Ace Attorney Retrospective - Investigations

As a break from the courthouse, I thought reviewing the first spinoff in the series before the most recent main entry would be nice, especially when you consider its plot takes place before it. While Shu Takumi worked on the 4th entry in the main series, a separate team worked on this spinoff starring Miles Edgeworth, the prosecuting lead character of the series. Instead of being about winning trials, this game feels more like you're playing as a detective, but it still uses the core elements of the series to do it. Let's take a look:

The Story:

While in another country, Miles Edgeworth finds an old acquaintance of his that asks for his help in finally arresting someone who has escaped them in a case that took place seven years ago, and has been found again. He agrees and together with his trusted assistant Detective Gumshoe, sets out to solve this case once and for all.

Once again we have a great story full of twists and turns, interesting new characters and great suspense. Following in the footsteps of the previous game, the main plot is told over the course of all 5 cases, helping the overall pace of it. It is also has the best writing of the series yet. Aside from one particular situation, I couldn't find inconsistencies as blatant as the original trilogy usually had.

Overall, it's yet another great story.

8/10


The Gameplay:

This game still uses menu based mechanics to present evidence during testimonies, but this time we have actual control of our characters during investigations. We walk around and collect evidence and find logic chains, which are ideas that can be combined through the "Logic" menu to come up with new theories or uncovering new evidence altogether. There are no trials, so all confrontations with criminals are done face to face with them somewhere relevant to the case, as a detective.

Overall, it's a fresh change of pace for the franchise.

6.5/10


The Music:

The composer from the previous game Noriyuki Iwadare returns to make the music, and this time he has help by Yasuko Yamada. The soundtrack is the usual catchy fare this series is known for, and it's done just as well.

8/10


The Graphics:

Once again using detailed 2D sprite animations and backgrounds, the game keeps up the appealing visual style of the series.

10/10


Overall, this spinoff is a great addition to the franchise. It has everything that the series is known for while putting its own twists on things.

Final Grade:  8/10


Join me next time when i finish this retrospective by reviewing the most recent entry in the main series: Apollo Justice.  See you then ;)

Tales of Xillia Review

After Team Destiny brought the series back into form with Tales of Graces f, it's Team Symphonia's task to make the Tales' series 15th anniversary game, and this time they have Team Destiny's help. Let's take a look:

The Story:

This game has two main characters: A young man named Jude Mathis and a woman named Milla Maxwell. At the beginning of the game, you can pick who to play, and the story will play through his/her perspective. Both of them accidently meet during a lab accident and end up being chased by the military. After learning of Milla's identity as the lord of spirits on a mission to save the world, he joins her on a journey to destroy a mass destruction weapon made by human scientists.

The story is very good. It starts off slowly, especially on Jude's side, but when it picks up, it gets quite interesting and keeps a good pace. The cast is also quite likable, each having their own arcs explored in both the main story and in side-quests. One thing I particularly like is how subtly the game handles character development. The game does a great job of avoiding character flashbacks and having too much exposition, while still having just enough info about the characters for us to understand their plight.

One disappointing thing about the story and characters is how, with one exception, they don't have the emotional depth that helped make Graces great. This is my biggest disappointment, since I was hoping we would see some Team Destiny elements.

But despite that shortcoming, it's still a very good story with a likable cast.

7.5/10


The Gameplay:

Team Symphonia takes their Vesperia battle system and expands upon it even further. This time, the focus is on the new linking system. Each character can link with another party member, unlocking certain team combos, special partner skills and boost skill sharing. One downside to the linking system is how both members always share status effects, so the player will have to be careful with it.

Our character development system this time around is the Lillium Orb. Every time a character levels up, he gains grid points, which can be used to unlock nodes in a grid reminiscent of FFX's sphere grid. There's always a good amount of choices on what nodes to unlock, which gives the player the ability to unlock nodes for stats he might need first.

It's also quite pleasant to see that there's a bigger focus on exploration than in Graces. There's no world map and the structure is similar to Graces, but the overworld areas are way bigger and full of hidden spots to get cool items. The dungeons also have detours with hidden chests that usually have great stuff. This is a game that rewards curious players for exploring.

The side quests pleasantly take a cue from Graces. Once in a while, a skit will warn you of a side quest. Most of them tell stories of their own that further develop the characters and give us more insight into the world of the game.

