The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

Loved the Ace Phoenix Wright Trilogy, and I loved this game as well. Lovable characters, goofy trials, solid OST, and well developed plot twists, it's got everything you need for a good Ace Attorney Game.

Runs smoothly on Steam Deck, noticed no issues when playing.

This game contains 2 different games, "The Great Ace Attorney Adventures" and "The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve". With a total of 10 chapters altogether.

The best Ace Attorney games

The Great Ace Attorney is a test of how long you can drag out saying the same thing over and over. I heard the second game is better, but I'm over halfway through the first game, and it feels like a slog. Playing a bad game to get to a good game is not the most enticing thing ever. The overarching story typically explored before and after investigations/trials are very interesting, but the actual Ace Attorney elements are really bloated and uninteresting, resulting in cases that drag out too long for how simple they are. If trimmed down, this could be a great game, possibly followed by a greater game, but the crawl is not worth it.

this game has altered every single one of my braincells and i have not recovered since (and never will)
proceed with great caution because it will undoubtedly, absolutely destroy your life

(it's on sale right now so please buy it :D hehe)

good game
gina lestrade
need i say more
probably
but i wont

after 3~ years putting off this game i finally finished it... i've always been a huge fan of ace attorney so i fear i would be a bit biased, but definitely give this game a try if you like the original ace attorney!

Longer and slower than some of the other entries in the series. But the cases are still good.

If you've made it this far in the AA franchise, you'll enjoy this one.

The foreboding sense of deduction

I can’t believe this game nearly took me a year to finish. But it’s done. There was some ups, there were very minor downs but overall it’s understandable why so many people find these two games as the best of the series.

If Phoenix Wright was a Hollywood spectacle of a game, The Great Ace Attorney plays like an indie experience. The way the game unravels its mystery from start to finish shows this clear, strong direction for the game’s story and what a mystery it is. Spanning two games gives the presence and intrigue needed to show this wider conspiracy in all its glory. However, this comes with a caveat in which the experience suffers from.

The decision to use Adventures as a teaser essentially to build hype for Resolve ultimately hurts Adventures as an experience and I don’t think I would have been fulfilled if I was to play the first game and then waited for the second. Every case has a gotcha moment of ‘don’t worry, we’re saving why you should care about any of this until next time.’ This made every case apart from the final case of Adventures hollow to me. Because the weight of each story only comes to fruition with the knowledge obtained through the brilliant conclusion of Resolve.

Starting with the overly long tutorial, Chronicles has longer cases and as a result longer investigations. The fact that the tutorial case is split into two parts shows the magnitude of the experience. But the reasoning as to why the crime was committed is hidden until the very last case of Resolve. The game does this constantly which can make for a frustrating play through.

The investigations are long and strenuous, multiple times I found the amount of dialogue to be too disjointed and spread out compared to the tight delivery of consistent information in Phoenix Wright. Resolve was definitely an improvement over Adventures in this regard but still felt too much like wishy washy dialogue. The Psychelocks were greatly missed in this game. They allowed a certain levity to each investigation as you essentially have a mini confession every time. Breaking up the monotony of asking people question tabs time and time again.

The added aspects of the deductions with the incredibly charismatic Herlock Sholmes were a great break from the game’s constant questioning of characters which made them blend. The added effect of the 3D aspect to the game started as jarring. But I appreciated the fact that this allowed for some brilliant animations for when you cornered multiple witnesses. The use of the 3D space made certain things such as deductions to be incredibly cinematic.

The added aspects of interrogating multiple witnesses at once was a great idea in practice. But was not used as much or as impactful as it ought to be. The game then introduced Jury’s which honestly were again a great idea, but did nothing more than to pad out the game with longer trials. I’m glad the final trial didn’t have them. The aspect of not being able to use people unless prompted when presenting as evidence was genuinely a good inclusion. It limits the amount of options you have to manage when some cases will give you upwards of 20 pieces of evidence to sieve through.

