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ItsaMystery's Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations (DS)
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| [February 9, 2008 01:47:28 AM]
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(Gameplay Session 2)
[GAMEPLAY]
The more I play this game, the more I love each of the stories behind the cases. I'm finding that a big part of the game is your attachment to the characters and each of the stories. Since the gameplay is fairly limited to simply pointing the stylus around the screen to collect evidence, the game must keep the player hooked in different ways. By having the quirky storylines and hilarious characters, the game keeps you interested in playing to find out more about the story.
The game uses many narrative clues throughout each of the cases to guide your progress along. Again, the game is extremely well-written, and as such, the game gives subtle enough narrative clues to keep you headed in the right direction, but not specific-enough that it gives too much away. I found myself getting stuck a few times, but was eventually able to overcome it given these clues, feeling overall that the game was progressing smoothly.
[DESIGN]
The Phoenix Wright series uses a very simple point-and-click exploration system. For each case, there are several 2D anime-style drawn rooms or areas you can explore. Using the stylus, you can click and search around each of the areas you explore for different clues and evidence to add to your "Court Record" (the record for each case that contains all the evidence you collect). Some might argue that this gameplay style is too simplistic or can become slightly formulaic (click, search around, find evidence, repeat, etc.). However, keeping this aspect of the gameplay to such a simple point allows for the player to stay focused on what's important for the game: finding evidence to use in court in order to progress through the narrative aspects of the game.
The other main gameplay aspect of this game is the "court" session. After you've found all the evidence needed, you move onto defending your client in a courtroom. The antagonist of the game typically is a recurring prosecutor, who also plays a large role in the progression of the narrative story. While you present evidence to the judge in the attempt of proving the innocence of your client for each case, the prosecutor constantly counters your evidence with an array of his own. This constant challenge makes for a brain-racking thinking puzzle throughout the court battle as you try to find contradictions in testimonies and presented evidence.
Overall, Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations is a great expansion of the PW series. The stories are fresh, and new characters introduced in each case add to the quirky-ness of the game. Although the game does not exhibit very much emergent gameplay, the depth of the stories for each case seem to make up for this fact.
From a player perspective, I look forward to playing the rest of this game and seeing how the story unfolds.
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| [February 9, 2008 01:10:01 AM]
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Jacob Pernell
CMPS20 - Whitehead
2/8/08
-| PHOENIX WRIGHT: TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS |-
(Gameplay Session 1)
[SUMMARY]
Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations is the third game in the Phoenix Wright manga-style mystery/puzzle game series. Assuming the role of a lawyer, "Phoenix Wright", you must defend your clients and prove their innocence by using the DS touch screen to collect evidence at different crime scenes and in turn, use these pieces of evidence in a court of law.
[GAMEPLAY]
Having played the first two Phoenix Wright games in the series, I began playing this game not entirely sure what to expect. In the previous games, I went through many different murder cases that were well-written and had exceptionally clever endings. Thus, I was slightly unsure as to whether or not the game developers could pull this off again.
My fears were quickly allayed however. I was plopped right in to the familiar setting of the courtroom, so I felt comfortable knowing the gameplay would be the same. What took me by surprise however was that I didn't start the game as Phoenix; instead, the game takes place 5 years prior to the setting of the first game, and you play as Phoenix's old mentor, Mia Fey. What's fun about this is that you are introduced to Mia very briefly at the beginning of the first game, but have little interaction thereafter. So, playing the first case in this third Phoenix Wright game allows me to connect to this slightly unfamiliar character more.
Even though most of the cases in the Phoenix Wright series have to do with murder mysteries, the development team does a really good job by writing unique stories behind each case. By doing this, the gameplay doesn't get old, because you're constantly exploring and learning about each new plot as the game unfolds. The fun and unique part about the first case in this game where you play as Mia is that the case revolves around a college-aged Phoenix Wright being framed for murder. Since I am familiar with the Phoenix Wright character from the first two games, seeing him in this scenario was both amusing but also made me more attached to Phoenix's character.
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ItsaMystery's Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations (DS)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 9 February, 2008
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