The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 12/15/2025)

[Image from igdb.com]

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): Action-Adventure

Platforms: DS

Release Date: December 7, 2009

After gulping down the icky-tasting Phantom Hourglass, you’ll forgive me if I wasn’t hopping at the chance for another taste of the DS Zelda experience with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. I’m not saying that the double-screened mobile console’s whack at Zelda’s iconic action-adventure formula resulted in a disaster of epic proportions that dug a six-foot hole in the dirt for the franchise to lie in after suffering wounds deep enough to prove fatal. Still, Phantom Hourglass was agonizing enough to the point where I felt inclined to apologize to a certain Wii-exclusive Zelda title that I had been lambasting and referring to as the nadir of the Zelda franchise for years. What exactly made Phantom Hourglass so horrendous that it supplanted Skyward Sword from its whipping post? Let’s put it this way: while the eccentricities of Skyward Sword’s motion controls presented a difficult hurdle to overcome, like sitting in traffic on the way to work, I’d go as far as to say that the touchpad and microphone-oriented kineticism of Phantom Hourglass oppressed the game like it was living under a ruthless, fascist dictatorship. Implementing the piece de resistance of the DS’ hardware into every conceivable facet of Phantom Hourglass' gameplay proved to be incredibly overbearing, a showcasing of the console’s capabilities with impractical ambitions that remained unchecked at the game’s release, much to our collective chagrin. Given that Spirit Tracks exists on the same system that housed Phantom Hourglass and is functioning on the same engine, we can assume that it shares the same habit of relying on its central control gimmick to an irritatingly excessive extent. While this remains to be the case, I did not find myself struggling through Spirit Tracks sip by sip like the revolting double IPA that was Phantom Hourglass. In fact, the tolerant reservations I had initially approached Spirits Tracks with had soon evolved into a genuine sense of engagement.

One might attribute Spirit Tracks’ favorability to its DS predecessor on the surface-level basis that it has reverted to traditions. Even though this iteration of Link is of the expressive, cel-shaded “Toon” variety, he evidently isn’t confined to the strikingly blue sea that drowned the series’ standard setting as I had presumed he was. No, the bulbous blonde boy (or at least another incarnation of him) now exists in the glorious kingdom of Hyrule without any water damage to speak of, like his fellow green-garbed doppelgangers with sharper physical features. Princess Zelda would probably glare at Link with confusion and concern for his mental well-being if he ever suggested that she had an alternate ego who sailed valiantly with a crew of salty seadogs and spewed sass with the elegant proficiency of a master swordsman. The same sense of befuddlement would probably translate to Link’s sensei Alfonzo, who is a dead ringer for Tetra’s first mate Gonzo. Link and his mentor travel to Hyrule’s capital, where the princess resides, so her majesty can bestow on Link the honor of graduating from his school of engineering, but something wicked will defer the celebration. In the most obvious tell of foreshadowing I’ve seen, when he smiles sinisterly, Spirit Tracks pulls a Chrono Trigger by having Cole, the chancellor in Hyrule’s cabinet, conspire in a murder plot against the princess. The only difference is that Cole succeeds in his nefarious plan with the aid of his equally villainous cohort, Byrne, reducing her to a ghostly, phantom form after one effective Avada Kedavra magic blast. Once the treacherous duo has done away with Her Highness, while also erasing the kingdom’s transportational tracks and seizing control over the Tower of Spirits, the next objective is to use Zelda’s lifeless, vacant body as a vessel for a malevolent demon lord they worship named Malladus. If their intentions aren’t to have Malladus establish a reign of darkness and terror over Hyrule, I’d be shocked. With the dread of their insidious plan potentially coming to fruition hanging over their heads, both Link and Zelda must travel across Hyrule’s vast jurisdiction and retrieve each district's respected sacred Macguffins as par for the Zelda course, which will restore the balance to the kingdom that was just brusquely upset. You read that right, Link AND Zelda will be teaming up on an adventure together for the very first time in over twenty years of the series existing (at the time). She doesn’t exactly provide the same humorous chemistry as Linebeck, but it’s about damn time that the titular series character received a more substantial role in the spotlight of a Zelda title. All it took was pulverizing the poor girl to an immaterial state of being in what is arguably the grimmest Zelda premise to date.