The cast of characters is brilliant in the games. Already mentioned Herlock Sholmes. But Iris as the loveable innocent genius was great. Gina was a standout. Susato is even better than Maya with how well she was written. Baron Von Zieks may well be the best prosecutor in the series. His resolve is concrete. You find you catch so many prosecutors out on multiple occasions in Phoenix Wright. But Von Zieks felt like he was never caught off guard until it really mattered. And of course Ryunosuke who could’ve easily been a poor man’s Phoenix was absolutely brilliant. The way he grows through the two games shows this great sense that this company did not just want to do Phoenix Wright once again. All the main cast of characters were great and were never duller imitations of what came before.

Overall The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is deeper, more mature and complex in its storytelling and world building than Phoenix Wright. Through its endearing cast, it crafts a brilliant tale which by the end really does feel like it was worth the wait. But aspects which were added and others which were removed makes this entry a very strong, but not perfect successor to what came before. Wrapped too much in the politics of the world (seriously the amount of racism in this game is insane) and storylines so dense they take multiple games to conclude becomes a detriment to the flow of case after case. However, there is no denying the skill on show of these two games is to be commended highly and I really hope we get another game in this series too because there is nothing like this series. Brilliant!

I can say with complete confidence that this is one of the best games I've ever played.

Actually a brilliant game, amazing series in general, utterly adore Ace Attorney all around. The graphics are great, the story even greater, all around a Great Ace Attorney game (pun intended).

I have played through this game twice. The first time, I was big in the AA fandom, and everyone I knew said it was a very good game. I never thought very hard about it while playing and came out of it thinking of it as a vaguely positive experience - I'd have said it was good, but I couldn't name much in particular that struck me besides a couple dramatic moments.

I've replayed it again recently, a few years later with much more enhanced critical thinking skills. I can now confidently say that this story is one of the most frustrating stories I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through, and the only reason I got through it this time was because I was playing it with a friend to make fun of it with.

This game is set in early 1900s Britain - real world Britain - and you play as a Japanese man. I had hoped that this game would do something interesting with these facts, but it feels like it is constantly scared of acknowledging the fact that racism exists. Yes, it isn't completely absent, but racism is seen as a purely cultural thing - every so often, a character will take a jab at you for being Japanese, and that is the extent of it. For a game whose plot is grounded in corrupt systems, I hoped it would acknowledge the fact that racism is, in fact, systemic and not just light bullying. The main rival prosecutor is downright racist to you throughout the entirety of both games. This is revealed to be because a Japanese person had killed a loved one of his. What a joke. In fact, the game outright glorifies Britain. The main characters very often bring up how much cooler Britain is than Japan.

That's another point. I'll avoid giving too much away, but the ending (of the second game) brings up a lot of points about how the nobility has always been corrupt and greatly implies that this corruption is widespread, having seeped its way into the system for years upon years. We hear stories of people ten years ago fighting against it and falling to it themselves. Nothing interesting is done with this, either. The one big bad guy is arrested at the end, and suddenly everything is happy go lucky.

The game is SLOW. Every time anything happens, the game has to slow down and explain to you exactly what you just watched. The fourth case of the second game opens up with an HOUR of recapping the case before it. The case before it, I might add, is 12 hours long. This happens CONSTANTLY. The first case of the first game, a tutorial case, literally took me NINE HOURS to get through.

The second game opens with a case where you play as a female character, Susato. She laments many times throughout the case on how she is immensely frustrated to be born as a woman and have to deal with never being able to make the choices she wants to, as the systems in place stop her from doing so simply because of her gender. After this case, she never mentions this again. Once a major (male) character is reintroduced into the plot, her character becomes nothing more than a device to tell the player how mysterious and pained he is. Her father is shown to have lied to her about his own life, having known much more than he let on about Susato's family, including lying about being sick to get her to travel back to Japan, as he was scared she'd find out about these things. She is never shown to be bothered by this. (Also, when she was born, he immediately left her for 6 years. This is also never criticized, at all. Yujin is an immensely flawed character that has done a lot of fucked up stuff but is always treated as if he's just a pretty cool, good dad.)

