I have to agree with the last bit. If it weren't for the part where she practically screams in frustration, I would have even thought the two of them actually liking each other. I like the direction Capcom is taking with Apollo though. He's got more depth and a stronger background now. Hope he shines more in GS6.

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What was the Magatama then? I seem to recall hearing warning about FREAKING GAMBLING WITH YOUR SOUL when you get an answer wrong. Face it the AA series has almost always had magical super powers and unrealistic things. Hell having a magical soul-powered lie detector seems more over the top than super sharp eyesight and hearing.



No....that's not right at all. In the Metal Gear series yes you do get those long explanations of the past...but they've been in it since the first Metal Gear Solid...it is an accepted and EXPECTED part of the tone of the story. Hell it's not a Metal Gear game without massive amounts of over-exposition. Plus the characters who explain it typically suit the explanations they are giving, with increased importance leading to more information about the field. Otacon will talk about Tech, Big Mama will talk about the old warriors of her time.

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Gambling sponsored by Satan!

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Really? He was actually one of my favorite new characters. I just found him humorous I guess.

Can I just say how annoying sol is? And freaking tankuki was?! And freaking lebllr

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I like Sol, but I swear he must be related to Sister Bikini with all that hmraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhing.

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I realize his point, but my argument in return is that if you're willing to accept a game where spirit mediums channel dead people and where the main protagonist has an ability that lets him see other people's secrets, then I really don't get why taking away one of those abilities and adding two different (and much more founded in potential reality, I might add) abilities suddenly makes the game's writing too unrealistic. It's actually much easier, in my opinion, to believe that there is a possibility of people out there who legitimately would be able to detect flinches in other people, and I could also imagine that a device could potentially come into play at some point which could detect people's emotions (though admittedly probably not by the year 2020).

I guess my point in saying this is that simple numerical terms of supposedly difficult to believe instances don't require any more suspension of belief than one really difficult to believe special ability. DD has Phoenix's Magatama, Apollo's Bracelet, and Widget, two of which I could realistically picture existing. The original Trilogy has the Magatama and multiple people channeling spirits, neither of which I would ever believe exist. In my opinion, substituting one major suspension of disbelief for two far more minor suspensions of disbelief is by no means making a game harder to believe in.

I honestly don't understand what you're saying about the characters supposedly being mouthpieces for the author, after reading the article. The only point I got out of it was that the author seemed to be upset at the characters sometimes serving as little more than hint mechanisms for telling you what to present (I guess that's what the "optional dialogue during investigations sequences" meant?, and I really don't see how this is a problem at all. Besides being something that nearly every Ace Attorney game does on multiple occasions, let's just consider reality for a second. If someone figured something out, wouldn't they tell their partner about it instead of just keeping it to themselves? Criticizing a character for sharing what they've figured out is really, really pushing it.

I could just be addressing something else entirely, but the point the author makes is so incredibly vague I'm having trouble figuring out just what it is he's upset about.

I think you made the point much better than the author did, and at least in this instance, I know what I'm actually trying to respond to. As for the character's over-expositating (not a word, I know), I disagree simply because I personally don't believe that happens in any case outside of witness breakdowns, and that's for pretty much every game in the series. When the final bad guy is caught, they always go on a monologue of sorts about their entire plan, and how genius it was, and blah blah blah. It's unrealistic, sure, but it's necessary to explain things to the players, and I can honestly accept a little bit of a loss in characterization for explanation.

I get the sense that you're referring to more than just witnesses, though, and to that end I don't think there's ever a case where the explanation seems out of character for any major character in Dual Destinies. Apollo...



...and Athena...



This is a bit of a tough argument to tackle without any examples, so if you could list some instances where you think characters are acting out of character for the sake of explanation, by all means, list them, and I'll address them as best I can.

One final point, though: Perceiving is not (as you said) magic. Perceiving is assuming that some sort of evolutional mutation has sprung from a line of magicians who needed an extraordinary level of vision to operate with. In time, this developed into a bodily reflex of sorts, to where the person with this trait would unknowingly tense when seeing someone else who tensed in the same way. Likely a reflex originally born from magicians needing to guess how their audience was feeling.

