I’ve been playing Ace Attorney all wrong.

I have been trying to find my footing with the Ace Attorney series for about 4 years now but it didn’t really click with me until this past weekend.

Years prior to the 3DS eShop being shut down, I bought the Ace Attorney Trilogy on 3DS even though it was already available on Switch. Why would I do that when the Switch version makes the most sense to buy? The answer is simple because it’s not like I can play the Switch version in 3D nor is there a feature to shout “Objection!” into my console as a method of presenting evidence. Something else I admire more about the Ace Attorney releases on DS and 3DS is how the pixel art and sprites look versus the look of the HD art that looks like it’s been passed through a filter.

I have been trying to complete the trilogy for years now and that has resulted in dozens of hours spent on those first three games and I did not come to fully appreciate these games until a few days ago.

For context, I have completed the first two games: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and its sequel, Justice for All. Having no nostalgia for these games, I thought they were just okay. My biggest gripe and biggest obstacle to overcome with these games has to do with the logic.

These are visual novel adventure games that follow Phoenix Wright in his adventures as an underdog defense attorney who is just barely making it through each court case. Listening to witness testimonies and pointing out contradictions is the name of the game. More often than not, when someone is on the witness stand, you have to assume that they are lying and must prove it by presenting the evidence you have on hand. Whether it be an outdated autopsy or photograph of the crime scene, it is up to the player to present the right evidence at the right time as well as press the statements that sound the most vague and suspicious. 

It sounds pretty straightforward but the main reason why I have bounced off this series so many times in the past is because of how frustrated I get with the game’s logic. Looking back, I now see that my issue stemmed from overthinking Ace Attorney. Many times, I would already come to my own conclusion on what the sequence of events were during a murder trial, but I would be butting my head against a wall for hours because I could not figure out how to communicate that with the game.

For example, during a trial- there would be instances where a witness would recall a series of events and I would see a contradiction. I would then present a piece of evidence that I thought would blow their testimony wide open but would end up getting penalized because I didn’t present the right piece of evidence the game wanted me to present at that moment for that specific statement. For the longest time, this drove me up a wall.

Now if I had issues with the game, why would I keep playing it? After all, life is too short to play games you don’t like. The issue was not that I didn’t like Ace Attorney but rather, I wanted to like Ace Attorney but it was difficult for me due to the issues I kept having with the logic of the court cases. I guess I kept returning to Ace Attorney with the thought of , “Maybe this time, it’ll click for me and I’ll see the light”.

When I first picked these games up, I would be reading each line of dialogue with the detective part of my brain working at 110%. But something I need to remind myself is that this is just a game on my DS. And that is not meant to be derogatory towards the game as much as it’s meant to highlight how seriously I’m approaching a DS game that wants me to have fun with its satirical take on the legal system. And as soon as I dialed down the part of my brain that would be overthinking each court case, I began to have fun and laugh with the game. Presenting evidence came to me a lot more easily and I found myself understanding the charm of this series’s wide cast of characters: Phoenix Wright, Miles Edgeworth, Detective Gumshoe, The Von Karmas, The Feys, f*cking Godot… I finally get it.

This past weekend, I finally finished what is commonly regarded as one of the best AA games: Trials and Tribulations, the third in the original Ace Attorney trilogy. Playing through the game’s final case, Bridge to Turnabout, might just be the first time I’ve drained the 3DS battery in a single day. I played for over 8 hours that day because that final case really illustrates the emotional highs and lows that the entire trilogy has been working towards. Not to give any spoilers, but the pacing and the writing of Bridge to Turnabout has cemented my newfound obsession for a series I used to have one-sided beef with. 

I’m officially Ace Attorney-pilled.