Platform: PC, PS4 (version played) and Xbox Release Date: August 2018
***
In today's gaming world, early adopters are quite often glorified beta testers; they get underway whilst the last few bugs are ironed out by a handful of post-release patches. This is especially true with regards to "live service" games. These online experiences (often with a multiplayer focus) promise to adapt and evolve over time, giving their developers plenty of opportunities to tinker with, and hopefully fix, the underlying code under the guise of delivering periodic feature updates.
Because of this, I find that it's sometimes preferable to be late to certain parties. My experience with online gaming is admittedly limited but, thanks to a small handful of examples, I've learned patience. I rushed towards the PS4 port of free-to-play MMORPG Star Trek Online at warp speed, only to watch it slowly improve around me as I stood still, making me wonder why I bothered struggling with it in those early, ropey days. I played the Uncharted 4 multiplayer for many months after launch, reaching my limit with it just as Naughty Dog introduced a cool cinematic replay feature which would've been right up my alley. And then of course, there's the well-documented calamity of Star Wars: Battlefront II, which was a beautiful redemption story to witness, but one which cost me far more money than it should have done.
All of this explains why I could wait three years before playing Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker. I only tend to enjoy online multiplayer when it wears the skin of something I like and yet, as a predominantly PvP brawler, its gameplay would always be somewhat of a gamble. At least, the longer I waited, the better and more comprehensive the game would be.
After three years, not only would it be glitch-free, it would be packed with new and exciting gameplay modes, maps and features beyond its initial offerings... right?
Right?!
After a brief, abstract introduction, Shinobi Striker tasks you with creating your own protagonist. The physical customisation options go beyond what I expected. You're locked to a binary gender choice but, beyond that initial restriction, a range of heights (child, teenager or adult) and body types (thin, average or Olympic weightlifter) lead to the facial options, which boast tweaks both subtle and ridiculous. As you can see above, I did my usual thing of being bland, making my ninja look like somebody who wouldn't stand out in a background shot from the source material. He could be canon!
Once you've named your masterpiece (you can type in anything you want, although I presume there'd be some obvious restrictions) you're dropped into the Hidden Leaf Village... or at least, a prohibitively titchy courtyard at its centre. Konohamaru Sarutobi appears and "guides" you around this hub for tutorial purposes but, as charming as he is, he really needn't have bothered. Every gateway to every lobby and menu can be seen at all times, from wherever you happen to be standing, so there's never any chance of getting lost. It's just a thing that the game's design demanded, and so it exists. In its defence, it's gorgeous to behold, although that might be because I've arrived in the middle of a summer event; I have a feeling all of those decorations are gonna disappear next week. This is why we have Share buttons now, I guess.
Oh, why are we here? What's the context? Um... some kind of ninja tournament, I think. It's whatever they call the online PvP mode. There's no story to any of this. You're here to fight, and so fight is what you'll do. Whether it's with or against others as you try and climb the Ranked Match ladder, or whether it's in the solo missions played out in some kind of holodeck, recreating recognisable folks from across the series' history to help or hinder your training, you just fight. Sometimes you'll have to capture a flag or defend a base, but you do so by fighting, and fighting, and fighting until you can't fight any more. At which point, you log off, sleep, and come back the next day to start fighting again.
It's a good thing that developer Soleil have nailed the combat, then. Abandoning the one-button system employed by the Ultimate Ninja Storm games, Shinobi Striker reinvents the wheel with light and heavy melee attacks alongside throwable tools and three jutsu slots (two assigned to L1 and R1 with fast recharge rates, and one slightly more apocalyptic option mapped to the D-Pad, which has its own special meter filled by time, pick-ups and knockouts). You also have the ability to guard and counter but, unless you're going toe-to-toe with a single enemy, this isn't a viable tactic. Whether against the A.I. or fellow humans, things just move too fast for you to stand still and put 'em up.
