video games

As someone who’s a fan of the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and has enjoyed playing both series, I figured it was about time I checked out the Apollo Justice Ace Attorney Trilogy. For those unfamiliar with these games, they’re developed by CAPCOM and are all single player story driven games. The main story behind these games involves investigating murders in order to defend your clients in court and prove that your client isn’t the one who committed the crime. In these games, you come up against tough prosecutors and use the evidence you collect against witness testimony to help prove your client’s innocence.

The Apollo Justice Ace Attorney Trilogy storyline involves these three games: Apollo Justice Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Dual Destinies, and Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice, which follow one of the newest members of Wright’s team, Apollo Justice. In these games, you are introduced to Apollo who is taking over the helm during a time described as the dark age of the law. In this review, I’m going to talk about all three of these games in chronological order as while they follow the same character’s story arch, they are each uniquely different as well. I’m going to share my thoughts on each of these games in the trilogy as well as talk about what I think of the trilogy as a whole.

Apollo Justice Ace Attorney

Photo Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Justice:_Ace_Attorney

Apollo Justice Ace Attorney is the first game in this trilogy, and I felt it was a good way to introduce the new protagonist Apollo Justice into the series along with Trucy who helps Apollo throughout as he’s investigating and collecting evidence to defend his clients. The storyline in this game I found to be interesting and couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen.

What I enjoyed about this game is that the cases were unique and mostly simple to complete. I felt like there was a good balance between using the logic that the evidence provided to prove your case and enough of a challenge that you weren’t breezing through every case. I also enjoyed that Apollo had a unique ability that you were able to use throughout Apollo Justice Ace Attorney. The ability I’m referring to involves Apollo being able to perceive when someone he’s talking to is lying to him through habits the person has when talking but also due to the bracelet he wears tightening around his wrist whenever he’s talking to a person and they’re lying to him. I felt like the way this ability was explained in the game was cool and how you were able to use it, both during investigations and while in court, was a nice touch and brought something to the game to enjoy that I wasn’t expecting.

What I also love about this first game in the trilogy is getting the back story behind Phoenix during this time. I’m not going to get too specific here on what happens as I don’t want to spoil the overall plot of these games. But I really enjoyed seeing it unfold from beginning to end despite how sad it turned out to be for Phoenix and especially Trucy. I think what helped me with it all is that I really like Trucy’s character because she’s a wonderful addition in this series. She reminds me some of Maya and brings light to the trilogy when you need it as the player.

Speaking of characters, another thing I enjoyed about Apollo Justice Ace Attorney was the characters involved in these cases. I especially loved the prosecutor in this game, Klavier Gavin. He is the brother of Apollo’s mentor in the first case, Kristoph Gavin and he’s also the lead vocalist and guitarist in a rock band called the Gavinners. What I like about Klavier is that he’s a prosecutor interested in finding out the truth instead of looking to get a guilty verdict. I also like the dynamic between Apollo and Klavier throughout this game as I feel like they are evenly matched in court. I also like a lot of the lines he uses when in the courtroom when facing off against Apollo.

If I had to choose anything about Apollo Justice Ace Attorney to criticize, it would be the cases themselves. While I enjoy the storyline regarding what happened to Phoenix and a truth that later gets revealed regarding Trucy and Apollo, I wasn’t particularly fond of all of the cases in this first game in the trilogy. Yes, I enjoyed going through the cases and finding out the truth about who the killer actually was, but they weren’t my favorite cases from this trilogy and in the first game of a trilogy. They brought interesting twists and turns that made you wonder what was going to happen next but felt like they didn’t overall leave an impact on me regarding how the rest of the trilogy was going to unfold. The last case is a good example of why I felt this way because the way the verdict was decided wasn’t something that impacted the rest of the trilogy since you were in control of the one who determined whether the client was guilty or not. And the way the verdict in that trial was determined was never discussed in the next game and how it if at all had an impact on the courtroom and how trials are conducted. However, I still did enjoy my playthrough of this game as we were introduced to Apollo, Trucy and Klavier and getting to see what Phoenix’s life was like during what was described as being the dark age of the law.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Dual Destinies

Photo Credit: https://aceattorney.fandom.com/wiki/Phoenix_Wright:_Ace_Attorney_-_Dual_Destinies

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Dual Destinies was an enjoyable game in the Apollo Justice Ace Attorney trilogyto play. This game continues where Apollo Justice Ace Attorney left off but are also introduced to another character into the trilogy named Athena Cykes who works alongside Apollo and Phoenix to help their clients. In this game in the series, you continue to play as Apollo and with the help of Athena, defend your clients and determine who actually committed the crime your client is accused of.

