In Ace Attorney - The VR-20 Incident, the trial of Kotoha Otonashi, younger sister of the victim, has started. She's being tried as the suspect on the murder of her sister Hiyori Otonashi. As things are going, Kotoha will be found guilty of the murder despite her denying the charge. The player becomes the subordinate of Ema Skye of the scientific investigation lab and will have to find the evidence that'll allow them to prove Kotoha's innocence. The player can experience the "investigation parts" from the source material themselves.

The defense attorney Phoenix Wright has taken up the defense of Kotoha Otonashi. He and the player's superior Ema Skye met in the past due to an incident involving Ema's older sister Lana, which is one reason why Ema is so intent on solving this case. Their first encounter can be found in the game Ace Attorney Trilogy, available on various platforms, so those interested should try that game out.

In the game, two "scientific investigation guns" are used, with which you can shoot detection rays on any spots of interest. The rays have a surprisingly small range, so don't be afraid to walk up to any places you want to shoot the rays at. Once you have found evidence, you can shoot the rays once more to scan the evidence and record it. It takes a certain amount of rays to scan evidence and the process is reset if you stop midway. You can use both guns to scan evidence, or use the guns one after another, allowing the other to recharge.

It takes energy to use the rays and once your energy is up, you can't shoot any rays. You can check the energy bar that's always on the screen and by lowering the scientific investigation gun, it will recharge.

There are also an emote function built into the guns. The buttons can be used for "Objection!" "Hold it!" "Take that!" and Ema's familiar "Snackoos." They aren't really connected to the investigation itself, but it'll be fun trying them out.

While investigating the scene, "Interfering Drones" will appear. If these drones touch the evidence, it'll be destroyed and once a certain amount of evidence has been detroyed, the investigation will be reset. You can stop the drones from by shooting your rays at them, so use that time to quickly gather the evidence. As you collect more and more evidence, you'll stumble upon new suspects, resulting in an amusing turnabout drama. It's up to you to find the evidence within the time limit, and get the not guilty verdict celebrated with confetti flying around.

You can play the game with one or two players. We played with two. The room where the crime took place is reasonably big, so there was enough space for us to walk around without us bumping into each other. The evidence is pretty small, so early on we had trouble finding them, but once we got used to the game we managed to split up our tasks. It led to smiles on our faces. "This is going better than I'd expected," I thought. However, just as I thought we got the hang of the game, the drones started infering more and more, and we only just barely managed to comlete the game.

The trial continues while we were looking for evidence and on a screen, we could see Phoenix Wright trying to buy us time to find the evidence. It was a shame we were so busy with looking for evidence, we didn't have the time to pay attention to what was happening over there. There were the usual phrases "Objection!" and "Hold it!" flying around, so fans of the series will want to be able to look at those scenes in detail.

Once the investigation is finished, the prosecutor Miles Edgeworth will rank you. Ranks go from D to SS and depending on how well you did, Edgeworth's lines will change too. All those lines have been recorded especially for this game, so you might want to play this game multiple times to hear them all. By the way, we got a B rank, and that was apparently neither good nor bad. It makes you curious what he'll say if you get a better, or worse rank. It might be fun to put your results on social media and exchange info with other fans.

It actually makes quite an impression, having familar faces from the series like Phoenix and Ema appearing so close to yourself. You can listen to their fully voiced dialogues while you're actually experiencing the investigation part from the original source games. It offers a very enjoyable time. It offers an experience different from the source material, so please try it out.