Over the weekend, I started playing Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, the much anticipated next chapter in the Ace Attorney series. All in all, the game is similar to past titles except in these four ways:
1. You play as a prosecutor instead of a defense attorney
2. There are no courtroom battles and all debates occur in the field
3. You physically move around each area to investigate
4. You must physically connect the clues with logic
While the storyline is interesting (it involves a smuggling plot and international intrigue), the actual gameplay is quite disappointing. That’s not to say AAI is a bad game. I was simply dumbfounded that all of the new features simply draw out existing gameplay rather than offer something truly new and exciting.
For example, the difference between playing as a prosecutor and a defense attorney is nonexistent. While it’s true that Detective Gumshoe is more afraid of you and Franziska whips you a bit less, the gameplay still consists of visiting locations, finding evidence, and asking witnesses questions.
The removal of the iconic courtroom battles makes the game more snappy and was long overdue. But despite the absence of a judge, the system of pressing witnesses and presenting evidence is exactly the same!
One of the things that excited me about the game when I first saw it in Famitsu magazine was that you could walk around and physically explore the different areas in the style of an old LucasArts adventure game. Once again, my expectations proved to be too high. In the actual game, you’re lucky if you get more than two areas to explore per chapter. And of the few areas you can actually walk around in, nothing much has changed. Whereas in the earlier games, you could just tap a location with your stylus and obtain evidence; it now takes twice the amount of time because you have to physically walk to the object and examine it.
Finally, much has been said about the logic system, which replaces the past games’ psyche-locks and is supposed to allow you to connect Edgeworth’s observations and draw conclusions. While this system is interesting in theory, and completely in line with Edgeworth’s character as portrayed in previous games, it falls flat in execution. In the game, you’re rarely given more than four choices to connect at any time. You could theoretically guess and get the right answer. Also, many of the logical connections are so simple to deduce that it makes you wonder why you have to go through the exercise at all. You’re basically drawing the same conclusions as in previous games; but instead of doing it in your head, the game now holds your hand through the entire process.
Again, I’m not saying AAI is a bad game. It’s a perfectly average game that had a lot of potential and squandered it. After I watched Edgeworth running through a bunch of interesting locations in the trailer, I jumped to the conclusion that the game would play a certain way. I’m sure many others did as well. Had I possessed the logic of a flamboyant Japanese prosecutor, perhaps things would have been different.
