Ace Attorney games are traditionally composed of two types of gameplay. A crime is committed, and you investigate by collecting evidence, speaking to witnesses, and conferring with your partner. Then you go to court to defend your client by presenting evidence and finding contradictions in witness testimonies, before ultimately unravelling a usually complicated case in dramatic fashion at the last minute, wiping the smile off a smug prosecutor’s face in the process.
The courtroom drama is — as an early 2000s Z-list celebrity on MTV Cribs might say — where the magic happens. The investigation sections are just the paperwork you’ve got to file in order to get to the main event. And so an Ace Attorney game purely about investigations without ever having your day in court sounds like a tough sell. On paper it’s a bit like an Uncharted game entirely about Nathan Drake making his way to the airport to go on a globe-trotting adventure that happens off-screen.
Ace Attorney Investigations Collection comprises two spin-offs to the main series, both of which completely eschew courtroom hijinks in favour of good old fashioned detective work. They work better than you might think. There’s Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit, both originally released on Nintendo DS, with Prosecutor’s Gambit never having made its way to the West before.
The gameplay in both titles is basically identical, save for a couple of new mechanics added to Prosecutor’s Gambit. You control Miles Edgeworth, who Ace Attorney fans will remember as being a smug prosecutor often locking horns with Phoenix Wright in the original Ace Attorney game. As Miles, you peruse crime scenes, speaking with witnesses, collecting evidence, forming hypotheses by joining disparate clues together, and finally, bring villains to justice by building irrefutable cases against them.
These are classic point-and-click adventure games at heart, and while some later puzzles do require a little lateral thinking, there’s nothing too obnoxious here in terms of difficulty. If your detective skills are not up to par you can switch the games to Story Mode, which will automatically move the narrative forward without you having to use your grey matter. However, doing so does disable Trophies, and even if you later switch Story Mode off, they will remain disabled.
Both games follow almost exactly the same trajectory. The first couple of cases unfold at a brisk pace, throwing evidence and story revelations at you thick and fast, before later cases become more bogged down in layer upon layer of complications and an unnecessary amount of dialogue. Neither game feels as needlessly verbose as either of the Great Ace Attorney titles, but they’re certainly wordier than the original Ace Attorney trilogy.
It’s a lot of reading for a couple of 20-hour long games. There’s no voice acting here aside from a few soundbites like when you shout “Objection!” at someone. You’re going to be reading mountains of dialogue, and it can be quite tiresome once characters start going off on tangents that have little to do with the problem at hand. That said, you don’t need to play both games back-to-back like we did, and both titles are neatly broken up into five cases, each of those further broken down into different chapters, so taking a break is easily done.
But for as loquacious as the Investigations games get as they move towards their climaxes, both titles — particularly Prosecutor’s Gambit — increase the stakes in their final cases, and throw enough surprises at you to keep things interesting. There’s certainly enough here for Ace Attorney fans to sink their teeth into, but we wouldn’t say we’re wholly convinced by the Investigations format. The courtroom drama of earlier titles is sorely missed. A partial victory, then.
While both Investigations games could stand to have a little of the fat trimmed when it comes to dialogue and exposition, the blow is softened somewhat because Miles Edgeworth makes for an excellent protagonist. He’s capable and respected among his peers, and his internal monologue when dealing with the morons he meets during investigations is frequently amusing. Miles remains once of the Ace Attorney series’ best characters, and these two games are all the better for him leading the way.
It should be noted too, that if you’re not familiar with the Ace Attorney series generally, the Investigations Collection is not the best place to start, and not just because there’s no court cases to enjoy. Both of these titles contain numerous callbacks to previous games in the series, and both contain an outrageous number of cameo appearances from characters we met in previous cases. Even when visiting a foreign country Miles can’t help but run into someone he knows from an earlier game.
As a remaster, we like the new look given to the Investigations games. Both titles have been given a fresh lick of HD paint. Character designs are distinctive, both games feature bright colour palettes that pop off the screen, and in true Ace Attorney fashion, character animations are charming and frequently amusing. There’s also a few remixed music tracks in Prosecutor’s Gambit, but the music for these games is excellent anyway, so even if you stick with the originals your ears are in for a treat.
Conclusion
The Ace Attorney Investigations games are oddities. They’re Ace Attorney games without the best thing about Ace Attorney games. They’re a fresh start with a different protagonist, but you need to have played the old games to get the most out of them. The wider appeal seems limited here, but for existing fans of the franchise there’s plenty to enjoy.