I feel as if I was a bit cagey in detailing certain bits of context behind the premise of Spirit Tracks because they reveal the grander scope of the game’s core gameplay concept that is certainly pervasive enough to warrant its own paragraph. What branch of engineering has our dear Link now reached a graduate level of proficiency in? Railway engineering, as becoming the conductor of a train, is quite a lucrative vocation in an incarnation of Hyrule where this steam-powered mode of transportation serves as the primary method of traversal. You can then imagine how removing the series of tracks would put the kingdom in a state of dysfunction and why it was a fraction of Cole and Byrne’s plans to disrupt order and stability. It goes without saying, but train travel or anything remotely resembling industrialized technology is a first for the series. It even caused contentious outcries from fans who expressed that the concept inappropriately smacked of modernity in a series that should ideally stick to its traditional realm of medieval fantasy. Personally, I fully embrace the idea. My very first fandom, for lack of a better term, between the infancy ages of 2-5 was Thomas the Tank Engine, a British children’s franchise mostly associated with its disturbingly expressive characters juxtaposed with the static movement of their models. Because I spent a great span of my childhood reading the books and watching the TV series, I recognize the quaint charm and whimsy of Thomas the Tank Engine, as the series intends to evoke the warm, wistful sensation of a world through the ubiquity of train travel that was lost in the industrial/digital ages. Wasn’t The Legend of Zelda initially conceptualized as a whimsical retreat back to a less sophisticated period of Miyamoto’s life? Trains certainly weren’t fathomable in the Middle Ages, provided that Zelda is indeed a product of the period’s fantasy tapestry. Still, trains are now antiquated enough to conjure up a yearning for simpler times that no longer exist as society has progressed, a mutual thematic undercurrent between the two aforementioned series. Hence, trains are a wonderful way to give Spirit Tracks some distinctiveness.

Surprisingly, train travel also solves the issue of restrained exploration that was prevalent in Phantom Hourglass. Sailing on the Great Sea in Wind Waker always proved to be a constrained affair, with Link being forced to cooperate with the directional blowing of the seabreeze lest his trajectory come to a sluggish crawl like pumping blood through a clogged artery. Wind was no longer a relevant condition to work around in Phantom Hourglass, but I’d rather pause for a few seconds to change the arrow’s placement than commit to a drawn line that moves Link from the line’s origin point to its destination with no room for deviation. Such rigidity really drove me up a wall throughout the entirety of playing Phantom Hourglass, making even the tiniest of trips grueling on what is possibly the smallest Zelda world map to date. Though the train that Link conducts is restricted even further by design, this does not inherently mean that the traveling process becomes even more suffocating. Link’s train comes with four different acceleration settings: the standard rate of speed and its quickened increase, a brake that slows it to a stop after a few seconds depending on the previous pace, and a reverse function that rolls backwards only at the train’s neutral speed. The player can control the train’s trajectory by tracing the destination route on the tracks like Phantom Hourglass, but the train will still chug along automatically provided the player has its controls set to any sort of acceleration. The player can even change their course by flipping the various track switches found in every fork in the road, even when the train’s trajectory has been laid out by the stylus. If the developers insist on limiting the player’s autonomy in traveling throughout the overworld, at least they’ve now crafted a transportational system around this snag that is sensible and strangely streamlined. As for the combat portion to keep the player entertained during their trips, Link’s train is fashioned with a cannon that shoots an unlimited supply of cannonballs whenever the player pokes the screen with the stylus. Just be careful to sound the whistle by pulling the train horn on the screen whenever an animal is on the tracks instead of an enemy, or else they’ll meet your accidental misdeed by ramming the train like a raging bull. Why is it that farm animals are the most tenacious creatures in the Zelda universe? Also, it’s important to note that the “dark trains” that roam around on the tracks are invulnerable to shelling, so it’s best to evade these mechanical monsters whenever you see them belching pitch-black smoke from their funnels in the distance. They present an opportunity for the player to flex their competency with the train controls, but it is rather annoying having to navigate around them to prevent a fatal collision.

As for the legitimate enemies that can actually be extinguished, their encounters ultimately depend on which district of Hyrule Link is choo-chooing away in at that given moment. Hyrule as depicted in Spirit Tracks really emphasizes the kingdom’s diverse range of ecological themes. Link will start shooting Skulltulas that swing pendulously above the tracks in the shaded groves of the neutral, grassy “Forest Realm.” After that, he’ll travel north, where sentient, hostile snowmen will attempt to pelt his prized train with their own rounded, anatomical pieces that regrow instantly because of the frigid climate that surrounds them. Enemies that resemble flying miniature elephants will dive bomb onto Link in the polar volcanic realm where the Gorons reside, and the aquatic, oceanside realm, where the cumulative sand is bisected to a small desert realm, borrows the floating squids from Phantom Hourglass for the player to beat rupees out of like a piñata. The “Ocean Realm” is also a highlight here because the tense precariousness of holding this hundred-ton train on narrow tracks over deep waters turns into a pure marvelous spectacle when the tracks are submerged underwater, and the train cuts through the drink like a dream. While the eclectic environments are a striking source of Hyrule’s diversity, one could lament that the expanse of this world is subdued by the lack of exploration facilitation caused by the linearity of the train tracks. I feel as if the developers recognized this likely feeling of disillusionment and implemented some unique collectibles to prolong their time in the overworld. Whenever Link docks his train at the assorted destinations alongside the main course, the player should be vigilant about the locations of a “stamp station.” Here, Link can chronicle the various locales around Hyrule for his elderly neighbor in Aboda Village so he can experience the fulfillment of adventure via a second-hand avenue. It’s quite sad, really. While traveling on the tracks, the player should keep the sight of rabbits in their peripheral, for an enthusiast would like to add as many bunnies to his sanctuary in the “Forest Realm” and compensate Link favorably for his troubles. The rabbits also tend to be slippery suckers during the net minigame that engages once Link blasts away the platform situated under it, so be prepared to take note of where their encounters occurred. I was always hesitant to pursue any extracurricular activities available in Phantom Hourglass, but I allotted much of the time between the obligatory sections to wrangle up rabbits and fill that empty journal with each area’s unique artwork for Niko’s pleasure.