Mainly because an attack can come from any angle, given that everything's a surface. Ninja can walk on walls and water, meaning some arenas have to resort to the ol' bottomless pit trope to provide an element of risk. If you find yourself falling, you can quickly fling a wire kunai at any environmental geometry in range, instantly reeling in and sticking to it. Of course, you can also use this lifeline to gain a tactical advantage, triggering it by leaping about like a frog on Haribo and running around the underside of bridges or fallen trees to ambush your foes. When you also take into account that melee attacks and certain jutsu can and will dash you towards your target, even if they happen to be in mid-air, some battles start to look, sound and feel pretty spectacular, regardless of whether you're a participant or a passer-by.
And they can be incredibly varied, as well, thanks to the game's deep customisation. There are four classes available to your character (Attack, Defence, Ranged and Healer) and each one comes with its own suite of specialist jutsu, as well as separate outfit slots. You're free to switch classes whenever you die mid-match, allowing you to shake things up if a certain approach isn't working. You learn new jutsu by assigning yourself to a Master in the hub area; the more you play alongside a famous face from the franchise, the more of their devastating repertoire you'll unlock for your own personal use. Suddenly those clusters of colourful effects unleashed in each arena start to look fan-pleasingly familiar, as you spot spheres of sand, paralysing shadows and flaming multi-tailed foxes emerging from each fray.
All seems rather exciting, doesn't it? Well, it is... for the first couple of hours. Then you realise that you've visited the same five levels on a loop, and you start to wonder if there are any more out there (spoiler alert: there aren't, it's still the same five from launch). You progress through some of the seemingly plentiful single player missions and start to notice that, in actual fact, it's the same ten or twelve scenarios repeating themselves, with shorter time limits and bigger enemy health bars whenever you nudge the rank up. You visit the shop to have your reward scrolls appraised (which is the game's obligatory RNG loot box mechanic) and get a bunch of duplicate outfit components which you didn't fancy wearing in the first place, or a truckload of clothes obnoxiously marked "WOMEN ONLY" that you're not allowed to wear, yet also not allowed to sell. I mean, is this it? Where's the fresh content? Where are the new maps? What the heck was I waiting for?!
(Whilst this lack of content does sound awfully familiar in the wake of my Ultimate Ninja Storm review, I should point out that there were roughly a dozen excellent, ram-packed Naruto games released in the intervening decade, including five Ultimate Ninja Storm sequels.)
This is where I started to wonder what was contained in the game's four (!!) season passes, but it turns out that they're just full of new Masters to learn from. You can access them all for free, have them accompany you into battle and use them in the single player missions to test out their unique skills, but they won't teach your custom ninja anything of use 'til you stump up some cash. If you don't know (or care about) who they are, you won't be missing much if you choose not to pay, but then you'll invariably encounter a PvP opponent who's done the calculations and purchased the best, most unbreakable combination of abilities and lo, you catch the all-too-familiar whiff of multiplayer microtransaction madness. Oh, and those aforementioned loot box scrolls? For a long while, you could only earn them via gameplay, but then Moonlight Scrolls were introduced, which you purchase from the PlayStation Store and which, of course, are your best chance of earning the rarest stuff.
Once that initial "Hey, this is kinda good!" shock starts to fade, Shinobi Striker settles for being a textbook example of the worst traits in modern gaming. This is a real shame. Its combat system is a heck of a lot of fun and, had it been placed in a narrative-driven action adventure or even a multiplayer game with more meat on its bones, it could've been something really special. As it stands, however, it and its presentation are the only elements worthy of genuine, analytical praise. Effort was made, by somebody at some point, but everything implemented since has fallen victim to the shallow monetisation all too prevalent in today's games. I'm not gonna scream "Won't somebody think of the children?!" here because it isn't as bare-faced or as predatory as FIFA Ultimate Team, but it still feels grubby.