In the fourth case of the second game, a major character dies, one that had been in almost every case up to that point. One character is given a new crying sprite and is sad for about 20 textboxes. Then it feels as if the game forgets what just happened. No other characters are shown to be upset by this in any noteworthy way. The plot of the case hardly focuses on him, the overarching plot of the Professor taking priority.

At the end of the final case of the last game, Iris' parentage is revealed. Her goal to discover this had been a major point of her character throughout both games - in fact, it's about the only interesting thing her character had done. Each character resolves to finally tell her the news, only for her to suddenly change her mind. She decides that she actually doesn't want to know. The game then forces a happy found family moment between her, Herlock, and the others. This is such a far cry from Ace Attorney's usual themes of always seeking the truth no matter how much it hurts you that I was genuinely appalled watching it play out, even after how much this game had disappointed me.

The Dances of Deductions are cool, but they're always painfully easy, and also slow with the fact that you need to watch them play out twice. The second run through never makes sense, because it has to follow the script shown in the first run through. This could be very easily fixed by just making the Dance of Deduction happen once. Oh, but then we wouldn't get to see Herlock be stupid and quirky. (Sorry, that was mean.) The Summation Examinations are even cooler, but the game only uses them in five cases out of its ten. Why.

The more I talk about this game, the more I feel as if it is allergic to doing anything remotely interesting. It lays down the foundations for a deeply intriguing story and then outright refuses to follow through with it. It's why I describe it as more frustrating than anything. This could have been such a fascinating game, but it's too scared to do so, and falls flat at every possible opportunity.

Buy The Ace Attorney Trilogy instead.

Another wonderful entry for the Ace Attorney series. I really enjoyed the blend of the era of Sherlock Holmes and Ace Attorney's wackiness. Great story and great characters, with the jury and witness mechanics more fleshed out with some being able to react to other's statements. Only downside is frame rate is limited - sometimes I felt like it was a bit choppy despite not having great graphical fidelity.

These two visual novels are a masterclass on storytelling (not necessarily on writing), but there are some caveats.

The first is that they are simply too wordy. The games don’t trust you to remember anything and constantly repeat information to you. It never gets as bad as the flashbacks in Apollo Justice, but it’s close. They also have a tendency to explain very simple real-life concepts (such as what a pen name is). Maybe the audience for these games is much younger in Japan?

The dialogue has a lot of flavor, which is good. However, sometimes the preambles are excessive and you’re just left waiting for them to get to the point. You could cut half of the script and you’d still have a great story. I always liked how concise the writing was in the original trilogy, and now I realize it was probably not meant to be that way, but heavily edited because of the limited memory of GBA cartridges. Perhaps we should bring those constraints back.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that the first game feels like an extended prologue. It spends too much time setting up the pieces and it ends before it’s even finished doing that. CAPCOM made the right move by forcing you to get both, because the first game might frankly leave you unfulfilled.

The juror system is incredible, but sadly not present in many of the cases because of plot reasons.

Story mode is an excellent addition that should come back in every future game. With this feature, writers could potentially make cases harder and avoid so many flashbacks with no fear of players getting stuck. The decision to punish people who use it by disabling achievements is puzzling, and it may encourage players to use a walkthrough instead... which is what this feature should be trying to prevent in the first place.

Finally, although the tunes aren’t the catchiest in the series, the instrumentation is simply on point and results in an amazing soundtrack that you’d never guess comes from a 3DS game.

If none of the negative aspects sound like a big deal, you’re in for an amazing ride. Pretty much all ten cases in this duology are interconnected, and characters often come back in interesting ways; normally fulfilling a different role, so it never feels like lazy recycling. Rather, you’ll be amazed at how carefully planned the story was.

If you enjoy visual novels, you should at least get it on sale. I’d suggest playing the original trilogy first if you haven’t because the writing is tighter there, but if the setting or look seems right to you, you could potentially start with this collection. It’s completely self-contained, and won’t spoil any of the other games.

best ace attorney game. barok van zieks i can fix you baby girl it's gonna be alright

This game is amazing and highly recommended.

