Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Review – Another Great Collection

We have also prepared a video review.

It’s been over 7 years since the last mainline Ace Attorney game was released. And even then, it’s hard to say the series is frozen. In 2019, the first trilogy was updated for modern platforms, and two years later, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, a collection of spin-offs set in late 19th-century Japan and Great Britain, was released. Now, another third collection is coming, this time called the Apollo Trilogy. Well, that’s what Capcom called it, but the truth is that these three titles aren’t as connected as the original trilogy.

• Platform: PC (review version, game on Steam Deck OLED), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
• Release date: 01.25.2024
• Developer: Capcom
• Publisher: Capcom
• Genre: Visual novel, adventure game
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data for download: 19 GB
• Play time: ~120 hours (all games, including DLC, but time depends heavily on reading speed)
• Price: 49.99 EUR (Steam)

Legal detective

But more on that later. First, I’d like to introduce the series as a whole, because I’m sure a lot of people don’t know it at all. Ace Attorney is a legal visual novel/adventure series where you play the role of a lawyer. Each game features several cases, mostly murders. You first (but not always) investigate the crime scene, and then your job is to successfully defend the defendant during the trial, where you interrogate witnesses. It’s also very much a detective story, as there are many twists and turns along the way as you try to figure out who the real killer is.

The quality increases with each product.

But if in the first parts you play exclusively for Phoenix Wright, undoubtedly the most famous character of this series, then the fourth part introduces a completely new playable character – a young lawyer Apollo Justice, whose name is not only the game itself, but also the whole “trilogy”. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, originally released in 2007 on the Nintendo DS, is a step in a new direction compared to the first parts. Wright has lost his badge and is no longer a lawyer, so we play as Apollo, who has the ability to “see” the lies of witnesses, that is, some movements that they make when they lie.

Apollo Justice is the weakest entry in the trilogy for me, but I can’t say it’s completely bad. However, it only offers four cases, and two of them are filler (one is pretty solid, the other, unfortunately, not so much). The last case is good, but it certainly doesn’t compete with the last cases in the rest of the series. What stands out even more, however, is the first “study” case itself, which is arguably the best first case in Ace Attorney history.

It was followed by 2013’s Dual Destinies, the first entry in the series for the Nintendo 3DS. Here, Takeshi Yamazaki took over from Shu Takumi (who was behind Apollo and the first trilogy), taking the series in a slightly different direction (and some of the stuff from Apollo was kind of ignored). Phoenix returned and a new character was added in Athena Cykes, a young lawyer with the ability to sense the emotions of others. Dual Destinies focuses heavily on the “dark ages of the law,” with defense and prosecutors falsifying evidence, something the main trio of course strongly disapproves of.

In my opinion, Volume 5 is a significant improvement over its predecessor. The quality of the cases is more consistent, we visit very different environments, and each case (thanks to the characters’ different abilities) is approached slightly differently. At the same time, this is the first part in 3D, which helps to examine the crime scene in more detail. And while most of it is still text, you will also find some nice and fully voiced cutscenes, as if cut from a cartoon or TV series.

The last and in my opinion the best part of the whole trilogy is “The Spirit of Justice”. Again, this part focuses more on Apollo (although the title has Phoenix…) and the action takes place not only in the United States but also in the Kingdom of Khurain, a very religious country with a somewhat perverted justice system. The system is that if the accused is found guilty, his lawyer will also face the same sentence. Therefore, human rights defenders have practically disappeared from the country. On the other hand, a special séance is used here, allowing you to see the last moments of the victim before his death. As usual, people often misinterpret this, and of course, our goal is to find out the whole truth.

In my opinion, Spirit of Justice is by far the best combination of humor and serious themes in the trilogy. The sixth and so far final entry in the series isn’t afraid to explore trauma and various psychological and physical disorders that aren’t necessarily as well known and you won’t see them in other games. At the same time, all the characters are beautifully drawn, so you often get to witness very emotional moments. Like Dual Destinies, and this applies doubly here, you will find extremely varied locations, characters, methods of killing and much more. In addition, part of the entire trilogy has the most developed main storyline, which really develops gradually and ends perfectly in the last, very strong case.

Brilliant localization

If there’s one thing that applies to all the games in this trilogy and the series as a whole, it’s the absolutely excellent English localization. The script is originally written in Japanese, but you’ll barely recognize it as a result. The localization does its best to bring the games as close to a Western audience as possible. You’ll find plenty of allusions and (pop) cultural references, jokes, different accents, dialects or puns, especially in the names. The example for everyone is Paul Atishon (as “the politician”). By the way, he really does act like a real politician, so during the trial he doesn’t answer questions and conducts his own agitation.

Anyway, it should be added here that in order to enjoy the games, you need to know English at a slightly higher level than in other games. It’s not just about the amount of text, which of course also plays a role, but above all about more complex words from different areas and the already mentioned accents or dialects. Of course, it’s not the game’s fault, but I deliberately include it in the minuses so that it is clear that there is a language barrier here. Anyway, the collection also has localizations into French or German, if that helps anyone. However, I don’t know if they are as good as the English ones.

Excellent audiovisual effect

But back to the strong points: another one is definitely the soundtrack, which in Ace Attorney is always great. Individual songs are always able to perfectly convey the current atmosphere or the emotions of individual people. At the same time, it differs from game to game. Apollo’s soundtrack has some rock and electronic music sneaked into it, Dual Destinies has more classical instruments, and Spirit of Justice has “oriental” melodies. In any case, the music from Ace Attorney is so good that I regularly listen to it in the background, and these parts are no exception.

The last thing I want to mention about the games themselves is the visuals. They are a huge improvement over the original versions, and the games look very nice even by today’s standards. If you have the option, I highly recommend rendering the game at a higher resolution than your display device, which will remove almost all the aliases. Personally, I ended up playing all the games on a Steam Deck OLED (where I downscaled the resolution from 4K to 720p) and the visuals were simply beautiful. Also, even due to the series’ origins, the games are great for portable devices, both “PC” and, of course, the Nintendo Switch.

A generous portion of content

As for the entire collection, it is definitely worth noting that it offers a really large amount of content. On the one hand, the games themselves, including both DLCs (16 cases in total), but also a number of bonuses. There is a full soundtrack (and even some exclusive songs), various arts and concept arts, an “animation studio” (where you can choose a character, their pose and message), and also remember animated films or put on certain costumes for the main characters of the games.

Add to all this the great accessibility features: features like autoplay, story mode, dialogue history (which was missing from the original fourth installment), text speed adjustment, background transparency adjustment for subtitles, or the ability to play any case, even from a certain point (there are always several to choose from).

Successful collection

Overall, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy is another very successful collection, bringing previous Nintendo exclusives to modern platforms with not only improved graphics, but also a ton of bonus content that fans are sure to appreciate. It should be noted, however, that if you’ve never played Ace Attorney and are looking to get started in the series, this isn’t the ideal starting point.

If you want to play through the entire series, I would certainly recommend starting with the first trilogy, where you’ll get to know the characters who will appear in the later works. And if you’re just looking to see if the series is for you, I highly recommend the supplemental collection The Chronicles of a Great Ace Lawyer (reviewed here), which I think represents the best the series has to offer. But if you’ve already done all of that and enjoyed it, you can’t go wrong with the second trilogy.