What I enjoyed about playing Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Dual Destinies was the introduction of Athena Cykes and the ability she’s able to bring into the courtroom. Athena Cykes is another person hired at Phoenix’s firm who also has unique abilities of her own that involves being able to pick up on people’s emotions through their voice. She then examines the person’s emotions through a program called the Mood Matrix to uncover the truth regarding their emotions to help a person discover what they truly witnessed. While difficult at times to understand how to use it, I enjoyed getting to use the Mood Matrix in this game because it was very useful during witness testimony as what Athena usually uncovered was information that as the defense you didn’t already have, and I felt like it helped bring me closer to discovering the truth in a case.

And in comparison to the cases in Apollo Justice Ace Attorney, I found that I enjoyed the cases and the backstory that happened in this game better. I think what helped for me was the introduction of Athena Cykes’s character because I felt like the cases in this game brought us more of her backstory regarding her past and why she became a defense attorney in the first place. You saw this not only through the cases in this game but the introduction of the prosecutor for the cases in this game Simon Blackquill. I’m not going to go too deep into the character of Simon Blackquill other than to say he’s a very interesting character to have in these games as a prosecutor. I especially enjoyed how his hawk Taka interacted in the courtroom during witness testimony because it brought some entertainment during some serious moments in trials.

The biggest criticism for me of this game in the trilogy was using the Mood Matrix mechanic because I don’t find its explained very well how it works. I find it to be a very interesting mechanic to include, but I don’t feel like the game does a wonderful job explaining to me how it works. As a result, I found myself oftentimes just pressing randomly hoping to get a result or looking up when I needed to press so that I wasn’t stuck at certain points in the game. Another criticism I have is that although this is supposed to be a game following Apollo’s character, I felt like he didn’t play too much of a role in this game all that much until the last few cases. Not to say I didn’t enjoy the story with this game, but I just felt weird about it because I was hoping to get more of his character backstory in this game, and I feel like I didn’t as it felt like the story was focused on Athena’s growth as a defense lawyer and her story arch.

Overall though, I enjoyed playing Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Dual Destinies. Each of the cases had their own unique twists and turns, I enjoyed seeing the dynamic between Apollo, Athena and Trucy and I felt like the backstory you get of the characters as the game goes on was wonderfully done as I didn’t know what to expect.

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice

I feel like out of the games in this trilogy, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice had some of the most interesting cases and brought in one of the most interesting mechanics. I also found the backstory of what’s going on during this time to be interesting because I wasn’t expecting us to end up switching between playing Phoenix, Apollo and Athena in this game in the way you do. I especially wasn’t expecting to play as Phoenix and end up going into another country called Khura’in and dealing with their unique court system. Phoenix literally puts his life on the line while in Khura’in to defend his clients and uncover truths through the use of the Divination Séance, which allows the player to see the victim’s final moments before their death.

The Divination Séance is one of the most interesting mechanics I’ve seen in these games. Through this séance, you as the player need to pay close attention to what the victim experiences in their final moments in order to find contradictions that’ll help you uncover the truth regarding the victim’s death. Once you find these contradictions, the truth becomes even more clear and you’re able to use what’s discovered to provide doubt regarding your client’s guilt.

Along with the use of this new mechanic, what I also enjoyed about playing Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice was getting to switch between these three characters and handle a unique set of cases that involved using the séance as well as using the mechanics that were in the first two games in this trilogy. I also enjoyed all of the cases in this game because you were given backstory about another country and its justice system while also learning more about the characters in this game. I especially enjoyed it because I learned more about Apollo’s background that led up to him becoming the defense lawyer we know him to be in this trilogy. The last case in particular I enjoyed because it had me on the edge of my seat and also found myself emotional, waiting to see how everything would unfold.

If I had to choose anything about Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice to criticize it would be that we don’t get to see Athena take on too many cases or see her develop in any way. I know we got a lot of her story in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Dual Destinies so I wasn’t expecting too much from her here. But I think it would’ve been nice to see her continue to develop into her own as a defense attorney since she’s just as much of a lawyer in these games as Phoenix and Apollo.

