Step into the shoes of Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth to explore crime scenes, confront witnesses, and seek the truth in this newly-remastered collection of two Ace Attorney spin-off games, one of which is available outside of Japan for the first time.
Ace Attorney Investigations Collection
Developer: Capcom
Price: $40
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PS4, Xbox One, and PC
MonsterVine was provided with a Nintendo Switch code for review.
Ace Attorney Investigations Collection is the latest Ace Attorney remastered collection to be released, bringing two spin-off games to modern platforms. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and its sequel Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit were originally released for the Nintendo DS, although the sequel was never released outside of Japan. I’ve been waiting for Investigations 2 for over a decade now, so it feels like a dream that it has now been officially translated for the first time as part of this collection.
Set after the first three games in the Ace Attorney series, the Investigations spin-offs follow Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. Unlike the main series, here you directly control your character to explore the game environments, investigate anything that catches your eye, and gather evidence. When an area requires more detailed investigation, it switches to a first-person view so that you can inspect it in the point-and-click style more typical of the series. You can also talk to other characters to either ask them questions or present evidence to them to see their reactions. For this remastered collection, the character sprites have been fully redone in HD, although you have the option of switching to pixelated sprites reminiscent of the original DS games if you prefer. I encountered occasional lag while running around larger gameplay areas with the HD sprites, although nothing that noticeably detracted from the experience.
Several characters from the main series return here, from major supporting characters like Dick Gumshoe and Franziska von Karma to some unexpected minor characters. These two games are perhaps more closely tied to the original trilogy than any others in the series. While their stories don’t require prior knowledge of the trilogy, there are plenty of nods and meaningful moments that have more impact with that knowledge. Many new characters play an important role in these games as well, such as Interpol agent Shi-Long Lang and rookie prosecutor Eustace Winner, who quickly find a place among the memorable cast of characters. The Ace Attorney series is known for its humor, and these games are no exception. There are many funny moments and situations across both games, which makes them a delight to play.
Once you’ve gathered enough evidence, you’ll face off against other characters in direct confrontations where you press their statements for more information and present evidence against contradictions. In this way, the core gameplay is quite similar to that of the main series, even if it doesn’t occur in the courtroom. More often than not, you’ll even be defending an innocent character against someone else’s accusations despite playing as a prosecutor. It’s an odd quirk that might make you ask yourself just how the main series cases ever came to be if Edgeworth is this rigorous about finding the truth, but the cases would hardly have the same stakes if you weren’t pursuing each mystery to its end.
Investigations does have some unique gameplay mechanics, as well. In addition to gathering evidence, you’ll also learn facts about the case. These facts can then be connected through Logic, a simple system in which you link two pieces of information together to reach a conclusion, now with a new puzzle piece motif for the remaster. Another new mechanic is brought to the table by self-proclaimed “Great Thief” Kay Faraday, who uses hologram technology to reconstruct crime scenes in a simulation you can investigate and compare against the facts. This essentially allows you to investigate areas that you can’t see in person, such as what a crime scene would have looked like before the crime based on witness testimony.
Investigations 2 adds one more gameplay mechanic to your repertoire: Mind Chess. Mind Chess is a different sort of confrontation, in which you must make a sequence of timed choices to break down a character’s defenses, using their reactions to judge whether you should ask another question or bide your time. Some questions can only be explored once you’ve picked up a clue by asking the character different questions first. It’s a fun system, although the one missed opportunity is the lack of unique dialogue for incorrect answers.
Each game has an interconnected story told across its cases, although this is more evident in the second game than in the first. Replaying Ace Attorney Investigations again after all these years was quite an entertaining blast from the past. While it’s not the best of the series, its story still features exciting moments and intriguing mysteries, and the cases themselves have a refreshingly fast pace until near the end. Meanwhile, Investigations 2 is an absolute delight, with a slower pace that lets it really dig into its storytelling and set up unexpected twists and compelling characters. While the first game’s story stands on its own well enough that it never felt incomplete for all these years that players outside of Japan lacked the sequel, there are a handful of threads and arcs that carry over into the second game.
Like the other recent Ace Attorney remasters, the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection features several quality-of-life improvements. You can set dialogue to auto-advance, turn on the new Story Mode setting to have gameplay handled automatically if you prefer to approach it like a visual novel, and use Chapter Select to start playing from any section of any case. While the first game was largely left untouched aside from these additions and the graphics, one character’s voice clip was redone for a marked improvement over the original. Finally, the new gallery contains a plethora of bonuses, including all the character sprites, concept art, and the soundtracks for both games. You can even set any song you like to play as you browse the other gallery contents.
For a long time, I thought we would never see Ace Attorney Investigations again, let alone get an official translation of the second game. Now they’re finally here, available together in a single collection, and I’m happy to say it was worth the wait.
The Final Word
Playing these two games back-to-back is a fascinating glimpse into the shift the series saw over time. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth has the snappier, fast-paced approach of the earliest games in the series, while its sequel Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit takes a longer, wordier direction like the later games and delivers one of the best stories. Having the two available on modern platforms, with Investigations 2 being translated at last, is fantastic. While it might not be the best place to start the series for newcomers, the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection is an easy recommendation for Ace Attorney fans.
– MonsterVine Rating: 5 out of 5 – Excellent
