Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Review – The Battle of Lawyers

Obscure game genres are hard to come by these days as it’s hard to create an original idea in modern times. Throughout the years we’ve seen many FPS clones thanks to the popularity of the Call of Duty games. More recently, a ton of Souls-like clones have popped up thanks to FromSoftware popularizing this genre. 

One franchise that has pretty much had zero clones in Capcom’s Ace Attorney series. Even though this game is categorized as a visual novel, I don’t think I’ve encountered any other game that lets you assume the role of a lawyer. Not to mention this whole game entirely takes place inside a courtroom. 

If you never owned a Nintendo DS or 3DS, now is the time to play three of the best games in the entire series. This is because Capcom has released a complication called Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy. This bundle comes with Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, and even Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice. 

What some people have to know about these games is that they’re visual novels that feature a TON of dialogue! Sadly, even though this collection has revamped graphics and other extra features, they still don’t have full voice acting. The only voice acting you can hear is included in some of the short cutscenes. 

Gameplay-wise, most of the time you will be reading a lot of dialogue while pressing the X button to continue. If you don’t like doing a lot of reading and watching, then I don’t think these types of games are for you. However, if you love solving mysteries, you are going to have a lot of fun playing these games. 

Even though the majority of the game is straight dialogue, there are some sequences in the game where you have to do some investigative work. A lot of the time during cases you have to listen carefully to witness testimonies. You will have to use evidence that you have collected to cross-examine their testimonies to point out any flaws in their confession. 

For example, in one of the murder cases, a witness clarified that they witnessed the murder in front of their eyes. However, you can point out during a photo that their vision of view would have been blocked at the time of the murder or something like that. 

Many of the real culprits in this game love to lie through their testimony so it’s up to you to call them out on their fibs. It’s an interesting chess match and it’s intriguing to play if you are into this sort of thing. I never really watched legal dramas on TV, so I was very engaged while playing this game about crime and crafty lawyers!

To add some challenge to the game, you do have “lives” and you have to make sure you have proper evidence before you make false accusations. If you make too many false accusations without pointing out the right evidence, it’s game over! You can however ask for some advice in the latter two games if you get stuck. 

New to this collection is an exclusive “Story Mode”. “Story Mode” can be pressed if you don’t feel like thinking and doing your own investigative work. “Story Mode” pretty much plays the game for you and you can sit back and see how the game plays. I don’t advise you to use Story Mode all of the time, but it’s helpful to use if you get stuck on a certain point in the case.

What I like most about Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy is that each episode is very long. Some of the episodes that I played were around 60 to 90 minutes long! There are tons of episodes in each game and it will take you well around 20 to 30 hours or more to finish each game! Not to mention this collection features special DLC episodes that some people may have missed playing the first time around. 

Speaking of this collection, there is an Orchestra Hall for you to listen to all of the great music in the game. There is also an Art Library and Animation Studio that lets you look at the characters and artwork from the three games in this collection too. 

Graphically, the graphics in this collection have been overhauled to look excellent on modern style systems. I played this game on my PS5 and the anime-style character models and cutscenes look excellent. Just the lack of voice-acting is a bit disappointing, although it does not ruin the entire experience. 

While I enjoyed most of what this collection offers, there weren’t many flaws that I could point out. The only nitpick I can think of is that some of the episodes have zero replay value. Once you know how to solve a case, there’s little incentive to play through the game again. The only people who might want to play through the episodes again are trophy/achievement hunters. 

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Review Verdict

Editor’s Note: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy was reviewed on PlayStation 5, and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.