Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations is a visual novel adventure video game developed and published by Capcom. It was originally released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 in Japan, and has since been released for several platforms, including a Nintendo DS version that was released in 2007 in Japan and North America and in 2008 in Europe. It is the third game in the Ace Attorney series, following Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001) and Justice for All (2002).
The story follows defense attorneys Phoenix Wright and Mia Fey, who defend their clients in five episodes. Among other characters are Phoenix's assistant and Mia's sister Maya, her cousin Pearl, and prosecutor Godot. The gameplay is split into courtroom sections, where the player cross-examines witnesses and tries to discover contradictions in their testimonies, and investigations, where they gather evidence and talk to witnesses.
The game was directed and written by Shu Takumi as the last game in an Ace Attorney trilogy; he also wanted it to be the final entry in the series, as he felt he had explored Phoenix's character fully. Because he was satisfied with the gameplay in Justice for All, he did not introduce any new gameplay mechanics in Trials and Tribulations. Flashbacks were used as a major theme in the game; this originated in Takumi trying to come up with a way of handling dialogue-integrated tutorials, and deciding to use a flashback to a case from when Mia was a rookie attorney.
The game has received generally favorable reviews, with reviewers liking the story, writing, character designs and music, but with some criticizing the lack of new gameplay mechanics. Additionally, the Wii version was criticized for using resized graphics from the Nintendo DS version, without any modifications to make them appear better on a larger screen. The Nintendo DS version was a commercial success in North America, with pre-orders being more than double the amount Capcom had estimated.
A high-definition version of the first three Ace Attorney games, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy HD, was released for iOS and Android in Japan on February 7, 2012, and for iOS in the West on May 30, 2013. Another collection of the first three games, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, was released for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan on April 17, 2014, in North America on December 9, 2014, and in Europe on December 11, 2014. It was also released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on February 21, 2019, in Japan, and on April 9, 2019, internationally; a Windows version was released internationally on the same date. The PC version of the collection was among the best-selling new releases of the month on Steam.
Gameplay
Trials and Tribulations is a visual novel adventure game in which the player takes the roles of Phoenix Wright and Mia Fey, defense attorneys who defend their clients in five different episodes. The gameplay remains unchanged from Justice for All, the previous title in the series.
From the start, only one episode is available to play; when the player completes an episode, a new one is unlocked. The episodes are divided into chapters, which consist of investigations and courtroom sessions. During investigation sections, the player aims to find evidence for use in the courtroom sessions; the game moves on to the next chapter within the episode when the player has gathered enough evidence. The player moves and performs actions through a menu with four options: "examine", which lets them move a cursor over the environment and examine items; "move", which shows a menu with locations the player can move to; talk, which shows a list of topics the player can discuss with witnesses in the area; and present, which lets the player show evidence or character profiles to a witness. Some witnesses do not want to discuss certain subjects, leading to a lock symbol appearing over the subject. By showing the witness a magatama, the player is able to see the secret they are trying to hide in the form of locks, called a "Psyche-Lock"; by presenting correct evidence or character profiles, the player can break the locks and be able to discuss the subject.
During the courtroom sections, the player defends their client and cross-examines the witnesses. They can move back and forth between the statements in each testimony; if they find a contradiction between a statement and the evidence, they can point out the contradiction by presenting a relevant piece of evidence or character profile. The player can also choose to question a statement, which sometimes leads to changes in the testimony. A life bar, representing the judge's patience, is shown in the upper right corner of the screen. If the player presents incorrect evidence or profiles, the bar will decrease; if it reaches zero, the player loses and their client is declared guilty. The bar will also decrease if the player makes mistakes while trying to break psyche-locks; however, the player cannot lose while trying to break psyche-locks. 50% of the life bar gets restored when the player manages to break a psyche-lock, and it gets fully restored when the player completes an episode.
Plot
Setting and characters
Trials and Tribulations is primarily set one year after the events of the previous game, and focuses on the career of defense attorney Phoenix Wright, though certain segments are set five or more years earlier and follow his deceased mentor, Mia Fey. Other featured characters include Maya Fey, Mia's sister and a spirit medium who acts as Phoenix's secretary and assistant, and her young cousin Pearl Fey. After Mia was killed during the events of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney; Phoenix took over her law practice. Nevertheless, he regularly consults with her on cases by having either Maya or Pearl channel her spirit, which allows them to assume her appearance. Phoenix also occasionally receives help from prosecutors Miles Edgeworth and Franziska von Karma as well as Detective Dick Gumshoe, who hold him in high regard. The game's featured antagonist is Godot, an eccentric, coffee-loving prosecutor who keeps his identity concealed behind a mask and who seems to harbor a personal grudge against Phoenix.
