The Last Candle

After the recent completion of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the fourth and most recent lawyering-concept adventure game series, my initial and succint review: “Satisfying and a fair successor, but the game lacked Justice.”

Ha! Pun intended, although I lose points on the originality factor: the game itself used many variations on that same pun, most of them spoken by the titular lead character himself. Joke aside, the non-pun side of my reaction stands easily on its own: while the game’s plots, good humor and bombastic courtroom drama was what I’ve come to expect and enjoy from the Ace Attorney series, the designers largely neglected to give the lead character much time on the stand.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is an adventure game, and modern adventure games depend largely on only a few integral components, one of those components being good characters. Even in a restricted-view game like Riven, where the viewpoint is entirely first-person and all other characters address the player directly without using a specific name, a lot of satisfaction comes from the player’s connection to the game’s character solving puzzles in whatever digital world they’ve engaged.

Not that all adventure games have characters, but when they do, the experience moves beyond a puzzle game and into something that’s a heck of a lot more involving, immersive and fun. Characters matter a lot in adventure games, much more than in, say, real-time strategy games or first-person shooters.

Tim Schafer, writer and designer for three of the best-known adventure games — Secret of Monkey Island 1 and 2, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle — and, more recently, the very well-rated 3D-platformer Psychonauts, gave a lecture at the Game Developers Conference on character design; as part of the lecture Mr. Schafer related a simple gauge to use when determining the quality of a lead character. The gauge’s setup: the finished game, a first-rate and well-known actor, and casting call for a film adaptation of the game. (For the following hypothetical example, viewers of actual video-game movies will have to suspend belief and imagine that a good video-game film might be released someday. Give it a try.)

Imagine, Mr. Schafer related in his lecture, that the first-rate actor or actress caught wind of the film adaptation and, utilizing a keen nose for high potential, requests and acquires a copy of the script. After reading the draft script his interest is completely piqued by the lead character: the role is interesting, deep (or devestatingly clever), offers the ability to flex a well-toned acting muscle (or a challenge in new territory), and, above all, fun.

Well-known thespian, exercising the experiences of years of acting and sound judgment, smells a really good role in this film’s lead characters. He decides that he must have this part. He reaches for his phone to call his agent; once the other end picks up the line, the actor’s enthusiasm and near-desperation is obvious: “Get me that part! I need that part!”

In his lecture Schafer asserts that the lead character in a video game should be like the lead character in the hypothetical script — any good actor would be honored to represent that role in the cinema. The actor would want to be that character. Similarly, and more to Schafer’s point, a video-gamer, who controls a role much like a actor, wants to play the great role. Therefore, when writing a game, give the player the ability to control that great role.

Phoenix Wright, protagonist of the first three Act Attorney games, delivered the goods as the lead character. Wright’s appearance was tame compared to almost other characters who appeared during the series, but after evidence was collected, the wacky courtroom proceedings ensued and the trial was over (defendant: innocent!), Wright, via his tenacity for freeing his client and his unearthly ability

Who played the role of Wright? Me, damn it. The player, of course, and that kind of excellent protagonist is one of the big reasons why the Ace Attorney games are so darn good. After I finished the Wright games, including the mediocre second game, I couldn’t help but feel completely satisfied about outing lying witnesses, beating down the prosecution’s stance and thoroughly vindicating my client. (Now if only a studio would start producing the film or TV mini-series production of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.)

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney has the same great oddities, humor and intrigue that the Phoenix Wright games presented so easily, but Apollo Justice is not the great character that Phoenix Wright was.

For one, Apollo begins first trial — a murder trial, no less — as an unsure, stammering rookie attorney and roughly holds onto that persona throughout almost the entire game. Sure, Apollo (that is, me) would nail a witness on a false testimony one in a while (or often, actually), but the lead character never moves far beyond stammering rookie.

Stammering Rookie might be a fun role in particular contexts — fun in a Marx Brothers movie, maybe — but that persona suffers in the surprisingly anxious Apollo Justice scenarios where logic, courage and confidence in the truth, even if it’s a wacky truth, prevails. (By the way, the world definitely needs more wacky courtroom drama.)

So playing as Apollo was a little disappointing. To make the player feel even more like a dope, the prosecution is a international rock star who, through one of the best animations in the entire series, cranks out a killer guitar riff at a the drop of a high-hat and crows of all his success via hip music metaphors.

Heck, even Apollo’s friend-sidekick, a young magician, who is topped off in a bright blue top hat, a cape tipped with images of playing-card suits, and a great ventriloquist act involving one “Mr. Hat” (the same top hat) that beats out Prosecutor Rock-Star’s riff any day of the week, is a more interesting character than our poor lead defense attorney. Just those two characters, the magician and the rock star, both lively, clever and fun to watch, make Apollo appear, well, a little dull by comparison. Phoenix Wright was the same way — a somewhat banal character in the face of a motley and ridiculous cast — but the cases won by Phoenix felt like a worthy struggle and overall development.

One last major gripe (and this one includes spoilers): in Apollo Justice’s fourth trial, Apollo isn’t even the main character for half of the episode: Phoenix Wright is! Throughout the game Wright is a loose mentor of Apollo, and the final trial looks into Wright’s history between the final Phoenix Wright game and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

That matchup is fine in itself (obviously, Phoenix Wright is a welcome return), but a good portion of the evidence-searching segments is spent playing as Phoenix Wright, even if Apollo handles the final courtoom encounter. But when that final encounter arrives, Apollo doesn’t even feel like the lead character — Phoenix does — and the finale feels indebted to the success of a secondary character rather than the actions brought about by the game’s protagonist. Boo!

Okay, mild frustration over. I really did like Apollo Justice, but the misaligned characterizations was a little off-putting, especially after three great Phoenix Wright games.

Gamer rant over.