Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Review – Another Great Collection

We have also prepared a video review.

More than 7 years have passed since the release of the last part of the main Ace Attorney series. And even then it’s definitely impossible to say that the series is frozen. In 2019, a remastered first trilogy was released on modern platforms, followed two years later by The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, a collection containing spin-offs set in Japan and Great Britain in the late 19th century. And now another, third collection comes out, this time it is the “Apollo Trilogy”. Well, at least that’s the name Capcom gave it, but the truth is that these three parts aren’t as connected as the original trilogy.

• Platform: PC (review version, game on Steam Deck OLED), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
• Publication date: 01.25.2024
• Developer: Capcom
• Publisher: Capcom
• Genre: Visual novel, adventure game
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Download data: 19 GB
• Game time: ~120 hours (all games including DLC, but time varies greatly depending on reading speed)
• Price: €49.99 (Steam)

Legal detective

But more on all this later. First of all, I’d like to introduce the whole series 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 contains several cases, mostly murders. You first (but not always) investigate a crime scene, and then your job is to successfully defend the accused during the trial, where you cross-examine 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.

Quality improves with every product

But if in the first parts you play exclusively as Phoenix Wright, undoubtedly the most famous character from this series, then in the fourth part a completely new playable character is introduced – the 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 from the first installments. 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 of the movements they make when they are lying.

“Apollo Justice” is for me the weakest part of this trilogy, but I definitely can’t say that it’s completely bad. However, it only offers four cases, and two of them are fillers (one is quite durable, the other, unfortunately, not so much anymore). The last case is good, but it definitely doesn’t compete with the latest cases from the rest of the series. What stands out even more, however, is the very first “textbook” case, which is arguably the best first case in Ace Attorney history.

It is followed by 2013’s Dual Destinies, the first installment in the series for Nintendo 3DS. Here, after Shu Takumi (the man behind Apollo and the first trilogy), Takeshi Yamazaki took over the reins and began taking the series in a slightly different direction (and some things from Apollo were sort of ignored). Phoenix is ​​back and a new character has been added in the form of Athena Sykes, a young lawyer with the ability to sense the emotions that other people feel. “Double Destinies” mainly focuses on the “dark ages of the law” where the defense and prosecutors falsify evidence, which of course is strongly disapproved of by the main three.

In my opinion, the fifth volume is significantly better than its predecessor. The quality of cases is more consistent, we visit very different environments, and each case (due to the different abilities of the characters) is approached slightly differently. Moreover, this is the first part in 3D, which helps to examine the crime scene in more detail. And while most of it still consists of text, you’ll also find some nice, fully voiced cutscenes that look like they were cut out of a cartoon or TV series.

The last and, in my opinion, the best part of the entire trilogy is “Spirit of Justice”. Again, this part focuses more on Apollo (although there is a Phoenix in the title…) and takes place not only in the United States, but also in the Kingdom of Khurain, a heavily religious country with a somewhat twisted justice system. A system whereby if the accused is found guilty, his lawyer also faces the same sentence. Therefore, human rights defenders have practically disappeared from the country. On the other hand, a special session is used here to see the last moments of the victim before his death. As is often the case, 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 of the entire trilogy. The sixth and so far final installment in the entire series isn’t afraid to explore trauma and various mental 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 drawn superbly, so you often become a witness to highly emotional moments. Like Dual Destinies, and doubly so here, you’ll find extremely varied locations, characters, killing methods, and more. In addition, of the entire trilogy, this part has the most developed main storyline, which really develops gradually and culminates perfectly in the last, very strong case.

Brilliant localization

If there’s one thing that’s true of all the games in this trilogy and the series as a whole, it’s that the English localization is absolutely excellent. The script was originally written in Japanese, but as a result you will hardly recognize it. Localization does everything to bring games as close as possible to Western audiences. You’ll find a lot of allusions and (pop) cultural references, jokes, different accents, dialects or puns, especially in the names. An example for everyone is Paul Atishon (as a “politician”). By the way, he really behaves like a real politician, so during the trial he does not answer questions and conducts his own campaigning.

In any case, 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. We are talking not only about the volume 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. The game, of course, is not to blame, but I deliberately include it in the cons to make it clear that there is a language barrier. In any case, the collection also has a localization 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 strengths: another one is definitely the soundtrack, which is always great in Ace Attorney. Individual songs are always able to perfectly convey the current atmosphere or emotions of individuals. At the same time, it differs from game to game. A little rock and electronic music sneaked into the Apollo soundtrack, more classical instruments can be heard in Dual Destinies, and “oriental” melodies in Spirit of Justice. Either way, 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 visual component. It’s greatly improved 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’s resolution, which will eliminate virtually all aliasing. Personally, I ended up playing all the games on the Steam Deck OLED (where I downscaled the resolution from 4K to 720p) and the picture was absolutely beautiful. In addition, even thanks to the origins of the series, the games are perfectly suited for portable devices, both “PC” and, of course, the Nintendo Switch.

Generous portion of content

As for the entire collection, it is definitely worth noting that it really does offer the most content. On the one hand, the games themselves, including both DLCs (16 cases in total), but also a number of bonuses. There’s a full soundtrack (and even a few exclusive songs), various art and concept art, an “animation studio” (where you can choose a character, their pose, and their message), as well as cartoon references or specific costumes for the games’ main characters.

Add to all this great accessibility features: features such as autoplay, story mode, dialogue history (which was missing in the original fourth part), adjusting text speed, adjusting background transparency for subtitles, or the ability to replay any case, even from a certain point (there are always There are several to choose from).

Successful collection

All in all, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy is another very successful collection, bringing previous Nintendo exclusives to modern platforms with not only improved graphics, but also plenty of bonus content that fans are sure to appreciate. However, it should be noted that if you’ve never played Ace Attorney and want to jump right into the series, this isn’t an 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 that will appear in the later works. And if you just want to see if this series is for you, I highly recommend the companion collection, Chronicles of a Great Ace Lawyer (reviewed here), which I think represents the very best the series has to offer. But if you’ve already done it all and enjoyed it, you can’t go wrong with the second trilogy.