The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles – Review

It’s hard to imagine that the Phoenix Wright series is already nearing its 20th birthday. The series started out on Nintendo’s GameBoy Advance, and its latest entry has now been released for PC, Switch, and PS4. We don’t exactly get a new entry in the series, however, we get The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. This release is comprised of remastered versions of both The Great Ace Attorney titles, which were only released in Japan. Now, both titles have been bundled, providing one big story arc for you to plow through. While we did very much enjoy this spin-off adventure, we felt the pacing was a bit off at times.

Story

In The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, you’ll be playing as the somewhat shy Ryunosuke Naruhodo, a young student who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Naruhodo finds himself on trial for the murder of an English professor, back when relations between Great Britain and Japan were very wonky. Because of this, the trial has to go quick and all arrows are pointing towards Naruhodo. Even though it seems all hope is lost from the beginning, he is immediately joined by his close friend Kazuma Asogi, who will be his defense lawyer. It’ll be up to you to prove your innocence, while your best friend is backing you up.

The game will of course guide you through different cases, investigations, and testimonies, very much akin to other games in the Phoenix Wright series. The story is properly fleshed out, and the characters also have a lot of depth, making sure things are not too stale in the story department. The flow, however, is not always that pleasant, as the game does have its moments where it crawls through the story content, rather than actually steadily progress.

Graphics

Graphically, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles looks quite spiffy and detailed, especially considering the original two games were originally released on Nintendo’s 3DS handheld system. We do have to say, when playing full screen, you’ll see visible pixels, and even the button command prompts get a bit muddy. Nonetheless, even with many of the animations looping over and over, the character designs are quite phenomenally handled, making sure this is a very authentic Phoenix Wright experience. You’ll get to meet a lot of different special types of caricatures, as well as explore different areas, and examine different objects. Overall, everything comes together as a nice-looking whole.

Sound

The sound design in this combo edition is quite good. We very much enjoy the iconic objection sound effects, as well as the background music. We would have loved it if this edition came with full voice acting, however, as that would have truly made this a great cinematic experience. For now, it’s certainly good, but it could have been amazing with some extra time and effort invested in this remastered version.

Gameplay

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles follows the same formula as the main Phoenix Wright series, which will certainly please fans of the original franchise. This remastered version of The Great Ace Attorney games does have a more traditional Japanese setting, which is something you either love or hate. This diptych follows a typical visual novel format, with a few point-and-click elements thrown in the mix. From start to finish, you’ll be going through dialogues, while examining evidence, questioning suspects, and so on. Overall, it’s quite an interesting setup, and the plot and characters get fleshed out properly.

For the most part, things will be straightforward, but at times a bit tediously slow. Sometimes you already know what you have to present, or where there are discrepancies. Sadly, the game will only allow you to present your proof when it prompts you to. This means you’re basically in for the (involuntary) ride until you’re allowed to speak up. This is also one of the biggest weaknesses of this bundle, as sometimes the flow is absurdly slow. This was especially noticeable in the introductory case, where, even though all proof was presented, it seemed like the opposing characters were extremely dense, making it seem like you were presenting a murder case to a room full of three-year-olds.

That negative remark aside, the game is a lot of fun when it comes to developing your own theories, thinking about who the culprit may be, etc. It’s nice to examine the evidence, and it’s all very well presented. As we tried the PC version of the game, we tried both control schemes available to us, namely keyboard and mouse, and controller. We found the latter to be the most pleasant, as it felt a lot more comfortable, especially when having to rotate pieces of evidence. It’s clear that this was originally a touchscreen-developed game, as the controls don’t always feel that intuitive.

Conclusion

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is a great addition to the games library of Phoenix Wright fans. We have to say that there was a bit too much handholding going on throughout the game, and some chapters went on for a bit too long. Nonetheless, the game proved to have entertaining story portions, amusing characters, and just authentic fun gameplay. Those looking for a good detective visual novel experience, or even those who want to sit back, relax, and watch the story unfold, will have a lot of hours of content to wade through.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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