So yeah, whilst it's sometimes preferable to be late to certain parties, I think it's more important to know whether you wanna attend the party at all, regardless of your arrival time. Not every "live service" game is destined to evolve beyond its initial invitation. In the case of Shinobi Striker, we're looking at a very stylish, very playable brawler designed to pry money from the hands of Naruto fans. That's all it ever was, all it ever had to be, and probably all it ever will be.
Which is why I feel like a fool for considering spending a tenner on PSN credit, in order to unlock the full abilities of Minato, Neji and Might Guy. Not only because I know it's a trap, but also because, knowing my luck, they'll announce the addition of my favourite character as soon as I do.
And then, worse, I'll be supporting the very same practices that I wholeheartedly condemn.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Shame to hear Shinobi Striker ended up being thin on content and mediocre. Especially considering the combat and presentation are excellent. The worst sorts of mediocre-to-bad games are the ones that are just good enough in some respects to make you wonder what could have been if the developers had made different choices.
Unfortunately, a lack of an engaging gameplay loop will kill a multiplayer/service game, and it sounds like the content in this doesn't remain especially compelling once it starts aggressively recycling itself.
@Ralizah Thank you, and that's exactly it, yes. When a game's universally bad from top to bottom, I feel sorry for it and kinda respect it for trying anyway, but you can almost pinpoint the exact moment Shinobi Striker morphed from a promising brawler into a hollow cash grab.
It's a testament to the strength of the Naruto brand, though, because its servers are constantly packed, at all times of the day. Maybe that's the problem. Fans can, and will, play anything.
Although I shouldn't stress that last point too heavily. Stones in glass houses and all that.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
It's been a long while since I last posted in this thread (I have been lazy and have about 3 PS4 & Switch games apiece I need to do writeups on, so it just sort of became too daunting for me to tackle, lol), but I've been introduced to a new side of the gaming landscape (as you'll soon see) and have decided to use it as a jumping off point for a bit of a fresh start here.
Dogfight 1942 (PC/Steam)
Gameplay:
Mission based arcade dogfighter that's pretty simple to grasp (especially if you've played anything similar, the controls feel almost exactly the same as those in Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders, which I played on Switch).
Missions usually consist of two or three objectives separated by checkpoints, and range from typical "shoot everything down" stuff (sometimes with a defensive objective, as you can see below where you have to destroy all bombers before London's life bar is depleted), to ship bombing runs, landing challenges, and even a stealth segment.
Sometimes a mission will let you choose between a few different planes (usually 2 or 3, though I think the final mission gives you like 6 or so options), though just as often you're required to use a specific plane (like one where you're in a sea plane). Special weapons seem to be pre-determined as well (everything has a machine gun, but mission objective determines whether it's joined by bombs, torpedos, or rockets).
Played it on Normal and found it to be an extremely easy & short experience (not a complaint mind you, just a head's up). Your plane actually has auto regen (just fly away from the action for a few secs & you're good to go), and even if you do fail the missions tend to be short enough that it'll take you no time at all to get back to where you were (especially considering the aforementioned checkpoints). All in all you can knock this one out in a couple of hours.
It has a more arcadey focus though, so if you really get into it there's replayability in the form of it's grading system (you earn 1-5 stars upon mission completion depending on score, which you can improve upon by completing optional objectives, taking out non objective required enemies, and chaining together kill streaks) & multiple difficulty settings. There's also online co-op, dogfight, and survival modes which I haven't tried.
There are also two extra DLC campaigns (Russian & I think African campaigns) which I intended to buy in a bundle (base game is $10, and the bundle with everything is only $12, so it's definitely the way to go if you buy it), but I got a little ahead of myself and just got the base game. I'm sure I'll buy the expansions eventually though, as they're just $3 a pop individually.
Story:
There's really no overall narrative, you just jump from famous battle to famous battle, either as the US fighting Japan in the Pacific or the UK fighting Germany in western Europe. Unlike other games of the type each side isn't even separated into it's own campaign, you'll just play two missions as the US, two as the UK, so on so forth until it ends. The Battle of Britain, Iwo Jima, Midway, and Okinawa are just some of the battles you'll take part in.
