Overruled

Since it languished without an official English translation for almost 14 years, I was immensely surprised that Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit tells an incredibly good story -- not only an improvement over Edgeworth's earlier, chronologically-chaotic investigation, but one of the best in Ace Attorney's long history.

I was less-pleasantly surprised by just how shitty its (il)logical puzzles are. I've lamented this before - "sometimes-confounding evidence solutions" (Trials and Tribulations), "leap-of-logic evidence puzzles" (Apollo Justice), "expected connections are a leap too far" (Edgeworth's last game) - but I don't think any Ace Attorney game's been quite this bad. Maybe Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was worse; it's hard to remember.

It's worth spoiling one of the first chapter's deduction puzzles to prove my point. While investigating an attempted assassination:

• One clue is a photograph of the target, flanked by bodyguards, with a bright red dot on his forehead.
• Another clue is a red laser pointer found at the scene.

Can Edgeworth deduce that the red dot was painted by the laser pointer? No; he must first connect that photo to another image, from a newspaper article about the target, to deduce that the red dot is not a birthmark.

...

Investigations 2 is littered with counter-intuitive puzzles like this, deductions that seem unnecessarily obvious or evidence connections that aren't foreshadowed or hinted at all. And then there's Mind Chess, which despite being a thematically-awesome idea...

... uses mechanical rules that are never explained very well (I don't feel like I really "got" it until the game's 4th chapter), and punishes wrong guesses by rewinding - forcing you to re-attempt - multiple dialog-tree choices.

Bring a guide. You'll need some outside help to resolve these investigations.

And they're worth resolving! That's the thing: in spite of its mechanical frustrations, this "Prosecutor's Gambit" absolutely pays off.

In my last post, I called out the previous game's "sincerely confusing" chronology; Investigations 2 tells its story in-order, and also uses flashback scenes in sensible, clever ways -- fleshing out a years-old case with Edgeworth's dad, as it relates to a present-day investigation of similar scenes and characters.

I also griped that protagonist Miles Edgeworth saw "very little character growth" in his first game; Investigations 2 challenges Miles to learn from his reunion with Phoenix, to do more than simply move past his old "perfect prosecutor" ways and really question how he can serve the goal of justice.

(His character development here adds an exciting, satisfying dimension to the more-experienced Edgeworth we see in Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice.)

I also complained that in the first Investigations, without a regular courtroom or witness stand, supporting characters tended to "feel picked-up and then thrown-away"; Investigations 2 more deliberately and more frequently replicates an Ace Attorney "courtroom feel" when interrogating subjects in the field, developing their stories and stressing-out their personalities over multiple rounds of dialog combat. It even has a traveling judge!

Investigations 2 totally paves over its predecessors' narrative gaps, on top of maintaining this franchise's flair for delightfully absurd characters...

... and for, I can't say this enough, expert localization that positively oozes personality and charm.

This may be my favorite Ace Attorney soundtrack, to boot. Especially when Edgeworth is pushing his cross-examination (and Mind Chess) opponents hardest, this music is some of the pulse-pounding-est that Capcom's ever produced, more thrilling than Apollo Justice or even Mega Man ZX. I've never been so pumped to click dialog choices and watch text appear in a box.

I'm so glad to have finally played Edgeworth's story -- and that's really what Investigations 2 feels like, regardless of recurring guests like Gumshoe and Larry, regardless of references to other games' cases. This is a story about Miles Edgeworth, standing proud and strong on his own.

Better than: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
Not as good as: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice (... though it'd be close, if this game's logic puzzles weren't so stupid)
So that's the whole series remastered, then: wonder if we'll survive long enough to see a new Ace Attorney game.