So it's not exactly founded in science, certainly, but it's by no means on the level of unbelievableness(yeah, not a word) of magic.

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Last edited by TheBlarghMan on Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Ya know, guys, the main way this game excels above all is how much further out there it is than any other game. /inb4spacejokecrash


He went on break in this game; that's why the "Dark Age of Law" was kinda meh.

Maybe GS6 will go holy... as in, not religiously or ethnically holy, but just more... sparkly lights and stuff. coming to shojo jump in 2016

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Haha... Disgrace! Well, that's one way to put it...

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I really really loved this game, for me it's the best one in terms of writing and/or storyline. Some parts of the writing were meh but the plot twists and character development for me were very good, although I wish there was a teensy bit more focus on apollo's reaction on something that happened and the wright co. comforting him or something, but maybe it happened off-screen. This is my favorite because I have never been so emotionally invested in this game as the others. I have never been so shocked before at the reveals; I was crying and sympathizing with the characters a lot and even teared up during the credits and yelling OBJECTION! at the mic. The animation and 3d sprites and surroundings wow, I loved the detail that you could see birds flying in the background or the lanterns swaying to the wind. Sometimes I'd just stare at a while and wait for it to repeat. The cameos were handled well, enough to satisfy old fans but not taking the spotlight of other characters. Wished there were more interactions of Apollo and Trucy, Phoenix and Trucy, or the three of them, I love their interaction.

The negative part was, as I'm pretty sure it has been stated a lot was the investigation gameplay, I understand in trying to make it go easy but I missed examining everything because you got gems of dialogue and knowing the character a little more (Like Phoenix thinking that he doesn't know a lot of flower names and should know more). The voice acting could be better, same with the objection, hold it, etc, voices. The anime scenes felt random at times or too short.The court sessions were really good and long but I don't know if it was because I was rusty but I found the contradictions and evidence more vague when in other games it was obvious because it said so in the evidence description.
An example I can think of is:

Spoiler: 5-3

When Hugh is testifying about seeing Juniper dragging the mattress, you had to present the evidence of either the diagram or the photo of them setting up the stage with a fence (I can't remember now),thus making him unable to see Juniper, when in previous games there would've been an evidence saying something like construction of stage during 5-8pm, there was a tall fence between these two places to prevent peeking

The use of psyche locks were good although I wished it was used more and a little bit more difficult. LOVED the mood matrix and the only problem with perceive is that it was only used in one statement, at least in AJ you had to look for more than a sentence to find the twitch.

It could just be me though, I am an easily satisfied person when it comes to games and stuff. I can't wait for GS6 or hell AAI2

I give it a 9.5/10

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Well, I'm buying Dual Destinies tomorrow! (Although I'm nowhere near being close to finished on my marathon, so I probably won't get to it for a few weeks. I guess that's ok since the DLC isn't out yet.) Even though I won't be playing it right away, it's exciting just downloading it!

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I totally agree with the quote above

AA5:DD isn't my favourite game but it's was very satisfying unlike AA4:AJ or AA2:JFA, where I felt dissatisfied, like there was a something missing that didn't quench my thirst.

My first and seconds spots still go to AA3:T&T & PW:AA1

I'd say AA5:DD is on par with AAI-1, at least personally they're not perfect games but they're very satisfying and enjoyable.

My favourite moments in the game were the little things





What I didn't like was that they never touched on.



And the English Dub, if they ever do full voice acting to the entire game, I hope they give us the option to mute the voices or dual audio and obviously work on their spelling, grammar and localization.

Last edited by kniteowl on Fri Nov 01, 2013 10:59 am, edited 2 times in total.

I'm not through with case 2 but I don't expect any progress on his part so: Yes! He's so... so sleazy and most of his animations give me the creeps, like the "humble" one, or when he tips to the side and his cap slides off... *shudder* And it's STILL not ok to steal from the attorney (that's not a spoiler, is it?) *3-3 déjà vu*

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I don't like Phineas either but I liked the animation of him when he stamps on your foot haha

All the animations are so smooth they look amazing.

