The Tragedy and Comedy of Phoenix Wright 5

Five minutes into the investigation demo for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies, I'm faced with a situation I would describe as dire and funny at the same time. First, the dire part: Everyone's favorite, blue suit wearing Attorney is missing, and a team made of Apollo Justice and spunky newcomer Athena Cykes must rescue him. And the funny part? Athena theorizes a giant bird monster ate him.

OK, maybe her theory sounds a little too dramatic but it accurately describes Phoenix Wright's courtroom hijinks in a nutshell. The series bounces between tragedy and comedy often, but it never runs off of a narrative cliff on a wacky tangent. And even though Athena's theory appears farfetched, I found evidence to support it all over the room.

Before I explain further, here's some important context: The gameplay portion I played on the PAX show floor is meant to serve as a feature demo, almost similar to a recent Pokemon X and Y trial I played a few weeks ago. It gave me a quick glimpse of features and systems without spoiling the final game.

But let's slip back into the situation: Athena and I had to figure out what really happened to Phoenix Wright. According to the evidence, he attended a mysterious party held in this room, but now the place is trashed. Taking cues from the point and click adventure genre, I guided a pointer using the 3DS's analog stick in the demo. A crosshair would appear over items of interest and signaled that I could take a closer look. In some cases, this meant that the camera would zoom into or under an object. So I looked under a table briefly to find a note from Phoenix, one that we labeled his last will and testament.

The scene looked pretty grizzly from then on and only small hints : I saw blood on the floor, feathers everywhere, and overturned furniture. Clearly something happened to Phoenix Wright, but what? In order to investigate the scene, I rotated the camera in real-time by tapping on labeled sections of the touch screen. This allowed me to peer at the room from three perspectives and hunt for more hidden objects.

Say hello to Athena, the spunky newcomer of Ace Attorney 5.

Naturally, missing a crucial piece of evidence becomes a problem with point-and-click adventures made in this style. So I couldn't move the story forward until I found every piece of evidence in the room. Thankfully, Phoenix Wright has always tackled this tedium head on with sharp, witty writing. So I found comedy while searched through mundane objects, like when I found a trophy for winning the Loudest Towel Snapping Noise competition. Is that really a thing?

At the end of my brief demo, I put together the clues and answered the question that hung in the air. Was Phoenix Wright dead? No. The hero appeared and his explanation for going missing served as a great punch line. Basically, a turkey he was preparing for a party came to life and ran off. It was covered in red grapefruit sauce, which to our heroes looked awfully close to blood when smeared on the floor. He ran after it, but he came back because of an important mission.

Even as the fifth installment of the series, my demo for Dual Destines made the case that Phoenix Wright is still every bit as charming as I remembered. I understand that it's an acquired taste, and some people wouldn't have the patience to sit through these investigation missions, but the clever writing and character asides made it worth my time. So if you're excited for Phoenix Wright 5, you're in luck: Capcom announced a few weeks ago that Dual Destinies would arrive in the US as a digital download on the eShop.

Jose Otero is an Associate Editor at IGN and host of the Nintendo Voice Chat podcast. If you want to learn more about his passions, follow him on twitter. 

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