Audio/Visual:
Originating as a 360 game it's not the most advanced looking game, but it still looks relatively modern & clean. I was able to run it in 1080p at max settings, & while the bombing raid over London was the "troublesome" mission dropping to just above 80 fps at times, pretty much every other mission was showing to run with framerates in the multi-hundreds (over 4-500 frames at times, not that I would even be able to perceive that), so I'm sure any relatively modern PC could run it without issue.
I should also mention that the game is glitched in that it doesn't render trees (they're there, but you can't see them). This isn't a problem 98% of the time, but there is exactly one objective where you have to land next to a plane crashed in a field where you'll be crashing or bouncing off of the things since you don't know where they are. This can apparently be fixed by changing the PC's internal clock to before the year 2012 (the year of the game's release), but I never bothered and still completed the objective after only like 3 tries.
It's soundtrack consists of generic war music. Hardly anything memorable, but it gets the job done.
I should also mention that being a WWII game, you're going to hear a certain Japanese racial slur repeated about 5,000 times. Understandable given the context, but it'll probably make some uncomfortable nonetheless in this day & age.
Conclusion:
I was actually looking to see if Blazing Angels was available (I played it back on the Wii but never finished it at the time), but apparently Ubisoft pulled it & it's sequel from Steam back in 2015 (likely due to expiring plane licences?) so I looked for something similar & found this, and it did the job. Nothing revolutionary, but a nice time for those who like arcade dogfighters. A nice easy transition into PC gaming for me.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
@RR529 Nice review. So this is your first PC/Steam game?
Sometimes the simple, arcade-like experiences are exactly what are needed to clean the palette after getting bogged down in difficult RPGs or narrative-heavy games. I assume this is similar to something like Ace Combat? Never played a game like this (unless you count Jungle/Desert Strike on the Genesis, lol), but they've always looked like fun.
Sorry to hear about the performance issues. 80fps is pretty much slideshow territory, innit?
@RogerRoger I did my backlog list. I took every game that I own and haven't played and then I removed things I know for a fine fact I'll never play - Destiny 2, for example, I own physically, digitally, and it's free to play now, and I've still never considered starting it, so that got axed. Then out of what was left I got rid of stuff I can't actually play because I don't have the hardware it needs any more. Then I made a list of what's left and filed them in different categories - i.e. stuff that's quick, stuff that I'll need to be in the specific mood for, things that are difficult, things that I should keep an eye on the platinum for, etc...
The list is over 200 games long and I just remembered that I forgot to include all the Kingdom Hearts games I haven't played yet so this might have to be a work in progress.
In other news, do any of you nerds know of any games like either 13 Sentinels or TOKYOREMEMBRANCE that are any good? I've got quite a few visual novels I haven't played yet and I've played quite a few but I liked the way they did things. I like wandering about and talking to people and being able to see the characters and stuff.
@nessisonett I have. I'm actually going to play them again one day - picked up the pack of 999/Virtue's Last Reward ages ago and need to get round to it. Love those games.
@Ralizah, yeah, outside of goofing around in Age of Empires II on the family PC back in the stone ages & playing flash games in the computer lab back in middle & high school I don't have any PC gaming experience, so this is my first real exposure.
The laptop I got should be more capable than my PS4, so I'm intending on making it the default place to play 3rd party titles & any Xbox exclusives I have any interest in (like Flight Simulator). I've recently started Ys Seven, which has been fun so far.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
@RogerRoger I only skimmed the last few pages but I enjoyed your writeup on Striker.I love the art style in the pics you posted! How busy are the servers for the game though? I'd always worry about playing games like that so long after launch that it would just be very dedicated veterans left playing..
