Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney has already established itself as a very fun, well written adventure series on the Nintendo DS, and like any good game it really shouldn't matter what platform you play it on. The original game hit the handheld platform more than five years ago, and being that old makes it difficult to find it in retail because it's been out of print for so long. Capcom to the rescue: the original DS game – which was a port of a GBA game that never made it stateside – has been brought back to life as a WiiWare game.
Now here's the problem: this really is the original game. It's a direct port of the Nintendo DS game, right down to the system resolution. It's, essentially, a DS emulation running on the Nintendo Wii, with only the basics of controller input changed. In other words, you're taking a game that's been made on 256x192 screens and blowing it up to twice the pixel density without changing the art. The touch screen mechanics have been removed and it's now purely controlled via the D-pad. The voice recognition portion to object during the case has been replaced with motion control that mimics the trademark Phoenix Wright "point." And this is just as wonky and unresponsive as the alternate DS microphone input.
So, my kneejerk reaction is that Phoenix Wright on WiiWare is incredibly lazy. Instead of actually building a Wii-centric engine to reproduce the Phoenix Wright scripts, Capcom is simply throwing the DS game directly up onto the screen. No improved art, no sharper text. It's incredibly disappointing. But then you have to come to terms with the fact that, it's Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, and it's still a really good game. So I'm very conflicted.
Just so you're all caught up in what Phoenix Wright is, here are portions from my original Nintendo DS review.
The design is a point-and-click style adventure that puts players in the role of Phoenix Wright, an up-and-coming attorney that's a little green around the gills in his trial experience. In fact, the first chapter in the game is Phoenix's premiere trial, which makes it a perfect opportunity to train gamers in the process of cross-examining witness testimony…pretty much the meat of each of the several chapters in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney design. But it's not just about the trial process, and in most chapters there's a heavy focus on digging for evidence in order to prove a client innocent.
Once players run through the initial phase of acquiring evidence for a particular case, it all boils down to proving yourself in court. Can you present the evidence at the proper moment? Can you dig at the witness into slipping up and changing their testimony? It's during the trial where the case is won and lost, so paying close attention to the details presented by the prosecution and the witnesses is integral to winning a case. At each particular testimony, Ace can interrupt the witness with a "Hold it!" to poke for more details, or to present evidence that contradicts the particular statement.
The writers clearly had a ton of fun westernizing a straight out Japanese concept and design. Along with the infusion of the over-the-top Anime-style humor, the localization team had a field day poking fun at some elements that probably weren't a part of the original Japanese text. The game doesn't go beyond a rigid "paper doll" animation for its story presentation, so it's particularly humorous to see the writers make fun of, say, calling a Bellhop to the stand when he's the same exact bellhop sprite used at the hotel…complete with tea set in hand. And there are quite a few laugh-out-loud passages in the script and dialogue, and it's really hard not to smile at the "fighting game" style of the trial process; you'd expect Phoenix Wright and the Prosecution to trade blows in a 2D Street Fighter game with the way the transition plays out between witnesses.
On the downside, even as well written as the game is, it's clear that the localization team had to dumb down the script in order to make the stories work. This isn't a justice system simulation, and you don't have to sit through a semester of law school to find some flaws in the logic and convenient contradictions in the story. Sometimes you just want to smack the judge around a bit for being as naive as he acts when the prosecution presents his findings as fact, but then that just makes it all the more satisfying when you present the proper evidence that shows how stupid he was for believing the witness to begin with.
But Phoenix Wright boils down to one particular issue: it's extremely linear in design. The chapters follow a specific script that can't be strayed, and the puzzles aren't really all that tough because players are encouraged to simply stop a witness's statement at any time without penalty. Only by slipping incorrect evidence or objecting to rock-solid prosecution will lose favor with the judge -- essentially the game's "power bar." And it's not like this game can be played multiple times because once the story's been successfully played through, you already know the dialogue tree to get through it a second time.
Even with its strict, linear design, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a good throwback to the old-school point-and-click PC adventures. The game's script is worth the price of admission by itself; intriguing characters, unique situations, and well-written and humorous dialogue keep the interest level high all the way through the multiple chapters.