I obviously don’t have much time for gaming if it takes me more than a month to finish a “simple” choose-your-own-adventure style game like Phoenix Wright. Very entertaining game, it puts you in the shoes of a novice defense attorney, Phoenix Wright and your adventures in trying to uncover the truth behind several murder cases. The gameplay is composed of two parts: investigative sequences where you go around various locations gathering information and evidence, and the actual trial part where you have to spot contradictions in witness testimonies and prove your clients to be innocent.
The original game was for the GBA, so the first four cases don’t make much use of the DS platform apart from being able to use the stylus to select stuff. The fifth case however is added exclusively for the DS and features additional gameplay mechanics like the ability to rotate pieces of evidence and using the DS stylus and microphone to simulate the fingerprinting process. The fifth case is also much more difficult. The first four cases are easy enough to brute-force (“trial and error”) your way through, but the fifth one is much more complicated and it had me stuck for a while since I couldn’t figure out how to proceed in one of the investigative parts. (That and I started playing FFVI Advance)
Overall, a good game, but people who aren’t used to this style of Japanese games might get frustrated at some parts. I’m looking forward to the sequels.
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