@RR529 A neat little writeup from you too. I do like those sorts of games but I find that they can be tricky to get right as I don't want anything too arcadey or too in depth. I quite enjoyed Ace Combat 7 when I played it last year but the missions were a bit long and the planes kind of felt the same.
I remember playing one called something like Weapons Over Normandy back on the PS2 which was cool as it had such an array of planes from the WW2 era, including some quite wacky prototype planes from that time. I'm sure I remember a mission where you used a Dambuster style bouncing bomb too which was pretty cool.
Actually recently played Ace Combat 7 myself (it's one of the mentioned PS4 games I still need to do a writeup on), and it was great, but man was it the hardest AC game (heck, hardest arcade dogfighter) I've played. DF1942 is vastly easier, at least comparing both on Normal difficulty.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Platforms: Nintendo 3DS (Jp only), iOS (Jp only), PS4, Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PC
Capcom's cult classic Ace Attorney series had been out of commission for years. After releasing the sixth mainline entry, Spirit of Justice, in the West in 2016 on the 3DS (digital only, like all of their Ace Attorney releases since the NDS days), Capcom went radio silent for years on the series. What made this especially frustrating was that, in 2015, the first of a duology of spinoff games, Dai Gyakuten Saiban, had released but never made its way to Western shores. This was also true of its direct sequel, also released on the Nintendo 3DS in Japan two years after. Fans had a pretty good idea why they were never localized. Unlike the mainline games, where the setting was changed from modern-day Japan to near-future California (albeit a version of California with a curious number of temples and ancient Japanese clans), the setting of these spinoff games couldn't be altered, because they were period pieces and dealt with cultural differences between people living in Meiji-era Japan and Victorian England. Additionally, there were rumored copyright issues thanks to Sherlock Holmes being a major character in these games. Over the years, an unofficial translation patch was released for the first game and fans lost hope that they'd ever see officially translated versions of these games. Like Ace Attorney Investigations 2 before it, these games seemed to be destined to remain unlocalized forever.
Fast forward to 2021, and hope sprung anew with leaks of a possible collection of the games on modern systems. Eventually, Capcom officially acknowledged the project: Dai Gyakuten Saiban 1 & 2, being officially localized as The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, were releasing in remastered HD form in The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles collection. This collection featured both games, all DLC included by default, and for the first time since 2010 (not counting the Professor Layton crossover published by Nintendo), an Ace Attorney game was enjoying a full physical release on at least one of the release platforms (the Switch). As you might imagine, this was an... emotional reveal for long-time fans like myself who had patiently waited for Capcom to officially localize these games.
Unsurprisingly, I jumped on it ASAP. The collection released recently, on the 27th of July, and I've already completed the first game in the collection. I thought about waiting until I'd played both and reviewing them together, but they released years apart in Japan and so, I believe, must be considered as separate releases. So this review will only be discussing the first game in the set.
While it retains the basic gameplay associated with the mainline Ace Attorney games, The Great Ace Attorney (or TGAA) is weird many other respects. The most obvious difference from the mainline games is found in the setting and cast: set more than a hundred years before the other games in the series, this functions as a soft reboot of sorts. While this didn't necessarily go over well with Japanese Ace Attorney fans (sales of both games weren't amazing in that region), this makes it an ideal entry for new fans to familiarize themselves with the series, as it casts aside decades of accumulated lore, world-building, in-jokes, etc. that have served to make the mainline games more than a little intimidating and inaccessible to get into as time has gone on. There are a few minor references that long-time fans will get, of course, but, for all intents and purposes, this is a clean slate for the series: featuring a wildly different setting, a totally brand new cast of characters, changes to the formula, new game mechanics, etc.
