Phoenix Wright/
Ace Attorney, known as
Gyakuten Saiban (meaning
Turnabout Court)
in Japan, was originally a series of three games for the Gameboy Advance. All three games were remade for
the Nintendo DS, then later ported to the Wii, then iOS and Android, then the Nintendo 3DS. The fourth game
in the series,
Apollo Justice (
Gyakuten Saiban 4), was made for the Nintendo DS, and will be
ported to iOS/Android. Two spin-off games,
Gyakuten Kenji (
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles
Edgeworth) and
Gyakuten Kenji 2, were released exclusively for the Nintendo DS. Subsequent
Gyakuten Saiban/
Ace Attorney games were made for the Nintendo 3DS, and the main series games
will apparently be ported to iOS.
The first three games (
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney,
Justice For All, and
Trials and
Tribulations) focus on Phoenix Wright (Naruhodou Ryuuichi), a young new defense attorney, and the
cases in which he becomes involved. Your role as Phoenix is to investigate the accusations (speaking
with witnesses, gathering clues, and uncovering the truth) and to defend your clients in court. The games
are very text-heavy, with not much action or animation - they're visual novels with interactive portions.
Although my description of the games may not sound very interesting, the series has gained a cult following
due to its colorful cast of weird, eccentric, amusing, intriguing, and crazy characters, as well as its
snappy dialog and bizarre cases.
Apollo Justice (
Gyakuten Saiban 4) takes place seven years after the third game, and it
involves a mostly different set of characters. However, some characters from the first three games do
make an appearance.
Dual Destinies (
Gyakuten Saiban 5) is a direct sequel to
Apollo
Justice, and is followed by
Spirit of Justice (
Gyakuten Saiban 6). Phoenix is again
the main character of both games, though other characters take the lead of several cases.
The two
Gyakuten Kenji (
Investigations) spin-offs focus on prosecutor Miles Edgeworth
(Mitsuruji Reiji), Phoenix's friend-turned-rival-turned-friend-again. The first
Investigations
game takes place a month after the third
Ace Attorney game,
Trials and Tribulations.
Due to poor sales of
Investigations in the West, the second
Gyakuten Kenji game was
never released outside of Japan, though there is an English fan translation.
Another spin-off game,
Dai Gyakuten Saiban, was only released in Japan and follows the adventures
of Phoenix/Naruhodou's ancestor during the Meiji period. A sequel to this game has been announced, but it
is unlikely to be published internationally.
In 2006, a
Gyakuten Saiban manga series ran for 5 volumes, loosely covering the first two games but
including a lot of original material. In 2016, an anime series aired for 24 episodes and adapted the first
two games.
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