CAPCOM’s beloved investigative adventure Ace Attorney is finally launching its latest instalment, Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit (AAI2), internationally for the first time in English. This long-awaited title will be available in September as part of the new Ace Attorney Investigations Collection on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC via Steam, and Xbox One.
With this collection, every Ace Attorney game has now been released outside of Japan, which was a long time coming since AAI2 was originally released in 2011! Having games like these release in Japanese was one of the main reasons I’ve attempted and failed to master Japanese. One day.
As someone who’s played every English Ace Attorney game, mobile aside, you can imagine how I was excited to get my hands on the latest in the series (or at least some of it). I was able to play the first three Episodes of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (AAI1), and the first two Episodes of AAI2.
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“The truth will always find a way to make itself known.”
Upon loading the game, players have the option to choose to play in HD or pixel art format, which I thought was pretty neat! Since I played the original AAI1 on Nintendo DS, I opted for the HD format and it looks schmick! You can also alternate between both art styles from the main title menu for both games.
Ace Attorney Investigations Collection works the same as its predecessors: each Episode builds towards an overarching story, giving you more snippets of information as you progress. However, the main difference between this collection and previous games is that it focuses mainly on — you guessed it — investigations! That means no more courtrooms, old judges, or whispering juries. Or are there? I have to check this when I get full access to the game.
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You play as renowned prosecutor and Phoenix Wright’s longtime rival Miles Edgeworth, solving cases with yet another trusty sidekick, Kay Faraday, and good old Detective Gumshoe. Ace Attorney Investigations Collection focuses on using Miles’ Logic to investigate and gain more information, similar to Cross Examinations in previous games, where players may lose health via the Truth Gauge if they make the wrong deduction.
“I object! That was… objectionable!”
Though Ace Attorney Investigations Collection has been remastered/made for the Nintendo Switch, it doesn’t allow use of the touchscreen, which is odd because all previous Ace Attorney console games did. This makes navigating to certain spots on the screen a touch (ha) harder using the thumbsticks, but it’s not a massive issue. You’ll also have to manually rotate evidence with this loss. Losing the touchscreen also means I relied way more on the Autoplay feature, a lifesaver so I didn’t have to repeatedly tap the A button to progress dialogue, as it can get pretty lengthy.
History is another feature that allows players to scroll back to see what’s been said, although it is way more helpful when you see a character delivering the dialogue. I realised this was more important while playing the first two Episode of AAI2, which introduced a new investigation technique called Mind Chess.
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As with previous games, I found that sometimes it wasn’t super clear which piece of evidence was the correct to present or you might experience a different way to get to the same logic. But maybe it’s just down to user error. Some parts have several pieces of evidence you can Present, but usually, there’s only one correct answer. It’s great when you’ve Presented the right thing – you know when the music stops and Edgeworth gets his signature smirk on his face.
“The sight of you is making my mouth water.”
I won’t recap AAI1 given it’s been out for 14 years (in English) but it was nice to be able to play the first three Episodes again since I hadn’t since its original release. My memory was definitely a bit shady and it definitely sets up nicely for AAI2, which I can’t wait to continue as it built to an interesting peak by Episode Two.
AAI2 Episode One starts with an investigation into an attempted presidential assassination of the President of Zheng Fa, requiring Edgeworth’s cool deductive skills. It’s here that we’re introduced to Mind Chess, which I mentioned earlier. Players have to pick the right dialogue or choose to bide their time, like mental coercion. Instead of the Truth Gauge, players have a countdown timer. Making the wrong selection costs time which ends the game when it runs out. Watch the characters to determine your next move, and use your general emotional intelligence to deduce what you should do to break witnesses. Biding your time seems very important, so learn to shut up and observe.
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To end investigations, Miles has to successfully deduce things using Logic as he did in AAI1. Unfortunately, the investigations ended too early for me with this preview, only showing a total of five Episodes. I’ll be picking this up next month given it’s the only way to get AAI2 to continue my journey with Miles. Look out for my full review ahead of the game’s release on September 6th!
A preview copy of Ace Attorney Investigations Collection was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this article.
