Product Description

Players star as rookie defense attorney Apollo Justice as he visits crime scenes, questions key witnesses and collects vital evidence before stepping into the courtroom to prove his clients' innocence. Facing Apollo across the courtroom is the highly talented and flamboyant prosecutor Klavier Gavin who, in addition to being a legal genius, is also lead singer with Gavinners, a highly successful rock band with a string of hits to their name. He may be young and inexperienced but Apollo's confident manner and passion, coupled with his unique ability to uncover witnesses' lies by studying their body language, will prove invaluable assets in the courtroom as he pleads the case for the defense. Thankfully, Apollo is not alone and is aided both in and out of the courtroom by his assistant Trucy, a mysterious female magician. Apollo also receives invaluable advice from his mentor the ultra-cool Kristoph Gavin, elder brother of Klavier, whose perfect logic and natural instincts have won him numerous cases and the respect of his colleagues.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2275 in Video Games
• Brand: Capcom
• Released on: 2008-02-20
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Format: CD
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .50" h x 5.50" w x 5.00" l, .18 pounds

Customer Reviews

A new place for Justice!
Apollo Justice is the 4th in the series of the three previous Phoenix Wright games. The new main character: Apollo, many PW fans might find this to be somewhat of a disappointment (that is, at a glance.) Although once you get into the story (with Phoenix helping you along the way) you'll find that it's ultimately worth the ride.

The amount of detective work you get to do is increased. Take note though that most of the new stuff you get to do is only used a few times in each case. Also like Phoenix's magatama, here we have Apollo's weapon: The Perceive System. This feature is used throughout most of the game. It is utilized fairly well and testimonies do not solely rely on this (evidence is still used to point out most contradictions.)

You will miss a lot of the main characters, basically because of what Phoenix Wright's story and background was built on. Since you play as Apollo you kind of start his story, introducing new and intriguing characters. But you also backtrack as to why Phoenix is the protagonist no longer (and more!) You get a cameo appearance and Ema Skye - an old character from the first PW game appears as a main character.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game. However it felt a bit empty in the end. I felt it was too easy, and it's shorter - with only 4 cases! And although the premise (for a specific case) was really fun and a great idea, it turned a little weak in the end because you already know what to do for the final round. It was better than I expected, considering that I was a bit skeptical about this new main character (and how it all tied in.) It is very fitting to the series and a sequel should be coming out ... eventually (It was announced in Japan but with no further details or known progress.)

Great game, but loses it's steam after the second chapter.
Pros:
-Graphics and sound truly are a step up for the series
-Gameplay retains the same PW charm
-Forensics add significantly to the fun factor of the game
-Chapter 2 is the gameplay pinnacle of the series to date

Cons:
-Story has continuity issues
-Still a very linear series
-Solutions can be obscure and frustrating at times
-Everything past Chapter 2 is disappointing by comparison
-Not much to do with the PW story arc aside from a few returning characters
-Very likely the last game in the Ace Attorney series

Short synopsis: Still caters to a niche crowd---won't expand the Ace Attorney fanbase beyond what it already is. Retains all the flaws of the PW games without adding much beyond the semi-new (for US gamers) forensics system. Better introduction to the series for new people compared to the original PW games, but not by much. Fun for current fans of the series, although story will disappoint.

Detailed review:

Having played all of the Phoenix Wright games, I was looking forward to this one. Ultimately, it was a mixed experience. The game starts out strong, with the traditional court-only tutorial sequence (and with a hefty spoiler right at the start for those that have played the previous entries---I can't go into detail here). Users that have played previous entries in the series or are already familiar with the mechanics through other means can skip the following bracketed section.

[A summary of the game mechanics for the uninitiated:

The core of the game is still the same as it was in the Phoenix Wright games. A crime is committed, you take the case, and begin your own investigation. The game is divided into two separate phases---the "Investigation" phase and the "Courtroom" phase. Traditionally, you will have two of each phases per case in an alternating pattern (i.e., I-C-I-C) although this is not guaranteed, sometimes you will have more than 2 court phases, or just one investigation phase and one court phase.

During the Investigation part of the game, you visit varied locales, interview witnesses and suspects, and collect evidence via the "Examine" command. This is the traditional Adventure genre part of the game, and is similar to older PC games like Monkey Island or Maniac Mansion. You spend most of the game in this phase. There is always a marked end to this phase which leads into the Court phase.

The Court part of the game is what is truly unique about this series. The Court phase is structured in a manner similar to an actual trial. A witness, suspect, or your client is called to the stand and testimony is given. After hearing testimony, you are able to cross-examine the person on the stand. Cross-examining consists of paging through their testimony, pressing them for more information, and presenting evidence to call out contradictions. The objective is to essentially discredit the testimony and/or reveal new information that leads the case in a new direction (which doesn't always work out in your favor---but this section is linear and you don't have a choice). These portions of the game are markedly shorter than the investigation phases, but the court proceedings further the story, whereas the investigation phases usually only provide information that you have to sort and decode once you get into the courtroom.

