Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

 DS
User Score
8.1

Generally favorable reviews- based on 116 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 83 out of 116
  2. Mixed: 23 out of 116
  3. Negative: 10 out of 116
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  1. MrSonicFan
    Oct 27, 2013
    7
    It's a perfectly fine game. But it does not compare to the original trilogy, it has a good story, great graphics and music, and memorable characters like the original trilogy, but personaly the original trilogy just does it a lot better.
  2. Disappointed
    Feb 10, 2009
    5
    This game truly disappointed me. I can't explain completely why so as not to spoil the game for others. Let's just say that the last case did so many things wrong I decided to sell the game and never tough this franchise again. There was ridiculous relationships made up, stupid unnecessary explanations, a completely gimped phoenix in the flashback sequence, a very unstaisfactory This game truly disappointed me. I can't explain completely why so as not to spoil the game for others. Let's just say that the last case did so many things wrong I decided to sell the game and never tough this franchise again. There was ridiculous relationships made up, stupid unnecessary explanations, a completely gimped phoenix in the flashback sequence, a very unstaisfactory ending where it felt like all you did was for naught, not to mention a time paradox. If you love the franchise and don't mind careless writing like this it's still a good game and you can add 2 or 3 points to my score, just beware.… Expand
  3. VidyaBum
    May 18, 2015
    7
    Apollo Justice...is hard to criticize properly.

    Let me say first off that it's still the same grandly successful type of story, characters, and gameplay that makes this series great. Its writing, thinking demand and general quality as a game is still very high up and it's still quite an enjoyable game in the series. Gameplay first: every AA game tries to have its own little gimmicky    Apollo Justice...is hard to criticize properly.

    Let me say first off that it's still the same grandly successful type of story, characters, and gameplay that makes this series great. Its writing, thinking demand and general quality as a game is still very high up and it's still quite an enjoyable game in the series.

    Gameplay first: every AA game tries to have its own little gimmicky feature, like the Magatama for JFA onwards, Miles Edgeworth Investigations has the Logic feature, and so on.

    Apollo's gimmick is his bracelet that makes you zoom in on witnesses and see...something.
    I'll admit right ahead that I'm bad at noticing visual things, so maybe it's unfair criticism, but this gameplay style is just sh*tty. The zoom is so awfully close to people that it's painful to see anything, you can only see a tiny part of them, so you have to recheck again and again and again and again until you've found the one detail...which I usually never found! I always had to ask the internet for it. And sometimes the details are just about ridiculous, for example you're supposed to find a guy having armpit sweat during one part of his statement! Yes, just during that one part, it disappears after, so you have to know to look at the armpit and only the armpit since the zoom is so close-up, find that one magical moment where the sweat appears and point to it...

    The gimmick is just awful and nowhere near as good as the Magatama or any other such gimmicks from the series. Rest of the gameplay is just not as fun as the rest too. Nothing hideous, but just not as fun. The thinking and critical skills required are still good too, though.

    As for the cases:

    Case 1: Boring. Never got my interest due to a very twisted logic which required a lot of thinking it over again and again to understand and accept it. I guess it's my bad for being stupid, but if I have to re-read the whole case twice to understand what was going on, considering that I never needed to re-read anything in any AA game ever before, it may not just be me. This case is confusing and fails to grab my interest.

    Case 2: the defendant may be a complete moron, but the majority of the case is ok. This is the first case where Trucy Wright is introduced in depth and I find her to be possibly the best sidekick the series has provided yet. AJ's prosecutor is also introduced here and he rocks, in every sense of the term. While no Godot or Edgeworth, he's not that far off from a Franziska von Karma, and he manages to be a suitable character besides his prosecutor role later on in the game. So I mainly like this case for being clear and introducing these two.

    Except for that, while it has nice elements, it's overall not very fun.

    Case 3: Eeeeeergh. Easily one of the worst cases ever. The very logic in it is so ridiculously convoluted and stupid(and obvious) that you just want to leave the game there. The defendant(s) suck, the villain sucks, the logic sucks, everything sucks. I'm supposed to get emotionally attached to Lamiroir, well if this game wasn't technically limited by the DS maybe this could've happened, but it was limited and I'm not attached. In its entirety the case is sleep-inducing and the whole concert + death poetry gimmick feels like a design nightmare. At least finding out what really happened is fun, so the gameplay holds up very well, but while playing and the plot twists are fine, everything else fails in this case.

