Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies Released

I’ve been counting down to this day for months now.  Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies was released on the Nintendo eShop today.  Unfortunately, the title is a digital release.  It will only be available on the Nintendo eShop and not through retail channels.  The good news, however, is that it is being priced at a very reasonable $29.99.  For those of you who took advantage of the Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei deal, here’s your chance to spend the $30 voucher.

I can’t quite comment on the game just yet as I’m busy juggling several major releases.  Of course there’s Pokemon X and Y, Etrian Odyssey Millenium Girl and now Phoenix Wright Dual Destinies.  It’s a great time to be a Nintendo 3DS owner.  That said, how could I resist, I purchased and downloaded the game, started playing through the first turnabout, and I am happy to say that everything that made the old Phoenix Wright games a success is still here.

The interface will be immediately familiar to the casual user, as will most of the characters introduced at the start.  One great addition is a text history that will let you roll through what was said in the past.  This will be incredibly useful in some of the more pesky cases where the contradictions are in the details.  In the short playthrough I’ve had so far, the graphics are crisp and beautiful.  They’ve done a great job of transitioning the game to 3D without alienating the charming 2D visuals of the past.  What’s more impressive is that there are loads of cut-scenes already.  Each cut-scene has been fully animated (in 3D) and voiced over, so it isn’t the traditional style of panning through a few still images and dramatic music.  Furthermore, the courtroom was fully rendered so we get some nice camera swivels that just wasn’t possible on the originals.  Presentation so far is wonderful.

Again I will limit my impressions since it is based on a very cursory play so far.  But the dialogue has been charming.  There have been a few clever and not so clever puns, characters are already displaying their usual quirks and the story seems interesting.  That’s really all it comes down to since the interface and the mechanics are still very similar.  I’m immensely looking forward to completing the game and finding out what happens.