Why Apollo Justice Might Be The Best Top-Rated Lawyer Game

Can you imagine celebrating your 20th birthday and someone comes up to you and tells you that your nervous little friend / trainee is much more interesting than you? Well, it’s Ace Attorney’s 20th birthday, and even though it isn’t exactly what I’m doing (and I’ll explain why in more detail in a moment), I have to say: as a person who has played every Ace Attorney game (except for the Investigations 2 fan translation), I strongly believe that Apollo Justice is one of the best, although most people rank it below almost every other game.

First of all, let me assure you: I love Phoenix Wright. In fact, one of the main reasons I adore Apollo Justice is because by Phoenix Wright.

At this point, we’ve been through three games with Nick as a chaotic junior lawyer who keeps forgetting his clients’ names, or an annoying relatively self-assured Edgeworth who accidentally stumbles upon and then solve several unsolved cases dating back long before he started his career. At the beginning of Apollo Justice, there is no Nick in sight; Instead, we get a seven-year time jump, and we meet this scruffy weirdo who gambles in the alleys and plays the piano poorly.

And that trash human turns out to be the same lawyer in a suit and spiky hair that we all know and love. What a fantastic twist to start the story: taking everything you know about gaming and turning it around. It’s a clever way of pointing out that Apollo Justice, and games from now on, won’t be afraid to play by convention, to subvert what people expect.

And of course, Ace Attorney-style, this tough version of Phoenix Wright is not only disgraced and ostracized, but is on trial for murder. Okay, that’s not really subversion, that’s the basics of Ace Attorney story writing.

But I have a little confession to make, here: I like the scruffy Phoenix. He’s cute. In fact, the Ace Attorney series really started leaning toward making its characters extremely Bad Boy Attractive around the time of Apollo Justice, and Edgeworth became a strict silver fox with glasses in the game afterward, and, you know, the whole. of the existence of Klavier Gavin.

You might be thinking this isn’t really relevant to why Apollo Justice is one of my favorites, but it totally is – Ace Attorney has always been incredibly beloved by his female audience, and every once in a while, a game will really acknowledge that. , and artists will lean toward drawing through the lens of the female gaze. We have enough burly boys who don’t know how to talk about their feelings; I want more well-dressed boys who read books.

However, I promise that I don’t just love the game for the hunk. Apollo Justice introduces a new Magatama-style mechanic in the form of an Apollo magic bracelet that tightens when someone lies, which you will have to demonstrate by pointing to their nervous tic, as if that could be sustained in court. It’s ridiculous, yes, but Ace Attorney has never shied away from ridiculous – remember the witness that he was a parrot? Or all the times that literal ghosts were allowed to be called to the stand? How about the fact that your murdered mentor continues to inhabit her living sister’s body so she can keep an eye on you? Exactly.

In addition to the magic bracelet, Apollo Justice also features a fully recorded live concert that you will have to review to answer the questions surrounding a crime, a wizarding family surrounded by mystery and tragedy, and a case involving time travel. Fans, of course, are divided by these tricks, and the lack of Phoenix as a protagonist, but I loved them all, and the case of time travel in particular remains one of my favorites to this day because of how a seven-year narrative is disputed. in a series of shocking twists.

I think the best (and sometimes the most confusing) cases are the ones that involve the cast themselves; I’m not necessarily referring to “oh no, Maya has been charged with murder again,” but the ones that describe the characters’ backstories. Finding out about Edgeworth’s father (and the resulting trauma), Mia and Maya’s mother, Dahlia’s betrayal of almost everyone, and the shared childhoods of Larry Butz, Phoenix Wright, and Mile Edgeworth flesh out the people you’ll meet over and over. time. , which makes them more than just their rivals and assistants.

Apollo Justice takes that one step further, with each case intricately linked to the strange and enigmatic Gramarye family, Phoenix and their disabling, Phoenix’s mysterious son Trucy, and Apollo Justice himself. Although past Ace Attorney games have occasionally dabbled in the backstory, we never got to know Phoenix that deeply, beyond knowing that he was friends with people as a child, and gets a lot messy when he’s not a lawyer. Apollo Justice, on the other hand, has a secret family, more secret family, and a ton of question marks about his existence. Right From the first moment.

You may not be able to convince everyone that Apollo Justice is the best Ace Attorney game, and that’s fine. The best part about the Ace Attorney series is that none of the games is a misstep, and they are all somebody‘s Favorite, but Apollo gets a lot of criticism, and I don’t think it necessarily deserves it. Their debut game was a tentative step in a new direction for Ace Attorney, one that has defined many of the newer games. especially Spirit of Justice, and Phoenix and his friends just couldn’t be where they are today without Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

But tell me: why do you love / hate Apollo Justice? Have I managed to persuade you with my opinions on the game? Let me know in the comments!