Of course, the player can only revel in these interesting subsidiary tasks if they work towards Link’s primary goal of restoring the tracks that lead to each of these locales. I’m sorry if I trigger sensations of shellshock in players who were traumatized by The Temple of the Ocean King, but Spirit Tracks also implements a winding, multi-floored ancient construction that the player chronically revisits after completing a dungeon milestone in the Tower of Spirits. Before you write out a will thinking that a double dosage of a mega dungeon will kill you, know that this colossus is a gentler beast than its older brother. The tall exterior foyer where Link parks his train features a series of entrances that are unlocked with each progression milestone met, meaning that the player can actually continue from the highest floor they’ve unlocked as opposed to digging (or climbing in this case) from the surface and painstakingly retreading one’s steps ad nauseum. In addition, there also isn’t a timer breathing down the player's neck while they jump from floor to floor, mitigating the unnecessary tension and allowing the player to experience meatier puzzles that require more contemplation. Besides fixing everything about The Temple of the Ocean King that made me exclaim “what were they thinking?!” in a rhetorical fashion, Tower of Spirits also provides one of the game’s most distinctive mechanics. Everywhere else in Hyrule, Zelda is but a floating dialogue channeler for our silent protagonist, more in the vein of a windbag buddy like Daxter and less like the notorious series nagger Navi, who attempts to mandate the course of progress at every waking moment. In this lofty monolith, however, she genuinely collaborates with our hero. Spirit Tracks seems to subscribe to the mythical ghost phenomena that claims they can possess living bodies if they so choose, simply absorbing their earthly forms by flying into them. Once Link collects enough of the iridescent tears scattered about the dungeon’s floors, a full set will grant him the power to penetrate the armor of the phantom guards with his sword and allow the incorporeal princess to possess them. Once she’s in a solid, living substrate, Zelda will transmute the physical capabilities of guards for Link’s benefit. Depending on which guard Zelda is commandeering, she can either illuminate darker paths for Link with its flaming sword, teleport via connecting to those annoying phantom eye security drones, and crawl into a ball and roll destructively like a metallic Goron. Above all else, piloting a phantom guard provides a nifty source of camouflage to deflect the guard’s attention to Link’s presence. I don’t know how they aren’t tipped off that there might be a little girl in their midst from the constant wailing for Link to slow down or the high-pitched shrieking whenever a rat crawls around her feet, but I’ll accept their lack of vigilance if it means that Link won’t be forced to scurry away to a pool of imperceptibility at every moment. With Zelda’s distinct set of skills, revisiting the Tower of Spirits is neither a grueling slog nor is it a frantic, frustrating escort quest like Ico with touchpad controls. If anything, it’s the gender-reversed opposite.

Outside of the grandiose Tower of Spirits, Link is expected to carry the weight of heroic duty and Link alone. Fortunately, Spirit Tracks also offers the fabled savior of Hyrule a new slew of untested mechanics in the vein of his items. Before I detail the fresh tricks up the sleeves of Spirit Tracks, I suppose I should mention that the developers deemed either fun or functional enough to return from Phantom Hourglass. Long-distance offense seems to have been the deciding factor, for arrows and the boomerang are the only ones brave enough to show their faces again. You still wanted an item that gives you an excuse to draw on the touchpad, right? If you’re wondering what happened to the hookshot, it’s been replaced with a snaked-faced whip that ultimately functions the same, with the perk of quicker traversal when latching onto the beams. The “Sand Wand” is an especially exciting item, for it allows Link to command large banks of the dry granular material and elevate it at his convenience on the whim of the stylus. If directing sand isn’t stimulating enough, the “Whirlwind” is an item that implements the microphone, creating gusts of wind to forcefully propel enemies and extinguish flames by blowing into the bottom right corner of the DS. The kinetic novelty with this item is certainly nifty, as it feels as if the player’s real breaths are impacting the flow of gameplay. Still, the developers seem to express that picking a direction on a circular plane and exhaling once or twice isn’t challenging enough. Did anyone notice how Phantom Hourglass was an outlier in the Zelda series, as it did not include a musical instrument in any capacity? Well, Spirit Tracks rectifies that glaring omission with what is the most interactive instrument in the series to date, for better or for worse. Link’s musical outlet this time around is a pan flute, a wind instrument that coincides with the kinetic functionality of the DS’s microphone. Notes are symbolized by distinct colors and are scaled from lowest to highest from left to right of the instrument. Like the ocarina, specific bite-sized melodies will affect the environment upon being played and are saved in a journal for the player to use as a visual reference. However, unlike the ocarina, producing any melodious sound is far more enterprising than pressing a series of directional buttons on a controller. The finicky nature of administering air into the pan flute is most prevalent during the duet sequences with a sanctuary’s sage, a process needed to gain access to that area’s dungeon. Link’s practice sessions with the old farts are lengthy enough, but no amount of preparation can prevent the awkward, mismatched snags that come with this kind of kineticism. Thankfully, the sages seem to be understanding and do not angrily ask me if I was rushing or dragging if my pan flute playing wasn’t quite their tempo. Overall, playing the pan flute felt like Plankton running back and forth with a harmonica in “Band Geeks,” or my elementary school days when the staff placed a recorder in front of my face. Yes, notes were played, but with such strenuous conditions involved that I’d hardly call the final product music.