My only real problem with the gameplay is the Shop Expansion system. Both in the field and after battle, you'll receive materials that can be turned into exp points to level up each of the four shops, which are always the same everywhere. The only way to buy new items is to level up these shops. Fortunately, the game is incredibly generous with materials. As long as you don't rush through the game, you will probably never run out. My problem is that this doesn't add anything to the game. It's not challenging and it doesn't improve from how shops are usually done anyway. It's just busy work.

One thing I'll admit I'm disappointed in is how there's a lack of Team Destiny elements in the battle system. I still think Graces has the best battle system in the series with more unique, strategic and intuitive mechanics than Team Symphonia's system. It makes me wonder what the point of both teams working on the game was, since 90% of this game clearly screams "Team Symphonia".

Still, the gameplay is fantastic on its own merits.

9.5/10


The Audio:

After a period of mediocrity, I can happily say that Sakuraba has given us his best Tales soundtrack since Abyss. Most of the tracks do a great job of being epic and creating atmosphere.
The vocal song is decent and the voice acting is for the most part very good.

7.5/10


The Graphics:

Finally abandoning their dated visual style from before, Team Symphonia creates appealing and colorful textures and models. The animation is also the best the series has ever had. The animated FMVs are gorgeous as always.

It is worth noting that this was also a collaboration between the character designers of both teams, Kosuke Fujishima and Mutsumi Inomata. As a result, we get very well designed characters.

Monster design is also quite good.

8.5/10


Overall, Xillia is a great game that was clearly crafted with care and skill, even if it didn't quite live up to its potential.

Final Grade: 8/10


Join me next time when we go back to the Ace Attorney retrospective. See ya then ;)

Ace Attorney Retrospective - Trials and Tribulations

While the fourth entry in the series was being developed this time for the Nintendo DS, Capcom released a DS remake of the final game of the original trilogy. Let's take a look:

 The Story:

The story takes place a year after the previous game, and it doesn't disappoint. Aside from cases 2 and 3, which despite their quality, are there mostly for filler purposes, there's a main plot that goes through the entirety of the game and involves a lot of what happened in the past of our main characters. It all builds into an absolutely brilliant final case that is full of twists and turns and serves as a fantastic way of ending the trilogy. Aside from the already expected leaps away from logic during cases the writing is phenomenal and keeps you engaged.

9/10


The Gameplay:

The gameplay is the exact same as the previous game, no differences at all, which works, since it's not really a focus.

6/10


The Music:

The music this time was composed by Noriyuki Iwadare, and succeeds at maintaining the level of quality from the previous games, doing a great job enhancing the story experience.

8/10


The Graphics:

Once again we have 2D backgrounds and sprite animations that create an anime look.
Character design is as always creative, comical and varied.

10/10

Overall, it's the best game in the original trilogy that serves as a great example of why this series is so beloved.

Final Grade: 9/10


Alright, next is my review of Tales of Xillia. See you then ;)

Tales of Vesperia Review

Tales of Vesperia was the last game in the Tales series to be made before both development teams started working together to insure higher quality games. It is also the game the acclaimed Team Symphonia made before the upcoming Tales of Xillia. It is widely regarded as one of the best entries in the series. I personally...disagree. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game, not at all, but I think it's overrated. Allow me to explain:

The Story:

This game tells the story of a young man named Yuri Lowell, who one day gets arrested for stealing something from a noble to give to his poor friends in town. While escaping the royal castle's prison, he comes across a noble young woman named Estelle who asks him to help her escape the castle. After returning to town, both discover that someone stole an aqua blastia (the town's water source). Both leave the city and set out on a quest for Yuri to find the thief and for Estelle to see the world.

I find this story bad. For the first two thirds of it, barely anything happens aside from long winded exposition about every detail regarding how this world's primary resource, blastia, works, and for the most part, it ends up being unimportant. I didn't really remember it by the end of the game and it still made no difference to me. At the beginning of the last third, a plot twist finally gives us a villain. It's really disappointing, though, as this villain is a character that was barely in the game and has nothing to do with the story; the game just suddenly tells us he's the villain because he wants to take over the world. No build up, no foreshadowing, nothing. This is terribly paced and poorly done storytelling.

As for the characters, they have strong personalities, making them likable enough, but the overly expositional script hurts their development severely, since all they talk about is blastia. At the final third of the game, the story starts pretending their bonds are strong because of what they've been through, but it doesn't work because we never saw these so called bonds grow. Most of the character interaction comes from skits, and they're still not all that good in this game.