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Well, after a long, long time I came back here. I played DD through yesterday and I have to say, I think it's 'okay', but not more IMO.
I'm gonna elaborate on the reasons for that, because i just love to list things :D





That's my opinion on the game, i guess. I know the negatives are more than the positives, but i still did enjoy the game, i just think it Comes after the Original Series in my Personal Ranking.. But still in front of Apollo Justice.

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Was I the only one who found it adorable that Edgeworth had accompanied Phoenix to watch Trucy perform? It's the little details and tidbits like this that makes the game so good.

And I can just smell the fanfics coming.

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the squeals of delight that came outta my mouth when I read that we're inhuman

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I'm pretty sure they've already come, and the game basically made that point canon.

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I should write a fanfic about this.

Speaking of DD, I got it yesterday.
It's really good, not the best, but it's fine. The animations are great, and the dialogue is hilarious! Like everyone else, I'm disappointed that I can't examine everywhere. Trucy seems great and in-character but... I wished case 2 was a Apollo-Trucy case instead. >.>

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i really want some Athena/Simon fanfiction

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Addressing the negatives, I really don't mind the lack of minigames. In fact, I welcome it, to an extent. Blowing on the DS microphone with fingerprints was beyond silly and added nothing to the experience, and putting a statue together (like was done with the jar in Rise from the Ashes, felt pretty forced to me as well. I welcome taking advantage of the DSs capabilities, but almost all of the minigames were just the game reminding us as much as possible that it was on the DS. So I'm glad they got rid of them, personally.



I honestly liked (for the most part) the compromise between Hobo Nick and Old Nick. It makes sense for him to stop being so cryptic now that his badge is back, but his strategy for getting through trials is still bluff, bluff, bluff. I wish he would maintain a bit of composure when he gets surprised, but that's nitpicking in my opinion.

And I really liked the splitting of time between lawyers, because even when you were playing as someone else, other characters were still developed.

I guess all of this is opinion, but at the end of the day it seems to me that the majority of people's problems with DD is that it's just "too different" from old AA games. Either the prosecutor isn't like Edgeworth, or the lawyers are too different with different gadgets, or the writing seems too different, or the twists are too different (which wasn't addressed in this specific post).

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I feel kinda bad registering to be negative, but I'm interested to find the feedback so far is mostly positive, because I've been pretty disappointed.

I'm in the middle of case 4 and still playing, so it can't be THAT bad, but...let's see. The buglets and language errors in the translation are annoying, but no big deal. But more seriously...

Positives...well I like quite a lot of the new characters. And I like that there isn't really a 'lead character' (I was happy that, contrary to the pre-release reports, we're not just back to Phoenix as the lead character), but a storyline with multiple leads - that part of the overarching story I think is handled well. I think a lot of the dialog is snappily written and translated. It could actually be one of the funnier games in the series so far.

But I think there's some more fundamental problems with the writing. I haven't finished the game yet so I can't make a final judgement, but the overarching story seems to be handled pretty clunkily. It feels very much like a second-rate Shu Takumi pastiche; if you look at the previous AA games and Ghost Trick, his stories are obviously completely improbable, but on some level they hang together really cleverly and neatly. I don't get that feeling from this one, so far. It's a bit hard to explain, but it just has me rolling my eyes, not really invested in the plot.

I've really not been a fan of the actual evidentiary flow of the cases so far. Yeah, it's kind of an in-joke in the AA games that the prosecution barely has to break a sweat to have someone ready to hang while the defence has to explain every tiny thing that comes along, but it's just taken to absurd extremes in DD, and it's never really lampshaded at all; the game treats it entirely seriously. Some of the cases have logical flaws you could drive a semi trailer through. Take the start of case 4, where I am now: the prosecution's initial argument is a purely circular piece of reasoning - "the defendant must be guilty because the victim is dead in this footage. How do we know the victim is dead in the footage? Because if the defendant is guilty, the victim must have been dead at this point in time!" Apollo even *makes that argument*, and the judge brushes it away by saying that *Apollo* is being illogical. WTF? That's just one example, but there's tons of them; Case 3, which seems to be getting rave reviews, was utterly ridiculous to me (yet, even though it really didn't make much logical sense, you could see the 'twist' coming five miles away).

