Operation Backlog Completion 2025

Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy

 May Mystery Game Madness, Reviews, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,
May 312024
 

It’s the final day of Celebrating All Things Mysterious 2024 (and your last chance to participate in the contest).

Last year, we closed out the month by talking about Ace Attorney Investigations 2, so why not end the event with Ace Attorney again?

Earlier this year, Capcom finally brought Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice (the 4th, 5th, and 6th mainline games) to modern platforms as the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, which even got a physical release for the Switch in North America. Since Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice were digital-only here before, it’s great to finally have them in physical form.

While I ultimately decided against playing through all three games again, I did spend some time with the Apollo Justice Trilogy nevertheless.

I love that these newer collections include concept art and similar bonuses. Looking through the concept art is always fun, especially when you get to see earlier character designs.

It also includes an extensive soundtrack selection (all the songs from the three games, minus the ones that only play for a few seconds, plus some additional tracks as well), and you can set a song to play in the background while you look through other parts of the gallery.

Then there’s the Animation Studio, which might be the best bonus feature I’ve ever seen.

The Animation Studio lets you pick any background, character, pose/animation, and voice clip (ex. “Objection!”) to create your own scenes. It’s restricted based on game, so no taking a character exclusive to one game and putting them in a background from a different game, but it still has a ton of options. One annoying part is that some poses/animations are exclusive to the courtroom, so if you select that option while on a different background, it automatically changes to the courtroom. I’d have preferred it if courtroom-specific options only showed up on the list while you had a courtroom background set, or if it asked first.

Still, after a bit of fiddling, I managed to make some fun what-if scenes with Blackquill, since he’s one of my favorite prosecutors. I like to think he’s there to see the bird.

…and a scene with my least favorite prosecutor, to imagine what could have been (out-of-court encounters with Nahyuta might have done wonders for him).

Playing around with the Animation Studio makes me wish The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles had this feature, because I’d go crazy if I could make my own Great Ace Attorney scenes.

Anyway, another nice feature added to the Apollo Justice Trilogy is that you can not only select which game to play, but even a specific section of a specific case. I revisited some of my favorite moments from the trilogy this way, and it reminded me just how much I love this series.

The Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy is a fantastic collection of the later three Ace Attorney games, with some really nice bonus features, and a perfect collection to end Celebrating All Things Mysterious 2024 with. So let me know your thoughts on the Apollo Justice Trilogy, and join me in hoping that this is the year a new Ace Attorney game will finally be announced!

The Day Capcom Accidentally Stirred Up Ace Attorney Fans for No Reason

 Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Mar 222024
 

You know how sometimes we talk about little things Capcom does and hope it might be a hint of upcoming Ace Attorney news?

This is not one of those posts.

Actually, this post is the exact opposite.

Everyone got stirred up yesterday over what turned out to be a mistake… and since people keep seeing the original stir and think something’s happening, I decided to write about it.

Ever since the release of the Apollo Justice Trilogy, the official Ace Attorney Twitter account has been holding a weekly “book club” where they discuss one of its cases. They’re up to The Cosmic Turnabout now, and so yesterday they tweeted their Cosmic Turnabout book club post.

Except they forgot to include the text of the tweet. They just tweeted a screenshot of the Earth with no explanation.

This being a particularly context-free screenshot, it was not easy to immediately recognize as being from The Cosmic Turnabout. It appeared to be the official Ace Attorney Twitter account tweeting something new. So like the time when they changed their social media icons, the replies were immediately flooded with people asking if it was a hint of something.

Some people took it as a hint of an Ace Attorney 7 announcement, some took it as a hint that Investigations 2 was going to be localized, and only a handful said, “Wait, isn’t that from Dual Destinies?”

Capcom deleted the original tweet and followed up with the correct one, which now has the book club text, and the incident was forgotten. Or not, since as I mentioned at the start, some people have just seen the chaos without the resolution.

So no, Capcom did not hint at Ace Attorney news yesterday. It was not a sign of Ace Attorney in space. It was not a sign of Ace Attorney 7 having a new setting. It was not a sign of Investigations 2 coming to the whole world. But if nothing else, I hope the reactions showed them how much demand there is for a new Ace Attorney game.

(Unless that was the plan all along? Tweet an out-of-context screenshot to test how much excitement there would be? Nah… now I’m the one overthinking it.)

If you haven’t noticed, I’m desperate for Ace Attorney news once again. I never did that Apollo Justice Trilogy replay once the unlockable art was revealed, though, so maybe I should… while I wait for actual news to come.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Might Get a Physical Release in North America After All

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,
Nov 242023
 

I’ve been pretty excited for the upcoming release of the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, but the one disappointing fact was that it seemed to be digital-only in the west again.

However, that might not be completely true anymore.

Yesterday, listings started going live at Canadian retailers for a physical ESRB copy of the Apollo Justice Trilogy for the Switch. VGP even confirmed it and said anyone who preordered the import with them and wants to change to the North American version should get in touch.

So it seems the North American Switch version, at least, will be available as a physical copy. (Amazon Canada listed it as the “Pollo Justice Trilogy”, which is questionable, but everything else seems legitimate.) Other retailers haven’t followed suit yet, but yesterday being Thanksgiving might have something to do with that.

I’m excited about this for several reasons. First, I just like having physical copies of my games. I’m one of those people who preordered the import already since it seemed like it would be digital-only here. Second, since Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice were digital-only 3DS releases, this will be the first time those games are getting a physical release in North America! And third, this bodes well for how Capcom views the series.

I mentioned earlier this year that Ace Attorney’s future looks brighter than ever (or at least brighter than it has been in over a decade). The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles getting a localization and a physical Switch release in North America felt like Capcom had faith in the series, faith rewarded by its excellent sales. The Apollo Justice Trilogy being made at all was already another promising sign, and if it’s getting a physical release in North America, that really suggests Capcom believes it will sell enough to be worth it.

(Though apparently they don’t have that same faith in European and PS4 players, let alone Xbox players.)

This is exciting! I’m more convinced than ever that Capcom will follow through with more Ace Attorney games, such as our long-awaited Ace Attorney 7. In the meantime, I’ll be trying to switch my import preorder to an ESRB copy and keeping an eye on other retailers to see if they’ll list the Apollo Justice Trilogy as well.

Will you be buying a physical release of the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy?

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