When comparing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney vs Ghost Trick, the Slant community recommends Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for most people. In the question“What are the best murder mystery video games?” Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is ranked 2nd while Ghost Trick is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is:
As this is a character-heavy visual novel game, it helps a lot that the art for the characters are all really well-done. Full of expressive personality, they look just like the ones in the series' [anime](http://www.polygon.com/2015/9/17/9345909/ace-attorney-anime-april-2016). Their exaggerated humor shows through their designs and animations, helping the game to stand on its art and writing without more complicated animations or even much voice acting. Experiencing the story through the character art doesn't get tiring, since it does such a good job of carrying the whole legal drama.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Polished character designs
As this is a character-heavy visual novel game, it helps a lot that the art for the characters are all really well-done. Full of expressive personality, they look just like the ones in the series' anime. Their exaggerated humor shows through their designs and animations, helping the game to stand on its art and writing without more complicated animations or even much voice acting. Experiencing the story through the character art doesn't get tiring, since it does such a good job of carrying the whole legal drama.
Pro Charming music
Since this is a port of an older game for the Game Boy Advance, the music still has a rather old school sound to it, but this only adds to the charm. It's great at setting the tone in any given scene, sounding more serious with lower instruments for when you're collecting evidence, and then again when presenting that evidence to the court, while it's of course much lighter during funny conversations with silly characters. There's always a computerized sound throughout that makes it charming to listen to, like going back in time before the more modern orchestral music in gaming today.
Pro Accessible learning curve
Even if you don't know anything about legal cases and courtrooms, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is easy to grasp and learn. The first case is more of a tutorial for how the game works, and it does a great job at getting you used to the mechanics with collecting evidence, questioning witnesses, and going through the motions of presenting your argument before the judge. You don't need to know any special legal language or anything like that; you can still have fun with this game while getting to feel like a defense attorney in an entertaining way.
Pro Engaging choice-based gameplay
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is all about choosing your own adventure through living the life of a defense attorney. It's up to you to do a good job for your clients, meaning you have to make the best choices when going through the case. When you interview witnesses and suspects, there's a dialogue tree where you choose what you want to ask them, and then during the trial, you carefully choose the best evidence to support your argument. You get to the bottom of each investigation and trial on your own terms, either by following your instincts or listening to helpful suggestions from other characters.
Pro Graphical animation is great
The technical ability of the game to show smooth animations for hand drawn sprite based graphics is far and above many games of similar style of a handheld game. Definitely one of the best animated games to be released on the DS.
Pro Allows for a lot of experimentation
The puzzles in the game require the user to experiment with different ways to solve them as not every scenario is obvious. This makes for lengthy gameplay as the game needs a lot of trial an error in order to advance the story.
Cons
Con Not for players who want more involved gameplay
Since this is a visual novel without much voice acting, that means there's a lot of reading. You won't find typical gameplay here with responsive controls and freedom of movement. The gameplay is all about being an attorney and an investigator, through gathering evidence and presenting evidence to defend your client. If you're not used to these types of games, this may not be for you unless you're willing to try something new.
Con Puzzles are not always balanced
Puzzles in the game are not evenly balanced in difficulty, which can be frustrating when one of the more difficult to solve puzzles come up. It would be one thing if the more difficult puzzles were found at the end of the game, but more often than not they are found in the middle and scattered around.
Con Weirdos
Almost every character is some kind of weirdo.
Con Text heavy
There is a lot of text dialogue in the game which breaks up the gameplay quite often. For those that would like to get to the meat of the game the constant interruptions can be frustrating.