The historical context of the game is interesting. Helpful to appreciating the themes of this game is knowing that Japanese civilization, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, maintained a severely isolationist policy in the early 1800s, known as sakoku, which had been maintained for hundreds of years until Matthew Perry, a commodore of the United States Navy, forced open the ports of Japan for trade with the United States in 1854. The game doesn't give explicit dates for when events take place, but key references to the Meiji government, which succeeded the fall of the Shogunate and officially established the Empire of Japan in 1868, and allusions to the idea of Japanese defense lawyers being new at the time and the turn of the century drawing near seem to suggest the action of the game takes place in the 1890s or thereabouts.
Of course, when cultures initially meet on the world stage, it's not at all uncommon for the balance of power in their relationship to be wildly unequal. In the case of TGAA, we see Japan, newly opened up to broader world politics after centuries of functional isolation, struggling to impress dominant Western powers like Great Britain. This manifests in an ugly way in the very first case of the game, when our intrepid hero, Ryunosuke Naruhodo (ostensibly an ancestor to the more well-known Phoenix Wright of the mainline Ace Attorney games), is framed for the murder of a visiting British medical professor, and the government seems more interested in quickly finding him guilty in a court of law in order to ease tensions with the British government than respecting the rights of one of their own countrymen.
The truth about the murder is discovered and Ryunosuke is cleared, of course, because the hero of our game isn't going to be sitting behind a prison cell for the rest of his life. His legal student friend Kazuma Asogi, who has been granted permission by the British government to practice law overseas, smuggles him on-board a ship and the two, along with Kazuma's legal assistant Susato Mikotoba, set sail to England. Events transpire, and eventually it is Ryunosuke himself who finds himself practicing law in England alongside Susato, as the two meet a cast of interesting personalities (including Sherlock Holmes!... sort of) and unwittingly become embroiled in a conspiracy that will come to dominate much of the game's plot.
I say this game features Sherlock Holmes, but despite the majority of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about the Great Detective supposedly being in the public domain now, ten of his stories remain copyrighted in the U.S., and the Doyle estate makes it difficult for the character to freely appear in media in the West, so, in a tradition going back to author Maurice LeBlanc's ingenious evasion of copyright laws when he wanted his gentleman thief Arsene Lupin to face off against the detective, the character appearing in this game is actually called "Herlock Sholmes." Other references have been altered as well: Dr. Watson, for example, is now Dr. Wilson.
The writers for this game appear to possess a deep love for Doyle's creation, as sly references to and send-ups of his stories appear throughout the game (although initially missed by me, my interest in this game has spurred me to look more deeply into the Sherlock Holmes stories). This game features one of the more unusual and memorable portrayals of the detective himself. Eschewing the usual characterizations writers tend to go for, this version of "Herlock" is a sort of loveable buffoon. A genius, for sure, but one who is so impulsive and childish that he is constantly letting his imagination run away from him and consequently makes "deductions" that are entirely off-base. One of the major new game mechanics in this duology actually centers around this. In theatrical "Dance of Deduction" sequences, Herlock will explain his insights, the specifics of which are usually wrong, and the player will need to redirect his attention throughout to course-correct his deductions about a situation.
Otherwise, TGAA generally plays like an Ace Attorney game. Playing as Ryunosuke, the player will click on people and objects in mostly static environments in point-and-click fashion to advance the plot and discover clues during investigations. During trials, the player will press witnesses and present evidence when confronted with contradictions. The only other major change to the gameplay is one that's actually inherited from creator Shu Takumi's previous project, Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. As in that game, European-style (in this case, British) courts make use of a jury system, and there are sequences throughout the latter half of the game where the player will have to convince jurors to not submit their rulings hastily and talk them out of ending the trial early.
With that said, some of the formulaic gameplay of previous Ace Attorney games has been loosened. Of the game's five trials, two feature no investigation sequences at all, and one doesn't feature trial gameplay. TGAA, far more than previous titles in the series, is tightly written and structured, with more of an emphasis placed on building a serialized narrative, and the structure of each case is subservient to the direction of the narrative.
