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One of my favorite series on the original DS was
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Each game is serious and completely whimsical at the same time. The characters are over the top and blown out of proportion in some cases, which only serves to make the courtroom scenes incredibly memorable as all of these personalities clash. The mystery element means that the full picture of what has happened is never entirely clear to the player until the trial and the investigations leading up to the courtroom scenes slowly reveal the whole story. Things can also go down the rabbit hole at times. Its really a perfect blend of point and click puzzle adventure games with the narrative style of a visual novel, making the series stand out as the sum of its parts.
In contrast, I've only played the first game in the
Professor Layton series. I enjoy the game, but can never sit down and play it for too long in any one sitting; it's really a gauntlet of puzzles. There are some point and click elements involved in this game as well, but they mainly serve as a way to find hint coins and hidden puzzles. The game is more of a slow burner compared to the Ace Attorney series, which will mix in dramatic courtroom scenes with the slower investigation to mix up the pace.
It makes sense putting these two series together in terms of gameplay, and when I first heard about the crossover, I was rather excited since I knew of
Layton at the time and am a massive
Ace Attorney fan. Despite only playing the first
Layton game, I was really impressed by this game! The
Ace Attorney-style investigations mixed well with
Layton-style exploration and puzzle solving. It never felt like the gauntlet of
Layton's puzzles were getting to be too much of a grind since there is plenty more to enjoy and move through in the game.
In terms of story, the world and area feel much more inspired by the
Layton series. There is a village filled with magic where witches are burned after being found guilty at a trial. Professor Layton, Luke, Phoenix Wright, and Maya Fey find themselves brought to this village. As Phoenix, you play through a witch trial and work to get the first exoneration of a witch in the village's memory! This case introduces a unique twist to the system of cross examination that was standard throughout the
Ace Attorney series. In the courtroom scenes, the witness' testimonies are all done at once; the witnesses line up and Phoenix cross examines them one after the other. This allows the witnesses to collaborate with their stories and add in information that fills in any holes on the fly. This style feels stacked against you. No wonder there were so many guilty verdicts in a row before Nick and Maya showed up here!
After the two pairs meet up, the overall goal of the game becomes to uncover the secret of the village and keep working to get rid of this stigma against witches. After all, magic shouldn't exist in our rational, modern world of science right? This games does a fantastic job of leading you along through the story, with twists and turns helping to guide you. The drama of the courtroom spills out into the streets and these strangers soon become well-known for their alien idea of 'logic'. That's right, this village has not been enlightened to the basic Western ideas of Greek logic.
Once again, Capcom shows that they are the complete master of the crossover, but they had plenty of help from Level-5. Both companies worked together to add the elements from their respective games, and then to polish it up and make it presentable for the player. As a result, the game is incredibly strong. If you're interested in either series you'll be pleased with the results here since Layton is more of the same and Phoenix has a nice change to it, to make this game feel like a unique entry to the
Ace Attorney series. Despite their differences, the characters work well, but I feel like Layton solves the major puzzles himself due to hazy and unexplained reasons. This difference could be a result of Phoenix taking details in one at a time since everything in his series is evidence based, and only one piece is usually relevant at any one time. If you have a 3DS and are looking for a story based adventure jam packed with fun and wit, check this game out!
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I'm a fan of these puzzle, point and click-type games ever since I finished 999 late last year. I went through a tear of playing these games which included and Ace game, a Layton title, Hotel Dusk, and part of Trace Memory (which I still need to finish). Of all of these games, I can say with certainty that the Layton and Ace games were the ones I liked the least. My issue with the Layton series is that it's just too full of logic puzzles and lacks a lot of searching; they are also more linear and lack the freedom of choosing your own path. The Ace games were a little annoying in that you had to "OBJECT!" at the right time and catch plainiffs/witnesses in lies. Sometimes it seemed appropriate to object, sometimes not; it just seemed like a crap shoot. Perhaps working in the legal field was a part of the problem. Just my preferences and to each their own.
However, even though I don't prefer these games individually, I can see how these two games might work well as a crossover. Without an overabundance of logic puzzles and both styles of gameplay kind of breaking each other up, I can see how this game might be more enjoyable for someone with my taste.
Also, I just wanted to ask about the melding of art styles. Both series have very distinct art palates. Do they work well together in this game, or does it seem as odd as it does on the surface?
Great review!
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Being an attorney, I found myself wanting to actually follow American court room procedure in the Phoenix Wright games, which is very, very different than that of Japan (upon which I assume those games somewhat base their proceedings)...not to mention that objections in those games aren't objections as we know them. Instead, you pull a smoking gun piece of evidence to refute the witness's testimony, something you'd really only do in a cross examination and with proper adherence to evidence admissibility rules..for those reasons, I couldn't set aside my inclinations and enjoy the Wright series
Oh the struggles with separating game from reality.
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I've always looked at Ace Attorney to be drama first, with the courtroom set up to give the games a puzzle mechanic. I never expected any of the games to be an accurate representation of courtroom 'drama'. I entertained the idea of becoming a lawyer back in high school, but I fell asleep in too many real court hearings to let that idea blossom too much.
I've just learned to not take games too seriously, that's when you get disappointed.
@singlebanana: The art can clash, it stands out enough to be able to tell at a glance who was designed by Capcom and who came from Level-5, but its not enough to put the game down over.
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@SirPsycho: Yeah, I actually like both art styles for these series and was just wondering how it worked. It's funny, but with something so simple as making banners for our playthroughs, Fleach does a great job mixing styles and I know he sometimes gets frustrated in trying to get them to mesh. I think you usually have to get the styles close, or on the flip-side, keep them totally different and go for something more comical. I can't imagine trying to do this for an entire game.
My issue isn't so much with the accuracy of the trials in Ace Attorney, but more of the fact that I don't want to bring anything too similar to work home and have it in my game play. I can't even watch courtroom shows unless it's Night Court or the old black and white Perry Mason episodes.  With that said, I think putting these two games together would strike a really good balance and make the gameplay more diverse and enjoyable for me.
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