Keeping Justice Alive
Has it really been over ten years since I first joined Phoenix Wright's legal team? Wow. Here's to ten more, old friend.
It's been three years since Dual Destinies - which, for its part, was a pretty innovative franchise entry - but Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice feels like a much "safer" installment.
There is one cool new mechanic: video evidence, which asks you to track through and pause videos, then select a specific object to present. This mechanic is used both in the context of literal video footage of a crime, as well as in Khura'inese "divination seances" with the addition of sensory events (where words appear that indicate sounds and tactile feelings). Although the loading times on these videos could be better, analyzing moving evidence in real-time is a pretty fun experience.
It's practically moot, though, because these new evidence puzzles - as well as existing ones, like Phoenix's psyche-locks, Apollo's tension bracelet, and Athena's psych therapy - are used very sparingly throughout this game's cases. Spirit of Justice is significantly more focused on storytelling than on gameplay, and makes no bones about emphasizing text-time over puzzle-time.
At its worst, this design bias manifests some real implementation bugs: like moments where multiple pieces of evidence have the same meaning, but only one of them will be accepted -- followed by some dialog which will confirm, yeah, any of these really should have meant the same thing. Or, moments where the right piece of evidence is totally unintuitive, until wrong guesses trigger an in-game hint that gives it away.
The story, though, is pretty good. Par for the franchise's course, many big story beats are forecasted fairly early; but nevertheless, the way in which characters discover and explain these events is compelling. Not unlike Phoenix's original trilogy, concluded by Trials and Tribulations, Spirit of Justice digs up some thrilling elements of backstory while also breaking new ground in Ace Attorney's narrative world.
The final case is a real doozy, and although part of the final trial is too damn complicated, it's all wrapped up in a very satisfying way. And I only noticed a small handful of typos. So, that's good.
My one real complaint about the story is that, even though Maya "MacGuffin" Fey is actually in the game, her story still hasn't gone much of anywhere since she left for "training" in the first game. Spirit of Justice sets the stage for her to actually grow as a character, ... but I guess that story will have to wait for later.
Overall, Spirit of Justice is a satisfying and worthwhile Ace Attorney entry for franchise fans, with plenty of well-told story and interesting characters to read about. But, it's a bit disappointing that it does so little to build on the series' gameplay.
Better than: Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Not as good as: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
But we're not done yet!: I've got the DLC Special Episode yet to do, which may or may not address the mysterious teaser in this game's ending.