The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

The series of legal games and one of the most famous interactive novel titles, Ace Attorney, is back again, but this time it will take place in a different time period and it contains many exciting elements that will surely make many of you return to the series. Perhaps most important of these elements is the return of original director Shu Takumi after his absence from the series’ numbered installments in recent years. As for the second element, the game took its place in the Victorian era in Britain, with the presence of the famous detective with international stories that amazed many. Of course I’m talking about Charles Holmes!

So who will be the hero of the game here, since it is set in the distant past? Well, there is a connection to the modern history of the series, as the hero of the game here is one of the grandfathers of our current hero Phoenix Wright. But don’t let that discourage you because the game is full of exciting characters that you will fall in love with deeply, from the main characters to the supporting characters, and the character designers were very creative in drawing and presenting them from the face and features to the beautiful costumes that mimic this period.

The game follows the series’ usual system and divides it into two different playstyles. The first begins before the case and includes the investigation phase, where you get to know the main defendant and start collecting evidence that you will use in court to defend him. In the investigation phase, the game follows the path of the modern parts of the series, as the investigation consists mainly of conversations to introduce the important characters of the case, and in limited cases you can present evidence to one of the characters to get additional conversations. Now it’s time to talk about the most important addition to the investigation phase, namely the legendary conclusions of Sherlock Holmes. For some reason, the famous detective Sherlock Holmes will try to draw some conclusions to explain some complex situations, but despite his legendary skills, he will make some mistakes, and here comes the hero of the game, Naruhodo, to correct the evening. In short, you have to present a counter-proposal to what Sherlock Holmes presented by finding various pieces of evidence in the deduction scene and then presenting it to him.

The other phase is the courtroom pleading, and this is considered the core of the game and its most interesting element. In terms of gameplay, it will be the same as before, as the basic idea is to provide evidence that proves the inconsistency of a witness’s words during his testimony. Sometimes you just have to push them for more details if you don’t find any contradictions in the initial statements. But this time the game adopts one of the ideas of the cooperative part of Professor Layton and Ash Attorney, specifically the idea of ​​having more than one witness at the same time and the idea of ​​having a jury, and we will talk about the idea of ​​each one and the extent of its effectiveness.

These two ideas try to add more variety to the gameplay. There is only one advantage to having more than one witness. Sometimes you will notice that while one witness is speaking, another witness expresses surprise or a suspicious reaction. Here you need to go to him and ask him for his comment on this matter. As far as gameplay goes, I think this is a limited addition and the game will make you aware of the strange reaction as no real skill is required to solve this part of the game. The other idea, namely the jury, despite its limited use in reality, I think is a better addition to the game. Here the jury will express their opinion on the case, and if that opinion is against you, you will have to convince them otherwise. This is done by finding two jurors whose opinions conflict with each other.

The game is generally considered easy compared to parts of the original series, but there will be moments where you will find an entertaining challenge, particularly examining the evidence, as sometimes you will need to find precise details in some of the evidence you will find at some point during the trial lead to a solution.

Certainly, and perhaps more than in any other example, in this type of game the story carries a lot more weight than usual. Here I will deliver the wonderful news: the game offers a wonderful and very interesting story. Perhaps the beginning will be slow in the first part, which will play the role of setting up the story and characters and paving the way for what is to come. The events of the second part will be exciting from the beginning to the last moment. What rounds out the greatness of this story are the musical snippets, which in my opinion are considered the best since the first trilogy.

Fans of interactive novels and fans of the series will have a lot of fun here, in this package that gives you two games with dozens of hours of non-stop fun and great excitement.

The game was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch device using a code provided by the publisher.