Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice (a.k.a. Gyakuten Saiban 4)
(2008 Capcom, NDS)

In a nutshell: We lost Phoenix, but gained… a daughter. Sort of. Touchscreen-enhanced invesitigation tools make the puzzles a little more actively involving, but most of the characters aren’t as interesting as the old batch. (Yet?)

It bugged the hell out of me the first time I heard the phrase “jumping the shark.” It was on some movie review site or another, probably not Jabootu, though, since they have a glossary section in their tireless efforts to create their own movie geek language. Like Klingon, only kitschier. In context it made sense, “the part where something fucks up what they were doing right out of desperation for attention,” but it wasn’t until later I found out it literally referred to an episode of Happy Days where The Fonz, well, jumped a shark on waterskis. Other examples might be the entirety of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, or when I started (kind of) researching articles before writing them rather than going “WTF KLANSMEN STALKING JAPANESE BARBIE!! MIRACLE GIRLS LESBIANISM LOL JAPAN” On that note, I’d like to say that if the Ace Attorney games still have a cult following years later like offbeat point and click games tend to, Apollo Justice is probably going to be the official moment the series ‘jumped the shark’ by introducing a Cousin Oliver. Or maybe it’s more like a Second-Darren thing.

Really, it’s not that unusual Capcom decided to change protaganists- when Mega Man’s series shedded the NES, we got the oddly-similar but TOTALLY DIFFERENT GUYS character X as the lead. On the Playstation, the first ‘original’ Mega Man character was just a kid named Rock. The Advance graduated to Zero as the hero. So, after finishing off ports of the original trilogy of Phoenix Wright games from GBA to DS, why not have the character of the first take the back seat to some shiny new next-gen hero?

You probably see the difference there- comparing a by and large plotless robot-shooting game to what amounts to a digitized series of murder mystery novels, one has way less to lose by ditching a main character and replacing them with a sprite edit. Since the game’s engine, or what passes for one, anyway, changed to take advantage of the hardware, they probably thought they should have a fresh start to work from.

I’ll try to keep this one as spoiler free as possible as before since, well, when you basically read the entire game, spoiling things really DOES kill the later enjoyment of the various twists and things. Even if in Case 2 I could identify the killer the moment they appeared.

(I will admit that they don’t over-use the “THE KILLER DRESSED UP AS THE VICTIM” trope this time. Given that the past three games had the same detective, judges, and lawyers involved in EVERY case, you would think all Phoenix would have to do is use the legal precedent from the first case to point out the victim never, ever actually writes the killer’s name in their own blood with their last breaths. See also: Who Shot Montgomery Burns?)

Overall, if you played one of these already, you won’t be lost here. The Profiles-as-evidence thing has been disposed of, mercifully, since it tended to make it HARDER to finger a specific person in trial (there were a few points where you needed to explicitly say someone did something- but by presenting, say, a found photograph of them instead of their actual dossier. Fucktarded Judge…) The biggest improvement to come of the new system is that evidence is rendered in 3-D now, in the style of the first DS game’s ‘bonus’ chapter. You can zoom in or out on the evidence, look it over from all sides, and poke at it with the stylus trying to find the ‘hotspots.’ Fingerprinting, making plaster casts, and so forth are also added (Ema Skye has taken over Gumshoe’s role as grumpy, omnipresent but mostly unobservant detective). The biggest new gimmick, and at least partial reason to justify er, Justice being there, is the new Perceive skill. While easier to swallow than the Magatama (which was basically a maaagical lie detector), Apollo’s ability to spot nervous twitches and habits in a lying person is applied in a way that kind of pushes the already loose definition of a legal system these games have got going on. (And is also at least partially channeled through a maaaagic bracelet to be fair.)

“I notice you scratched your nose a little when I mentioned plumbing. Could it be that YOU KILLED HIM WITH A PIPE WRENCH!?”

Stuff like that. In use, though, it’s kind of cool. The witness states their testimony in slow motion as it changes color karaoke style while you pan about in a tight zoom trying to spot the tic. When you see the twitch, you can then confirm it, which adds “GOTCHA!” to the two or three usual vocal outbursts in the game. (Objection! Hold it! and Take that! being the others.)

Apollo isn’t really such a terrible character, or anything. He’s just a first year rookie, much as Phoenix was, even though he’s drawn in a way that makes him look about fifteen. He’s a lot more animated than Wright (literally- the hardware thing, remember?) even though during his ‘confident’ moments he still looks pretty lame. The problem feels like it’s the fact that they ARE making such a character of him. Rather than just being an outside observer of the cases, letting the player feel more in his shoes, Apollo has his own connection in the whole shebang, connections that seem just a little too convenient. He also has people left and right telling him how special he is, and an instant Edgeworth-style rapport with his rival within a day of meeting the guy. Maybe he’s less a Cousin Oliver than a Mary Sue. And do I even need to mention his attempts at catchphrases? (“Here comes Justice!” is a common self-mantra of his: at least when Wright made puns off his own name, it was rightfully treated as the kind of unfunny that makes clowns cry.) Hopefully with his maaaagical powers and background out there, the inevitable sequels will have him more composed and uh, tolerable. His resemblance to Scott from Revolver Knight when his hair goes “flaccid” is kind of a downer too.

It is worth noting that even though Phoenix isn’t the main character anymore, he’s around for a lot more of the game than I expected, as your Yoda-like mentor. He’s seven years out of practice, but manages to play a key role in your investigations, even if a lot of those end up being investigations into exactly why he gave up the law seven years prior. Fulfilling the goofy sidekick role Maya leaves vacant, you’ll be toting his erm, daughter, Trucy Wright around a lot. You can imagine my joy when she and Apollo had the Ladder Talk* in this game.

My reccomending this game goes with about the same warning as the other entries in the series- There’s basically no replay value other than if you find yourself in the mood to replay a favorite case at some later time. You might want to rent rather than buy if you like a lot of frills and extras. There is always the fun of presenting random things to random people just to see how they react, but since most people have a generic “I don’t know” response you’ll be seeing a lot of, it’s kind of undermined with some. It’s interesting too, if a little disheartening to see where some of the old cast ended up. Nobody really lives happily ever after, they just… keep living. I guess that’s something, anyway.

Even though I ended that on a somber note, I should mention this game is still pretty goddamn wacky. It has ventriloquist dolls, panty snatching, and Wigger Yakuza. I always hoped one day somebody would play up the generation gap between gangster and gangsta! Well, part of me. The part of me that likes pain. Wocky Kitaki is also the worst name for anyone ever. Surpassing Harry Dick.