The Ace Attorney series spends the vast majority of its games following defense attorneys like Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice, but there are a few games where this isn’t the case. After all, the word “attorney” can also refer to prosecuting attorneys, like Miles Edgeworth, star of the upcoming Ace Attorney Investigations Collection. Capcom has been on an Ace Attorney remaster streak these past few years, and the Ace Attorney Investigations games were the last in the series not yet brought to modern consoles. We got the chance to go hands-on with each title to see how well they hold up, and play one that had never made its way North America until now.
The collection includes two games. The first, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, was released for the DS in North America in early 2010. It received generally positive reception with a 78 on Metacritic, but according to a 2013 article from Siliconera, its sales in the region were “poor at best.” As a result, Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit was never officially released in the West, meaning many fans have never had a chance to play it. In addition to the games, the collection provides the full suite of quality-of-life features included in modern Ace Attorney collections (including auto-advance, a log of past dialogue, and a story mode that plays through the game for you) as well as a gallery to view concept art and listen to the series music.
My time with each game has been largely positive. The series’ greatest strength has always been its writing, and that’s no different here, but it doesn’t always reach the highs I’m used to. My favorite part of an Ace Attorney game is when all the evidence and testimony align at the end of a case in a truly satisfying narrative conclusion, but the cases in Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, while competent mysteries, never gave me that same rush. On the other hand, the opening case from Prosecutor’s Gambit absolutely lived up to that standard, with its twists and turns keeping me engaged in a way openings of video games rarely do. That case alone has made me very excited for the game’s launch.
Mechanically, Investigations spin-offs play a little differently than mainline Ace Attorney games, but the basics are similar. While these games don’t have the typical courtroom structure, Edgeworth does engage in battles of wits with suspects and witnesses that are functionally identical to cross-examinations. Instead of first-person observation of crime scenes, players control Edgeworth directly, walking around isometric areas to collect clues. This ultimately represents the biggest change – players investigate active crime scenes just minutes after the crimes occur, essentially collecting the evidence for a theoretical courtroom battle in the future. Edgeworth also uses a unique Logic mechanic to connect clues and come to conclusions, and in Prosecutor’s Gambit, a minigame called Mind Chess where he outwits witnesses into revealing information.
My main issue with the collection is its disjointed art style. As a part of the modernization process, all the pixel character sprites have been redrawn in an HD anime style. In isolation, they look quite good, and the animations especially deliver, but they stand out as odd against the game’s painterly backgrounds; the character models are just a little too crisp for the world they inhabit. You can adjust character models in the settings to turn them back into pixels, but these models don’t look great either, and the game still feels a bit off. That said, character portraits used in dialogue sequences look as great as ever, partially because they match the painted style seen in the backgrounds, so it’s not all an eyesore.
The Investigation games are a pair of black sheep in the history of Ace Attorney, and I can see why. They are different but not different enough to attract a new audience or to feel particularly novel in comparison to the rest of the series. However, based on what I’ve played, they are far from bad games, and I look forward to playing them in full – especially Prosecutor’s Gambit – when Ace Attorney Investigations Collection launches on September 6 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.