If the player manages to satisfy the sage’s duet requirements, the player should find themselves en route to that area’s dungeon to procure the sacred Macguffin that lies within its deepest layers. Normally, I’d be chomping at the bit to experience the series’ staple labyrinths, but the ones outside of the recurring Tower of Spirits megaplex are rather dull. I really can’t recall much of interest with the first three dungeons, other than that the “Ocean Temple” was unremarkably dry for a dungeon existing underwater. I guess the developers decided not to press their luck in designing a dreaded water level with the unorthodox stylus control scheme. The Fire Temple featured a nifty and complex mine cart segment, while the Sand Temple utilizes its item, the Sand Wand, to the fullest with a myriad of different puzzles and platforming segments. Then again, these types of Sand Wand-oriented instances reappear in droves during the final portion of the Tower of Spirits, which sort of diminishes the distinctiveness of the game’s last elemental palace. I’m thankful that these dungeons are at least competent, but their collective lack of memorable conceits really hurts their impact in the long run.

What salvages these dungeons from totally traveling in one ear and immediately out of the other are the boss battles at their climaxes. Like Phantom Hourglass, the bosses here also serve as examples of the game taking full advantage of the dungeon’s items with the unconventional control scheme at play. Plenty of these pinnacle foes also fully realize the novelty of expanding the scene with the dueling screens of the DS. Gigantic beetle Stagnox will fly upward to the higher portion of the system before trying to ram Link upon reentry, while the green, thorny tentacles of Phytops clog the bottom screen for Link to dodge while he attempts to target the monster’s veiled eyeball that resides in the upper half. Both Cragma and Skeldritch evoke the scope of Eox from Phantom Hourglass, bosses with a skyscraper stature that takes up the space of both screens with its immense verticality, situated in a circular arena where Link is intended to reduce it block by block from below. Above all of these outstanding bosses, the one that impresses me the most is the Demon Train, for it’s a meaty, multiphased foe conquered entirely using the train-conducting skills the player has honed leading up to it. Looking through a less mechanical lens, I’m also quite pleased by the tag team dynamic between Zelda and Link for some of these fights. Both the blonde boy and our dearly departed princess in phantom guard form knock some sense into Byrne at the Tower of Spirits’ peak, and aiming arrows at the backside of Malladus in his demonic physical presence with Zelda while Link distracts his hideousness proves to be a far more engaging collaborative effort than when we trusted NPC Zelda to shoot Ganondorf in Wind Waker. Even Mario and Luigi could learn a thing or two about teamwork from another Nintendo duo that is normally portrayed like Mario and Peach.

Like the kid from that ancient Life cereal commercial, I am in disbelief that I actually like The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. On the surface, it’s Phantom Hourglass's identical twin still confined to a control scheme that is amusing at best and painfully unintuitive at worst. Still, Spirit Tracks manages to find quality-of-life enhancements when I figured that the foundation was too resolute to work upon. Traversing the overworld is still a bounded excursion, but at least its limitations now make more sense when a railroad system is constructed around it. There still might be a multistoried dungeon with seven floors unlocked per visitation, but at least I no longer anticipate returning with great apprehension because the elements that made the previous mega dungeon insufferable have been omitted and/or reconsidered. Finally, it’s been proven to me that the stylus schematic is not a gimmicky deterrent and that it can foster a functional Zelda experience, but I’d still only recommend it for the series completionists because of its abstract nature. For those who have already seen everything the series has to offer, Spirit Tracks is sounding its deafening train horn to call your attention to it.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 12/6/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Genre(s): Graphic Adventure

