of Phoenix Wright is that it can be enjoyed by mostly any genre of gamers, or even non-gamers. The fact that the game was released in America for the DS makes if even more "user friendly". The player will watch both screens, but the bottom one is mostly for reading the dialogue and text. It's not the type of game where you feel like your eyes are getting raped while jumping from one screen to the other. The game utilizes the DS's hardware quite well. The microphone can be used to shout "OBJECTION!" or to blow off dust while searching for fingerprints. The touch screen can be used to examine objects and later for spraying Luminol over an area in search of blood or other...bodily fluids.



I’m sure can already imagine that the American version of this game will bring translated goodies for you to read, and you are right for thinking so. This game features some of the most pun-tastic character names that I've ever seen. April May, Sal Manela, Jack Hammer, Wendy Oldbag, the list goes on. As cheesy as this names are, they are not so cheesy and to make me want to put the game down out of disgust. There are some references they make to modern culture that made almost die from laughter. I nearly wet myself when I read the Otaku-ish Sal Manela scream out "ROFL! LOL. WTF! Roxxors".

Overall Phoenix Wright is a game that I think any DS owner should own and will enjoy.
It's a great game to play when you have time to kill, and is good for a person who might not have a lot of time to play games. If you leave with anything after playing the game, you'll leave with the ability to pretend to know what you're talking about with any lawyers friends.