The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (2021)

La saga The Great Ace Attorney, después de ser varios años exclusiva de Japón, finalmente llega al resto del mundo con una remasterización para dispositivos modernos. Ambos juegos mantienen lo que sería lo más básico de las mecánicas de anteriores Ace Attorney, como recolectar evidencia en las investigaciones y usarlas en los momentos adecuados de los juicios para objetar los argumentos en contra de tu cliente, pero también agregan varias nuevas que se complementan bien con la idea de refutar contradicciones. Por ejemplo, ver si las razones del veredicto de los jurados (personas comunes de Inglaterra elegidas aleatoriamente que pueden decidir si el acusado es culpable o inocente) se contradicen entre sí, ya que la mayoría de las veces este estará basado más que nada en temas emocionales, así que es nuestra labor exponer las fallas en su lógica para que el juicio pueda continuar. Todo esto junto logra una coherencia narrativa excelente con la jugabilidad; de hecho, hay ocasiones en las que se juega con las expectativas del jugador al momento de tomar decisiones o presionar a los testigos, para después sorprenderlo con giros de trama interesantes.

Si bien la segunda entrega fue lanzada con dos años de diferencia de la primera, estos títulos resultan tan conectados entre sí que hasta me atrevería a decir que son un mismo juego partido en dos, por lo que lanzarlos en una colección donde estén ambos resulta perfecto para jugarlos de seguido, lo que recomiendo encarecidamente más que nada porque la secuela recontextualiza bastantes situaciones del primero, varias que posiblemente hayan pasado un poco desapercibidas para muchos, resultando en una historia crea un gran misterio fantásticamente ejecutado. Eso sí, es importante tener en cuenta el contexto histórico en el que se desarrollan las obras para entender varios puntos de estas (aunque de por sí ya hacen un excelente trabajo explicándotelo), debido a que estas se desarrollan en una época donde había muchísimo racismo de los ingleses hacia los japoneses, lo que se ve reflejado especialmente en el fiscal, Barok van Zieks, que parte de su enigma está en por qué los desprecia tanto. Por último, me gustaría mencionar que los personajes son magníficos que incluso parecen ser versiones mejoradas de varios vistos en la trilogía original, teniendo motivaciones claras y dinámicas geniales, especialmente Ryunosuke Naruhodo que resulta ser de los mejores protagonistas de Ace Attorney. Si eres fan de la franquicia o te gustan las historias de misterios (sobre todo Sherlock Holmes), seguramente amarás The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles.

TGAA: 89/100

TGAA : RESOLVE 96/100

Thought I'd be turned off by the non-modern setting, but these are 2 of the best Ace Attorney games, especially Resolve.

The 3D animation is wonderful, the characters are so well written, the story and plot twists make me stare at the screen in shock...It's so obvious that these games were made with a love that I've felt is lacking in the most recent Ace Attorney games.

Imagine a spin off title being better than the best mainline game

But yes it's the best ace attorney game

And for one simple reason

Not a single moment felt wasted, every case felt necessary and like it served a purpose.

Even when they were sluggish or a bit unexciting, they were still important

So yes, the spin off that takes place 120 years before the mainline series is better than that same mainline series. even if bridge to the turnabout and turnabout trump were still better cases overall

In summary, beautiful and exciting music, expressive art and animation, amazing characters and a gripping story, a 10/10 in every regard

Has some great moments that reminded me of just how good the AA series can be, but a few of the cases focused so much on excessive world-building and a few characters that I never felt fully engaged with (honestly, sometimes I was just waiting for conversations to end) that these top-tier moments were few and far between for me.

The courtroom sections are where this game shines most, although the occasional tactic of pressing a witness on every statement until another character on the stand 'reacts' felt a tad pointless. Similarly some of the deduction sections were extremely simple to the point of feeling like filler to try and get through as fast as possible.

While the first game of the two does have a few standalone merits, it feels like it serves mostly as a prologue to establish everything for the second game, which does admittedly have a fantastic final case. The music is amazing too, stays true to the classic AA feel while incorporating classical instrumentation of the era, wonderful stuff.

Doesn't compare to the heights of the series for me (TaT and/or AAI) but worth a play for fans of the series.

3/5

Played on Switch.

I only managed to get through the first case. I thought it was interesting and had polish. The case iself was not especially intriguing or up there with the best cases from say The Edgeworth Investigations series - but it was a classic opening case. I've heard the cases from the second game are some of the best in the series. Unfortunately this game has fallen victim to the absolute deluge of bangers that have been coming out in mid-2023, and so I'm putting it down gently.

The second game in this duology is certainly the better one and deserving of high marks. Possibly/arguably a top 3 entry in the series with its tight writing and strong plot. With the duology in mind, however, the first entry is weaker and drags the entity down, despite it being fundamentally necessary to understand the overarching story.

GAA1 - ~3/5 GAA2 - ~4.5/5

4/5

PROS

• Wonderful characters come to life through expressive, sometimes laugh-out-loud-funny animations
• Well-written, witty dialogue
• Dense, interconnected plot is ambitious in scope and impressive in execution
• Rousing musical score
• Majority of the courtroom sequences are effective at making you feel like a detective uncovering a mystery in real-time

CONS

• Absurdly verbose script frequently tests your patience, I genuinely think a good ten hours could've been cut out of each game with minimal impact to the overall plot
• Simplistic deduction sequences feel like filler for the most part

A really nice addition to the Ace Attorney series, and I am so glad that we finally got a Western release of this series. It had some really interesting characters, and the new mechanics of the game are a lot of fun. I loved being able to examine more than one witness at a time.

As an actual Brit, some aspects of the game are a little distracting. Historical fantasy is one thing, but some of the inaccuracies regarding Victorian England are so bad you have to wonder if any research went into the game at all, or if the creators just wanted a vague excuse for a steampunk setting.

I really shouldn't complain too much though. The plot was good, the characters were good, and the soundtrack was good.

I prefer the other games in the series, but this added some really nice lore and I was glad for more Ace Attorney content.

Basically I had a laundry list of reasons why I'm less excited about this than the Phoenix Wright Trilogy game I already own, but eliminate all of them because, man, look at that box art!* I want this as a poster. I want this as a Ben Affleck back tattoo. I'll hopefully live a life that extends far beyond 2021, but I wouldn't mind seeing this printed on my gravestone.

*I wanted to find the highest resolution possible which was a png available on the game's official website. So the Switch and Playstation versions will probably cut in with their own ugly logos, but that is Nintendo and Sony's fault. Capcom just gave us something perfect and corps had to stamp it. Disgusting. I hate it!