Not many Japanese text adventure games make it to the West and manage to gain popularity but, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (AKA “Gyakuten Saiban” in Japan) managed to attract a good number of players, hitting the Top 10 DS game charts easily. As a quick recap for those who haven’t played the first game, you play as a rookie attorney named “Phoenix Wright” and it’s your job to gather the evidence you need to prove your client’s innocence in court.

Three games have been released for the GBA a few years ago and now Capcom is remaking them for the DS selling them under their “Best Price” brand. Better sound, better graphics, a touch screen interface and the possibility of shouting out “Objection!” with your very own voice are just a few of the improvements and features the DS version has over the GBA. It’s also the first time Western players get to play the court trial adventure game in English for the first time.

Following on with the story from the first game, “Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All” begins with Phoenix waking up from a nightmare where he is stuck at the edge of a cliff facing an evil looking Judge. It turns out the music playing in the background was just from his mobile phone but as he tries to find out who called, someone knocks him out cold. Few minutes later, Phoenix meets his client Maggey Byrde, a young female police officer and he doesn’t have a clue who she is. With his amnesia still lingering around his head, Phoenix walks into court to try and help Byrde out.


Meet Maggey Byrde, the most unfortunate police woman.
As with the previous game there are basically four cases that you can take on one after the other. Trials begin with a testimony and it’s up to you to squeeze whatever extra information you can from the people using the “Press” command or saying “Hold it!” into the microphone during the cross examination phase. Hopefully you can find some contradictions in their testimonies this way. By scrolling through paragraphs of text, you can present pieces of evidence from your court record to prove any inaccuracies.