Technically I was just watching, laughing, and vibing. My friend, who has recently become my roomie, loves these games and plays through them multiple times a year. We decided several weeks back to start up the first one to play through together after work and on weekends since I'd never played any of them. I might not have had the controller, but I'm considering it played for me.

I think, overall, it's a solid experience. I laughed a lot, for sure. Some of the investigative parts took an eternity so the pacing was kinda bad, and I had a lot of questions about various aspects of the game. Why is Phoenix continuously doing his job with the assistance of teenaged girls? What even is this justice system where said teenaged girls can just blurt shit out in a courtroom, witnesses are questioning defendants, and laws regarding evidence, witnesses, etc. are acknowledged in one case and completely ignored in others?

I know it's not meant to be taken seriously in this regard. I know the intention was more or less "mystery game that happens to be set in a courtroom." Like I said, I laughed a lot and I typically enjoy ridiculous shit. Honestly, it was more of a jokingly-indignant "What!!!" most of the time and none of it really bothered me except for the inconsistencies from case to case. (Ex. Playing through one of the earlier cases, there was surprise evidence introduced by the prosecution or something, and I was like, "That bastard can't do that!" and my friend was dying laughing, and then the whole post-credits bonus case revolves around NOT BEING ABLE TO DO THAT. I know it was a case added to later versions of the game/was DLC, so that could be part of it.) My brain just really wanted to make sense of something that isn't meant to be made sense of when I'm usually perfectly capable of suspension of disbelief on some wild levels. I think I just subconciously wanted to understand the laws in this particular "world" and got tripped up every time I thought I'd locked onto it.

Music was bangin', anyway.

I did pick up the trilogy and TGAA Chronicles on the eShop for super cheap shortly after we started playing this one, so I'll maybe get to them eventually.

This is a pretty laid back playthrough for the most part. You listen to the story develop on it's own, and then the game tests you on your detective skills later. It was pretty easy to pick up and pretty easy to put down. The characters were silly, the cases were interesting, and it kept you playing. For the most part, at least. There were times early on in a case where things weren't developing fast enough and I started to get bored. However, things would pick up quickly and I was suddenly hooked. There are lots of plot twists that are well written which is easily the biggest reason I liked the game.

The playthrough is separated into two phases: investigations and trials. I thought the investigations were the part that was dragged out. I eventually just wanted to get on with the trials because that's where things developed the most. The trials were fun since you had to find things wrong with testimonies and prove things wrong to learn the truth.

One issue I had: You need to ask the right character the right question, or you need to examine the right item in the room, to progress the investigation. This was really tedious sometimes. It wasn't clear what to do next and I even had to Google a couple things. Nothing in this game was exactly "difficult" other than that.

(While this is a quick review of AA1 for the DS, I skipped Rise from the Ashes. It's a post-credits case that I feel doesn't add much to the narrative at all and works retroactively against the ideas set up, and it's also the worst paced)

The first Ace Attorney game is timeless in its charm, and generally what it's known for is exactly that plus the concepts it sets up for the rest of the trilogy. Some of it holds up to scrutiny, but there are certainly cracks and dusty structural issues in the writing mold.

Primarily, AA1's biggest issues are pacing and the investigations. It's endemic to all but the fourth case, that the pacing will be bloated in ridiculous filler that adds nothing, and goes far too slow working on red herrings and trivial information that most people could easily glean to be falsehoods or fucking about. The investigations are also just never fun, the railroading structure is fine but having such obtuse event triggers that don't make sense or just information drips that only end up making a difference at the trial kind of leaves it with a hanging half that could use trimming.

But, I'd still say AA1 is goodish, and that's primarily because of my feelings with Case 3 and 4. Case 3 may be a terribly paced, contradictory plot mysteries (the head blocks everything BUT THE VAN???? what??), and frontrunner for worst event triggers, but it offers such a strong message on deconstructing idol culture tied to a goodish villain, interesting motive, and humanized people surrounding the villain. Case 4 on the other hand builds off the previous by working on "dealing with the past", with multiple characters all stemming from one incident that are characterized by their relationships between each other. It really works best to the entire game, and while 1-3's final day is my favorite moment, 1-4 is genuinely the best constructed.

The charm as I said is also really beneficial, with each emotional hype moment resonating probably due to how much condensed Capcom energy it is. The music is also excellent, with each time something like Cornered playing firing on all cylinders, getting me giddy every time.

Overall, it's a goodish start that I still recommend trying if you can get past the blech stuff. The series (to my memory) gets better from here anyway. (6.5/10)