It’s funny to see how Phoenix Wright has grown over the years. The series has carved its own little niche into gaming, and each of the characters have found their way into the hearts of fans all over the world and made shouting “Objection!” in a crowded room into a fine art. Such is the story about a game series where the only thing that really changes are the court cases you take part in.

Dual Destinies works to bring that sense of meeting someone for the first time back by taking the courtroom away from the 2D sprites and backgrounds it has relied on for more than a decade, and bringing it into the world of 3D thanks to the higher graphical power of the 3DS. But is a facelift enough to bring fans back to the field of justice?

Like the games before it, Dual Destinies follows the usual pattern of crime solving: the first part has you investigating the crime scene for clues that you can use in your case, while the second part puts you in the defense stand as you try to prove your client’s innocence and identify the real perp. Those who have played any of the previous titles will immediately become familiar with this chain of events, but it never feels old or tired, as each case brings a new set of questions that you’ll need to work your brain over and more puzzles to figure out.

The game brings with it some familiar faces, as well as some new ones. Athena Cykes joins the Wright crew as a very energetic, fresh out of law school rookie, while Simon Blackquill, a prosecutor that’s currently serving time in prison and has a fascination with samurai traditions, acts as your primary opponent for most of your cases. Apollo Justice returns to help out, and Phoenix Wright himself also makes a return to the courtroom coming out of retirement. There’s also a cavalcade of quirky characters you run across during the course of the five different cases, each being as memorable as the last.

Being a visual novel style game, there’s not much you can do to change the gameplay. However, the new 3D environments allow for more in depth crime scene investigations, as you can now move around some areas to get a better look. The characters have also made the transition to 3D spectacularly, retaining their anime-styled looks and having more animated and cartoonish expressions during dramatic segments. The addition of fully animated cutscenes that also have full voice acting is also a very nice touch, though the actual voice acting can be hit or miss.

Dual Destinies does bring some new aspects to the table to mix things up a bit during courtroom proceedings. Similar to Apollo’s Perceive System and Phoenix’s Psyche-Lock, Athena brings with her the Mood Matrix, a device that utlizes her AI assistant to help find dischord in a witness’s voice and locate contradictory or excessive feelings in a particular part of their testimony. While this can bring up some pretty shocking revelations during a trial, a lot of times it simply feels like it slows down the pacing of the game, which can already feel slow as it is simply because of the amount of dialogue present.

The only real problem with the game is Capcom’s continued hesitance on supporting the western fanbase, which is pretty sizable all things considered. Not only have western fans had to wait three months for a western release, the game is also only available as a digital download, compared to Japan, which has both download and physical retail copies. The fact that the game itself is also littered with grammatical errors and awkward translations suggests that they didn’t really try that hard on having a good localization crew to handle it. It doesn’t really detract that much from the game itself, but it just feels like the fans deserve better than this.

Still, the game is fun to play, and is accessible for both courtroom veterans and newcomers alike. Dual Destinies also has some promise for future content with the addition of DLC, including costume packs and new cases. As a bonus, it’s also one of the few 3DS games where you can keep the 3D on almost all the time and not have to worry about straining your eyes.

Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies exudes a lot of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality, but offers just enough differences to help it stand out from previous entries. If you’ve never played a Phoenix Wright game before, then this is a good game to jump in on, since you don’t have to worry too much about backstory to understand what’s going on. Series fans will also want to step back into the courthouse as well, if only to show Capcom that there really is a large enough fanbase in the west to warrant more attention.

by Michael Revis