Okay! So you want to play Ace Attorney and now you have found yourself wondering where to start or what the best way to play is. This is my guide on how to play, how long it'll take, and other things that I have observed playing Shu Takumi's beloved game series.
I love this game series so much. So much so that I ended up getting a tattoo of one of the symbols from the game series before completing them all.
This will have some small spoilers so be forewarned. I'll be doing these posts in chunks when I have time. This first one has been sitting in drafts for a few months and I feel like just posting it so I am motivated to write more later. I'll rebug this as I go along so expect updates to be fleeting.
What is Ace Attorney?
Do you like justice? Do you like having a murder mystery no matter what? Feel like playing in a judical system where it is completely unfair? This game series is for you.
In Ace Attorney, you (typically) play as a defence lawyer and must defend your clients from literally facing the death penalty. I genuinely love all of the games (even one in particular) and every one of them has a twist that while you might be able to anticipate, you also won't be able to nail exactly.
In the English release, the games take place in the pseudo-American state of Japanifornia--this is the fandom term as the general locale isn't exactly explicit. The scenery really is Japan, but this was done to make it more palatable to Western audiences. You play as Phoenix Wright, a burgeoning defence attorney who has to face his rival, facing prosecutor, and childhood friend, Miles Edgeworth.
To avoid too many spoilers, I will leave it at mentioning that the stories will hit hard and deal with issues that are definitely incredibly sensitive and difficult to navigate. I will warn you that there are a lot of content warnings you'll have to contend with, but the game does it more or less tastefully most of the time.
What games are there?
There are 11 total games that would be considered part of the Ace Attorney franchise. With exception of one, I would consider them all in the same universe.
The games and platform availability are as follows:
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Wii, iOS, Android, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One)
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Wii, iOS, Android, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One)
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Wii, iOS, Android, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One)
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (Nintendo DS, iOS, Android, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One)
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies (Nintendo 3DS, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One)
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice (Nintendo 3DS, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One)
- Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (Nintendo DS, Android, iOS)
- Ace Attorney Investigations 2 (Nintendo DS, Android, iOS)
- The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures (Nintendo 3DS, Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows)
- The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve (Nintendo 3DS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows)
- Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Nintendo 3DS)
Officially, all but one of these games have been released in English.
The exception is Ace Attorney Investigations 2 (逆転検事2), which has never received an official translation from Japanese to any other language. It has received a fan translation fortunately. It is recommended to play the DS port.
The Game Boy Advance games were never released outside of Japan and in my opinion are only novelties as the Nintendo DS releases include content which makes the games later on in the series make more sense.
Mobile and 3DS releases of both Great Ace Attorney games are Japanese-only. There are fan translations of the 3DS games, but honestly just pick it up for Switch, PS4, or PC instead. One other quirk is that the 3DS of the first GAA game will require you to make use of it the 3D functionality, so if you have a 2DS, you're out of luck on one particular part of the game.
It should be considered that Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (PLvAA) is not in-game universe and as a result doesn't tie in any plot points from the mainline universe. If you have played a Layton game in the past, then a lot of its elements should be familiar. I'll discuss where I feel it fits in order of playthrough.
I recommend purchasing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy to get the first three games, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles to get GAA 1 and 2, and while not out at the time of me writing, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy will get you the last three mainline games--this bundle will be released in early 2024.
PLvAA is stuck on the 3DS and thanks to Nintendo shutting down the eShop, the only legitimate way to get ahold of the game is to pay obscene prices for a physical copy. Maybe Level 5 and Capcom will agree to a rerelease on Switch at some point, but also considering how bad development went for the game, don't hold your breath.
Ace Attorney Investigations is available still for iOS and Android at a reasonable price. I recommend playing it on this platform since again you're at the mercy of resellers when looking for the DS version.
The DS release Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is fairly inexpensive if you look on eBay or using Buyee. DS games are region-free so you can just pop it into your handheld and play it assuming you have knowledge in Japanese.
What is mainline, GAA, and all of this? Where do they fit in the timeline?
So there are four ways I like to separate the games:
- Mainline
- Investigations
- Great Ace Attorney (GAA)
- Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
When discussing "Mainline", I include the following six games:
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice
Mainline can be broken apart in two with the first three being referred to as the "Phoenix Wright arc" and the last three being the "Apollo Justice arc". Capcom treats it as much with its re-releases, but it is official canon that these games are a continuing story about the agency Phoenix works out of.
With Investigations, they're a spin-off series starring Miles Edgeworth and are contained to two games. Both games seem to take place in the literal same month and it makes references to the first three games, making it appear as if it sits just before the Apollo Justice arc.
Great Ace Attorney (GAA) is in a completely separate time period but is suggested to be connected to the original series due to the main character being a ancestor of Phoenix Wright. I guess this still works considering the weirdness of the Japanifornia situation we have in the Western releases.
The first GAA game starts off in Japan, but eventually you end up in Victorian England. It's likely that the game takes place in the late 1890s, but there are a lot of anachronisms so don't bother to try too hard on figuring out what year it really is.
Finally we have Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which if I were to try and fit it into the timeline, it sits between games 2 and 3. Honestly, this game does not have any tie-in at all with the rest of the universe and is self-contained.
PLvAA implies that Herschel Layton and Luke Triton from the Professor Layton series exist in the same world as Japanifornia, which doesn't sit well with me considering that Layton series' timeline doesn't line up with what we see in Ace Attorney.
