Ace Attorney 5: Dual Destinies

Writing about this game in too much detail would spoil the story, so I'll be brief.  This is the fifth main game in the Ace Attorney series, and if you've played the first four and enjoyed them, you should check it out.  One of the neater aspects of this game is that you control three different lawyers: Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, and newcomer Athena Cykes.  Cykes has the ability to read emotions, which meshes well with Phoenix's ability to tell people are hiding things and Apollo's lie detection.  Of course, the gameplay elements don't matter nearly as much as the story in these games.  All five of the cases are good, though not quite on the level of Ace Attorney 3, and the writers did a great job improving on Apollo Justice's character so it's easy to look past some of the bumpy territory from the previous game.  The game now uses 3D characters instead of the traditional sprites, and they look magnificent.  Phoenix & co. still have their classic poses and everything feels more vibrant and fluid than it did before.  The music, while not on the level of the first game, is pleasant enough and has a good mixture of old and new songs.  Ace Attorney 5 stands up well with the previous games even though things have changed so much in the game's world, and I highly recommend it, but if you haven't played the other games you should start from the beginning.

Of course, this is not to say the game is without weaknesses.  While the stories of the cases are solid (e.g. the "how" of the murders), I do feel like the writers are focusing way more on making an interesting case than they are developing the characters.  I didn't understand the motivation behind several of the murders in the game, and while it was a lot of fun putting all the pieces together (and I was always way ahead of the game characters, sadly) I do wish there were more interesting villains that could be seen as sympathetic or at least motivated by something other than greed like in previous games.  Also, the series seems to be bringing back old characters just as token appearances now, and while it did make me smile to see some familiar faces, there are still some I either wish showed up (Gumshoe, seriously!) or thought felt superfluous. (Pearl over Gumshoe?  Really?)  In all honesty, though, these are nitpicky complaints that didn't affect my enjoyment of the story too badly.  The only truly crippling flaws with the game are the poor localization (tons of spelling errors) and incredibly slow text speed.

I'm looking forward to Ace Attorney 6 if it happens, but I could also see the series ending here without too much harm being done.  Some would argue the series has already been run in to the ground, and I can see their point.  However, I'm happy to have what exists in this series, and at this point I'm so attached to the classic characters that I'd be willing to see whatever story comes next for them.  Ace Attorney 5 just adds more fun stuff to the table.

7.5