Platforms: GBA, DS

Release Date: October 18, 2002

And here I thought that the gaming medium had managed to successfully hurdle over the hump of a sophomore slump ages ago. The trajectory of a video game series, provided the developers are limiting it to a well-rounded trilogy, is usually as follows: the first game establishes the franchise’s core gameplay components and characters, the direct sequel sands off the coarse bits dangling from the first game’s rough template to its near-perfect polished peak, and then the third and last entry retains the previous title’s quality-of-life enhancements while dialing up every conceivable aspect presented thus far to eleven as one last grand hurrah before the stage curtains close indefinitely. It’s a three-piece formula easier to commit to memory than fixing up a batch of refreshing Kool-Aid. We’re no longer in the 8-bit 1980s, when second releases from germinating gaming icons such as Mario, Zelda, and Castlevania perhaps jumped the gun too soon on experimenting with the series’ various elements before they could marinate, creating a chasm of quality between the exemplary first and third entries as a result. Capcom seems to have gotten the memo on how to structure a trilogy to the modern standard if the arc of their Resident Evil IP on the original PlayStation is any indication. Why then, one generation later, have they reverted to the sophomore slump practices of a primordial gaming era akin to an archaic bloodletting? Devil May Cry 2 is the more infamous, maligned example of Capcom whiffing the sophomore outing for one of their IPs during the 2000s, but any fan of their visual-novel-oriented crime investigation and courtroom procedure property Ace Attorney will tell you that the second entry in its initial Phoenix Wright trilogy, with the subtitle Justice for All, is almost equally as unremarkable. Given that I was floored by the character and case writing of the first game, plus the entertainment factor of the would-be dry material elevated by an exhilarating, over-the-top presentation, dissecting the unanimous disappointment behind Justice for All became a stimulating source of curiosity. Unfortunately, after gathering up the evidence needed to potentially defend Justice for All by playing it, I find myself in the prosecutor’s corner, stamping its condemnation to a lukewarm status like everyone else.

Right off the bat, Justice for All’s first case bombs like a guy playing the banjo with his feet at the Apollo Theater. Still, the core aspect of this case’s unprecedented appallingness opens up an interesting discussion on certain gaming consumer practices that I believe I’m broaching for the very first time. If someone is playing Justice for All before its predecessor due to the lack of availability of the first game or if they’re receiving it as a gift, it presents quite the awkward, discordant pickle. You see, during the first case of the previous Ace Attorney title, the eponymous Phoenix Wright was equally as clueless in suspecting deceit in a witness's testimony as the player would be when freshly booting up the game on their mobile Nintendo console. Because both the player and Phoenix are both stammering amateurs at the beginning, there is a concurrent growth relationship between them that blossoms organically with more experience gained as the game progresses. However, after Phoenix eventually starts hitting nothing but the defense lawyer equivalent of bullseyes and deplatforming formally undefeated prosecutors as a result of his newfound impeccable reasoning skills, any player launching into the series with Justice for All reasonably won’t be able to match his sharpened sagacity. How do the developers account for this likely scenario and keep the dreaded “LD” word from popping up like an ugly, ingrown weed? By implementing the most contrived plot device imaginable: amnesia. For reasons that will soon be discovered, Phoenix’s memory of his friends and, more importantly, his career skills are clouded by mental fatigue as thick as flu phlegm. Therefore, he experiences some issues recounting how to object to the total horseshit of some hoity-toity twat who is accusing a young lady of killing her boyfriend in a public park. Both Maya and the defendant are forced to give him some pointers from the sidelines, much to Phoenix’s embarrassment. C’mon, Capcom. Don’t tell me there aren’t any other narrative devices you could’ve used to work around the newbie player predicament that aren’t as sloppily shoehorned. As a returning player, the amnesia condition is patronizing, but it probably doesn’t aid newcomers all that much either because proving Maggey’s innocence is far less clear than saving Larry’s stupid ass. Tutorial case or not, you can do better than this, Capcom.

Even if someone is a fresh face to the Ace Attorney franchise here, they would still be receiving the complete series experience because every single aspect introduced in the first title is translated over with no complications. The warm, expressive comic art still renders Phoenix, Maya, and the colorful cast of returning secondary characters that I’m now convinced are the recurring series players. The windbag Oldbag is still yammering on so much that the game quickens and autoplays her dialogue, southern-belle Lotta is still looking for a juicy scoop to make ends meet, and Detective Gumshoe is still screwing up so many times at the precinct that they might have actually reduced his pay to literal peanuts. Phoenix (and Maya, sometimes) will scavenge a crime scene for pieces of evidence by either scrounging around for objects of interest or persuading the people of relevance to part with any vital information or incriminating trinkets they might possess. Once the scavenger hunt portion of the day is completed, Phoenix will stand in court and volley those OBJECTIONS to whoever is opposing him in the prosecutor’s stand, which will eventually substantiate a victory in favor of proven innocence. Besides the settings of the crime scenes and the narrative context behind them, the resemblance to the first game in terms of its presentation and gameplay formula is uncanny.

