LogFAQs > #968321760

#8: The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/7/2/AAA-H0AADt-0.jpg

For understandable reasons, this thread gets a lot more traffic when I talk about games that people have actually played, vs random garbage that only I care about, so I figure what better way to continue this list than talk about an Ace Attorney game!

Obviously, I've got a long history with the series. I got Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney way back in 2005 when it was all the rage on Board 8, and that ended up being a really excellent recommendation; haven't missed a game in the series since. Talking about an Ace Attorney game in this list is almost weird, given that I could just made a topic talking about Ace Attorney rankings by themselves. I kinda wanted to do a case ranking sometime, but I feel like I'd need to replay some of the games to really do it well and I'm just not there right now, but maybe someday I'll get around to it. Maybe when AA7 comes out?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/7/3/AAA-H0AADt-1.jpg

This game is kind of a big deal. First of all, because it's sort of a minor miracle that it came out at all. I always assumed that localizing these two games was just too much of a pain in the ass to Capcom to be worth it, for what they saw as minimal gains for a niche audience in the west; the fact that they saw fit to localize it with a physical release and everything came as a real shock. It almost felt too good to be true when the leaks came out, but the leaks turned out to be true; maybe they have more faith in the franchise than I initially believed.

And second of all, because for the first time in a very long time, I have officially closed the loop on this series for now. Ever since AAI2 came out in Japan in 2011, there was some form of AA that I hadn't experienced yet. By the time we got the AAI2 fan localization, the first DGS game had come out or was very soon to, and that always kind of floated in the background, reminding me that there was still some form of Ace Attorney left to be experienced even after I'd finished all the others. I can't read Japanese, of course, and even after there was a fan translation for the first DGS game, I didn't get around to playing it, and there was still DGS2 as well. It was a big deal going into GAAC, knowing that this was really it - I'll have played every Ace Attorney game. There's nothing left, not until they make AA7. That's been true in a way of every other AA game I've played, of course, being the only one in english I haven't played, but this still felt kind of different.

I'm glad I was rewarded for my procrastination in dealing with that fan localization, considering we ended up getting the real thing, because I think if I had to wait for the sequel game I would have gone nuts. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is very much a tale of two halves - this is a mediocre Ace Attorney game followed by an excellent Ace Attorney game, and it is largely the latter that earns the distinction of a top 10 ranking on my list. I can appreciate now the fact that the first game starts slow, knowing that it was always their intention to make a trilogy of games with a continuing plot, and it's a real shame that the first game is so disappointing and frustrating in its lack of closure that they ended up shortening the planned trilogy down to just two games instead, because it does make the second game feel a bit rushed as a result. I probably would have been in the same boat in being frustrated by the first DGS game.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/7/4/AAA-H0AADt-2.jpg

I kept calling the first game "Ace Attorney Jr", and I feel like that's apt. I thought the first case actually started out pretty strong with a reasonably compelling mystery, until they spent what felt like an hour at the end on a terrible mystery of a missing coin that felt like it could have been explained in a single line, and the game kind of flagged after that - case 3 was interesting although it felt like it was cut off annoyingly short, but case 2 and 4 both had murder mysteries that just felt far too silly and easy to figure out. It didn't help matters that the characters and the setting were far goofier than the usual fare; the first couple of cases in London made me feel like I was back in Layton vs Wright with its characters who just act like annoiyng caricatures and not people at all. Plus, the lack of cases with a proper investigation-trial structure only added to making the mysteries feel far too simple.

Fortunately, the second game just kind of fixes all that, with properly meaty murder mysteries and characters who are... well, I won't say entirely dialed back because they're still quite goofy a lot of the time, but they feel a little more complex, shall we say. And it answers all the nagging questions that are left after the first game, from unresolved plot threads to 'wait, what the hell happened to this character they teased earlier?' And it's great. Again, I wish it didn't feel quite so rushed to a conclusion, it would have been truly awesome if we had gotten three games out of this deal, but the good part about it is that GAA2 is all thriller and no filler; it's only hits, just the best stuff, and for the most part it nails it and sticks the landing pretty well. I wanna keep this review mostly spoiler free, but I think GAA2 wraps things up nice and properly, and while it could have gone a bit longer at least it doesn't overstay its welcome.