Combine that with the structure of this spin-off as a duology, and one of the more divisive aspects of this game will become clear: in many ways, it feels less like a full-fledged Ace Attorney game and more like a massive, expanded prologue to the second game in the series. TGAA spends so long setting up its story that, by the time you feel like the game has properly started, you're near the end. Case 4 (of 5) is the first one in the game that feels like a full-length Ace Attorney case.
That sounds like a rather scathing criticism, but it's never really to the game's detriment, if I'm being honest. Unlike other duologies I've played, TGAA doesn't feel like it's spinning its narrative wheels building up to the second game. Rather, there's a lot of groundwork to cover, and it's all done fairly well. Character relationships and the setting admittedly receive most of the attention: Ryunosuke and Susato are fish out of water in Victorian England, and the game goes out of its way to explore cultural differences of all varieties. Surprisingly, there's a strong realist element to the way interactions between your ethnically Japanese main characters and the lily white English cast play out, insofar as the game is filled-to-overflowing with almost casually racist comments being tossed your way (even by friends on occasion). It's obnoxiously omnipresent, with even jurors and the prosecutor you face off against in the latter half of the game casting aspersions on your heritage, and it really cements the impression that you're very much an outsider in this society, with your every motive being questioned throughout. One of your clients in this game is also an ethnically Japanese person, who you feel obliged to defend after finding out that nobody else in London wants to defend them in court.
The focus of the game isn't really on condemning the white supremacist mindsets that must have dominated in England during that time period, but it's critical to understanding the nature of the relationship between the British Empire and Japan at the time, and how it goes on to inform inequities in their public relations. It's not all hostility, of course, and a large focus is placed on the characters as they freshly experience a society that's wildly alien to the one they grew up in. Your legal assistant Susato is a massive fan of Herlock Sholmes' serialized stories and has found herself becoming fascinating with English society as a result: there's an almost giddy glee the first time she sees an English bobby on the street, for example.
The cast isn't huge, but, in the style of an epic, it highlights people from all walks of life, from politicians and crooked businessmen to detectives, merchants, renters, and even pickpockets. Like with the approach to its historical setting, there's a distinct groundedness to most of this cast that is unusual for an Ace Attorney game, which helps to sell its more serious tone. Unlike the mainline Ace Attorney games, most of which are deeply farcical and almost comic book-ish in tone, these games attempt to moderate their tone and situate their cast firmly in something approximating the real world.
Because of this more realistic approach to the Ace Attorney universe, the mysteries you encounter are wholly realistic scenarios, and Ryunosuke won't be able to rely on any of the lawyer superpowers or occult nonsense that his descendant has used to solve mysteries before. Consequently, far more than in previous games, there's a preoccupation with court procedure, rules for the admissibility of evidence , etc. that your characters are forced to struggle with when defending their clients. If there is a touch of the fanciful in the main cast, it's likely found in Herlock Sholmes' young partner, Iris Wilson, a ten-year-old child prodigy who shares lodgings with the Great Detective and helps by inventing new gadgets. Also worth mentioning is the prosecutor you face off against in this game: an intimidating, almost vampiric man named Barok van Zieks whose gimmick appears to be centered around wine. He'll frequently pour glasses of wine, shatter bottles and glasses when angry, make references to wine in his arguments, etc. Combine that with the urban legend surrounding the character, which states that anyone prosecuted by him will meet with an untimely end (he's popularly known as the "Reaper of the Bailey"), and it's hard to shake the distinct impression that your greenhorned young lawyer is matching wits with Dracula himself.
The more grounded approach of TGAA extends to the soundtrack as well, as the hyper-dramatic synth tracks of previous games are replaced by more deliberate and powerful orchestral pieces. The soundtrack features compositions that mix European and classical Japanese musical influences together effectively, which also reflects the primary theme of the game: the coming together of radically different cultures, for good and for ill.
