Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All Review
Order! Order! Order it right now!
Version tested: DS
- "Nick, do some somersaults!"
- "I'm not doing any somersaults."
- "Why not!? You look like you'd be great at it!"
- "(Why do I look like I'd be great at somersaults!?)"
They're back! Oh, happy days. Phoenix and Maya, once more talking utter gibberish at each other, while solving murders most strange. Snoopy dance!
For those who are new to Phoenix Wright, perhaps the most sensible thing is to quickly hop over and read last year's review. I know that seems terribly lazy, but it's that, or a horribly repetitive follow-up. And I'm terribly lazy. But don't worry, I'll also do that clever journalisty thing of cunningly making reference, in the very next sentence.
Defence lawyer Phoenix Wright, and his spirit medium Maya Fey are back once more, taking on a new batch of murder cases in this point and click court-room drama. (There, see how I did that? This is like seeing behind the curtain, right?) What matters is that yes, it's as splendidly crazy as ever, replete with recurring characters, running jokes, and new developments in the soap story of Phoenix's relationships with the evil prosecutors.

Whatever you do, don't call the puppet a puppet. It's not pretty.
If you remember the tutorial of the original, you'll recall the hopeless way Phoenix was 'tested' by the judge to prove he was capable of being a lawyer, by such feats as remembering the victim's name. While a ludicrous idea in a gleefully ludicrous game, it still stank of awkwardness. Never fear, Justice For All has a far better idea: Phoenix gets hit on the head right before the case, and loses his entire memory! Just long enough for Maya to have to remind him what to do. Rather nicely, this tutorial extends beyond Phoenix's bruising amnesia, and develops into a chunky chapter for the game. Certainly shorter than those that follow, it nevertheless has you play through a full court case, with a decent self-contained story.
Chapter 2 is where the game starts proper, told in flashback to explain how Maya came to be back with 'Nick, after leaving him to train as a spirit medium. Oh yes - they haven't forgotten the daftest element of the original. For those that missed out, Mia, Maya's older sister, died in the first main story of the first game, but appears throughout to save the day when psychically channelled by Maya. Previously this just sort of happened, Phoenix slightly bemused by it but just muddling through. No one else seemed to notice Maya's teenage form suddenly transforming into the huge-breasted body of Mia, and it was accepted. This time around there's no such subtlety.
The murder of Chapter 2 (don't worry - all spoilers are disguised for their own protection) takes place at Maya's spiritual camp, involving the channelling of a dead nurse by Maya for a doctor who may or may not have been complicit in the nurse's death. And then the nurse, or was it Maya, kills, or is it doesn't kill, the doctor. Confused? Not nearly as much as you'll be once you try to have a conversation with Ini Miney, valley girl loon who's staying at the camp, or Pearl, the eight-year-old daughter of Maya's aunt who is certain that Phoenix and Maya are deeply in love. So obviously it's little sane relief when psychic photographer, Lotta Hart, reappears...

Be sure to show everyone your badge. It's very important.
And so, once more, we're back in. Constant chuckling abounds as you plough through the elaborately silly conversations, or tap on every item in each location, with Maya excitedly working out how everything might be connected to her eating a burger in the near future. The volume of awful puns this time has doubled, Phoenix generally ouching at them for you, while Maya either misses them completely or finds them impossibly hilarious. In fact, there's one pun so good (read: awful) in Chapter 2 that to even hint at it would give away the murderer! That's some punning.
The most significant new features for part two would be the Magatama and the Psyche-Locks. Remember the strange 9-shaped thing Maya wore around her neck? It's a Magatama, and this time you get one, charged with mystical energy, which can be used to break Psyche-Locks that witnesses use to withhold information. This all takes place outside of the courtroom, during the investigation sections, meaning that the Court Record-based interrogation is no longer kept indoors. A conversation option will appear with a padlock on it, only possible to open once you've gathered enough evidence to prove the witness is keeping knowledge from you. These sections, like the courtroom cross-examinations, will penalise you for making mistakes. Rather than the previous row of exclamation marks, this time you have a green bar that reduces as mistakes are made. Once it's empty, it's game over. However, when trying to open Psyche-Locks, you can replenish the bar by correct answers.
