Have you played the AA Investigations games? If yes, what did you think of them? Sadly I was only able to play for myself the first one (I couldn’t make the translation patch for the second one work :( ), and let’s just say that the novelty of playing as Edgeworth wore off quickly lol. The second one was much more ambitious with some stellar character arcs and a memorable final villain, but of course it’s still stuck in “only in Japan” limbo…
Yes! We played both Investigations, and Investigations 2 (fan patch) about 10 years ago. Currently, we’re in the middle of watching a letsplay/fandub of the games because uh, yeah. We’re not going to play through them again. They’re the worst ‘games’– NOT the worst stories– in the AA series.
I definitely can’t blame you for saying the novelty wore off quickly. Investigations has some serious flaws as a game and in structure. Which is an absolute shame, because the characters and stories are some of my favorites.
I absolutely adore Detective Badd, Agent Lang, Shih-Nah, and Kay Faraday from the first game, and Sebastian Debeste and Justine Courtney from the second game are some of my favorite characters in the whole series.
It’s also absolutely fantastic to get to see more of Miles and Gumshoe together. I just love them as a mystery solving pair. They have such delightful energy. It probably helps that I’m a gumworth shipper from way back of course XD
But frankly, the fantastic characters, interesting worldbuilding and good stories absolutely can’t save the Investigations series from its faults.
Problems with Ace Attorney Investigations
- the need for the narrative to telegraph to the player how to solve problems, and forcing the player to painstakingly go through each of Miles’ thought processes as a game mechanic has the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of making the player feel clever it makes Miles Edgeworth seem, very, very stupid and slow.
- logic chess (from the second game) is agonizing. It’s a great character bit for Egdeworth, having him conceive every logical problem as a chess problem, but its a fucking agonizing game mechanic.
- circular reasoning. Every case is way too long, and it goes around in circles. I feel like this is a result of the “trial” phases being outside the court and thus having no real mediator. It’s very true to life because people are going to “nu-uh” for as long as they can, but, realistic or not, t’s agonizing to explain the same things to characters over and over and over.
- connected to the above, all of the cases are too long, and also some of the logical leaps that the games expect you to make are some of the worst in the series. From Apollo Justice onward the games got a lot better about having a clear line of logic for where you’re supposed to present evidence. Investigations and investigations 2 are just fucking guesswork.
So yeah while I definitely think these games are fantastic lore and character wise and worth experiencing, they are absolutely aggravating to play. My personal suggestion for anyone who wants to experience them is to pick a lets play/walkthrough video of their favorite variety (commentary, dub, no commentary) and enjoy them without having to worry about the terrible fucking gameplay.
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