Finally, is it just me, or has the actual gameplay been almost entirely removed, when you think about it? OK, the AA games have never exactly been the pinnacle of open-world interaction, but again, DD takes it to ludicrous extremes. The 'investigation' segments are almost entirely pointless, you are led through them by the nose to such an extent: in the earlier games I remember it being at least a little challenging to find everywhere you had to go, everything you had to say to everyone, and every piece of evidence you had to spot, but in DD, nope. You're in a place and someone says "HEY, I GUESS NEXT WE SHOULD GO TO THIS OTHER PLACE, EH?!" Oh, hey, I wonder where we should go next? Same thing with talking to people: you're just explicitly told what to say. There've been like three conversations so far which haven't literally been 'click conversation path A, then conversation path B, then conversation path C, OK you're done' - it may as well just be a cut scene.

When you actually get to do some evidence gathering, the cursor indicates when you've looked at something before (which is great), but it also changes shape to indicate what's something to look at and what isn't (which renders the whole exercise basically pointless, because all you have to do is drive a cursor around a screen watching it change shape and pressing 'A' occasionally). There are ridiculously, childishly simple 'point at the thing in the picture' puzzles very occasionally, but by the time two or three people have said "OH HEY MAYBE THIS OBJECT CONTRADICTS SOMETHING IN THIS PIECE OF EVIDENCE, HUH?!" there's zero challenge to it. There's basically zero actual gameplay left in the investigation sequences at all: they're cut scenes with occasional button presses.

The court sequences are similar. Here's the kind of thing I remember from previous AA games: you have, like, 20 pieces of evidence in the court record. Lead character says something oblique like "Hmm, is there anything that could contradict what this witness just said?" You get to try and think it through and remember the details of what's going on in the case, sometimes from two or three days previously in the trial, or something someone said briefly in an investigation phase you played two hours earlier. It was actually challenging.

Here's what happens in DD: you have maybe 8 pieces of evidence in the court record. Lead character says "Hey, I wonder if the piece of evidence that was ***RECORDED*** on a ***TAPE*** might contradict the thing this witness just said ***ABOUT THE EVENTS OF LAST THURSDAY***!"

Oh, gee, I wonder if I should go to the statement about the events of last Thursday and present the tape recorder? Ya think? Just maybe? If anything, it's worse when you figured out the next step before the super heavy-handed hints: you feel all clever, you're ready to demonstrate how smart you are, and then by the time the characters have finished beating you over the head with hints, you're wondering why you bothered exercising your brain at all.

OK, I guess that's enough moaning. Like I said, I'm still playing. But it's just kind of a letdown. Ah, well.

Hah, I found that part amusing as well as the fact that Edgeworth also refers to Pearl as 'Pearls' like Phoenix does. It's nice to know the Phoenix and Edgeworth apparently still have time to "hang out" outside of court.

Not sure if it's a translation error, localization miss or if Edgeworth has finally succumbed to Pearl's irresistible adorableness...

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Is really hoping it's the second

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Well, I guess if you like the minigames is opinion, but I do think that it would've added to the gameplay. Right now, it felt like there was almost no gameplay at all, because they told us what to do/present/where to go, sometimes even *transporting* us there. Maybe the minigames wouldn't be needed, but I know I missed them.

The Old!Nick and Hobo!Nick.. I don't have a problem with him using his old strategies or being more of a leader now, but it didn't feel balanced out. When we got to play Nick, he was way more sarcastic (and also made sarcastic remarks, not just silently), than he was when we played eg Athena. I just felt like there was a sprite missing for Phoenix or something like that.

