Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Spirit of Justice

Gameplay

Spirit of Justice continues the investigation and courtroom gameplay of its predecessors, in which players take the role of the defense attorneys Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, and Athena Cykes, and try to defend their clients. Like previous games in the franchises, chapters are divided into two types of gameplay; investigations, where players gather information from people and search for evidence, and trials, where they must use evidence to find contradictions in witness testimonies. Investigations utilize the 3D navigation introduced in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Dual Destinies, allowing players to navigate environments from various angles. Along with returning gameplay elements, such as Psyche-Locks, Perceiving and the Mood Matrix, the game introduces Divination Séances, which show the final moments of a victim before their death. By paying close attention to the senses that appear in the séances, players must find contradictions in the insights given about them.

Setting and characters

The story of Spirit of Justice is set roughly one year after its predecessor, Dual Destinies, and once again focuses on defense attorney Phoenix Wright and his two understudies Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes. While previous games in the series have been set in Los Angeles, California (Japan in the original Japanese releases), Spirit of Justice sees Phoenix travel to the fictional kingdom of Khura'in, a deeply religious nation in the far east where the art of spirit channeling originates. Roughly half the game's episodes detail Phoenix's activities in Khura'in, while the other half follow Apollo and Athena, who are left to watch over the Wright Anything Agency in Phoenix's absence. The game features the reintroduction of Maya Fey, a spirit medium and Phoenix's longtime friend and former assistant, who has not appeared in the main series in person since Trials and Tribulations. Other returning characters include Trucy Wright, a magician and Phoenix's adopted daughter; Ema Skye, a former detective who has recently become a forensic investigator; Simon Blackquill, a prosecutor and former prison inmate who is friends with Athena; Pearl Fey, Maya's younger cousin and fellow spirit medium; Miles Edgeworth, the district chief prosecutor and Phoenix's friend and rival; and Larry Butz, an artist and Phoenix and Edgeworth's childhood friend. New to the series are Rayfa Padma Khura'in, the princess and royal priestess of Khura'in, and Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, an international prosecutor and devout Khura'inese monk.

Story

Phoenix travels to Khura'in to visit Maya, who is about to conclude a two-year period of ascetic training needed to perfect her spirit-channeling abilities and become master of Kurain Village. Upon arriving, Phoenix's tour guide Ahlbi Ur'gaid is accused of stealing the Founder's Orb relic and murdering a guard. During Ahlbi's trial, Phoenix discovers that Khura'in is intensely prejudiced against lawyers, as under a law known as the Defense Culpability Act enacted 23 years prior, if a criminal is found guilty, anyone who defends or aids them will be given the same punishment. With the addition of the Divination Séance, a ritual showing a victim's memories in their final moments before death, all trials in Khura'in have always led to guilty verdicts, with most defense attorneys having been executed. Despite the stakes of the DC Act and the supposed absolute truth of Rayfa's Divination Séance, Phoenix successfully defends Ahlbi and proves him innocent, earning Khura'in's first "Not Guilty" verdict since the Act's introduction, while later learning about a rebel group in the country, called the Defiant Dragons, who are fighting against the current legal system. After reuniting with Maya, Phoenix finds himself defending her against the country's top prosecutor, Nahyuta, when she is charged with murdering a high priest. During the case, Phoenix meets one of the Defiant Dragons, Datz Are'bal, who reveals that the group's leader, Dhurke Sahdmadhi, is Nahyuta's father and the foster father of Apollo.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Apollo and Athena find themselves left in charge of the Wright Anything Agency, and soon find themselves defending Trucy in court against Nahyuta, when she is accused of murdering a performer during her stage show, and successfully expose a plot to destroy the Grammaye legacy at the hands of the real killer. Later, Athena finds herself requested to defend a soba shop owner accused of murdering a Rakugo performer, a ship frequented by Simon who works alongside her as her defense consul during the trial. Following these cases, Apollo is approached by Dhurke, who asks him for help locating the stolen Founder's Orb. After tracking it down in Kurain Village, Apollo finds himself going to court against Phoenix, whose client claims ownership of the orb. During the civil trial, Apollo learns that Maya had been taken hostage in Khura'in in order to force Phoenix to win the orb for his client. Upon proving Dhurke's ownership and revealing the secret behind the Founder's Orb, the group return to Khura'in where Justice Minister Inga Karkhuul Khura'in, husband of Queen Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in, is holding Maya hostage. However, when Dhurke goes in to make the exchange, he is accused of murdering Inga after he is found dead.

