The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is a two-game collection from Capcom that includes two games in the Ace Attorney series. The Great Ace Attorney : Adventures and The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve were released in Japan for the 3DS in 2015 and 2017, respectively. Now, they are fully translated and brought to the West for the first time.
Fans of the long-running Ace Attorney series should expect all the wacky courtroom and investigative antics the franchise is known for. Players will solve five cases per game by investigating different locations, talking to those involved to gather information, and engaging in high-stakes courtroom drama to find the culprit. However, some of the main differences between the two games are the protagonists and settings. Ace Attorney fans will get to take on the role of Wright Ryunosuke instead of the iconic Wright or Apollo Justice (another defense attorney who later joined the series) from the original trilogy.
Players might worry about stepping into the new protagonist’s place, but they shouldn’t. One of the best parts of this duo is the main characters, which include Wright and his judicial assistant Mikotoba Susano. He’s a very inexperienced lawyer, and the very first case of the first game even started with Wright as the prime suspect in the murder case.
He and his partner are sure to turn the charisma meter all the way up. He’s so cute and quirky, and in the few cases the player goes through, the two of them have such a wonderful chemistry. Whenever Naruhodo gets frustrated because he doesn’t know how to conduct cross-examination in court, Susato is always there to reassure him and offer him some guidance. It’s a lot like the relationship between Phoenix and his partner Maya Fey in the Ace Attorney trilogy. Fans of the series will no doubt love the chemistry between the two, as well as some of the other characters they’ll meet.
As in the previous game, the courtroom gameplay is back, but with some changes. Look at the setting of “Ace Attorney” is Japan and the United Kingdom in the early 1900s, the technology is not yet developed, and the court rules are different. Instead of relying on high-tech forensics tools to match fingerprints to suspects or examine blood samples, lawyers must now use deductive methods to figure out who did it, which could have implications for future cases.
Most of the time, the players will be in court in London, which is certainly different from courts in the US or Japan because of the jury. Not only do players have to cross-examine witnesses to discover inconsistencies in the evidence, but they also have to make sure the jury is on the defendant’s side. They are sometimes questioned, and the player needs to listen carefully to gather new evidence.
Adding a jury might seem like a game changer, since there are more participants in the courtroom, but it doesn’t add to the overall experience of Ace Attorney Court. Talking to the jury and hearing their opinions can sometimes feel like it’s just prolonging the high-stakes debate between the prosecutors and the court. It takes away from the point of the ongoing discussion and feels like extra padding that makes these sections longer than they should be. It’s a nice idea, but unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to execute well on the first try.
However, aside from the jury, much of the gameplay in the courtroom remains the same as in previous entries. Once discrepancies are found, the player will use the evidence gathered during the investigation to use in court. If a player makes a mistake, they lose one of five “lives.” However, don’t worry about getting it wrong, as the great Ace Attorney Chronicles is definitely one of the easier games in the series.
The player will still feel the satisfaction of knowing all the solutions to a case, but the game does hold the player back a bit. That’s not a bad thing by any means, but it does make players have less work to do, which could be a problem for hardcore fans. It’s also worth noting that these games don’t have much connection to other games in the series, so anyone can jump in and feel comfortable with the narratives presented to them, even if these cases aren’t as memorable as the others.
Although The Great Turning Prosecutor’s Chronicles has tens of hours of content spread over two games and 10 cases (plus a few extra mini side cases), many of the cases in the game are missing. They’re not as scary or blood-pulling as previous cases in the original trilogy. New players will definitely find fun and satisfaction in the various cases, but veteran players may be disappointed by the outcome of some cases.
All in all, the great Ace Attorney Chronicles is an excellent entry point for new players. The main characters of the characters are full of charm and personality even without voice acting; there are too many interesting cases to try, and the drama in the courtroom will keep the players curious and on their guard. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles aren’t the best Ace Attorney games out there, but they will still provide players with an enjoyable experience that will last for many, many hours.
The great Ace Attorney Chronicles launches on PC, PS4, and Switch on July 27, 2021. Game Rant has obtained review code for the PS4 version.