Review: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth is an adventure game for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by Capcom. It is the fifth game in the Ace Attorney series.

What it looks like when Miles Edgeworth is going over a witness' testimony to find errors.

The player takes control of district attorney Miles Edgeworth as he acts as an unofficial investigator for several cases he inadvertently gets roped into. Along the way he will have help from old friends Dick Gumshoe and Franziska von Karma as well as newcomer thief Kay Faraday, while facing opposition from prosecutor hating Interpol agent Shi-Long Lang.

Ace Attorney Investigations is broken into five cases. In each case Edgeworth will collect clues and interrogate witnesses and suspects. Each clue found and each witness successfully interrogated will move the story forward and get Edgeworth one step closer to catching the criminal.

Each case is divided into two parts, the part where Edgeworth collects clues, and the part where he interrogates witnesses and suspects. The player controls Edgeworth as he moves about the crime scene and examines objects or talks to people. Some objects, like the murder victim, can be examined more closely to find more hidden pieces of evidence. When this happens, the camera shifts to Edgeworth’s perspective, and the player can move a cursor around the screen and examine objects with it. Talking to people will also yield more evidence.

Sometimes a closely inspected part of the crime scene contradicts evidence Edgeworth has. When that happens, the player can bring up some evidence from Edgeworth’s organizer and show how they contradict.

Every so often Edgeworth will collect little pieces of “logic”, which take the form of observations inside Edgeworth’s head. If two pieces of logic explain each other, the player can connect them, and Edgeworth will realize something that will advance the case.

During the interrogation part of the game, someone will give their testimony, which will be broken up into segments. The trick is finding which part of the testimony contradicts a piece of evidence that Edgeworth has. If there is a piece that contradicts part of the testimony, the player scrolls to that part of the testimony and presents the evidence. Alternatively, the player can “press” a part of the testimony to learn more about what the person is saying. Doing so can possibly give clues, or it will make the witness amend a part of their testimony, which then can be contradicted by a piece of evidence.

If the player presents the wrong piece of evidence, Edgeworth's health bar will go down. If the health bar empties the game is over. Luckily the player can save anytime they want, like right before a presenting a piece of evidence, and restart the game if it is wrong.

The most fun part of the game is contradicting someone’s testimony. It always feels good to look over the evidence and find some small clue in Edgeworth’s organizer that ruins the testimony.

A big problem with the game, and this has been a problem with the entire series, is that sometimes a witnesses’ testimony can be contradicted by several pieces of evidence. But only one piece of evidence can be used per testimony, so it is up to the player to guess what the developers were thinking, which is not fair. The game really needs a timeline organizer as well, since it is hard to remember all the events of the case.

Not that it matters anyway, since except for two puzzles in the middle and two puzzles at the end, Investigations is really easy. Edgeworth or someone else usually gives really big hints about what piece of evidence is needed, like mentioning something that could have only come from a certain place, or was picked up at a specific time. There is almost no challenge.

The “logic” segments are not challenging either, since there is usually only two or three piece of logic to connect together, so it is not hard to deduce which pieces of logic should be connected.

The story is okay. At first the individual cases are kind of unremarkable, but eventually they all tie together which makes them more interesting. The overarching storyline is hard to take seriously though, because it is centered on an art smuggling ring.

The characters range from tolerable to forgetful. Edgeworth is kind of a jerk, which was fine when he was an antagonist or an ally, but becomes tedious when he is the main character. Franziska and Shi-Long are even bigger jerks and Edgeworth deals with them regularly. Kay is just a knockoff of other characters from the series instead of being original. It is fun to see the characters again, but they can be grating.

Ace Attorney Investigations is the weakest in the Ace Attorney series. Returning fans will enjoy seeing old characters, but newcomers might be unimpressed by the easy mechanics and regular story.