With Queen Ga'ran acting as prosecutor, Phoenix and Apollo are tasked with proving Dhurke innocent of both Inga's murder and the assassination of the previous queen, Ga'ran's sister Amara, 23 years ago, which led to the creation of the DC Act. Along with learning that Amara survived the assassination attempt, Apollo discovers that Dhurke had already been killed by Inga a few days earlier, having been channeled by Maya to see his foster son one last time. He also discovers that Nahyuta had been blackmailed by Ga'ran in order to protect Rayfa, who is revealed to be Nahyuta's sister and Dhurke and Amara's biological daughter. With the ties of her father's crime threatening to destroy Rayfa's life, Apollo uses his final gift from Dhurke, a photo of his deceased biological father, Jove, to conduct a Divination Séance, proving that both Jove and Inga's murders and Amara's attempted assassination were caused by Ga'ran. As Ga'ran threatens to use her royal authority to execute Apollo and Phoenix on the spot, Apollo reveals that Ga'ran needed the Founder's Orb to acquire spiritual powers that she lacked and are a requirement for her to be the country's ruler. Proving she has no claim to the throne, Apollo manages to successfully prove Dhurke's innocence and nullify the laws that Ga'ran passed. As Ga'ran's rule ends and Rayfa is chosen to succeed her as the next queen, Apollo decides to stay in Khura'in to help Nahyuta rebuild the kingdom's legal system.

Downloadable episodes

"Turnabout Time Traveler", a downloadable episode, takes place after the events "Turnabout Revolution". Having returned from Khura'in, Phoenix, who is watching Trucy training Athena to become her assistant, is surprised to see his old friend Larry arrive in his office with a woman who he claims is his fiancé, and who is also wanted for murder. After Detective Skye arrests her, Phoenix visits her at the detention center to hear her story, but is shocked into disbelief over her claim that she was attacked shortly after her wedding onboard an luxury airship, but managed to travel back in time to before the start of the wedding, whereupon her attacker was killed and she was subsequently accused of his murder. Reunited with Maya, he decides to take on her case despite her unusual claim, and finds himself defending her in court against Edgeworth, who was requested by the aviation company of the woman's fiancee to oversee the prosecution of the case. During the trial, Phoenix effectively reveals that time travel never occurred, but that members of the company had effected a cover-up, when it transpires that Larry had snuck onboard the airship during the wedding and was thrown in the hold as a result, managing to escape in time to witness the wedding being redone, all for the benefit of the groom, who suffered extensive memory problems following a major traffic accident that killed his sister. The victim had attacked the bride during the first ceremony, whereupon she passed out and awoke as the second ceremony was being performed. Phoenix, with Edgeworth's help towards the end of the trial, eventually exposes the real killer as the groom's butler, who lost his girlfriend in the accident and blamed her brother for it all, arranging for the attacker, the groom's former driver, to kill the bride during the wedding before eventually having to cover up his plan by killing the attacker. With the bride cleared of murder, both men along with their friends and co-workers attend the woman's wedding as she finally gets married.

Two additional non-canon downloadable episodes were released under the name "Asinine Attorney": In the first, Pearl must pretend to be Rayfa with Phoenix’s help to stall for time during a hostage situation; in the second, Apollo and Klavier Gavin help Rayfa find her ideal sightseeing destination in America before she must return to Khura'in.

Development

Spirit of Justice was produced by Motohide Eshiro and co-directed by Takeshi Yamazaki and Takuro Fuse; Yamazaki was in charge of the game's scenario, while Fuse directed the graphics and gameplay and was the game's art director. The game's music was composed principally by Noriyuki Iwadare, with additional tracks by Toshihiko Horiyama, who had previously composed the soundtrack for Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, and series newcomer Masami Onodera. Capcom mentioned the game for the first time in December 2013, at which point they had just begun working "full force" on a new game in the series and were thinking up ideas for it. When they announced the game for Japan and the West in September 2015, development was 30% finished. By the end of 2015, development was mostly finished, with the team working on polishing and adding finishing touches.

When developing the previous game in the series, Dual Destinies, Yamazaki had been the only director; after finishing its development, he had become exhausted and wanted to quit working on Ace Attorney. Eshiro had encouraged him to continue by taking him to a press conference in Taiwan and to San Diego Comic-Con International to meet the media and fans of the series; following this, Yamazaki felt renewed enthusiasm over the series, and wanted to work on a sixth Ace Attorney. Thinking Yamazaki's exhaustion stemmed from too much directing responsibility, Eshiro decided to split directing responsibilities between Yamazaki and Fuse; he had at first considered having two equal directors working on the game, but decided against it out of fear that the development team would have difficulty with dealing with contradicting opinions from two directors working on the same aspects of the game.