My problem with Blackquill isn't that he is "not like Edgeworth", but that he gives up too easily and helps us. Godot wasn't like Edgeworth and I love him, too, same with Klavier. But they put up a fight and were interesting to beat. It just seems to me that the way he acts in court adds to the overall easy gameplay. I do like his backstory and character, he is interesting enough as a opponent, I'd just wished that he'd be a bit more persistant with his claims.




This is exactly what I mean. It's more like reading through the game than actually playing it, which is why I missed one or two minigames so badly.. just to do *something*.

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^ Uhhh out of Godot, Klavier and Blacky, Blacky is the one who's most like Edgeworth IMO. Klavier helps all the time because "He only wishes to know the truth, ja?" and Godot is just way too passive or lazy to prosecute properly. Blackquill was actually very commited to his job, though he did sometimes put off his guard and let the defence win some points, while Edgeworth is as always extremely strict.

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It's a miss, probably a typo. He doesn't treat her any different in the source version.

However, Pearl singing the robot's theme and imagining Edgeworth pushing a suitcase with herself and Nick riding on it are two of the sweetest moments in this game... aside from some stuff in Turnabout Reclaimed. (Beware of the cuteness in that case. It's potentially mind-blowing.)

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I just finished the game. My thoughts:

* I've been looking forward to this game and it delivered :) Nice new characters, overall good cases and nice plottwists. The humour was great again, I really missed that in AJ. I laughed out loud several times and snorts and giggles all around.

* But. I really disliked the second case. It kinda made me despair for the rest of the game. It just dragged and dragged, especially the second day. I really wanted it to be over with, especially since you already know the culprit.

* The third case luckily started so much better! It was quite good, but for me it was spoiled a bit since I saw a screenshot which kinda pointed to the real culprit. But the characters were better and it was more realistic.

* Fourth and fifth case. Wow. Really made the game for me. I really had to keep playing and wanted to find out what had happened. Great story.

* Characters: Aside from case 2, I really liked all the characters. I didn't know what to think about Athena at first, but I came to like her.
And Blackquill was really cool as well. Especially his bird! =D Taka is my new favourite character I think ^^
Ah, no wait, that would be Cosmos. Loved him and his galactic pogo stick (or whatever the judge called it)

* References!!

* Voice acting. I was really looking forward to this... but I thought the cutscenes were pretty horrible. Especially Athena *shiver* Athena's Objections and such were really good, but in the cutscenes I just wanted her to shut up.
Overall, the interjections were pretty good. Just... EDGEWORTH! Noooooo, what the hell. In the cutscenes he sounded pretty cool, but his objection sounded like a 60 year old country bumpkin.
Also, dislike that the voice actors aren't credited.

But Apollo and Phoenix were pretty good. Nothing to complain about. Blackquill as well, though his Objection! seems a little weak compared to his intimidating Silence!

* Last, some final, somewhat negative thoughts. Best put it in spoilers (1 case 5 spoiler).

This has gotten quite long ^^ But I've wanted to discuss this the entire week but I couldn't for fear of spoilers.
I may seem a little negative, but hey, they negative is usually better remembered ^^ Need to nag about something.
Overall, I really liked the game and I'd give it an 8. T&T still remains at the top for me, but this one may enter my top 3.

Here's a little test I'd like someone playing the game to do for me.

Talk to Trucy as often as you can, present right evidence to her, present wrong evidence to her, just exhaust her dialogue.

Then tell me how many times through the game she gets a piece of dialogue where she doesn't mention her magic panties...because it feels like that's about the only thing they've kept of her character and just ran with it. It's a little creepy.

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I've heard that a lot and its too bad. For one thing, I've never cared for all the magic panty jokes, but more importantly, it sounds like her character has devolved rather than gotten more complicated like Apollo's. It's as if in JFA suddenly all Maya ever talked about was her love of burgers. There's more to Trucy's character than just the magic panties thing. As someone who played AJ first, Trucy was my first assistant and I thought she was a good, fun character, so it's very disappointing she is just being treated as such a small, underdeveloped character, although it makes sense since she doesn't really have that big of a role in the game.

