The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

1-2通关留念：亚双义……唉，亚双义……

The Great Ace Attorney series finally gets localized and becomes available to the wider world. While I'm grateful and enjoyed both games end to end, there are good and bad things to say about the package. [h3]Localization[/h3] I find the localization to be quite high in quality. Many main and side characters speak in ways that clearly convey a specific dialect, including Italian/French/German English, Shakespearean English, Scottish English, etc, which help to flush out their personalities. However I do find it a bit weird that they decided to change Sherlock Holmes to Herlock Sholmes, and Watson to Wilson. This is doubly strange because the original text did not change the name, and Natsume Soseki, another character with real-world origins, did not get the same treatment in localization. [h3]Characters and animation[/h3] An absolute highlight of this series. Characters are vivid, unique and memorable, even down to minor witnesses and juror members in the less important cases. On top of that, everyone is animated with smoothness and personality, and just the right amount of exaggeration. This is especially true for Sherlock Holmes and Gina Lestrade, two recurring characters that I can't stop watching whenever they are on screen. While you can draw some parallels between The Great Ace Attorney and Ace Attorney's cast (eg. Susato <--> Maya, Iris <--> Pearl), this is rare and doesn't remind you of the Ace Attorney series much - this series stands on its own. [h3]Story[/h3] I wish I can sing the same praises for the story but I'm a bit divided here. This series is penned by Shu Takumi (the first Ace Attorney trilogy, Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright) again so you can expect a high quality and self-contained story, but when it comes down to individual cases, some of them deliberately leave many questions unanswered, and not even in a subtle way. Sometimes the story tells you in the face "we won't answer it until much later". Rest assured everything will be resolved at the final episode but that can be tens of hours away, and I did not appreciate it. As for the story itself, I find it more mature and likeable than the second Ace Attorney trilogy, but I dislike how it repeats quite a few overused tropes in Shu's own writing. [spoiler]You can see the big bad from about 8 cases away.[/spoiler] [h3]Mechanics[/h3] These games are quite conservative when it comes to otherworldly phenomena. No summoning dead people, reading subtle body motions or parsing emotions. From time to time you get to use or witness some slightly unrealistic gadgets from Sholmes and that's it. Despite that, there are quite a few new mechanics in this series. First is Herlock Sholmes's deduction spectacular, or whatever it's called. During investigations, Sholmes will observe and make deductions in style... but with dubious correctness. It's up to you to correct them. I find them quite amusing but they do push the plot forward in major ways. Second, a cross-examination can involve multiple witnesses at the same time, and when pressing one, another may have things to add. I think the idea is that you should keep everyone in mind even when focusing on one witness, but in execution, the game makes it extremely obvious when someone else has things to add, ruining the idea in my opinion. Third, most trials feature a board of 6 jurors, who can interrupt the trial to declare the defendant guilty at any time. I can see the point of this in real life, but in a video game about logic and deduction, I find this mechanic quite disruptive and annoying. Thankfully, your assistant figures out early on that even when the jury finds the defendant duty, you still have a chance to debate with them, which often reveals new information and changes minds, ensuring the trial can continue. [h3]Difficulty[/h3] It can be difficult in later cases and I like it. When the game doesn't make it clear that you should look for an evidence fitting criteria xyz but you still find the right one, it feels quite nice. I still had to resort to brute force a few times but that's ok imo. [h3]The PC port[/h3] It works but has weird quirks. The game seems to render at a much higher resolution than it should, causing Steam's FPS counter to be unreadably tiny. When the screen turns black sometimes individual polygons start flashing through the black curtain, ruining the scene. [h3]Conclusion[/h3] Despite its flaws, I'm still glad Capcom brought these two games from Japan to the world, and I do consider them must-plays for Ace Attorney fans. 8 out of 10.