That is, until Phoenix chats with one of the screen-centered characters during an investigation, and suddenly, a series of metallic chains emerge and drape a newly blackened background. Upon receiving a green magatama from Fey Manor in the second episode, the presence of the curved, glowing bead will reveal hints of secrecy in whomever Phoenix converses with in the investigation process. To literally unlock the truth obscured within the chains, Phoenix must approach the process the exact same way he debunks falsities in the courtroom: by providing conclusive and concise evidence that combats anyone’s caginess. The appeal of these “psyche-locks” is that they transport the electrifying other half of Ace Attorney’s gameplay equation into the fetch quest portion that, admittedly, while essential, can be a tad dry and attention-numbing at times. I fully support the inclusion of these “psyche-locks” in concept, but there is something fundamentally flawed in their execution here. When Phoenix arrives at the courtroom after a day of diligently gathering evidence, it’s guaranteed that everything he’ll possibly need will be at his disposal, and failing to correlate a claim with said specific evidence is due to the player’s lack of wits or attentiveness. When the player is faced with a psych lock, the game never indicates whether or not they’re sufficiently stacked with enough evidence to unlock an NPC’s secrets. Never can the player dig into the psych lock process successfully upon its immediate availability, so the game expects the player to use the evidence they’ve scrounged up for the same purpose for what will occur in the courtroom the next day. Because some psych lock sequences include anywhere between two and five locks to bust open and therefore require multiple pieces of evidence, without any indication that Phoenix can finally force an NPC to spill their guts, the player can overthink things and start frantically searching through every nook and cranny to ensure their preparedness. Or maybe that’s just my obsessive-compulsive side speaking due to being flared up by the psyche-locks.

The first instance of chains interrupting the flow of conversation, as if Phoenix has just summoned The Cenobites, is when he finds a peculiar guest roaming the halls of the remote, old-world Fey Manor during the game’s second case. Given the demeanor of Miss Ini Miney, the guest on the compound, plus the circumstances surrounding the case, it dawned on me that the series has adopted a habit of recycling narrative assets from previous court cases. Once again, Maya is embroiled in a murder case where she is the prime culprit, ready to face trial with Phoenix as her defendant, and there’s a vapid young woman in the midst who knows far more about the crime’s intricacies than she leads on. While the initial comparisons may lead to returning players being dismayed by deja vu, the second case here presents a far more clever setup to implicate Maya. In a world where the practices of spirit channeling have been proven to be a tangible method of summoning the deceased, there’s reasonable doubt that Maya isn’t responsible for her client’s death because the vengeful spirit that was summoned has been controlling Maya’s consciousness. Then again, a spirit can’t leave its own fingerprints on the assorted murder weapons, so that should complicate proving Maya’s innocence during the court proceedings. While the contextual elements behind this case are fascinating and present an unorthodox ethical dilemma, this backbone of “Reunion and Turnabout” crumbles as the case continues. Once the supernatural elements of the murder are all proven to be nothing but a red herring, the outcome of the case is pretty straightforward and obvious. Only the Miney girl has any motive to kill her eccentric former boss at the hospital where she was fired for malpractice, and the fact that she sticks out like a sore thumb among the robe-garbed Fey ladies here makes her awfully suspicious. But then that begs the question: how did this airhead gain access to the private domain of the spirit channelers and learn the layout of the manor well enough to enact her revenge? Well, that leads us to the second case’s other glaring issue in that Morgan Fey’s, Maya’s aunt and main proprietor of the Fey Manor, role as the accomplice in this murder is treated as being fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. One would think that a family member of Maya’s actively conspiring against her would call for a greater precedence in this case than simply being detained once the real killer is revealed. Phoenix even struggles to figure out a motive for Morgan inculpating Maya, even though anyone paying attention to NPC dialogue would know that she’s trying to keep her immediate bloodline as the governing force of Fey Manor after her sister proved to have stronger summoning powers than hers. Still nursing that nasty head wound from last case, eh, Phoenix?

