Almost ten years after the initial release of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, it’s time for Apollo Justice to make his mark on a new generation of law enthusiasts. Capcom seems to have done yet another fantastic job with Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, with the parts of each port I played looking beautiful and playing smoothly.
In a world that is full of injustice, only one man can stand above all the perversions of our legal system and shine a light on the truth. That’s right—Phoenix Wright! Wait, no, sorry. I meant Apollo Justice. When Capcom first unveiled this trilogy and marketed it as the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, reactions online among people who played these games were a little mixed. A common joke was that despite the game being the “Apollo Justice” trilogy, he’s not exactly the main character in all of them. Meanwhile, all three of the original Ace Attorney games focused entirely on Phoenix.
Creators of a long-running series tend to have a hard time saying goodbye to the original protagonist who popularized their show or game. Kiryu Kazuma, Kira Yamato, Phoenix Wright… Even though the creators push Kasuga Ichiban, Shinn Asuka, and Apollo Justice as the supposed “successors” of the original protagonists’ legacy, we can’t seem to fully shake off the ghosts of the past. Kiryu is still in the Like a Dragon games as a prominent playable character. Kira Yamato hijacked the entire second half of Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny. Phoenix Wright and, egregiously, new character Athena Cykes do not give Apollo much room to shine on his own.
This is really sad to see as an Apollo fan! I was sad about it at the time when I played Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice too. Though the games after the fourth one do go into more detail about Apollo and his past, they feel so bogged down by the ridiculous setting (the world of Ace Attorney really jumped the shark from the fifth game). The games’ lack of focus on threads set up from the fourth game, which was Apollo’s debut, was something I didn’t like originally.
But this is not the place to talk on end about the quality of the original games. It’s to talk about them as ports! Capcom seems to have a great job with Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, based on the cases I played. The sprites and animations look clean, to the point the games look more modern than they actually are. It’s in contrast with the retro look of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy PS4 port, which preserved the look of the original games. I’m not really surprised at how good the fifth and sixth games look, since they first came out on the 3DS. But considering Apollo Justice was initially a DS game, I’m truly impressed. I guess it’s not a surprise considering how Capcom managed to make the original Ace Attorney trilogy look so good on modern consoles when they started out on the GBA.
There are several differences between this port and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy. The most obvious one is in the menu and UI. As ports of newer games, the menus look way nicer without clashing with the game’s aesthetic. They’re also very easy to navigate The main difference that I enjoy is how you can change the language and continue from where you left off. Originally, if you wanted to change the language, you had to start the chapter over. However, in this one, you can simply go to the main menu and then back to your save file. This is a fun one if you’re like me and enjoy comparing translations with the original text to see how the team localized certain turns of phrases. Shu Takumi has unique idiosyncrasies in his writing that Capcom has always translated in creative ways while preserving his particular brand of humor.
Another thing that’s nice is turning off the Consultation from the fifth and sixth games. The fifth game in particular was a really weak entry not only because of its writing and hard focus on new characters, but its difficulty level. It was almost ridiculously easy. The game told you everything you needed to examine and everyone you needed to talk to. You could also Consult in court, in which the characters would direct you to an answer if you kept messing up. These days, lots of games have an easy mode for those who just want the game’s story. At the time, this could have been such an accessibility feature. But the fact that they were in the game by default was a little annoying, so I’m glad Capcom lets us disable them in the ports. The notebook (literally a to-do list) is also less intrusive than I remember.
So far, I’ve not run into any issues in terms of the graphics or the localization. I note the localization because I remember the fifth game in particular having lots of typos. Either they appear later in the game or the localization team performed some QA for the port. The only issue I came across was the audio bugging out but that was because I turned my Switch on and off at ten-minute intervals while watching an eSport tournament, so that’s less to do with the game and more to do with me. I look forward to experiencing the whole collection and see my boy Apollo get some justice.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy will come out for the PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Windows PC via Steam on January 25, 2024. Nintendo Switch version previewed.