The implementation of the new divination séance gameplay system was similar to that of the logic chess system in Ace Attorney Investigations 2. It was created to show the events of a crime from the victim's point of view, and to have that character's feelings be potentially important evidence. Initially, the developers had considered using ghosts or puppet possession for this, but they were rejected due to being too creepy and "out there". The divination séance system was tweaked with improved hints in response to feedback from the Spirit of Justice demo at the Tokyo Game Show, where it was seen as being too difficult and taking too long to play. Other gameplay features being affected by fan feedback include the return of features from Dual Destinies that had been well-received, such as the backlog; adjustments to the difficulty, which had been perceived as low in Dual Destinies; and the hint system being possible to turn off. According to Eshiro and Yamazaki, character actions and movements were given a larger focus than in Dual Destinies, with Rayfa's dancing animation given as an example of this. Returning characters from Dual Destinies were given new 3D models to make sure that the quality was higher and consistent with those of new characters. Like the previous title, Spirit of Justice features fully voiced anime cutscenes, this time animated by A-1 Pictures, who also produced the Ace Attorney anime series.

Writing

Yamazaki led a team of scenario writers, who worked to come up with an overall theme and setting for the game, aiming to come up with ideas that feel new and surprising, but that still build upon previous Ace Attorney games. They did this through brainstorming, where no one was allowed to shoot down others' ideas, and also analyzed all previous games in the series to determine what defines the series and what makes it fun. They came up with the theme of "courtroom revolution"; Yamazaki described it as meaning "the oppressed and weak defeating the strong", saying that it also is a kind of turnabout. After this, they decided on each individual episode's overall story; Yamazaki decided on the general direction, after which adjustments and additions were done through discussions with other writers. There was one writer in charge of each episode, who each discussed and solidified the ideas for their episode with Yamazaki.

According to Yamazaki, they focused more on the game's world than in previous games in the series. The decision to do this came from how, throughout the series, Phoenix has been in "a place that lacks enemies", and from difficulties with developing the series further within the Japanese courtroom setting. Based on fan feedback, the development team gave Apollo Justice a larger presence than in Dual Destinies: they felt that Phoenix had been portrayed as the main character in Dual Destinies, with Apollo just being an important part of the plot, so they set Spirit of Justice in two different countries with one equal main character in each location. The character Rayfa was described by Yamazaki and Eshiro as a heroine, but also as an opponent to Phoenix; they thought that this approach, as opposed to having the heroine stand by the hero's side, brought something new and fresh to the series.

The episode plans were reviewed and discussed thoroughly by the team; the discussions took a long time, with the staff often staying in the meeting room until late at night. Each episode's main writer then wrote their episode; as the writers had different strengths, such as dialogue, mystery or comedy, the episodes were then discussed further, with changes done in response to feedback from the staff on the team. After the scenarios were finalized, visuals, music and sound effects were decided upon.

Release

The game was released in Japan on June 9, 2016, and digitally through the Nintendo eShop in North America and Europe on September 8, 2016. Japanese first print copies of the game include two short non-canon bonus episodes featuring Phoenix and Apollo, along with three downloadable costumes. This content was later released in English markets; the costume set was released alongside the game and was free for the first week, while the first and second bonus episodes were released on September 15, 2016 and September 22, 2016 under the name "Asinine Attorney", each one packaged with an additional 3DS menu theme. A limited edition containing a drama CD, a plush toy, a tote bag, and a visual poster card book, was also made available in Japan. A second costume set, based on Capcom's Sengoku Basara series, was released in Japan on June 23rd.An additional episode, Turnabout Time Traveller (時を越える逆転, "Turnabout Across Time"), was released as downloadable content on June 30, 2016 in Japan, and was free to download until July 20, 2016; the episode was released in English on September 29, 2016.

Reception

Spirit of Justice received generally favorable reviews, according to the review aggregator Metacritic. It was the top selling video game in Japan during its debut week, with 196,831 copies sold. It dropped to second place during its second week, with an additional 25,288 copies sold, to sixth place in its third week, with 11,803 copies sold, and to tenth place in its fourth, with 7,543 copies sold. The sales matched Capcom's expectations for the title.

Four reviewers at Famitsu—Yoshida, Ashida, Honma and Uchisawa—did a joint cross-review of the game. Ashida and Honma said that they liked how everything comes together in the game's ending; Honma also liked seeing how characters such as Maya had grown up and changed, to the point of investigating everything just to see more dialogue. Uchisawa thought that some plot developments were too "out there", and Ashida noted that the game's occult feeling might be divisive. Ashida found the divination séance system to be a fresh addition to the gameplay, but also felt that it was "stretching it"; Uchisawa disagreed, finding the game to not feel fresh, but still thought that the game was fun.

IGN's Tristan Ogilvie as well found the game to not bring anything new to the series, and criticized the Divination Seances, calling them "wishy-washy, and less far intuitive from the more logical cross-examination approaches". He also lamented the investigation sections, calling them "merely point-and-click pixel hunts", and wished they had more puzzles, as were present in the Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright game. He praised the over-the-top characters and engaging courtroom sequences, though, and the visual quality of the game.