Capcom's Ace Attorney Investigations collectionthe offshoots of the popular, albeit legally completely inaccurate Ace Attorney series, are finally here. The two-game collection includes a long-awaited gift for Ace Attorney diehard fans: the official western release of Ace Attorney Investigations 2: The Prosecutor's GambitAnd although Investigations suffers from gameplay issues that run counter to the spirit of the entire series, the characters and story make the collection a must for every Ace Attorney Fan.
Although there are two games in the collection, I will focus exclusively on Ace Attorney Investigations 2: The Prosecutor's GambitAlthough the game was released in Japan for the DS in 2011, it has never officially made its way to the West until now. Prosecutor’s Gambit puts you in the shoes of District Attorney Miles Edgeworth, Phoenix Wright's childhood friend, opposing counsel, and, if you subscribe to certain parts of the fanbase, long-time lover. (Not me, though; I'm a diehard Gumshoe/Edgeworth fan.)
The game runs similarly to Ace Attorney. Someone is murdered, an innocent man is accused, and Edgeworth must search crime scenes for clues. Once the necessary information is gathered, Edgeworth interrogates people, pointing out inconsistencies in their statements, to ultimately determine the person's guilt or innocence.
I often found myself watching the game's bonus content just to rewatch all of the outrageous “Oh no, I got caught!” animations.
In Prosecutor’s Gambitthe characters are wonderfully colorful and it's always a pleasure to watch them break down when Edgeworth discovers their lies. I often found myself watching the game's bonus content just to rewatch all the outrageous “Oh no, I got caught!” animations.
Because Ace Attorney Investigations is a spin-off series, you don't need any knowledge of the main games to understand what's going on. But if you do, oh boy, you'll be rewarded. I was absolutely thrilled when I played a case that had a massive – and I mean solid — Impact not only on the events of the first Ace Attorney game, but also to Miles Edgeworth's entire raison d'être.
Although the game’s story and characters are just as charming as in the main series, Prosecutor’s Gambit is characterized by its unique gameplay features, both of which are somewhat lacking. New in Prosecutor’s Gambit are the mini-games Mind Chess and Logic. In the logic game, two pieces of information found during an investigation must be put together to obtain new clues. During an investigation in a prison, Edgeworth learns that an important piece of evidence – a key – has gone missing. He also knows that a metal detector has gone off near the prison's alligator enclosure. (Listen, in every Ace Attorney Game, things can get very… quirky.) You literally throw these two pieces of information together to conclude that the alligator swallowed the key. Armed with the new information, the game can continue.
Playing through logic games is extremely easy and does not require any of the deductive puzzle-solving skills that Ace Attorney Games so entertaining. They're so simple that they're actually a waste of time. It's like the developers needed to add something to make this game stand out from the main series, but they couldn't think of anything interesting, so they essentially came up with something that's evidence collection with redundant steps.
Mind Chess, however, suffers from the exact opposite problem. It's a worthwhile addition to the gameplay, but the logic required to beat it is completely impenetrable. In Mind Chess, a character has a piece of information they don't want to reveal, and Edgeworth must choose from a rotating selection of dialogue options to wear them down until they spill the beans.
The problem with Mind Chess is that, unlike all other games, you don't use evidence to debunk false statements. Instead, you try to read an opponent's arguments and respond to them… Vibes? If you choose a dialogue option that doesn't match your opponent's emotions, you lose. The game tries to help you with hints. In one case, Edgeworth notices that a mentally weak opponent goes silent when I choose aggressive options. So when he inevitably got whiny, I rightly stayed silent. However, these hints didn't work in every situation, leaving me helpless. I lost that game of Mind Chess because once again I stayed silent when that whiny opponent got even whiner.
The great thing about both Ace Attorney series is that I'm rewarded for my thoroughness. I feel like a genius when I catch someone in a lie because I took the time to find out everything I could about each piece of evidence, which often means noticing the smallest or most cleverly obscured detail. And when I'm wrong, it's not hard to go back through my case files to find out what I missed.
Guessing until you get the right answer is the opposite of that – no brain work, just button mashing. And since Mind Chess is based on what the player can guess (from a series of pixels!) rather than what they actually know, I had to guess in every case. I might as well have played Cookie Clicker.
But getting through Mind Chess is worth the clues you get to solve the game's larger mysteries. Ace Attorney series, most cases are not too closely connected, and if they are, the connections are of a rather casual nature. An important character from one case may appear as a brief cameo in another, or one murder may have minor implications for a later one. But Prosecutor’s Gambit is the first time I've seen that every single case and every single character (even the dead ones!) has a direct and major impact on the climax of the game.
All of these connections clouded the story and created a voluminous list of evidence that was difficult to sift through. But when I finally unmasked the mastermind, my body made this slow transition from relaxed and laid back to straight and alert. It was just like a scene in a crime thriller where the detective stumbles upon that one perfect clue that solves the case, something that flares up again and again every time. Ace Attorney how a game should feel.