Production-wise, the animation work for the game's 3D models are absolutely superb, given their origins on the humble Nintendo 3DS, and, in general, the HD upscaling has resulted in a product that looks like it could have launched on the Switch from the start. With that said, the game's origins are clear when you actually play it, as, in the game's final case, the concept of stereoscopic 3D plays a major role, and there's actually a gameplay mechanic that must have originally made use of the system's 3D capabilities. There's a workaround in the HD remaster, of course, but it feels a bit off until you consider the capabilities of the original host platform.
In terms of control, in addition to the usual support for sticks and buttons, the game is also fully controllable by using the system's pretty wildly underutilized touch screen. Probably an imported feature from the mobile version of the game. It's good fun sliding off the joycons and just playing it like a tablet game, tapping on various areas of the screen, even if I'm happy for the presence of more traditional controls as well.
While the Switch doesn't support a system-wide achievements system, Capcom went the extra mile by incorporating in-game achievements for both games in the collection. As with PS4 trophies, it's a good way to incentivize engaging with the game more fully in certain respects.
I probably won't bother looking too deeply into the DLC and bonus features until I complete the second game, but it does seem quite extensive. Capcom did an amazing job making this feel like a premium release.
While arguably weakened a bit by uneven pacing and the need to fully establish the groundwork needed for the second game's presumably higher-stakes conflicts and storylines, The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures still shines as one of the better games in the series, and an interesting spin-off in its own right. Its more serious storytelling, focus on character development, orchestrated soundtrack, and period setting distinguish it beautifully from the mainline series. I usually wait months or years before playing successive games in a series, but I'm so invested in this narrative that it probably won't be long at all before I return to the sequel and blow through that over a couple of weeks filled with sleepless nights where I curl up under my covers with the Switch held a few inches from my face. More than anything, though, I'm just so happy we're getting more Ace Attorney again after years of nothing from Capcom.
@Ralizah Great, in-depth review of the first GAA game. I agree a lot about it feeling like it takes a good few cases to finally get going. An extended prologue’s a good way to put it. At the end of the day though, it’s more Ace Attorney which is always welcome! And I did wonder how they’d get round the stereoscope although it never really worked that well to begin with 😂
Oh no? I imagined they'd use a slight stereoscopic 3D effect to call attention to the area of the picture you're supposed to highlight. This version of the game basically just insultingly shows you the problem area if you can't see it by crossing your eyes, lol.
I imagine you haven't played the sequel yet since the fan translation patch wasn't completed for that, right?
@RR529 The Ys games are all quite a bit of fun. I've heard Ys IX's PC port is the best version of that game to date, so you're pretty much set if you have a decent laptop. Pretty much all of Falcom's other games are on Steam as well.
I have an SSD in my desktop, so, in games that don't run well on the Switch, it's pretty much my go-to platform for third-party stuff.
@Ralizah Yeah, the intention is to use the 3D to make it easier to identify without crossing your eyes like the cursed Susato model but I could never really get it to work great. Although I didn’t often play with 3D on as it hurts my head after a while in most games.
I LOVE the stereoscopic 3D in most games, although I've always found Atlus' games never used it well.
Too bad I had to turn off face-tracking on my New 3DS, since my thick glasses throw off the calibration something awful. Basic 'keep your head locked in one position' 3D for me, it seems.
The 3D worked great in games like Ocarina of Time and Kid Icarus Uprising but the standard seemed to slip as the console got towards the end of its lifespan which was a real shame.
@nessisonett Well, eventually they just stopped putting 3D into the games altogether. Of that final batch of Nintendo 3DS games, I don't think any of them really supported the 3D at all. Unfortunate, really, since the visual depth added a lot to certain games. IMO it's Nintendo's coolest hardware gimmick to date.
The Professor Layton games on the system made pretty great use of the feature. Turned some pretty flat 2D imagery into spaces that had a magnificent sense of depth to them.
Capcom's own Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate was another awesome showcase for the feature.
Although, for my money, A Link Between Worlds was the single best utilization of it on a gameplay level.
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