Hopefully she'll get some more screentime in GS6.

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Don't forget


I know I'm lame, but I really like that the game guided you. I hated, to just guess where to go, what to present because when you are stuck I really suck and annoy you like nothing before. Also the fact that every place you can go are always accessible. I liked the characters and the plottwist. Even if the second case was a bit long and annoying since we knew who the killeer was.


What I didn't like though is there wasn't enough magatama and perceiving to my taste. Also Pearls appearance was unuseful when Klavier made at least minimum sense.

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Yeah Athena had kinda taken her spot I suppose as the assistant, unless you want three people behind the desk in court. It's just a shame she's been reduced to that because you are right it does feel like she's devolved. I mean she was competent in her own way, brought her own array of tricks to the game and had a fun unique character. It's not like they couldn't have done anything with her I mean she's been capable of doing solo-missions before for Phoenix and Zak but yeah...I think there must only be a few times where her Magic Panties were not involved in her dialogue.

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I would argue that Blackquill is very persistent, arguably much more so than Klavier. It's just he's an equal opportunity threatener; whoever slips up is who he's going to pounce on. He never really helps out the defense as much as he does tears people down for the sake of doing so, and that's what really set him apart for me. In Cases 2 and 3, it wasn't so much that he really wants to help the defense out as it is he's a powder keg of sorts, ready to go off on any one who slips up; judge, defense, or witness.

I honestly thought he posed a much bigger threat than Klavier did (mainly because Klavier was never going for threatening). While Klavier actively aids the defense, Blackquill



...and the rest of the time, just beats up on witnesses for his own amusement.


Quite honestly, I prefer the style of letting you know where you should be heading next as opposed to having to wander all over the map presenting random pieces of evidence to random people and examining every corner of every scene in the hopes of finding that one plot element that lets you progress to the next part. I will say that DD goes a bit far in not letting you examine every scene, and not putting you in charge of moving at all times, but if the next game rectified those two things while keeping the rest of DD's investigation style intact, I think it'd be a lot better for it.

Probably my biggest frustration with the older Ace Attorney games is just that; randomly running around and presenting things until you succeed isn't much of a logic puzzle either, it's just more frustrating.

The biggest gameplay element that I've found from the old Ace Attorney series investigations is keeping track of information found in the investigations, and then transferring that over to the courtroom, which is still there. In my mind, the majority of what was done was just getting rid of a lot of annoyance.

I'm also glad they got rid of the penalty bar involved with the Magatama. Maybe it makes things a bit easier, but it makes absolutely no sense to have your starting position in court the next day be affected by how you question witnesses.

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^ My pitch to your statements... DD has a memo function. It eliminates the "run around and present random pieces of evidence" problem by itself. Let's just make the next AA game have the old formula but with DD's memo system on top of it, don't you agree?

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You could do that if you want, sure. Personally I think it's just an extra step, as you have to pull out the organizer and then look through the notes as opposed to just reading text, but for the sake of people who enjoy presenting random pieces of evidence to everyone I suppose would function just as well.

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Nah, it's a lot less than you'd expect. Trucy's always at the office, besides the latter half of the 2nd day of investigation in case 2, when Phoenix takes her place. (You don't get to talk to her in the DLC case because Apollo is the one at the office. It isn't until the end of the case that she reappears.) She does talk a lot about her panties, but more often, she talks of her magic acts in general. Just present random evidence to her, and it's almost always about making things disappear, setting them aflame, ripping them up, etc. only to reappear in perfect condition.

...Poor Trucy, it's so boring at the office, especially in case 3 when all the others are wandering a prestigious academy.

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They could make a spin-off game about filling out paper work and taking care of charley with Trucy as the main character! Perfect for the casual iOS market!

Seriously, you've made me a little less worried. I guess I should just get around to playing it and then I can figure out what I think about her characterization.

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