Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS)
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Released: February 16, 2010
MSRP: $29.99

When Capcom released its last title in the Ace Attorney series, Apollo Justice, I was incredibly distraught by the lack of Edgeworth. Needless to say, I was pleased when they decided remedy that situation. What I love most about Miles Edgeworth, aside from his amazing fashion sense and fantastic hair, is his sense of justice. Sure he might care a little about whatever happened to someone, but his priority is the truth. While that made him a pain to deal with in the first few Phoenix Wright titles, it actually serves you quite well this time around.

Now, I've established that the game is a bit of an experiment. While we've grown used to spending each of these Ace Attorney games floating from screen to screen, questioning witnesses, examining stills, and then battling it out in court, Ace Attorney Investigations gives us an entirely new perspective to work with. While in previous games, you had to defend clients from imminent doom, the focus of Ace Attorney Investigations is a bit more procedural, dealing with the crime scenes themselves and establishing the case prior to trial.

In order to provide players the freedom to investigate the scenes, the game shifts to a third person side-scrolling perspective, allowing you to walk around and examine evidence as well as question witnesses who are present. It should be noted that doing so feels rather natural, especially while using the stylus. This, in turn, is part of why Ace Attorney Investigations succeeds so well. Rather than forcing us to wade through area after area for a single piece of evidence needed to confront a witness, everything is contained within the area you're currently in. This actually helps to move the story along at a decent pace, preventing excessive downtime and considering the game is about 15 hours long, spanning 5 cases, you won't miss it. While 15 hours might sound short, it's actually fairly long for this type of game.

I mentioned that they had removed the court room sequences from the game, however they weren't removed entirely. By that, I mean that you still confront witnesses at the scenes of the crime and they still give testimony that you need to sift through in order to determine the truth. You can still press them and present evidence just like before, and just like Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice, Edgeworth has partners who can help him. Thankfully, Edgeworth is actually competent enough to not need them most of the time, and again this is due mostly to the changes in game play.

Instead of having to rely on spirit mediums, charms, or whatever else you may have had to deal with in the past, Edgeworth simply sticks to logic and deduction. This gives you the opportunity to piece together what happened ala Sherlock Holmes, and does away with the whole magical sidekick gimmick. Of course, that's not to say that his new sidekick, Kay Faraday, isn't a cute girl who might come off as a bit annoying at times, but just like Maya Fey, she'll grow on you. And, of course, there's always Detective Gumshoe, but he was always fairly useless before, and that doesn't really change too much now--though he does tend to surprise.

The plot of the game is actually a bit different than what you might expect from prior games. Rather than the cases being spread out over the course of months, the entire game takes place within the span of a few days with each case seems to be slightly related to the next. It still maintains that episodic feel, but the fact that you seem to be uncovering more and more information relating to a much larger case should keep you interested to the end. 

Long time fans of the series will be happy to know that there is a quite a bit of fan service throughout the entire game. There are a few cameos made by characters from the other titles, but you shouldn't need to play the prior titles to thoroughly enjoy it. In case you were curious though, this title takes place between Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice. I don't suppose it could be considered a prequel, since it's seemingly unrelated.

Finally, I'd be remiss in my efforts to review this game if I didn't mention Agent Lang. He's possibly the most formidible rival the series has seen since Edgeworth himself, and he does it with style. I easily found him more entertaining than Franziska, and far less annoying than Apollo Justice's prosecutor, Gavin. I'm not sure he should get his own game like Edgeworth, but who knows. Maybe he'll grow on me if they make a sequel to this.

In the end, the game is definitely worth your time and money and might be one of the best, if not the best, Ace Attorney titles to date. It's a refreshing change from what we've come to expect from the series while maintaining the aspects of the game we've come to love--aside from Mia's breasts. Still, I strongly recommend giving it a try.

Score: 9 -- Superb (9s are a hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage to what is a supreme title.)