Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All

A year later (game wise) and our favourite Defense Attorney, Phoenix Wright, is back. As well as facing new cases, Phoenix meets new people and has a few new possibilities in proving the innocence of his client.

Gameplay

This second game plays like the previous game. Again there are two modes, investigation and trial. In investigation mode, players are able to look at the crime scene and various locations for clues to use a evidence in the court trials.

Additions to the game mechanics are subtle, at best. As well as looking for clues and, Phoenix now has a new ability called Psylock. The characters in the game are guarding secrets they do not want known and it is only through the Psylock can these secrets be extracted.

In a nut shell, the Psylock basically bring Phoenix's trial abilities into the investigation mode where a series of questions and evidence is presented to get to the truth.

Additionally, as well as evidence, the player is able to present character profiles as evidence. While this expands the possibilities of solving a tough case, the expansion is still weak and overall the game play of this new game is just the same as the previous one.

Graphics and Music

This game was also once the GameBoy Advanced and was only released in Japan. Since being ported to the Nintendo DS, the graphics are still the same. Or I would say, as I never played the game in its original form.

The original game made better use of the Nintendo DS hardware by having an additional mode where evidence could be rotated and examined in three dimensional space. Unfortunately, this game does not have such an addition and apparently only has the same set of cases as its original GameBoy Advanced version.

Story

The real additions to the game are the new cases the player gets to solve. Like the previous game, each case is independent yet linked in some manner. As well as new cases, the player is presented with additional characters to the base cast.

Aside from a new prosecutor, there is also the addition of Pearls, Maya Fei's cousin. Through Pearls' interactions, the player is told a little more about Maya's family and its origins. Furthermore, one of the cases takes place in Maya's home village, where the bulk of Maya's past is learned.

Maya's family set aside, another story running in the game is Phoenix's inner thoughts as a defence laywer. Through this game, Phoenix ideas are put to the test, the toughest being in the final case where has to decide if he honestly can defend his client when all of the evidence proves beyond a doubt he is guilty.

Overall

While the game is lacking in new additions, the new story and cast still make the game worth playing. This is more of a game for the hard core Ace Attorney fans as there is not much for casual players of the Ace Attorney games. The game is worth a try, just to learn more of the characters and personally I feel this game is more immersive than the last, especially in the final case where Phoenix has to decide if he really can defend his client.

At the end of the day though, if I had to rank them, I would have to say Justice for All falls behind the first Phoenix Wright.