Sadly no such device is added to the cross-examinations, meaning Justice For All falls down in the very same way as the original. Occasionally the evidence you must present to a particular statement is madly obscure, forcing you to resort to guess work, which then means lots of saving and reloading and frustration. Having the meter refill by correct answers would have been splendid. Having no meter at all would have been downright sensible.

Maya! Don't say that! I'll prove your innocence. And then we'll get burgers!
Other niggles? There are a few typos in the text, grammatical mistakes or misspelled words. Not very many, and it's hard to care when remembering that this is a Japanese release, which mysteriously offers a complete localised translation. In fact, in terms of localisation this is incredible. Despite the distinctly Eastern feel to most locations, it states that it's set in America, and then goes head-first into uniquely English-language gags. Not only the puns, but also some far more surprising moments. Chapter 3 involves the murder of a circus ringmaster, and thus a cast of the most peculiar circus performers you could dream of (the apparently borderline ventriloquist, Ben, and his puppet, Trilo Quist (yes, sorry) being of particular note). One of these is a clown, who when on the witness stand suddenly bursts into a parody of the Fresh Prince theme tune. It's on screen for literally a second, before vanishing, but it definitely said, "In West Clownadelphia born and raised..." and that a couple of clowns who were up to no good started making trouble in his neighbourhood. Madder than a bag of hatstands.
Sadly this second re-release of the Japanese-only GBA games doesn't come with a bonus fifth chapter built especially for the DS. It's still, of course, all touch-screen driven, and once more you can shout "OBJECTION!" into your mic to scare other train passengers, but with the tutorial counting as one of the four chapters, it's a far shorter game. Not a short game, by any means, but not as wildly long-lasting as the former.
But don't let that bother you. This is the most joyfully daft fun imaginable, bursting with in-jokes and hilarious set-pieces. Good old Gumshoe has a whole new stock of replies for his continued confusion when you present him with your defence attorney badge, and Maya (and indeed little Pearl) provide non-stop delight. Every location has a ton of gags to find, and then a ton more when another character is around to add in their comments. The court sequences are still maddening with their refusal to accept perfectly valid evidence for no discernable reason, and for this reason it once more fails to achieve the nine I'd so love to give it. But anyone who fell in love with the first Phoenix Wright will know how easily this is forgiven. How can you complain when the prosecutor (a certain Ms. von Karma) begins thwacking the judge across the head with her whip because she's cross? Go ahead, import it, you will not be disappointed.
8 / 10
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Comments (73) Latest comment 5 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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Brilliant
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/Wants just as badly as GoW
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And yeah, it's ace. It's perhaps not the 'best' game of the year, but almost certainly my favourite so far.
And Case 4 is incredible. And there's an A-Team reference just after that Fresh Prince one. Genius.
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Shit... I have been beaten to it by LeDil.
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Double woo! Just put my order in. Excellent.
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Shame there's no DS specific episode though!
Out of interest, in Phoenix Wright 1 - was there much difference between english language contained on the japanese version and the localised american/european version? Was it simply a few grammatical/spelling corrections or was the localistion much better than that?
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I am pretty sure it's better, actually.
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@Hog-Lumps, not that I know of. In GS1 there are a couple of spelling/grammatical mistakes too but nothing biggie. Translation was excellent. Same case with GS2.
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/sees Christmas budget vanish...
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How could I forgett about this title coming out?
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Er, Microsoft or Sony suck! (Depending upon which one you like best).
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Heh, I was just messing. I'd buy GoW in a Heartbeat if I had a 360. I am a graphics whore, and I like shooting stuff, see.
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Reads more like a nine. But a low nine. (!?) what the heck is this puctuation?
Seriously, does the score really matter that much? if you aren't happy to see a game that got the same score as GoW, just know that there had been hundreds if not thousands of games on eurogamer that has gotten better than an 8. including GBA games on a 16mb cartridge.
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Maya & Pheonix Duo = Greatness!
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Eurogamer: "worse than thousands of other games".
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Oh well.
I'm just looking forward to meeting Gumshoe again. Um... he is in it, isn't he?
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Yes, he is - it said so in the review!
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I must've just instinctively skipped right to the score.
JUST LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THE GOW THREAD AM I RIGHT?
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A Gumshoe game.
I'm just imagining yelling "HOLD IT, PAL" into the microphone.
/dreams
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If you liked PW1, you'll like PW2.
If you loved PW1, you'll love PW2.
