How Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney makes My Cousin Vinny look mundane
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2006)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2006)
There are two professions out there that make me shake my head with defiance and say, “Nup, not for me”. One of those, naturally, is moonlighting as a toilet trader down at the local train station - I’m a bit old for such indiscretions. The other vocation I’d run a mile from, would have to be lawyer.
Or anything to do with a court of law really. You know, Judge, Judy, executioner, all that. Your every word has to be precise, and there’s no room for made-up hogwash. You can’t make it all up as you go along, which sort of puts my potential career as a litigator in chains from the start. No waffling? I’d be lost at sea. Best if I leave all that game to those chosen ones, the type of people called Charles, Edward and Magnus.
Me, I’m much better suited to hocking up lies, spin and bile here in these pieces for you and all your lame pals to choke down. It's an activity that possibly isn’t very far removed from what Joe Pesci spent his time doing in the excellent 1992 film My Cousin Vinny.
If you've not seen it, I highly recommend checking it out - it's a courtroom comedy that, despite all its madcap antics and the protagonist’s frequent gaffes, garnered praise for having a very accurate representation of the US legal system.
This stern portrayal of the Alabamian courts is why, when Pesci struts on into the courtroom wearing a violently loud 3-piece scarlet suit (that famous footballer Lionel Messi would later borrow and make headlines with at the 2014 Ballon d’Or award ceremony), Herman Munster up on the bench isn’t too impressed.
This dedication to realism is also why the Judge constantly admonishes Pesci for repeated use of foul language, runs background checks into his (laughably bogus) previous court history, and denies the angry little man a perfectly good objection because he’d rubbed the judge up the wrong way earlier.
The film is a useful caper because it's so realistic in its approach. Yes, there’s a few dramatic reveals and stretches. But nobody bursts into the courtroom with the real villain bound-and-gagged over their shoulders. Nor does any CSI nonsense rear its ugly head and throw up decisive fingerprints from a hundred hectares away. And the killer, spoilers alert, doesn’t turn out to be someone vastly unlikely like His Honour himself.
It still remains a tickle-your-balls funny film, despite its never-condescending wish to be an accurate representation - or perhaps because of it. Yes, there may be two innocent boys in severe danger of being sent to the chair for murder, but so long as you’re invited in to view proceedings in camera, it can be funny, right...?
Right. Well, at least that’s what Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and its now numerous sequels endeavour to do. I was first been exposed to this game via, to my eternal shame, online memes. In particular, there were hundreds of people on forums and that old racist battlefield, the YouTube Commentsphere, all screaming “OBJECTION!” or “HOLD IT!” at other online aggressors. This seemed to be their way of furiously countering their enemies, before typing out an increasingly strawman-ish argument of a million words
Now, not to point fingers, or indeed expose myself, but it has to be said that quite a few Ace Attorney fans would hardly be considered as ideal companions in Ibiza Uncovered-esque nightclubs. Nor would some of them be out at place at Brony conventions. We’re talking about anime lawyers here after all, and you know what the weeaboos are like.
The game’s sometimes questionable fandom, coupled with the fact that the games all looked just a little bit silly, meant that I gave the Ace Attorney series an unfairly wide berth for quite some time. However, with the help of a magic little flashcard (you can add a few Homer Simpson-esque devious chuckles to that), the opportunity to play the increasingly popular Ace Attorney series on my DS presented itself to me.
Well, why not? At the time, I was low on SD card space, so it was either Phoenix Wright or Cooking Mama, and I regarded pantomime lawyery as just a bit more palatable than pantomime Come Dine With Me.
So I gave Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, the first game of the series, my usual 20 minutes. That’s the rigidly cruel amount that I always allow a game, before I either stick my neck out and pronouncing it as the Greatest Game of All Time Ever and Ever, or I discard it, consigning it to the abyss; or in this morally dubious world of flashcart doohickery, the infinite hellfire of the Recycle Bin.
Well, there’s no other real way to put it: what I played was a marvel. Top notch dialogue, wonderfully expressive and funny characters, and most of all, an immensely compelling storyline. And keep in mind, the first two cases of this game’s five openly show you who the murderer is anyway, but the journey to get there is still a thrill.
I’m still not sure how they did it. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and its sequels are games which really, absolutely should not work. Any boardroom fatcat worth his salt would have laughed a goofy manga lawyer game out of the building tout suite, in between almighty belts of coke.
I truly hate it that a loathsome company like Capcom could be the ones to have fronted a great, mental game series like this. It’s a bit like when a celebrity you utterly despise for no real reason turns around and pops up with such a formidable performance, whether it be in film or on the sports field or wherever, and all you can do is begrudgingly admire what they’ve done.
Having hated Capcom for so long, watching this amazing game play out in front of me and drop my jaw for me was a bit like watching a pube-bearded Daniel Radcliffe's performance of Alphabet Aerobics - suddenly, I had nothing left to hate. But unfortunately, I have to come clean, shock the world and indeed admit it: this game and its sequels are exactly what we need to see, and the series deserves all the help it can get.
This first game of the franchise is the first part of the Phoenix Wright character’s trilogy. But don’t worry; for once, Capcom isn’t trying to completely extort you of your hard-earned cash. Each game is entirely self-contained, with its own charming (although no less anime) story to resolve. They then fit into a whole bigger picture, and in subsequent games you can expect all sorts of blasts from the pasts to show up, who you’ll always be happy to see.
There are so many fully named and expanded characters in the game that I couldn't even really waste time here telling their stories. I'll just give you the basic suss: Phoenix Wright is the naïve, bluffing newcomer to the law game, and his ample-chested mentor Mia Fey takes him under her busty wings but gets killed off fairly lively. Don’t worry, that’s hardly a spoiler, considering what’s to come.
Then her sister Maya comes in to accompany Phoenix on his investigations of crime scenes, helping him to build up evidence before another insane and legally unprecedented day in court. But wait! Who is this ball-buster of a grey-haired rival called Miles Edgeworth, and how does Phoenix know him? The intrigue continues…
Really, the star of the show is young Maya - the dynamic between the two partners is always funny and heartrending. But just about every character in this game has their own legion of die-hard fans, which all points to the game’s fantastic localisation.
You needn’t worry about game length either - you can only progress through the cases as quickly as the text’s sensibly-chosen speed scrolls, and you’ll be compelled to read all of the optional lines anyway, for stimulating debates on ladders and stepladders among other such minutiae.
Replay value is very high as well; in the same way that you know full well exactly how your favourite book plays out, it's the journey there and the details you may have missed that makes it all so memorable. The developers knew this, and you can fly through the text as fast as you like when you replay a case, which is a fine touch.
And that’s Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Funny scenarios, with all kinds of incidental text, contrasted with serious cases of murder, twists and intrigue... Fine characters, almost all of them winners, all hitting the right notes whether they be ruthlessly professional, doddery but keen or out-and-out slackers.
We can’t forget the fabulously expressive sprites either, even if some are cartoony, or even a little grainy for DS standards - this is owing to the game's origin as a Game Boy Advance title, believe it or not. Well, you didn't think something as bonkers as this game would easily get a Western release, did you?
Really, one would hardly believe it, but this game proves that the visual novel is a legitimate genre of game. And there's no better example out there than the first Phoenix Wright game. This game and its series has brought the genre back to popularity, from the old text adventures of decades ago. Viva la visual novel, if you ask me.
12 May 2023