Overall, it's a bad story with good, but still thin characters.

5/10


The Gameplay:

This game is the perfection of the 3D Tales formula started in Symphonia. It has the best world map of the series, and the real time battle system from Abyss returns, now better than ever. We still have basic attacks, Artes that consume TP, and the Over Limit gauge, but now we have the "Encounter Link" mechanic. If multiple groups of enemies are in close proximity when a battle starts, the battle will contain all the enemies, which will make grinding for EXP easier.
The skill learning system this time around is taken straight from Final Fantasy IX. Weapons have skills that can be used when you have them equipped, but if you gain enough Learning Points in battle, you can learn them and keep using them even without the weapon equipped. It's not original, but it works.

Overall, the gameplay builds up on the working formula of Team Symphonia's previous games while adding in some new things.

9.5/10


The Audio:

As always, we have Motoi Sakuraba doing the music. After making great soundtracks in previous games, it's disappointing to hear such a bland soundtrack in this game. The tunes are technically well written and I do like some of the battle themes and the victory fanfare, but the soundtrack is too unmemorable and generic to be called anything special. The vocal song is....OK, I guess. The voice acting is very good, we have Troy Baker as the protagonist and the overall cast does a good job bringing life into the characters. Though, sometimes it's hard for them to shine when they have to read the boring script that was given to them.

6/10


The Graphics:

After trying a different visual style in Abyss with negative results, the artists returned to the cel-shaded style from Symphonia. I'm all for that, but very few things were improved to make use of the 360's capabilities. Cutscene animations are...good for a previous gen console, but since this is a 360 game, I was expecting something better than this. The backgrounds also don't look all that impressive either. The game that followed this one, Graces, was a Wii game and it had more appealing graphics and more detailed animations, so what's this game's excuse?

Fortunately, the anime FMVs, once again made by Production I.G, look fantastic as always.

Character and monster design is as appealing and varied as ever.

7/10


Overall, Vesperia has enough good stuff in it to be a very good game, so it's not like it isn't worth playing or anything. But it certainly falls short from the standards Team Symphonia set with their previous two games, mostly because of the story.

Final Grade: 7/10


All i can say is, i hope Team Destiny's assistance in developing Xillia helps to bring us a game that really impresses people. I'm hopeful, since Graces was a great game. See you next review ;)

Ace Attorney Retrospective - Justice for All

After the commercial and critical sucess of the first game's remake, it only made sense to remake the next one, even though it's regarded as the worst in the series. Let's take a look:

The Story:

The game takes place a year after the first game, with all characters making a return, but there are also some brand new ones. For the most part, the new cases and characters are great, but of course the third one has to be addressed. It is still regarded as the worst case in the entire series. The writing, while witty, is very bad when it comes to the actual story progression and the logic of proving the points.
Fortunately, the final case that follows immediately after is phenomenal and more than makes up for it.

Overall, while flawed, the script is still good enough to be up to the series standards.

7/10


The Gameplay:

The game uses the exact same engine as the previous game, and this time there was no attempt at using the DS's capabilities, except for using the mic to object or press. It's the exact same gameplay as the first game, since after all, if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

6/10


The Music:

The music was composed Akemi Kimura, and is pretty much on par with the previous soundtrack.
It always manages to enhance everything you experience.

8/10


The Graphics:

Just like the first game, we have 2D sprite animations and backgrounds that give an animated movie feel. Character design is also on par with the first game.

10/10


Overall, Justice for All is a flawed but still very good game that any fan of this style of game should play.

Final Grade: 7.5/10


See you next review ;)

Ace Attorney Retrospective - Phoenix Wright

In 2001, a game designer at Capcom named Shu Takumi created a trilogy of virtual novels for the Game Boy Advance about courts of law. Its huge sucess in Japan prompted Capcom to remake it for the DS, and this time localize it for the west. The remakes were ported to mobile devices, PCs in Japan, WiiWare and are set to rerelease on mobile devices as HD remakes. The first game I will be reviewing is the DS version of the first game:

The Story:

I won't go into any detail about the story since pretty much anything I say will be a spoiler. You're Phoenix Wright, a young defense attorney who is just now starting his career. The story is great. It has an over the top tone, hilarious dialogue and tons of memorable characters. The trial scenes are always intense and keep you glued to the screen. The cases you will be working on are full of twists and turns, so it's incredibly easy to remain engaged. There are a lot of inconsistencies and huge leaps away from logic that will annoy some people, but the insane nature of the series clearly means we're not supposed to take it completely seriously.