    Case 4: A joyous mess I suppose, but extremely little value in this case is given to the villain. It honestly falls short at every turn when it comes to building up the Big Bad Guy. When the final reveal feels like another paper has been completed and the credits roll with you sighing "finally, it's done with", well, I can't really call that in any way successful. While it has a very interesting concept with time travel and exploring past and present to put the clues together, and it gives a massive backstory on the characters, it feels anticlimactic and can't build up the villain at all. Its gameplay is good, that's the saving grace, but it falls very short when compared with Edgeworth/Von Karma, the Matt Engarde reveal, or the absolutely amazing Bridge to the Turnabout from the previous trilogy.

    With the cases done, I'll just quickly say this: except for Trucy having more potential than Maya and Ema Skye vs a very overdone Gumshoe, every character in this game feels inferior to its former equivalent.
    Apollo VS Phoenix(who keeps overshadowing him in this game), Gavin VS Godot, here defendants VS previous defendants, here villains VS previous villains, it's all less fun, less tragic, less crazy, less everything.

    With that said, the OST is particularly good, and that's saying a ton considering that every AA game has a good soundtrack(except maybe Investigations is a tiny bit less good).

    It won't save this game from being the worst Ace Attoreny, but it helps making it acceptable. I'd still highly recommend any AA over this one.    … Expand
  4. Steeldude
    Apr 8, 2015
    7
    After the fabulous Trials and Tribulations, this game feels really underwhelming. The new cast of characters is simply nowhere near the quality of the original ones, the cases are not very good (not even the final one), the music is also not as good as in AA or TT, the prosecutor is not bad as a character but is bad as a prosecutor, there are (once again) only 4 cases and while Phoenix isAfter the fabulous Trials and Tribulations, this game feels really underwhelming. The new cast of characters is simply nowhere near the quality of the original ones, the cases are not very good (not even the final one), the music is also not as good as in AA or TT, the prosecutor is not bad as a character but is bad as a prosecutor, there are (once again) only 4 cases and while Phoenix is not actually missing from this game and the game actually uses the DS capabilities as it was made for DS and was not a port, unfortunately the overall mediocrity in almost all aspects makes this my least favorite Ace Attorney game.
    It is still worth playing once, but I highly doubt you'll find it to be as memorable as the original trilogy.    … Expand
  5. aditya1101
    Sep 4, 2018
    7
    I like all the ace attorney games but this was one of my least favorite. I really didn't like pheonix's character during this game (and overall I just wasn't crazy about most of the characters in this game). This is a C+ tier Ace attorney game.
  6. sebastianali
    Jan 4, 2020
    7
    Lo mismo de siempre: Poco aprovechamiento de la pantalla táctil y el micrófono, historia muy buena pero lenta, ensayo y error, etc... Ademas también critico enormemente la actitud de Phoenix Wright en este juego. Parece la verdad un vago que no quiere hacer nada... Lo puedo recomendar? Claro. Pero no te esperes que sea una obra maestra como los anteriores, ya que la trama no cobra fuerzaLo mismo de siempre: Poco aprovechamiento de la pantalla táctil y el micrófono, historia muy buena pero lenta, ensayo y error, etc... Ademas también critico enormemente la actitud de Phoenix Wright en este juego. Parece la verdad un vago que no quiere hacer nada... Lo puedo recomendar? Claro. Pero no te esperes que sea una obra maestra como los anteriores, ya que la trama no cobra fuerza hasta el ultimo caso.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

27
#27 Best DS Game of 2008
10
#10 Most Discussed DS Game of 2008
96
#96 Most Shared DS Game of 2008

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 48 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 36 out of 48
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 48
  3. Negative: 0 out of 48
  1. Nintendo Power
    80
    With that said, the latest Ace Attorney game is an excellent continuation of the series, featuring more compelling mysteries to unravel and lots of memorable characters. [Mar 2008, p.86]
  2. 1UP
    85
    The localization team at Capcom should be commended for writing dialogue that is genuinely funny. Basically, if you're a fan of the earlier Phoenix Wright games, you will laugh...a lot. Couple the comedy with Justice's engrossing story and you have a case that would be criminal not to take.
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  3. IGN
    83
    Apollo Justice surprised us. This may just be yet another of Capcom’s infamous rehashes, but it’s so much more enjoyable than most that it’s extremely hard to ignore.
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