The last 3 cases had me easily on my knees. What a delicious game and prosecutor
I know what I'll be drawing for the next years

It was a delight to play these two games. The story is well rounded and fun, with my favourite cases being the ones in TGAA:R.

At first, I was not certain that a non-Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney would appeal to me. I was absolutely incorrect. This game is a masterpiece.

Despite being considered spinoffs, The Great Ace Attorney 1: Adventures and 2: Resolve are perhaps the series' finest hour. I honestly find these 2 games superior to the Phoenix Wright trilogy. Both games are grounded in reality in comparison (except the finale of Resolve but that's classic ace attorney hijinks for you. If you know, you know) and this results in memorable cases and mysteries as well as a great cast of main characters.

Your millage may vary with the first 2 cases of Adventures as they are quite slow paced though as least it tries to establish the time period and characters before the plot thickens with cases 3-5. All of Resolve's cases are an improvement and the story of both games conclude in a grand satisfying finale.

If you're an ace attorney fan this set of games is a must buy.

not just a silly spinoff, it's actually peak Ace Attorney

Only 2/10 cases were really boring to me but the rest was incredibly entertaining and seeing all the cases come together onto one final case was a joy to see. Highly recommend.

fun

WHAT AN AMAZING ACE ATTORNEY GAME AND VISUAL NOVEL!!!! My only issue is that it can go on for too long at times and not make itself very clear with what you have to do and Case 1, 2 and 4 of the first game are too long but other than that this might be one of my favorite games ever.

An exceptional expansion to the Ace Attorney universe with amazing writing, great 3D modeling and animations, fun characters, clever mysteries and a pleasing soundtrack. The second game is the better of the two in my opinion, but that doesn't mean the first game is bad, just that it suffers from more issues that bring it down such as the mysteries and villains not being that engaging for the most part, but if you liked the previous games in the series, definitely pick this up, you won't regret it.

10/10.

Ace Attorney but better. No seriously, the jury should be in the mainline games. The Dance of Deduction is also a neat way of doing the investigation sections without the go to x location and back 50 times. Multiple witnesses testifying at the same time also makes it easier to find out exactly what the flaws in their stories are. I really like the cases in this game and some of them are the best in the series.

8/10 (first game 7/10, second game 9/10)

First one is good, second game is great with an electric finale in true Ace Attorney fashion. (my playtime isn't representative, finished it on another platform).

Without a doubt these are my two favorite Ace Attorney games

Very fun game!

I grew up with the original series, and I spent 4 cases trying to figure out if it was THIS easy back then too. Or long winded. SUPER long winded, and another detective that comes in and makes small details SUPER NOTICEABLE and then forcing you to confirm that you observed it. Before, I felt like I had to go through the transcripts and examine items and use logic to find the solutions- but this time I felt like I was waiting months before I could submit the obvious contradiction, and waiting till the last moment for some piece of evidence to be entered at the very end to wrap it all up. No- sorry- maybe I'm older and younger people will find these mysteries engaging, and there's no doubt they brought that animated theatrical charm, but this writing is not very good. Interesting world, but super heavy handed time waster.

As an Ace Attorney fan, I absolutely loved my time with this game. It's top-tier AA. I do think it's probably a touch on the long side, but I am one of those nutters that has to see every single piece of dialogue, so it's partially my fault for clicking on everything. But the cases, dialogue, art, music - everything. It all exceeds expectations. Well done!

Naruhodo is my boy, play this game if you like good characters and story

Pretty fun story overall, and 30h in seems to switch up stuff. It doesn't end up being stale and genuinely interesting to continue. No reason for the game to be locked at 30fps though :/

I do not recommend this game to newcomers; it's only for serious fans of the franchise who are already used to it, I think.

While I was invested in the journey of the main character and the mysteries around the cases, the experience of playing the game was, to put it in one word: 'painful'. Everything is just painfully slow and laborious.

