Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright
jes...@gmail.com
Pretty clearly IF, if a little lacking in verbs. Anyone in here
familiar with it?
S. John Ross
I remember reading about it ... they did an English-language port for
the DS, didn't they? Unless I'm thinking of the wrong game the
original was Japanese-only ...
Michael Martin
It got a complete release and translation for the DS, for the entire
series. I'm rather fond of them, though it's very firmly in the TV
Lawyer Style instead of any sort of sensible procedural.
PW2 tried to improve the verbiness by treating "Present {personality
profile}" as an action. The fourth game in the series has stepped
back from this, for reasons I'm not clear on (though it almost never
mattered anyway.)
As the series progressed, they seem to have gotten noticably better at
doing actual *mysteries*. In particular, the most recent case I
finished (2nd of the fourth game) stood out for being both (a) solved
before the final trial scene started, and (b) having an interesting
trial scene anyway without using Incomprehensible Shocking Swerve
gimmicks.
I'm not convinced they truly hold up as quality IF, strictly from an
IF standpoint, but they're definitely workable graphic adventures, and
I enjoyed the series.
On an unrelated note, it has one of the most daring translations I've
seen in a game, ever; the Japanese versions were apparently stuffed
with horrible puns and random media references and the like, and
instead of attempting to translate them directly, the translators
merely stuffed it with their *own* cavalcades of horrific puns and
media references. So it takes a certain mindset to be able to play.
--Michael
Andrew Plotkin
>
> PW2 tried to improve the verbiness by treating "Present {personality
> profile}" as an action. The fourth game in the series has stepped
> back from this, for reasons I'm not clear on (though it almost never
> mattered anyway.)
That sounds like a clear reason...
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't shipped you to Syria for interrogation, it's
for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're innocent.
Michael Martin
> > PW2 tried to improve the verbiness by treating "Present {personality
> > profile}" as an action. The fourth game in the series has stepped
> > back from this, for reasons I'm not clear on (though it almost never
> > mattered anyway.)
>
> That sounds like a clear reason...
Well, they could have instead made it matter more; the implied action
was usually "ask the person in front of you about the person whose
profile you selected", and they just gave it a default response a huge
percentage of the time. As I understand it, the Game Boy Advance
editions of the first three games were actually running out of ROM to
put data into, but the fourth, designed for the DS from the ground up,
really doesn't have that excuse.
--Michael
Ryusui
It became context-sensitive. It's not that you *can't* present
profiles; it's that you can only present a profile when a profile is
expected of you, and as noted above it removed a certain frustration
aspect from the game. "Guess the evidence" can be as annoying as
"guess the verb".
Right now there are four games, and a fifth is in the works. The
Japanese title for the series is "Gyakuten Saiban", or "Turnabout
Court". The first three games star Phoenix Wright, as their U.S.
titles imply (GS1-3 are "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney", "PW: AA -
Justice for All" and "PW: AA - Trials and Tribulations"), and the
fourth, set seven years after the third game, stars a new character
named Apollo Justice, though an older, wiser Phoenix also plays a
major part in the story.
On a side note, a spinoff starring prosecutor Miles Edgeworth has just
been announced: "Gyakuten Kenji", or "Turnabout Prosecutor". This
one's more of a point-and-click detective game, it would seem. Since
the Ace Attorney series is now officially a major Capcom franchise in
the U.S., expect a U.S. release within a few months of the Japanese
one.