Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney was hugely popular on the Game Boy Advance and then the Nintendo DS. Well now the game has come to the iPhone and brought along with it all of the same features and gameplay.

I personally have never played it on the DS but the game description caught my eye so I decided to give it a try, I wasn’t disappointed.

To give you an idea of the type of game it is, there are several different parts of the game. There is a lot of pointing and clicking around the screen looking at crime scenes. You can visually see the story unfold in the way of dialogue from each character. Finally it is a puzzle solving game where you really need you to think and look at the evidence and then unravel the murder mystery in each case.

There are five cases to solve and apparently these are the same as the GBA case files. Each case starts with you watching the story and the scene of the crime of how the murder happened. The case is then split into two phases. Investigation phase which is where you check out the scene of the crime, pointing and clicking looking at evidence. You will gather any evidence you find and then ask witnesses questions. At times the witnesses don’t say a lot but if you find some evidence and press them further they do start talking. Each time you find evidence that is relevant to the case it is saved for you to look at or use in court later.

The second part is the Court Phase which is where you present to the judge your evidence, you listen to testimonies and basically try to find the truth from all your findings. The judge at times will ask you to prove what you are stating with evidence, so you then have to look back at your findings and back up your story. You can object in court if you hear what they call a ‘contradiction’ which means you have heard something that isn’t correct because you have evidence to prove otherwise.

The controls for the game are very straight forward most of the time you are just pressing play on the screen to get the next part of the conversation. For examining the crime scene you just touch where you want to view and then the details will come up. Looking at the evidence and court room report is probably the most complex part of the game but then it is still easy to use. You just click on the eveidence you want to know about and it will then display the details for you to read.

The graphics are just like you would have played on the GBA so the animation isn’t that spectacular. The two screens you would have seen on the GBA have now been made compact and put onto one screen. The characters do have some facial expressions and make wierd noises which are far too cheesy for my liking! Very over the top and just a tacky part of the game play.

The game is addictive and enjoyable to play but a lot of the game play is just pressing the next button to see what the next person is going to say. So there is a lot of just reading and pressing which bored me slightly. The parts where you are in court and searching the crime scene were much better I just wish they was more of that and less chit chat in the game.

I’ve not completed the game yet but I will keep it and play it. If this is what the game is like now, with a few updates to tweak the graphics and game play it has the potential to be a great game.

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