Yay, finished! For once the final case didn’t drag on forever and ever until I was sick of it. And so, for once, I’m not going to spoil the end of the game. You’ll have to play it yourself to see the final, shocking conclusion. And I do recommend it to anyone who likes the Ace Attorney series even a little bit. It doesn’t fix everything wrong with the series (lying witnesses, for example, are a series staple), but it’s miles better than Apollo Justice and much better paced than AA3 and Investigations.

Overall Dual Destinies is quite good, but like all the other games, the cases vary in quality. Case 1 is okay. Cases 2 and 3 generally suck, but not too terribly. If you can make your way through them, Cases 4 and 5 – 5 in particular – are very interesting. It helps that they’re the only ones where it isn’t blatantly clear who the culprit is. But if I talk too much, there’s a chance I’ll end up spoiling something, so I’ll keep the rest of this post short.

What I mean by “Capcom has redeemed itself.”

After the mess that was Apollo Justice, I told myself the series was washed up and would never recover. Thank goodness Capcom proved me wrong.
– No more Hobo Wright. Phoenix is back in blue!
– I wouldn’t have minded an all-Phoenix game, but they did a good job of integrating Apollo and the new rookie Athena into the main storyline. It was like 50% Athena, 30% Apollo and 20% Phoenix, and in my opinion they could have shuffled those numbers around a bit better, but it worked out pretty well.
– All the cases were fairly short, even the last one. The thing I hated most about the last few games was how long, convoluted and boring the cases were, especially the final one that tied everything together. The writers did a bang-up job with the final case, and it didn’t outstay its welcome either.
– Some of the cases are a bit stupid, but there are no flat-out nonsensical suspects like the little blind boy in Apollo Justice. Everyone accused could (barely) conceivably have done the deed.
– Characters from earlier games make cameos, but it’s not so overdone as to confuse newbies to the series.
– The localization was great as usual, apart from a few glaring mistakes (e.g. ‘formally’ instead of ‘formerly.’) It’s so cute how hard they try to pretend the game isn’t set in Jaapn.

The few things I wasn’t so happy about.

– Too much hand-holding. Even if you don’t notice it yourself, your partner in the stand will usually hint heavily at the right statement to press and the kind of evidence to provide. I hated having to play the earlier games with a FAQ in one hand, but the dumbing-down went a little too far.
– Not enough exploration! Part of the reason the game feels so short is that you can only examine one or two selected locations in every case. I miss being able to tap the randomnest things just to hear Phoenix and his sidekick’s comments on them. I also think it’s a bit of a dick move for Capcom to fill the Wright Anything Agency with so many interesting-looking doodads if they’re not going to let us examine them.
– The above-mentioned character cameos were nice, but kind of pointless. Apart from Edgeworth, none of the older characters really contributed anything. Pearls and Gavin, in particular, didn’t even need to be in the game.
– Edgeworth has really lost his edge, so to speak. He’s way too nice and way too helpful now. And his new character model makes him look old. The years have not been kind to Edgey.
– I don’t like prosecutor Blackquill. He’s too bland and too honorable. In fact, apart from Edgeworth and the von Karmas, I haven’t really taken to any of the prosecutors so far, so this isn’t anything new.
– I never thought I’d say this, but… I miss Maya. It’s just not the same without her stupid comments on every case.
– “Trust and hope and friendship will always win the day!” I know, Japan. You don’t have to spell it out every time.

The Ace Attorney games are all heavily-flawed in one way or another. It’s a simple matter of whether you can enjoy them regardless or not. The middle of Dual Destinies was kind of slow, and the “Trust conquers fear!” sermons in the last case made me roll my eyes, but the most important thing the game achieved is that it gave me hope for the future of the series. If you’re a series fan and you’ve been a little disillusioned lately, give this a chance. I was very pleasantly surprised, and you might be too.