8.5/10


The Gameplay:

The gameplay mostly consists of nothing more than browsing through menus. You present evidence, investigate crime scenes and question people as dictated by the story. The fifth case, which is new to this remake, makes great use of the DS's mic and touch screen for some variety.

The game doesn't require much interactivity, but it does a good enough job of immersing the player in the world of the game.

7/10


The Music:

The music was composed by Masakazu Sugimori and it does a great job at giving the game atmosphere and enhancing the story.

8/10


The Graphics:

This series uses 2D sprites and backgrounds to create an anime movie feel. Character animations are very detailed and give them a lot of personality. Character design is probably what people might remember the most besides the story, as most characters have very weird designs that help make them very memorable.

10/10


Overall, Phoenix Wright is a game that was clearly made to prioritize story, which works because the story is so great. It's a great game that everyone should try.

Final Grade: 8.4/10


See you next review ;)

Dragon Quest VIII - Journey of the Cursed King Review

The Dragon Quest series is pretty much the only JRPG franchise that refuses to change in order to broaden its demographic. No deep scripts, no complex character development, no changes in combat mechanics, no new monster designs, or even a change in key developers.

The overall gaming community doesn't like this, but fans of the series prefer it this way. The series never needed to change and we love it exactly as it is. Around the early 2000s, series creator Yuji Horii personally picked Level-5 to develop the eighth game in the series under his supervision after playing Dark Chronicle. It became one of the best selling games of its time and is regarded as one of the best entries in the series, and, of course, it made the JRPG gaming community aware that Level-5 was a force to be reckoned with. Let's take a look:

  

The Story:

Just like all other games in the series, the story was written by Yuji Horii. This series never had deep storytelling and it doesn't pretend to, either. An evil jester steals a magic scepter from a castle. The power of the scepter curses the castle and everyone in it. The king becomes a monster and the princess becomes a horse. The only one that escaped unscathed is one of the castle guards. The three of them give chase to this villain to try to break the curse. The plot is very simple and the characters are equally simple. It is, for all purposes, a lighthearted story with great British humor. The characters have just enough personality to be likable, except for the main character, who is silent and devoid of any character. See, this is an old school JRPG where you're supposed to pretend you're the main character. Still, it's not as good as the best DQ plots, but it works for what it does, and even then it still has its moments of greatness.

7.5/10


The Gameplay:

It's almost unnecessary to describe the gameplay. If you have any sort of familiarity with old school JRPGs, you know exactly how it goes. It's all here: Giant world map full of places to explore and things to do, tons of side quests, random battles (with a well-programmed frequency), turn-based battle system, dungeons filled with monsters and towns full of NPCs and shops.

The character development system is still the traditional Exp system, but this time around we also have a skill point system. Every time you level up, you get a certain number of points that you can distribute between your character's "weapon" stats, and make your characters better at using certain types of weapons. Let's say you give 10 points to your "Swords" stat: from now on, that character will get a bonus of +10 attack if he's equipped with a sword. Obviously, it's wise to distribute points equally to each weapon stat. We also have a tension system. The command "Psyche up" allows the player to skip a character's turn in order to build "tension", making that character's next attack stronger. By using it multiple times in succession, the character's attack will do more damage and, if you're lucky, put that character in a state of high tension, where he/she becomes incredibly strong.

Overall the gameplay is basically brilliant in its simplicity.

10/10


The Audio:

As always, the composer is Koichi Sugiyama, the godfather of gaming music. This is the first game in the series to have an orchestrated soundtrack, and it is done beautifully. All songs are memorable and create a great sense of adventure and atmosphere. The British voice acting is also very charming thanks to Level-5's trademark quirky, British sense of humor.

10/10


The Graphics:

Using the same graphics engine as Dark Chronicle, Level-5 creates a cel-shaded world that feels like a cartoon and that still looks quite appealing today. As always with this series, legendary manga artist Akira Toriyama designed characters and monsters, and that characteristic charm of his is all over this game.

10/10


Overall, Dragon Quest VIII is what I like to call a game for JRPG gamers rather than JRPG fans. If you need a deep plot with complex characters, stay away, but if you love deep character building, challenging turn based battles and rewarding exploration in a vast world, then put aside a few months in your calendar, and prepare yourself for a rich gameplay experience

Final Grade: 9.4/10

See you next review ;)