I clocked around 10 hours+ after 3 cases, but I think the actual content is probably just 5 hours. The extra 5 hours is just because of how unnecessarily slowly everything moved, from the dialogue to the animations (excessively repeated, at that) to the slow transition screens, etc. Not to mention how, as other reviewers have pointed out, points get repeated during the trials, or how long it takes to arrive at when the game had made it clear long ago. Just feels annoyingly padded out.

I liked Ryunosuke and Susato, I am interested in the cases and stories but it just takes up so much time unnecessarily. So much so I've discovered: if I set text delay to 0.5 seconds and hold right click during dialogues it will fast forward the quickest, but I can't catch anything and have to refer to history for the dialogue text (still saves a lot of time and annoyance). But if I set text to Auto and hold right click to fast forward, it still moves fast but I can still catch all the on screen text.

TLDR: only buy if you really like this series, otherwise be prepared for really archaic game design that wastes your time. (cue 3-second black loading screen > character appears on screen > 5-second animation > 10-second scrolling dialogue text > 3-second wait for character to fade out > 2-second wait for prompt buttons to appear > press OK > 3-second loading to proceed to next screen > repeat forever)

Writing this immediately after getting all of the achievements.

An amazing duology that I think any fan of Ace Attorney should try at least once.
While these games aren't without flaws in some areas (like the immense amount of dialogue and characters that get way too quirky), I think they're probably the closest to being as good as the original trilogy (Mostly the first game for me personally. Though I did enjoy Dual Destinies and Investigations 2 a lot).
Also these games take place before the events of the original trilogy and is pretty self-contained. So while I do recommend that you play the games in release order or at least the original trilogy, you can start here if you want.

good game buy it

A masterpiece.

While the first game, Adventures, has pacing issues, its heavily improved in Resolve. Both of them combined might just be the best game I've ever played.

cool game

BIG MAN WITH NAME RYUNOSUKE AND HIS CLAN NARUHODO(HAHAHAHAHAAHQHAHFUNNY) MAKE BIG ADVENTURE INCREDIBLE GAME

Def recommend if you enjoy Ace Attorney and similar games and franchises! Another wonderful addition to the Ace Attorney franchise :)
If you want more similar games, check out Ghost Trick : Phantom Detective. It's by CapCom as well, and it's got a pretty cool gimmick in my opinion hehe (I haven't played it much myself. nor do i actually have it, but i got the chance to try it out once and i really wanna play it now). I'll let you discover for yourself what that game's gimmick in question is :D

I'm at episode 5 of the first game as i'm writing this review, if that helps (i guess?)

I do enjoy that you can literally play the entire game without using your mouse so i don't have to worry about mouse pain lol (T u T)

Amazing game in an amazing franchise.

I've played the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy prior to this and i feel like comparing the two is only fair.
I am writing this before having finished the Chronicles, but will update once i have.

I will keep this review spoiler free.

Chronicles feels like the better entry to the series as the game holds your hand a lot more and knowing what to do next is almost always either talked about in dialogue or just plainly obvious.
This however often leads to things being repeated over and over again to the point where it feels like the writers are staring directly into my soul like "are you sure you get it yet? huh? HUH?".
Sometimes it gets really annoying how long a point gets tip toed around until you can finally take action.
Of course just like in the other Attorney games there is the rare occasional solution that is so odd and nonsensical that trial and error is the only option. Save scumming is just as easy as always however, so it's not that big of a deal.
The complete absence of any kind of volume control is baffling to me.

The 3D models are a nice touch and they're lovingly animated and thoroughly distinct from one another as you would expect from an Attorney series game.
Great music as always.
The characters are very charming and likable, the writing is immaculate aside of the hiccups i mentioned earlier.
The cases are a lot of fun and i daresay this game holds some of the most creative (if often too easy) brainteasers i've seen in the series.

Definitely recommended, though of course only on sale.

Its one of the worst Ace Attorney game in my opinion.
All of the characters, and I mean ALL of the characters are annoying and unlikable.
Way too much unnecessary movements for most of the characters. Prosecutor's eyes are complete deadpan, 0 budget spent on them.
The stories are not interesting, arguments in courtroom are weak, some humors hits and some misses.
Music is probably the best part of the game but its still not as good as the original trilogy.