The obvious objective is to get a "Not Guilty" verdict, which will lead to a epilogue and the unlocking of the next chapter in the game.]

Review continues here:

Immediately it's obvious that this game, unlike the other Ace Attorney games, is not a GBA port. The character sprites have been revamped and look hand-drawn---they brought back memories of the old SF:Alpha games for the PS1. Additionally, the backgrounds were redone to take advantage of the DS's significantly larger color palette and no longer suffer from the serious dithering and lack of detail they used to. The music has also been updated to CD quality tracks that are also very reminiscent of CAPCOM's PS1 days (which is an excellent thing).

It's impressive that even after all of these revamps and updates, that the game still feels familiar and retains that classic Phoenix Wright charm. All of the updates seem like an organic evolution of the original, and players of the Phoenix Wright games will immediately recognize characters, locations, and even the music despite being drastically modernized.

After playing through the tutorial, the player is presented with an almost "open world" scenario with multiple objectives to be accomplished during the investigation phase. The investigation portion of the game has (thankfully) been updated to match the way the game played during the DS-exclusive case in the first Phoenix Wright game. Instead of solely relying on moving from location to location, talking through all of the subjects with every person possible, with the occasional "Examine" evidence collection; the game now utilizes a forensic element which makes the investigation part of the game significantly more fun.

Players of the first game will be familiar with this forensics concept. In addition to conducting interviews, you will now be responsible for tasks such as dusting for prints on evidence, spraying Luminol to check for blood, and creating plaster casts of footprints embedded in the ground at the crime scene. You will also be required to examine your evidence and interact with it in such a way that can either reveal the true function of the piece of evidence, or expose more evidence inside or on the original piece evidence itself.

A final thing worth mentioning before going into the problems this game has is the change to the court proceedings. Gone are the psych-locks from the investigation phases of the second and third Phoenix Wright games. Instead, a new feature was added to the court phase to make up for this. During certain parts of testimony while cross-examining someone, you'll have the option to slow time down and get a magnified view of the person you're cross-examining. During the slow replay of testimony, you examine the witness closely to check for a "tell" (for those who don't play Poker---you're looking for a nervous twitch or some other sign that indicates the person is lying), locating the tell allows you to press the person on the stand for more testimony.

With this said, the game is far from perfect.

Players of the original Phoenix Wright games will likely be disappointed that this game seems to take place on an alternate timeline that was created for the DS exclusive chapter in the first Phoenix Wright. There are only three returning characters (not counting The Judge), and a few (rather lame) references to other characters in the original timeline are thrown out there. The returning characters also feel almost out of place, which is likely due to the fact that the development team originally did not want a connection to the Phoenix Wright games aside from the "Ace Attorney" franchise name.

The game also really slows down after the second chapter. After being teased with a huge amount of freedom (for the series) in Chapter 2, the game quickly brings itself back into an extremely linear, contained world in the subsequent chapters. While it's not a game killer, it's disappointing because it almost feels as though the true potential scope of the game is realized, then quickly yanked away from you as though to tease you.

Additionally, the court sequences still feel too linear and "puzzle-like" with only one path to a "Not Guilty" verdict. This path can, at times, be extremely obscure as well, forcing multiple replays because of the "guess and check" method or requiring the help of a FAQ. There is only one "two choice" option at the very end of the game in the very last court session, and it feels like a token choice; since one option leads to a short "bad" ending. It seems that the developers weren't afraid to toy with the Investigation part of the game, but were horrified to change the Courtroom sequences (excluding the new special ability).

Finally, the story, even taken out of context of the rest of the series, is also somewhat disappointing. Most of the new characters don't have as much personality as those in the old series did, and a few of the characters are really just dopplegangers of past characters from a story and personality perspective. The ending, while touching, doesn't tie up a number of loose ends. This would be forgivable if not for the fact that the ending doesn't indicate that there will be a second Apollo Justice game.

A Great Start
I haven't finished yet, but Apollo Justice stands up to everything that Phoenix Wright was before him. Quirk characters as well as surprising turns in the trials is just as prevelant as it was in the original three. Although the characters from the originals aren't in there (or most of them anyway), Apollo has a lot of new characters to offer that are just as entertaining. Don't be fooled though, Phoenix is still in the game, but in a decidedly different role. The gameplay is very similiar to Phoenix's games while also introducing some features that only a DS could bring to life, such as examining the evidence from all sides, as was introduced in the fifth case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Rise from the Ashes. The features didn't follow through to any other game until now).

Although my favorite characters from the original three aren't involved, Apollo Justice is a lot better than I thought it would be, and I would be extrememly happy to see another come out as a sequel to this game.