Ace Attorney Investigations Collection — Adventures in prosecuting

It’s strange to remember that, only just a few years ago, I assumed several games in the Ace Attorney series would never be localized. Capcom has been slowly bringing the entire series to modern platforms, and with those ports and remasters came previously Japan-only titles. Now, with the release of the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, you can play all but one Ace Attorney game in English and on a single device. (The only game missing is the crossover with Layton.) Fans have been waiting 13 years to finally play the second game starring Miles Edgeworth, Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit, and can revisit the first game with a new coat of paint in this collection.

The Investigations duology is a bit different from the rest of the Ace Attorney series. Its main difference is the ability to walk around crime scenes from a top-down perspective, rather than clicking on points of interest from a first person view adventure game style. This is a fun novelty, allowing each area to feel more dense with clues. Since you’re playing as Edgeworth, the only normal person in the entire franchise, you can also use Logic to extrapolate more information from clues. You do this by combining two of Edgeworth’s thoughts, with the prosecutor taking it from there if they’re related.

Finally, Prosecutor’s Gambit adds Mind Chess on top. When Edgeworth needs information from someone less than forthcoming, he can play a game of Mind Chess with them to trap them in their own rhetoric. Here, you’ll navigate a dialogue tree to either point out contradictions in what the witness is saying or keep your mouth shut, whatever gets them to make a mistake. To know what to do at any moment, you need to pay close attention to both what they’re saying and how they react. For example, one character takes on a boxing stance when he gets defensive, letting you know to bide your time and wait for an opening. Mind Chess can’t go on forever though, as a timer counts down as you make your decisions.

Other than those new gameplay styles, this is the same Ace Attorney you know and love. You find clues, listen to testimony, then point out contradictions in that testimony using said clues. Repeat until the truth is revealed. Of course it’s not always that simple, and I consider the Investigations games to have some of the most difficult cases in the series. Sometimes that’s due to some out there logic, other times it’s because of an actually clever solution, and one time it’s because one man’s testimony just never ends. I think the words “diplomatic immunity” will get a groan out of just about anyone who’s played AAI1. AAI2 is mostly better about this and, overall, it is just a much tighter, better game because of it.

Before moving on to what this collection adds, we need to talk about the elephant in the courtroom: the fan translation. Prosecutor’s Gambit was translated by fans back in 2014, and the effort was very faithful to the series and of very good quality. Overall though, I think the official translation reads better and seems more faithful to the original Japanese. While some fans may love the fan translation’s pun names like Sebastian DeBeste and Raymond Shields, Eustace Winner and Eddie Fender just work better. I appreciate what the fan translation did at the time and applaud the efforts of those fans, and it’s clear Capcom does as well with a few cheeky references to the translation within this official release.

Like other Ace Attorney Collections, Investigations allows players to start any case at any time from a variety of chapter makers. So if you left off in the middle of the first game on the DS, chances are you can pick up more or less where you left off on the Switch. There’s also a gallery including unlockable achievements, CGs from each case, sprites and portraits for every character, concept artwork, and the games’ soundtracks including special arrangements. In the options menu, you can enable arrangements to appear in the games as you play or just listen to the original soundtracks. For anyone who just wants to experience the story, there’s also a story mode difficulty option, allowing the game to essentially play itself at the press of a button. While this does disable some accolades, you can jump back into normal gameplay whenever you want to.

From the title screen, you can toggle between the original pixel art and new hand-drawn art when walking around. The new artwork looks like chibi versions of each character, but something about them just looks wrong. This does give you a more accurate look at characters outside of confrontations, but I far and away prefer the pixel art. It’s interesting to see the new art for the first time, but I’d rather do that in the gallery.

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