Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth review

Of course, starting with Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the series moved away from stories about our favourite blue-suited, spiky-haired defence attorney Phoenix Wright, and now the series is taking its insanity out of the courtroom and into the crime scene. Now there were CSI-style investigation moments in the previous games, but this one puts the focus squarely on those moments, and we were intrigued to see if the series could pull it off while retaining its charm.As you might have expected from the title, the story focuses on dandy-ish prosecutor and series regular Miles Edgeworth. Having just returned from a business trip, he finds himself drawn into a web of intrigue when he finds a dead body in his office and important files missing. Together with various helpers, including stalwart partner Detective Dick Gumshoe, he sets out to investigate the crime scenes, interrogate witnesses and ultimately crack the biggest case of his career.Rather than the first-person viewpoint used in prior games for the investigation sequences, this one more closely resembles the classic LucasArts graphic adventures such as Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. You move Edgeworth freely around the crime scenes, using either the D-Pad or the touch-screen, and as usual can examine points of interest and gather the evidence you need. Thats fairly standard for the series, despite the change of viewpoint. It works as well as it ever did, but there isnt much in the way of evolution happening here. Although you can also examine simulations of the crimes themselves to spot further clues, thats an element that is sorely under-used.What makes Edgeworth differ from previous protagonists, however, is his unique gameplay mechanic (well, gimmick, if you want to put it that way). Rather than the psychic and magic hoopla from the previous games, Edgeworths use of cool logic is more down-to-earth. With it, you can connect various pieces of evidence to unusual parts of the crime scene to gain further insight into the crime, and string together various clues to form a larger theory. Its an interesting feature and works quite well, moving closer to the feel of a detective novel.The interrogation sequences with key witnesses and suspects are strikingly similar to the courtroom sequences from the other games. In fact, theyre pretty much identical, with you pressing further questions on them and presenting evidence that exposes direct contradictions in the testimony. One problem with these sequences is that, even though you can understand the crime well beforehand, how you go about proving it is usually in a very roundabout manner, and sometimes requires huge leaps of logic to do so. Its entirely possible to end up penalising yourself into a Game Over, simply because something didnt seem to make logical sense and you had to resort to guesswork. This disconnect between what the player knows and what the character can articulate is a flaw that has plagued the series since Day One, and has always stopped it from achieving true greatness.What has always compensated for this flaw, however, are the scripts, stories and one of the most well-developed and likeable ensemble casts in gaming. In this respect, the game still delivers superbly well. Though the tone of the stories has changed into a slightly more realistic one, the characters and situations that Edgeworth finds himself surrounded by are still endearingly crazy, which is helped by the razor-sharp writing.The different partners that Edgeworth has in the cases bring some great banter, though there is a slight flaw in that the constant partner-changing means you never really get the chance to get attached to any one of them; not just the ditzy new entry Kay Faraday, but even series regulars Dick Gumshoe and Franziska von Karma. Even Edgeworth seems a bit less like the man we knew from before, apparently channelling Phoenix Wright on a couple of occasions. Still, the story to be told is a good one, offering more insight into the central characters than ever before and the different cases weave a larger tale that is well worth playing through to experience.The graphics are up to the usual series standard, with well-detailed backdrops and sprites with some amusing animations. The sounds are largely recycled, but the music is something of a series high, including a surprisingly atmospheric remix of the courtroom theme from the first Phoenix Wright game.We would not go so far as to say this series has ever been perfect; as we have pointed out, the often illogical means of progressing cases has been a consistent flaw which has dragged this series down, even if the gameplay is otherwise unbroken. This iteration is no different, but also like the other games is the fact that the script, characters and story once again make this a very endearing entry in the series, and another that is well worth checking out.