Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations (2007)

It takes a truly special visual novel-ish game to have me completely glued to my seat for a straight four and a half hours as I wrap it up. This is that game. Trials and Tribulations draws on characters and plot points from both previous titles in the Ace Attorney series and builds on them with an excellent batch of new cases so good that this entry is an easy peak thus far in my franchise playthrough. Unlike Justice for All, this game also adds in an exceptional lineup of new characters that each feel fresh and sharply written, complimenting their respective cases perfectly.

I'll start by glazing my favorite new face from this game, Godot. This man is my spirit animal.

Badass design? Check. Excellent backstory that builds off other strong characters? Check. Smugly spouts fake-deep nonsense? Check. Chugs inhuman quantities of coffee? Check. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect guy to sit on the prosecutor's bench in this game. I had a heaping helping of his absurd behavior and I still crave more. And the way his backstory weaves into the various cases? Perfection. I'm in awe. Ok, I'll stop gushing. For now, anyway.

Virtually every new character was a joy to spend time with. I guess if I had to choose a least favorite, it'd probably be the French chef, Jean Armstrong. He was fun at first but wore out his welcome pretty quick. Luke Atmey is an easy highlight. His dumb little mannerisms that come through in his animations brought a smile to my face every time. I'd love to go through all the great new characters but we'd be here all day. I'll leave it at this: They are bursting with personality and made every one of the five cases this game offers so much fun to experience.

However, Trials and Tribulations isn't content to just add great new characters-- the way it leverages the returning cast felt masterful. Mia in particular felt especially well expanded upon here. The game's first case opens with you playing as her. It acts as both a tutorial and lays the foundation for several other cases to come, and I feel it does so quite well. Even ignoring that, it was great getting to see more of her. She's ever present in the previous entries but rarely got the spotlight. Miles and Franziska also get a chance to shine and tie up some loose ends between them and Phoenix, which made me happy. This feels like a great conclusion to the original trilogy, which is important.

I don't want to get into the weeds with the details of each case but I don't feel there's a single bad apple in the bunch. They are well-paced, interweave in a very satisfying way, and feel on average more tightly written than in past entries. You still get the occasional odd leap in logic that can trip you up, but I felt like these moments were few and far between. The writers very much improved in this respect. The mysteries had me thoroughly engaged, even when I had figured out who the culprit was (which isn't typically that difficult, to be fair).

I was also very pleased with the jokes and references sprinkled throughout the dialogue. Many of them are deliberately so dumb they circle around to really funny again. I love the flavor of stupid the writers went for and so it got many a chuckle out of me. A favorite of mine were the references to the play title Waiting for Godot early on. For some reason these had me snickering for longer than I probably should have been. The translation team must have had a lot of fun with this one.

I really would love to own a physical copy of this game now for my collection. It's too bad the series is mostly only available digitally at this point. I'll have to see what's out there. I had so much fun with this that I'm sad it's over. The biggest downside of this game is that I doubt the following entries will have an easy time replicating the magic this one has.

Up next, the Investigations duology!

What makes this game stand out from the rest in the trilogy is the way it handles its overarching narrative through most of the cases of the game. Stories resurface and characters show up again in ways that strengthen the story instead of feeling like a shameless recycling.

Godot, the new prosecutor for this entry, is by far my favorite character of the series. He is layered, flawed, funny, charismatic, and enigmatic. His animations and reactions on court are really funny and unexpected. His presence is one of the strongest qualities of this game, and it makes the middle and weakest case much more engaging.

Some additional pros:

• The music is a great improvement from the second game
• The first case is engaging and doesn't do a lot of tutorialization or hand holding.
• It lets you play with different characters which is very refreshing and plays in favor of the narrative

A fitting end to the trilogy.

It is both surprising to me and uplifting that the Ace Attorney trilogy found its way on its ending mark, a game that neatly ties all of its threads and themes set up and brings home the real deal on the nature of humanity, why we put ourselves on the line in the pursuit of truth. Not just the truth about others but also our own mindsets, biases, and understandings.

Trials and Tribulations threads the needle perfectly both in terms of characterization for all its major characters including new ones brought up, as well as general writing. The prose and charm is still at its top notch here, and it makes most sentences a delight to read, even at the game's lowest point. The casewriting is at its best, with good logical points to follow, and investigations that are well paced and make sense this time around. Breaking down testimony is still immensely satisfying as the solid music plays in the background.

There's really only one fumble to mention, that despite everything being set up so well and executed on with a perfect fashion, it still puts two mostly throw-away filler cases I can do without. 3-2 is tolerable, but 3-3 is so stupid that I go back and forth whether it was the stupidest shit to be added to this game in particular, or if it's just funny and self aware enough to be excused. Either way, there's a whole middle point that needs to be passed.

Even still, 3-1, 3-4, and 3-5 are where the bulk of the storytelling is and it's all a delight to read, managing to get me teary-eyed near the end as the case writing wrapped up. It was an amazing journey, a complete far cry from how I felt about the first two games. (9/10)

Trials and Tribulations - First Impressions

AA3 starts out swinging way harder than how the first two games did, with a case that was not only thematically interesting but also established the characters and motives well. It had something interesting to say, and the new music hits real hard to add onto the engagement.

This is however, immediately followed by the second case right now being an utter drawl offering very little of thematic interest with characters who I am finding it REALLY hard to care about or steelman the slightest bit. Which is ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

At the very least, I can see what AA3 is setting up down the line, and Godot is a great foil to have as the new recurring narrative element. I have higher hopes than I did in AA1 and 2, but it does seem that consistency is not a hallmark of the series, at all.