Story
In her first trial, rookie attorney Mia Fey and her co-counsel Diego Armando defend death row inmate Terry Fawles, who is accused of murdering policewoman Valerie Hawthorne during an escape attempt. Facing off against rookie prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, also in his first trial, Mia discovers that five years earlier, Terry, Valerie, and her younger sister Dahlia staged a kidnapping to steal a jewel from the girls' father. To keep the jewel for themselves, Dahlia and Valerie betrayed Terry by faking Dahlia's death, leaving Terry to be convicted of her murder based on Valerie's testimony. Terry escaped in the hopes of learning the truth from Valerie, but when Dahlia learnt this, she killed Valerie to prevent her confession. Before a judgement can be passed, Terry commits suicide by consuming poison received from Dahlia years earlier, ending the trial without resolution. Dahlia subsequently poisons Armando after learning he was investigating her further, leaving him comatose, and begins dating university student Phoenix Wright after giving him the necklace she used to carry the poison. Months later, Phoenix is charged with the murder of fellow student Doug Swallow. Mia, acting as his lawyer, exposes Dahlia as both Swallow's killer and Armando's assailant. She was also planning to kill Phoenix to get back the necklace. Dahlia is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. Despite this, Phoenix believes his girlfriend "Dollie" to be innocent.
Five years later, Phoenix represents Ron DeLite in court after he is accused of theft, facing off against the mysterious prosecutor Godot. Although Phoenix indicts private detective Luke Atmey as the thief, Ron is subsequently arrested for the murder of his former boss Kane Bullard, based on evidence Phoenix presented in his defense. At the last second, Phoenix manages to identify Atmey as Bullard's murderer, having realized Atmey framed Ron so he could use double jeopardy to escape punishment. Months later, Phoenix is informed he supposedly failed to properly defend former client Maggey Byrde against accusations of poisoning programmer Glen Elg. Realizing someone impersonated him, Phoenix secures a retrial and conducts his own investigation, discovering that Elg was developing a computer virus on behalf of loan shark Furio Tigre, who bears a resemblance to Phoenix. He deduces that Tigre killed Elg to steal the virus, needing money urgently to repay a large debt to a mob boss, before framing Maggey and posing as Wright to ensure her conviction. Despite no decisive evidence, Phoenix manages to get Tigre arrested by tricking him into identifying the bottle of poison used in the murder, exposing himself as the killer.
During a visit to a mountain retreat with Maya and Pearl Fey, Phoenix discovers the corpse of author Elise Deauxnim. While looking for Maya, he falls into a river and becomes ill, looking over Mia's first two cases during his recovery. With Phoenix incapacitated and Godot missing, prosecutors Edgeworth and Franziska von Karma are forced to temporarily fill in as defense and prosecutor respectively for the trial of Phoenix's client, a nun called Iris who resembles Dahlia. When Phoenix returns, he discovers that Elise was really Maya's long-lost mother, Misty Fey, and her death was the result of a plan engineered by her sister Morgan to kill Maya with help from the deceased Dahlia, revealed to be Morgan's daughter and Iris's twin sister. Through cross-examination, Phoenix reveals that not only is Dahlia impersonating Iris, but she is being channeled through Maya's body to do so. With Mia's help, Dahlia is exorcised from Maya, and the trial continues. Phoenix finally deduces that Godot, revealed to be Diego Armando, killed Misty, who was channeling Dahlia at the time, to protect Maya. Having spent his time since awakening blaming Phoenix for Mia's death, he concedes that Phoenix is worthy as her successor. Iris is arrested again as Armando's accomplice in Misty's murder, but reveals to Phoenix that it was her he had dated in college, as she posed as Dahlia to try to protect him from her sister by getting back the necklace peacefully, eventually falling in love with him before Dahlia grew impatient and tried to kill him. Phoenix thanks "Dollie" for being who he thought she was, then reunites with his friends.
Development
Trials and Tribulations was written and directed by Shu Takumi, with art by Tatsuro Iwamoto and music by Noriyuki Iwadare. After development of the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was finished, Takumi's boss, Shinji Mikami, told him that they should make an Ace Attorney trilogy, with a grand finale in the third game's last case. Takumi wanted the three first Ace Attorney games to comprise three parts of a greater whole. Therefore, he avoided making a lot of changes: art for main characters such as Phoenix, Maya and Edgeworth was reused from the first game, to avoid having the previous games look outdated in comparison to newer games in the series; and no new gameplay mechanics were added for Trials and Tribulations, as Takumi was happy with the gameplay after having added the psyche-lock mechanic for Justice for All. He wanted the series to end with Trials and Tribulations, as he had explored Phoenix's character fully and wanted to avoid the series becoming "a shadow of its former self", saying that he thinks it is important to know when to end a story.