Home Games Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trials and Tribulations

Phoenix Wright: T&T

Adventure
Releases: 10.23.07
Capcom
Capcom
ESRB: Teen

Phoenix Wright: T&T

Formulaic courtroom drama minus the Law & Order boink boink.

by Sarah Schutz

I think of Phoenix Wright as existing in a category that I like to call “video game junk food.” It doesn’t provide you with any essential nutrients, nor have any redeeming gourmet qualities, but it tastes damn good and you can always count on it to satisfy that craving. But it gets old fast and too much will leave you with a tummy ache. This latest installment of the legal battles of Counselor Phoenix Wright gives us more of the same: great story lines, amusing dialogue, solid music and easy, but engaging puzzles.

Trials and Tribulations, as expected, is full of new cases, played in the same way. This time you get the opportunity to play as a few different characters and even defend Phoenix himself in a flashback to his college days. The main goal, yet again, is to find and collect evidence and present it at the right time, whether investigating or in the courtroom, to point out contradictions in a witness testimony or get more out of a character’s story. Sadly, the logic of the investigation or direction of the testimony is not always the same logic that you or I or most logical people share. Too many times I found myself randomly and furiously tapping at my DS screen trying desperately find that piece of evidence will demonstrate (to them) what I know obviously needs to be pointed out. It just doesn’t always make sense outside of Phoenix Wright’s bizarre and often non-litigious courtroom. And the painstakingly slow pacing doesn’t help he matter one bit.

My cynical complaints aside, Trials and Tribulations is a solid Phoenix Wright game. The cases will make you chuckle and the gameplay is easy enough that you can toss the game aside for a bit when the pacing makes you batty and tapping just won’t make it go any faster – and pick it back up again when you feel the need to get your Phoenix Wright fix. Phoenix Wright holds a special place in my heart as an homage to the PC adventure games that first got me hooked on gaming. While Trials and Tribulations doesn’t pose too much of a challenge, aside from forcing you to figure out what they nonsensically want you to do to continue the story, it’s still a tasty way to pass the time when other games just seem way too strenuous.

More well-written and amusing cases.

Phoenix Wright returns and we get deja-vu

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