Final Thoughts on Apollo Justice Ace Attorney Trilogy

As a whole, the Apollo Justice Ace Attorney Trilogy was a pleasure for me to play. I enjoyed getting to see a variety of characters that needed a strong defense in court and seeing someone else taking up the helm besides Phoenix. It was also nice getting to see the return of characters from Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy and getting to see what their lives were like during these games. Apollo is an enjoyable protagonist to play as and I’m glad I decided to play these games as I enjoyed them immensely. I enjoyed that each of the games following the first in the trilogy built further upon its predecessor by adding in game mechanics that added an element to investigations and trials that wasn’t there before. And I love how everything with these cases unfolded as there was a wonderful combination of gameplay and logic with these cases to make this an enjoyable experience. If you’ve played the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and enjoyed them, I highly recommend playing this trilogy as well.

If you’ve read this post, thank you for taking time out of your day to do so as I really appreciate it! Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below if you’ve played any of the trilogies mentioned or have any thoughts about any games similar to these.

Rating: 4 stars

Maggie is an unapologetically grumpy forty-eight-year-old hermit. But when her college-aged son makes her a deal―he’ll be more social if she does the same―she can’t refuse. She joins a new online gaming guild led by a friendly healer named Otter. So that nobody gets the wrong idea, she calls herself Bogwitch.

Otter is Aiden, a fifty-year-old optimist using the guild as an emotional outlet from his family drama caring for his aging mother while his brother plays house with Aiden’s ex-fiancée.

Bogwitch and Otter become fast virtual friends, but there’s a catch. Bogwitch thinks Otter is a college student. Otter assumes Bogwitch is an octogenarian.

When they finally meet face to face―after a rocky, shocking start―the unlikely pair of sunshine and stormy personalities grow tentatively closer. But Maggie’s previous relationships have left her bitter, and Aiden’s got a complicated past of his own. Everything’s easier online. Can they make it work in real life?

After the series I’ve been reading, Role Playing was the perfect read for me to pick up. It featured two protagonists I felt I could relate to on a personal level, had romance, and was overall a fantastic read. What I find relatable about both these protagonists in this book is how big of introverts they are and their love for online gaming. As an introvert myself, it was nice seeing two people connect through online gaming and for that to help spark into a romantic relationship.

What I also enjoyed when reading this book was how the author went into serious topics, such as sexuality. We quickly find out why both these characters have issues in relationships and discover with Aiden that he’s not only bisexual but demisexual as well. And it was nice to see LGBTQ representation in this book, especially in a way I felt like I could relate to. As someone myself who’s only been in relationships with people who I could connect to on an emotional level, it was nice to read about a character with similar experiences. I also love that this was used as a learning opportunity for characters in the story. It not only showed the characters learning but felt to me like a good point for anyone reading this book that didn’t know what demisexual is to go look it up and find out for themselves and I really loved seeing that in this book.

What I also liked about Role Playing was that the two protagonists in the story, Maggie and Aiden, were both older characters. It isn’t very often that I’ve read romance books that featured older characters. So it was nice seeing two older people fall in love with each other and was eager to find out how their relationship would continue to grow.

If I had to choose anything to criticize with this book it would have to be Aiden’s family. From the beginning, I wasn’t all that fond of them anyway. But as the book went on and they repeatedly made him out to be a bad person no matter what he did, I found myself disliking them more and more. I especially disliked his mother and Sheryl because they both treated him terribly. But when the truth comes out as to why they act the way they do towards him, I find myself disliking them both even more and am happy to see Maggie calling them both out on their shit in this book because they both deserved it. I wasn’t too fond of Aiden’s brother either, but I felt like out of the members of the family, he was more open to accepting Aiden so that made him slightly better to me.

Another criticism I have for this book was the romance itself. While this book felt like a cozy read to me and I enjoyed that aspect of it, I felt like the romance between Maggie and Aiden moved almost too slowly. I felt like I kept waiting for it to pick up the pace, but it never did. I also felt like there just wasn’t enough of it either because I don’t feel like I truly saw their relationship fully develop throughout the story. Even with the epilogue, I felt like I didn’t fully get to see their relationship and see what the two of them being together was like. Yes, I like both of their characters and they went through quite a bit together throughout the story because of Aiden’s family, but I just felt like there was something missing with their romance that as a reader I didn’t see.

However, I overall enjoyed reading Role Playing. It was a cozy read, with introverted protagonists I could relate to despite their age difference to me. I really enjoyed the representation of a bisexual and demisexual character and I liked that the romance in this story was between two older characters as that’s something I haven’t seen very often in romance books. I highly recommend this romance story to any introvert who enjoys video games as much as I do, anyone in the LGBTQ community and anyone who’d enjoy reading a romance between two older characters.