The years pass, change video games and consoles evolve, but some series continue to maintain the magic that has helped them get into the hearts of fans. Since 2001, the year in which Phoenix Wright made his first appearance in Japan on the Nintendo GameBoy Advance, things will have changed a lot and so many more or less famous sagas have been forced into deformation in an attempt to maintain a prominent position in a changing market and capricious.
Just think of examples such as Sonic, Final Fantasy or Resident Evil to realize how in more than 10 years things have changed drastically and how, some more and some less, celebrated sagas have struggled to stay afloat, often alternating between good performance in flasks unforgivable.
In this panorama of the Phoenix Wright series is a pleasant exception, because although not always maintaining the same peak quality has been satisfying fans by offering intriguing cases, excellent scripts, witty dialogue and characters over the top.
While remaining firmly rooted in its origins, in fact, the saga of Phoenix Wright has found the right balance between introducing new mechanics (especially during interrogation, pivotal point of the experience) and the maintenance of the traditional elements so dear to fans.
During the evolution of the series we have seen him perform and then disappear characters of some importance, even assisting in a shocking change of character with the episode dedicated to Apollo Justice, a character very different from the glorious Phoenix but still be able to hold up the scene and excite players.
Although it has proved to be pleasant, however, the parenthesis of Apollo did not convince the general public to the point of leaving behind the figure of Wright, who in Dual Destinies reprising the title role, alternating with just the good from the Justice booming voice.
And it is alternating characters from the previous chapters that Dual Destinies manages to exceed expectations, offering comprehensive experience of the most popular gameplay mechanics of the past, suitably complemented by new elements to discover.
Depending on the characters involved in the cases proposed the game offers its users several ways to put pressure on witnesses during trials, now analyzing any nervous tics due to lack of sincerity, now presenting evidence to the defense scardinarne, or still controlling the mood or searching out the links between particular events.
These last two mechanics, in particular, their debut in the Dual Destinies and are in addition to other instruments that the player can use to solve complex cases in the game. Cases that, as usual, not only are distinguished by the absurdity of the situations presented, but also and especially for the constant reversals they face between a witness and the other.
The system called Mood Matrix is the strength of Athena Cykes, an expert in computer science and criminal psychology able to combine these two skills to make clearer statements of witnesses prey to conflicting emotions.
Using this technique, in practice, to the four corners of the screen shows the emoticons associated to the same moods that light follows the course of the deposition. When two or more conflicting emotions are shown at the same time the player must choose which of these is not in line with what was said by the witness and thus indicate the way to go during the interrogation.
For the rest of the game continues to follow the traditional pattern of the other chapters of the series, alternating phases of investigation at the crime scene, interviews with possible witnesses, gathering evidence, and finally, the inevitable process, where all the work done up to then finally gives the desired results.
This gear is perfectly balanced by years of history is going to enter a brand new technical realization, which leaves the two-dimensional illustrations in favor of highly detailed polygonal models and that, fortunately, do not miss the old graphics.
All the characters have been designed with great care to the point of being identical to their counterparts drawn. The difference is that, in the Dual Destinies, animations of each character in the game are fluid and convincing, to the benefit of the already excellent characterization that was guaranteed in the past.
The transition to 3D also allowed the development team to play a lot more with prospects and with the shots, opting for dramatic camera movements during the most intense action. All this, accompanied by the usual soundtrack of the highest level and be able to point out with perfect timing every single change the atmosphere of the game, gives Dual Destinies charisma typical of the series, if possible, further expanding with new touches included in the recipe .
Watching the beautiful animations of Phoenix, Apollo, Athena and some very welcome return (no spoilers, do not worry), but most of the witnesses and prosecutors (perfectly able to meet the high expectations of fans after the excellent figures of past episodes ), is not only rewarding but also extremely fun thanks to the excellent characterization work done by the development team.
The use of polygonal models, moreover, also affected the gameplay of investigative step, allowing you to observe the environments from multiple angles in search of clues more or less important to build customer advocacy.
For obvious reasons we do not go into details about the cases in the game (one of the greatest strengths of the series is just the quality of the script to reveal a little at a time), but from a game that unites the spectacle of wrestling to the ancient monsters of mythology Japanese, putting everything in a crime that you can not expect great things.
What else, then? Dual Destinies is a very good episode in the saga of Phoenix Wright, as well as being able to effectively exploit the potential of the Nintendo 3DS duty. Precisely for this reason the regret of not being able to buy the physical copy is rather important, because if there is a saga that deserves to be collezionata with love, this is precisely Ace Attorney from Capcom.
9/10