Tweet
The Wright Anything legal agency is suitably named in more ways than one. Not only does it offer a lop-sided grin of a pun on its founder and star attorney Phoenix Wright's name, it also bears testament to his legacy. Wright, together with his colleague Apollo Justice (a junior defense lawyer who, in this latest story, graduated to the profession a year ago) has won scores of cases, usually against devastating odds.But the mark of their work isn't simple success. It is, more often than not, complex success: the sort that wheedles out the essential truth in a situation, rather than the mere verdict that was hoped for. Phoenix is in the business of justice, which is a little different to the business of mere conquest - it's usually harder won and comes at greater cost. In this, the seventh game in a series that has markedly dipped in worth in recent years, the Wright Anything agency earns its name for a third time by righting that downward trajectory in quality. Capcom presents an ingenious and captivating series of cases that thread together into a grand, smartly interlocking narrative - as fine as any previous high point.
Phoenix Wright offers a curious multicultural concoction of influences. The suits, hairstyles and courtroom terminology are all-American, full of Aaron Sorkin-esque "you-can't-handle-the-truth" theatrics, with accusations and bench-slamming counter-accusations flying between the lawyers in front of a usually bewildered witness and judge. The outlandish plotlines are unmistakeably Japanese in their esoteric grandeur. Dual Destines, for example, opens with the case of a schoolgirl accused of blowing up the very courtroom in which much of the series has taken place, before moving on to a murder case involving demon cosplayers in a remote Japanese village.
Read more…
More...