All in all, play this game only if you have no more ace attorney to play anymore.

I played the first 4 games, watched some playthroughs for DD and SoJ, and played through Investigations 1 and 2. So many amazing storylines and characters, but somehow, TGAA tops all of that for me. I know, TGAA has already been praised by many, but its really something you have to see for yourself to believe.

Characters

I was worried about an entirely new cast of characters, but I sincerely believe the devs took that into account - you will quickly try to draw parallels to certain characters, only to subvert your expectations spectacularly. My favorite parallel is how Ryunosuke and Susato interact, almost like siblings bickering with a level of professionalism, when compared to Phoenix and Maya who, while similar, has a more distinct father and daughter vibe. It really helps that Ryunosuke and Susato both have careers related to law, so they have a more level playing field when commenting on each others remarks, and the two can be equally silly. Probably my favorite duo now. I can't get too deep into characters without spoilers, but to round this section, even the intentionally "annoying" characters, I've found quite endearing. Goes to show how much better the characters are written while still keeping a level of quirkiness.

Story

Now, the first game does have some pacing issues, with the first three cases essentially being tutorials for a bunch of new mechanics, and the investigation/trial sections are drawn out to make them each fit in one in-game day. The second game does a much better job though. However, I found the story compelling enough that I personally didn't mind this, as it allows you to take in the new characters and setting, and secretly sets up a lot of plot points that come up later. The story is really well written, and feels like what the original trilogy should have been - circumventing the law, the corruption in the judicial system, and focusing on finding the truth no holds barred. While the first AA represented this with Von Karma and Edgeworth, the story slowly shifted focus to the Fey Clan and spirit mediums. While compelling and a great story on its own, it can feel out of place in a courthouse. Meanwhile TGAA explores this on every level with the culprits becoming increasingly involved with the politics of the involved nations in the story. All cases have a narrative importance save for 1 or 2, but even the events of those cases have implications in the story, which makes the overall narrative much more cohesive.

Music

Ace Attorney has always had great music, especially during the trial, but this games OST has me bopping my head at all times. They even had the second game's final case have a bunch of new arrangements that only play during that case, and they really help to set the tone as well as highlight the game's climax(es). The one song that keeps playing in my head is the song in that case during the final deduction segment with Sholmes.

Overall, had a blast with these two games and I'm sad to see it finished.
TGAA is Ace Attorney at its peak.

Massive fan of the Ace Attorney series but this is my favourite so far!

Love the new Jury segments and dances of deductions.

A must-get if you're a fan of the Ace Attorney series!

Such a great game! I love the no bullshit humor!

If you liked the other games,this one is for you

A real Hmm in the series at the time of this review completed all the AC and Apollo Justice games. The good is that the animations and the UK specific stuff and the real places makes it very different from the rest of the series as well as it being turn of the century setting. This along with the very different and much more real looking art style makes it the most realistic and most strikingly animated series of the wider Ace Attorney's. It also has some of the best music in the series. BUT and this a big one the first two cases are without a doubt the worst in the series and I found a real challenge to push through as they are slow cookie cutter things which don't really have a connection in the first game and are irritatingly done that the later payoff is isn't worth the grind. One other noteworthy thing though is stability for some strange reason it is more crash prone compared with some of the other releases.

To conclude Lawyer game still good this one is the quirkiest at least until I try Ace Attorney investigations.

The game is probably the best of the whole series, anyway check this out:

*dances in Buckingham Palace while videostreaming the downfall of a man to Queen Victoria*

I am playing this game,it's very amazing

came for barok van zieks stayed for international conspiracy

in all honesty its and excellent game, changed my life.. now im suck into the ace attorney hole

I'm glad I saved this for last, I can see why people say these two games are the best in the series. If you thought Ace Attorney Investigations 2 had a compelling interconnected story, you ain't seen nothing yet