Topic: The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

The first game is good, but I'm on the fourth case in the second game now, and WOW! It feels like the first game was just a build-up for the second one. This collection is up there with the original trilogy, IMO. Maybe even better...

I feel that the first game ending with so many unresolved plot threads might have been as significant a reason for it not being localized on the 3DS than any concerns with Japanese culture or legal problems with Sherlock Holmes. In fact, this may have contributed to the low sales of the sequel, which combined with the rise of the Switch at the time, made localization even more unlikely.
It took a while, but I'm glad they decided to release and localize the complete duology - now people can enjoy those games as close as possible to the intended way. Hopefully it sells well, too.

Just started The Great Ace Attorney 2. I think I like the first trial in the original game more, but it's cool seeing Susato get her chance to shine, even if she has to pretend to be a man to do so.

@kkslider5552000 Yeah, that was my one real issue with the first game. "Oh, this part was very obviously included because it was on a stereoscopic 3D handheld. Might have been a cool feature in the 3DS version." Since there's no workaround that doesn't feel lazy, it kinda makes me wish they'd brought over the 3DS version as well, since the game was obviously designed to be experienced on that system.

Although I'm just glad it came over at all.

It’s kind of sad though that they had to condense the three games into the first and second given the failure, as there were so many plot threads that just came up out of no-where, and so many things that they should’ve explored more of.

I'm a little late at getting into this game and only just finished it today. I'm curious: since this is a compilation of 2 games (Adventures and Resolve), does the Special Contents section have anything from the second game (Resolve)? It seems the artwork under Gallery and the soundtrack pieces under Auditorium are all exclusively from Adventures. In fact, many of the instrumentals are explicitly labelled as GAA or Adventures but none from Resolve.

(Edit: never mind. I checked the eShop. Looks like there was optional "Vault" content that was only available to early purchasers. Since this is now 2024, I'm out of luck.)

This is the 2nd time in the past day or two where one of my favorite experiences on Switch got its thread revived.

I mean, less so the first game, which is a lot of set up to make the 2nd game better and the pacing...is honestly kinda bad. Trials and Tribulations and Great Ace Attorney 2 are arguments against the value of innovation, as they're the only AA games with no new game mechanics and GAA2 is paced normal like how Ace Attorney is and is way better for it. But its not a massive deal breaker and its all worth it for that 2nd game, which is one of the best and both combined are a fantastic experience.

@kkslider5552000 I just wish they did the three games they planned originally- given a ton of plot points ended up being introduced last minute and without much in terms of build-up. Sad it didn’t sell well in Japan at the time.

@VoidofLight That is a shame but considering when the 2nd game came out in Japan, they probably would've been too late for a 3DS release that late anyway.

Also, the 2nd game picks up even more by its 2nd half, and after the 1st game the quicker pace was highly appreciated so if anything it feels like it forced them to...make the story more engaging for one game instead of feeling obligated to make a trilogy (though if they always knew it was gonna be 2 games I guess the 1st game could've also been more engaging, and the underdeveloped parts of the story are still unfortunate).

@kkslider5552000 Yeah, the second game's pacing is wildly fast compared to the first- but at the same time they still introduced plot-points in the final trial that just didn't click due to not establishing them beforehand. Knowing that they planned for three titles instead of just two makes it more clear what they wanted to do, but just never did. That being said, I sort of hope that one day we'll get a continuation from where things left off. Even if it isn't involving the same cases as in the GAA games, I really liked the gameplay structure and time period they went with for those games.

I never played an Ace Attorney game before, so I basically had nothing to compare this with. So I had a blast and have no idea what the rest of you are talking about with pacing and such. It's just one long story to me (along with some very late nights. Oops.). I clocked 80 hours on the play time by the time I hit the final credits, so you can tell I'm a total newbie.

The funny thing about this game is that it seems to be both the oldest (chronologically) and newest (release date) of the genre. So I can jump in and not know anything about the rest of the series' mythology, but at the same time I understand this has a bunch of new mechanics to learn. It was fine for me, since the game's linear nature means I was spoon fed each new mechanic as it appeared. Some of you seem to find the introductory case long, but for me it was an extended period to spend using only the basic trial mechanics while feeling like I was playing the real game rather than a tutorial.

I'm sad to learn that these were among the less successful entries in terms of sales. Is it still considered a poor seller now that this compilation has hit 1M in sales? I loved the period setting. The story ending was definitely open to sequels, so I would have liked to follow Ryunosuke's further adventures.

So essentially, the 2nd game follows the usual format of the majority of the series where it goes from investigation to trial to investigation to trial per case. While the first game just had very long investigation to very long trial, and that's it, for the last 3 cases (with the first 2 having only the trial and investigation parts respectively). Which is why, as someone familiar with the other games, it felt far better in the 2nd game where it switched between those two types of gameplay segments more often (along with the fact that the first game had to set up...everything because its a whole new setting and characters, which the 2nd game didn't need to worry so much about). It stood out to me specifically about GAA1, though I'm not sure if that's a common opinion or not.

Also AFAIK the bad sales are just the original 3DS releases and the Switch version performed wildly better (I assume largely because it actually released outside of Japan this time).

@kkslider5552000 Ah OK, so that's what you meant by the pacing. Thanks for clarifying. Coming in fresh, I had no such expectations (nor preference), but I can appreciate how departing from the established pattern can be polarizing for long time players. I saw another reviewer argue that he preferred this new structure because it gave better "forward momentum" within a chapter. If you think about it, it's the trials that provide the story climaxes, so getting repeatedly bumped back into investigation mode might make for a less effective narrative arc (more of a wiggly line than an "arc"). But I guess people preferred the traditional structure, since GAA2 reverted back to that.

By pacing, I was really thinking of the final GAA1 case. It was 2-3 times longer than the other chapters (took 10-15 hours for me). I thought the investigation stage merely wanted to tell a lot of story, but now I realize it needed to set up a lot of trial elements (pawn shop protocol, music boxes, stereoscopic vision, Sholme's cameras, faux-fingerprinting, the peephole maker, introducing the main villain). It was quite a complex trial. But I'm not sure splitting a complex trial into 2 chapters is an improvement.

I just read "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". I knew this game has references to Arthur Conan Doyle's books, but I did not realize just how much. This book is just a collection of 12 short stories, not one of the full Holmes novels. But boy, there are lots of references here. In every single one of the first 8 stories, I found one or more game references. Sometimes it's just a name or a phrase, sometimes its a lot more extensive. When, I wonder, does "homage" cross the line to "rip-off"?

On one hand, I like what the game does with the Adventure of the Speckled Band. Let's say the game manages to cast the book's story in rather interesting light. On the other hand, the Man with the Twisted Lip was transported almost whole into the game. Knowledge of one story will be a spoiler for the other story, in either direction.

Interestingly, I could find no further game references after the first 8 stories. Maybe Takumi or whoever got bored after the first 8 chapters and moved on.

As you said, those are just 12 short stories. I can think of at least one additional longer story that plays a big (indirect) part in the duology.