End of IMHO
Oh, and remember that in Japan this was a budget "best price" release - which justifies that they didn't add a 5th DS-only case as they did in PW1.
And also remember that they're working on a DS-only Phoenix Wright lawyer type game (though apparently it will star a different rookie lawyer and not PW)
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I must've just instinctively skipped right to the score.
JUST LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THE GOW THREAD AM I RIGHT?
Heh!
That thread is scary, don't understand why people get so wound up by a single review score - you'd think EG insulted their mothers or something!
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Hotel Dusk: Room 215 might be close to a "gumshoe" game, though I've only seen promo screenshots so far
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I've seen the trailer for that game and it looks amazing! The 'sketchified' graphics look great in stills but when you see it in motion my jaw dropped! - think of Ahas 'take on me video' crossed with a crime thriller - simply brilliant!
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Is Edgeworth in this, btw? Or is he just replaced wholesale by that girl with the whip.
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True, but there's something more honourable about defending the inocent to me!
Although thinking about it, Phoenix usually acts like a prosecutor during the second half of the trial when they find out who's the real suspect! Perhaps it would work then!
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Mmmmpphhh mmpphhh mmmmmpphhh mmph mmmmpphhhhh!
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I'd like to know that as well, I even dimly seem to remember PW2 would have a bonus case, or am I completely wrong?
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Case 3 was ultra funny and was the highlight of the series so far. Case 4 was fairly epic going on for ages with loads of twists. Also worth noting that EVERY case had a hottie in it. Ms Andrews for the cute Samus Aran clone win
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WHAT WAS THAT I CAN'T HEAR YOU.
(don't answer)
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Arf.
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There aren't any explosions in PW2 for them to get attracted to.
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"Speaking of bonus mission. Since I thought that was the best case in the first Phoenix Wright game will we be seeing one of those in the American/European release?
I was a bit annoyed to see that all these nice elements that they had implemented, like 3d examining of evidence and fingerprinting etc. was only in the last case."
Like I said, this was a budget release - it's just a straight port of the 4 cases in the GBA version. PW1 was a full price game and they added the 5th DS-only case.
They are working on a DS-only game. This will probably have all the cases using the DS specific stuff like the 3D objects, luminol, finerprinting etc. - also the graphics I've seen of it are *much* cleaner ad better animated than the ported GBA sprites
Seriously, have a dig around for any screenshots of "Gyakuten Saiban 4" that you can find - that's the game you need to keep your eyes peeled for :-D
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GS1 GBA remade into full price GS1 DS (PW:AA) with bonus case
GS2 GBA remade into budget best price GS2 DS (PW:AA:JFA) with no bonus case
GS3 GBA DS remake not announced - yet
GS4 DS with new rookie lawyer
Speaking of playing as a prosecutor, I do hope that one day we will see a GS game where we can play as a prosecutor. Maybe as Miles Edgeworth through his rookie years with both von Karmas as his tutor/partner.
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I'm trying my bloody best! Someone needs to go over and bait a few GOW fans from their thread.
Or recruit albundy, who can keep trying to tell us that PW still counts as a "kiddy Nintendo game" because there isn't any swearing.
He could hold a whole thread by himself.
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Caallllm.
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EDIT: @supermonkey: yes, go buy it. Now. Before you forget!
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And which extreme 360 fanboy it would come from.
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Thanks for the review, guys
/buys on PlayAsia for £16
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Bit surprised they're going for 2 all-new main characters. My guess is they wanted characters that were friendlier/easier towards the English localisation, which Maya and her distinctly-Japanese-looking mystic relatives are not.
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highly tempting to import, as it will prob take ages to come out here
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Amazing how some people can just be won over by pretty pixels isnt it?
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It deserves at LEAST a 15/10.. GOW fanboys the lot of you...
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Now if only they did a Phoenix Wright style Agatha Christie game, now THAT would be great.
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I think you're going to loathe this one. The paranormal element is a much bigger deal this time, and it's far sillier than ever before. Which is why it's WONDERFUL. But why you'll probably want to give it a miss. Unless you can allow yourself to be won over my Maya's silly grin, and just fall in love with the madness.
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]http://www.dulla han.com/IMG_2868.jpg
[/link]
when I saw the tv screens with number 4 at TGS this year they all showed pheonix as you can see in that pic..
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Hope for 3 and 4 also!!