Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Much like every other series of video games I've played through, I went through The Ace Attorney games completely out of order- 4, 3, 1, 2. Why do I do this? Who knows. Anyway for those not in the know, the Ace Attorney series (also sometimes just called Phoenix Wright) is a lawyer simulation where you solve cases with the power... of evidence! It's really addicting and fun and Capcom keep surprisingly me with a bevy of elegant yet hilarious cases in each installment. The first three games of the series detail the rise of protagonist Phoenix Wright, an up-and-coming lawyer with a penchant for pointing and outbursts of "OBJECTION!" The three games all form one long story arc, which to me peaked with the final case of game #3- Trials and Tribulations. The fourth game of the series jumps ahead seven years as Phoenix mentors newcomer Apollo Justice on his lawyerly ways. While certainly a good game, it just didn't have the same feel of the first three- probably because Phoenix is the only character to return. That's what makes the cases in the first three games unique- they feature a number of recurring characters, all of whom have their own quirks and humor that kept me coming back for more. Luckily, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth brings the series back to its roots, taking place somewhere around the same time as the second game, Justice For All. This allows for several fan favorite characters to not only have cameos, but play important roles in the cases as well. You play as Miles Edgeworth, expert prosecutor and Phoenix's former rival. The action in Ace Attorney Investigations doesn't take place in the courtroom- Edgeworth spends all of his time out in the crime scenes piecing together clues and questioning suspects. This change had me worried at first, but if anything it feels like an improvement in gameplay. A common criticism of the first games was that half of the game was spent on awesome courtroom drama, but the other half was boring investigations. In Ace Attorney Investigation, Miles moves rapid-fire between investigating and questioning, giving the game a much faster pace. There were a few other improvements here- investigations involved a lot less brute-forcing of solutions (pressing every statement, showing every piece of evidence to everyone), and rather than one sidekick, Edgeworth gets three- the lovable oaf of a detective, Gumshoe; the fierce rival prosecutor Franziska von Karma; and the borderline-creepy newcomer Kay Faraday- seriously, in every one of these games a man of the court in his mid-twenties spends a good portion of his time with a teenage girl. A bit weird, but that's Japan I guess. Anyway, while Miles' dynamic with these sidekicks isn't as good as Phoenix/Maya in the first three, they were all serviceable in their own ways, and it was good to see von Karma get a chance to be a good guy for once. The cases Miles faces in this game were par for the course- no better than any we've seen, but no worse. It should be noted that Ace Attorney Investigations contains no side-cases- all of them have some impact on the overall storyline. The storyline here was also good but not great- it kept me interested, but I'll probably forget most of it later. Overall I'd call this a solid addition to the Ace Attorney series- you certainly don't have to play it if you've played the first three, but it's definitely a better sequel than Apollo Justice.