Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All review

Tricky witnesses, evil prosecutors and explosive legal drama make a strong case for this courtroom comeback

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Justice for All picks up about a year after the original Ace Attorney, and Wright has a couple new tricks up his sleeve. The first is a health bar, which takes varying amounts of damage when you screw up in court. Second, you'll be able to present character profiles as evidence during questioning and cross-examination. Third, you can see through lies.

After reuniting with his psychic teenage sidekick, Maya Fey (and her seven-year-old cousin, Pearl), he's handed an item that enables him to see big red "Psyche-Locks" when people try to hide something during questioning. If you can find the right evidence to smash down your target's defenses, you'll eventually break the locks and get them to confess whatever they're hiding.

Justice for All picks up about a year after the original Ace Attorney, and Wright has a couple new tricks up his sleeve. The first is a health bar, which takes varying amounts of damage when you screw up in court. Second, you'll be able to present character profiles as evidence during questioning and cross-examination. Third, you can see through lies.

After reuniting with his psychic teenage sidekick, Maya Fey (and her seven-year-old cousin, Pearl), he's handed an item that enables him to see big red "Psyche-Locks" when people try to hide something during questioning. If you can find the right evidence to smash down your target's defenses, you'll eventually break the locks and get them to confess whatever they're hiding.

Sadly, you can't use that power in the courtroom, and showing the wrong evidence will damage your health. Nevertheless, it's a cool, tense little addition that adds a new dimension of weirdness to the gameplay.

Sadly, you can't use that power in the courtroom, and showing the wrong evidence will damage your health. Nevertheless, it's a cool, tense little addition that adds a new dimension of weirdness to the gameplay.

More info

GenreStrategy
DescriptionPhoenix's second collection of four cases of off-the-wall courtroom drama is coming to WiiWare soon.
Franchise nameAce Attorney
UK franchise nameAce Attorney
Platform"Wii","DS"
US censor rating"Teen","Teen"
UK censor rating"12+","12+"
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
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Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.