Speaking of Morgan’s bloodline, once the Fey Manor’s matriarch is in custody, Phoenix and Maya adopt her young daughter Pearl the same way that Phoenix became Maya’s guardian when her older sister was taken from this Earth too soon. Since she’s still of a single-digit age, she can act as the series’ beacon of innocence now that Maya has reached adulthood. Also, Pearl can channel the soul of Mia if Maya is out of commission for whatever reason, even if seeing Mia in Pearl’s gown exposes her gigantic breasts so prominently that they become quite distracting. We’ve taken care of filling the void of purity becoming gradually corrupted by exposing it to the serious nature of crime and the courts that evaluate it, but who’s filling the role as Phoenix’s rival now that Edgeworth has gone off the grid? While investigating Fey Manor during the second case, Gumshoe informs Phoenix that the prosecutor will be Von Karma, which raises some eyebrows considering that he’s presumably behind bars now for his involvement in the murder of Edgeworth’s father all those years ago. No, this Von Karma is Franziska Von Karma, the former Von Karma’s pride and joy, who is known as a prosecutor prodigy who started this foul lawyer business at the precocious age of thirteen. Stating that she’s a chip off the old block is an understatement. Franziska has inherited not only her father’s icy, scornful sternness but his perfect prosector record as well. She’s also a bit vindictive like her dear old dad, for the reason why she’s practicing law outside of her native Germany is to defeat Phoenix (and Edgeworth, if she can find him) for smudging her father’s reputation and tarnishing his formally spotless, lengthy career. Franziska is certainly another formidable foe, sure to make Phoenix soil himself from the opposite side of the courtroom. However, she’s only an effective antagonist in a vacuum because she doesn’t quite have the rival chemistry as Edgeworth, and all of her personality traits are ripped right from the elder Von Karma. Her mileage as a prevalent force of oppression is dependent on how much a professional woman in uniform perturbs you, which is completely subjective. Her whip, her court “accessory,” for lack of a better term, is certainly a distinctive quirk she bestows. Still, the number of times she cracks it, plus WHO she unleashes its fury on to maintain control wherever she goes, is a smidge too far-fetched to swallow. Whip Phoenix and Gumshoe all you want, but no judge in the universe would ever tolerate lashing them, especially when they’re actively on their prestigious platform. Even with her father’s tenure, he couldn’t get away with doing that.

If Justice for All’s second case establishes some prominent secondary characters and places Maya on thin ice, then surely the third case should be a total deviation from whatever overarching plot might exist between the second and fourth cases. While there isn’t a cohesiveness between any of the cases in Justice for All, even though we should, by all means, pry into the whole Morgan Fey being a murder conspirator a little further, “Turnabout Big Top” makes me understand what Ace Attorney enthusiasts refer to as “third case syndrome.” Similar to the third case that wedged itself between the Phoenix and Edgeworth arc in the previous game, “Turnabout Big Top” revolves around a famous entertainer involved in the scandal of bumping off someone else in show business. This time, a magician has slain their ringmaster, which leads Phoenix and Maya to the circus and the colorful troupe at the center of it. Even though its inclusion between two of the more cohesive cases was a bit grating, I still enjoyed the cast of characters on and adjacent to the filming set of Steel Samurai and didn’t mind collaborating with them while procuring evidence. On the other hand, while I stated that the performers of the Berry Big Circus were colorful, they are about as collectively charming as the characters of a Todd Solondz film. The defendant, Max Galactica, is equally as arrogant as the snot-nosed culprit of the first case, with his diva-like pretentiousness masking his bumbling bumpkin roots that emerge whenever he’s under duress. He’s also prone to insouciant acts of violence against his coworkers, namely, the meek ventriloquist Ben, who can only stutter without his dummy Trilo by his side to pronounce some brash characteristics he harbors. He’d be the one sympathetic character here if his puppet also didn’t express his romantic interest in the sixteen-year-old animal tamer Regina, putting him in a love triangle with Max, whom she’s soon to be married to. Max being 21 is just slightly crossing a line of taste, but Ben having a crush on Regina at the age of 31 is downright disgusting. Methinks the perp should’ve directed his homicidal tendencies towards another member of this circus, if you know what I mean. On the subject of Regina, her total naivety to the world, thanks to her sheltered upbringing, makes her seem much younger than she actually is, making her lolita-like magnetism from those attracted to her far creepier. To anyone’s surprise, there is actually one member who elicits more contempt from fans than the perverts and their underage object of attraction, myself included. I realize that Moe the Clown was specifically manufactured to be a migraine-inducing character, but his excessive levity and his horrendous jokes are just the tip of the ire iceberg. Moe’s flagrant immaturity also extends to his decorum, or lack thereof, in court. If Phoenix inadvertently prompts Moe to perform his routine by pressing one of his statements, the judge will penalize Phoenix as a result. You can’t punish me just because the witness is annoying, Mr. Judge! How else am I supposed to suss out statements before I commit to presenting a piece of evidence? Lock your whip onto this afroed stooge and don’t stop until his backside resembles fried strips of bacon, Von Karma. Even when the pieces fall into place, I feel like Phoenix is two or three steps ahead of me because the reality of how the murder was executed is impossibly absurd. If “Turnabout Big Top” isn’t the main offender of the “third case syndrome”, I don’t know what future case could possibly epitomize the tedium and aggravation associated with the pattern more than this one. This case somehow felt longer than “Rise from the Ashes.”

