I remember playing it 10 years ago while they were finishing up the translation for 2 (so I don’t think I ever played 2?) and at the time of course I absolutely loved them cause Ace Attorney yknow. But replaying 1 now today, it really should have been designed differently. The main difference is you walk around small screens and investigate areas of interest through moving your character there like on a 2D sidescroller, not by selecting buttons like on the main AA games.

But you still end up in the investigation screens where your character says “I won’t rest until I’ve inspected every nook and cranny”, remember that in Phoenix Wright? Well it’s the same here. You inspect a static screen like in the main games and then move on to another area to inspect. Ultimately from a gameplay perspective it serves no purpose from what they had in the main game, really you’ll be playing for the story.

There’s also a logic mechanic alongside the investigations sequences and there you just take 2 questions in your logic screen and put them together to advance the story. More innovative in 2009, it’s kinda aged ridiculously because we’re used to such mechanics by now. At least I never really had any issues doing the logic parts.

But the thing is the story is not canon so it’s kind of its self-enclosed thing (you still meet the recurrent characters but again it doesn’t tie into the main games). And the story is super convoluted, it’s about a smuggling ring but like, who cares about a foreign smuggling ring? Phoenix Wright is great when it centers on its characters but here they really wanted to give them as little development as possible, probably cause again, this is not canon.

I’m nearing the end now and it just drags on, which is not unusual for Phoenix games but here I don’t care as much about the big bad guy, because he’s not from Japan America and he doesn’t eat burgers. He’s from some fictional country that we never heard of before this game and will never be mentioned again. That was the other thing that bothered me in the story, why did they give it a weird international twist? The lawyer antagonist is an Interpol agent in the translated version (no idea in the original Japanese) that we’ve never seen before and will never see again. He does get character development, but ultimately it just feels like okay bye bro lol

There are no trial sequences either so it’s kinda weird seeing the prosecutor defend suspects and then… it never goes to trial anyway? Like you do the legwork and the culprit gets taken away before the fun part. It’s like stealing your snack before you get to eat it.

Really it’s more of a visual novel than a game. AA games have always been visual novels of course but they’ve never really felt like it.

Kay’s character was the highlight and I wish she would appear in the main series (to thousands of confused players lol) but at the same time she’s kind of a Maya 2, except following Edgeworth. The “I’m a thief and I like shiny things” personality trait is kind of overdone in the game, but she still stands on her own regardless.

So overall if the AA games are 8 or 9 out of 10, I’d give investigations 1 a 4 or 5.

I heard 2 is a masterpiece though, I imagine they took what they learned and improved on it. Can’t wait to finish 1 and get started on 2.