If the player feels brutalized by the third case and thinks that the fourth and final one will be the finishing blow on their patience and appreciation for the franchise, trust me when I say that “Farewell, My Turnabout” will turn that frown upside down. In fact, many fans cite “Farewell, My Turnabout” not only as the unanimous pick for the best case in Justice for All, but also as one of the best cases throughout the entire series period. However, it might not initially seem to be so exemplary considering its premise shares some similarities with the previous one. We’re still entangled in the scandals of celebrities, with the Steel Samurai’s successor, Matt Engarde, killing his showbiz rival, Juan Corrida, by strangling him with a bandana and then stabbing him in a ritzy hotel room right before a press conference. All the while, Maya is held hostage by a mysterious man who will only release Phoenix’s assistant from his captivity if he manages to receive an acquittal for Matt Engarde. If you think ensuring Maya’s safety applies an alarming amount of pressure on Phoenix to win, wait until the layers of this case unravel. My particular fondness for the final case of Justice for All stems from how it snapped me out of an expectation that every other case leading up to it lulled me into. Phoenix has always been depicted as a valiant hero of the law who is always on the side of justice and integrity, but let’s face it: only Regina is naive enough not to realize that a defense lawyer exists on the opposite side of the same corrupt coin as a prosecutor. Swaying juries to their side, knowing full well that their client is totally guilty of the charges, is definitely a commonplace practice. Phoenix just hasn’t been in the game long enough to exercise his inner Johnnie Cochran, until now, that is. Matt Engarde initially seems like a shallow, insipid punk ass whose innocence is believed by Phoenix because a psyche-lock didn’t emerge when Phoenix bluntly asked him if he killed Juan. However, the sociopath retains his composure on the technicality that he didn’t actively kill Juan, but the master assassin he hired named Shelly de Killer did. Once he reveals the truth to Phoenix with lawyer-client confidentiality, Matt slicks his shaggy hair back to reveal a sinister Mr. Hyde persona complete with a scar and sharp-toothed grin. Twirling a glass of wine seems like villain overkill to me, but I suppose any bit of evil signifiers helps in signaling the complex quandary that Phoenix is faced with. To make matters worse, the aforementioned assassin is the one holding Maya hostage, so Phoenix can’t resign as Matt’s lawyer lest de Killer, well, kill Maya. Either Phoenix continues his virtuous streak and sacrifices Maya in the process, or continues to pile on the mud he had been slinging on Matt’s manager, Adrian Andrews, and she wrongfully ends up imprisoned to secure Maya’s freedom. The fact that either path will lead the player down two separate endings instead of a traditional “game over” will make the player’s brow sweat as profusely as Phoenix’s as they make a decision in Ace Attorney that has never been so urgent and crucial.

It’s also interesting to note that Franziska is not the prosecutor during the case that concludes Justice for All, even though she unknowingly pulls a deus ex machina at the very end and ironically saves Phoenix with a smattering of new evidence to win favor for the prosecution. No, the estranged Miles Edgeworth is the one rebutting Phoenix’s stalling Chewbacca defense to simultaneously save Maya and put Engarde behind bars where he belongs. Why has the primary rival from the first game suddenly emerged when he had been duly replaced? Honestly, to better understand Edgeworth by comparing and contrasting him to Franziska. I formerly believed that Phoenix and Edgeworth were character foils, but I’m seeing a clearer correlation between the two primary series prosecutors. Edgeworth and Franziska’s attitude towards their jobs as prosecutors was formally one and the same. They both unfortunately became blinded by their inflated egos, a byproduct of their impeccable legal acumen, which they bolstered, diving down to any depths of devious trickery to maintain their flawless track records. When humbled by Phoenix’s shrewdness and integrity, Edgeworth took the time to reflect upon his actions and realized that he’s not an athlete in a competition where winning and losing only affect him. Meanwhile, Franziska hyperfocuses on victory to the very end, where she fails to recognize the bigger picture while disparaging Phoenix’s “loss” in the Engarde case. Whereas Edgeworth is the dynamic prosecutor liable to change by Phoenix’s shining example, Franziska is the stubborn static character that Edgeworth no longer wishes to mirror. As a German, shouldn’t she already be accustomed to losing?

Is it worth digging through the dirt clouding Justice for All to experience the golden nugget that is “Farewell, My Turnabout” at the tale’s end? …Yes, but there’s a big asterisk next to that positive recommendation. Except for the second case, which is at least on par with the adequate ones from the first game, the other two leading up to Justice for All’s glorious finale grinded my gears to their nubs. If I find another work of fiction involving either amnesia or a circus soon, I might go ballistic. Despite its drastic unevenness, Justice for All still proves to be a worthy sequel that expands the growth arcs of its characters while exhibiting a couple of bona fide, nail-biting court cases. Fortunately, labeling something with the tag of a sophomore slump implies that the series will dig itself out of the clumsy hole it fell into, so I can confidently expect wonderful things from the Ace Attorney series moving forward since I know I’ve survived the worst of it.