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Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is my favorite Ace Attorney game like, by far.

Hopeford

Member
AAI2Coverenglish.jpg


For those of you guys that never played the game because it never got an official translation...please, do yourself a favor and play it. Especially if you are a huge fan of the original series.

What makes this game stands out above every other one in the series(to me at least) is that every single one of its cases are interconnected. I don't mean this in the sense the previous Investigations game had cases be vaguely connected to each other, I mean that characters in one case are important in the other and character development extends across cases.

Unlike every other game in the series, the package of 5 cases genuinely feels like a single large story with no/little filler in between. Every case is fantastic, villains are entertaining and the annoying comedy relief character was one of my favorite characters in the series by the end of the game.

One thing I don't like about post Trials & Tribulations PW is that the fact that the spotlight is shared between Phoenix/Apollo/Athena and it results in a very unfocused game. Here, the game is laser focused on Edgeworth and that combined with the very tight story make for some very, very entertaining hours.

This is not to say that side characters don't get developed(they certainly do) but the fact that the game never lets you forget that this is Edgeworth's show from start to finish makes the game tell the story it wants in a much more effective way than Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies or GS6.

(Major spoilers about this game's ending, just because I want to gush about one particular scene:)

Man, I seriously didn't expect to like Debeste/Yumihiko nearly as much as I did. His development from joke to "I know I'm a joke but I want to grow up now" was in my opinion the best done character evolution in the series by far. Always love the scene when he's standing in court against his dad.


TL;DR: If you like Ace Attorney, go play this game. Man I love this game so much.
 
Bought it, downloaded the translation patch, but never got around to playing it for whatever reason. Maybe because I found the first AAI a little underwhelming and I got distracted by other games, but I loved all of the main series games, so I should really give this some attention finally.
 

Hopeford

Member
Bought it, downloaded the translation patch, but never got around to playing it for whatever reason. Maybe because I found the first AAI a little underwhelming and I got distracted by other games, but I loved all of the main series games, so I should really give this some attention finally.

Yeah, I understand the hesitation due to the first AAI game being a little underwhelming, but personally I found the second game just amazing in every way. It learns from the first games' mistakes and corrects them in the best way.
 

MrBadger

Member
I agree on the spoilered part. My problem with the post-Takumi games has always been that the character development isn't as good, but
his entire redemption scene was perfect. He realises his flaws and comes to grips with them, but doesn't do a full 180 and suddenly become competent. I'd like to see him return in the future.
It also works as a great scene to show how far Edgeworth has come since the first game
 
Is it recommended to skip AAI and go straight into AAI2? I think I stopped on like the second or third case of AAI, it just didn't hold me.
 
Didn't AA3 kind of have interconnected cases too? (I think maybe one case diverged).

I really wanted to play this but I didn't want to give Capcom more money for not localizing games.
 

Aters

Member
Only played the first and it was kind of bad so I never cared for the sequel. Guess I should try this one out.
 

Nohar

Member
AAI establishes the character of Kay, who is a really nice addition to the cast.

In any case, AAI2 is certainly one of the best AA game. Do yourself a favor: play it.
 

Nyoro SF

Member
Agreed about post-AA3 character dilution in comparison. The fact that the game is wholly Edgeworth's story really helps.
 

TWILT

Banned
I played it for the first time a few months ago and I'd think I'd have to agree. Shame it never got localized, but the fan translation was really well done.
 

Hopeford

Member
Is it recommended to skip AAI and go straight into AAI2? I think I stopped on like the second or third case of AAI, it just didn't hold me.

It's technically possible to do it, but a couple characters that show up in AAI2 will be strangers to you. While AAI1 wasn't perfect, I feel like their plot in the second game has more of a punch if you play the first one.

That said if you feel like you really can't drag yourself through the first one, yeah it's still totally possible to play and enjoy this game without it.

Didn't PW3 kind of have interconnected cases too? (I think maybe one case diverged).

I really wanted to play this but I didn't want to give Capcom more money for not localizing games.

It did, but not to the same degree. PW3 had a couple interconnected cases, but also had two cases that had very little plot relevance aside from introducing Godot.

AAI2 is basically if like all 5 cases in PW3 were connected in even more direct ways than 3-1, 3-4 and 3-5. The cases kind of all directly influence each other and since they all happen in the span of a couple days (3 days I believe) the story feels a lot more packed than it did in 3, in my opinion.

Not sure if I'm explaining this right, I'm sure someone can do a better job at explaining the difference than me haha.
 

protonion

Member
I enjoyed it a lot but I liked the first more.

This and Apollo Justice have probably the best first cases in the series.
The part with the evidence tampering was brilliant.

The thing is, the later cases were overly complicated. It's been a while but I remember the second case became very difficult to follow after a point.
Also those chess dialogue parts were not that fun imo.

Actually I'm in the middle of replaying the whole series atm!
 

Hopeford

Member
I enjoyed it a lot but I liked the first more.

This and Apollo Justice have probably the best first cases in the series.
The part with the evidence tampering was brilliant.

The thing is, the later cases were overly complicated. It's been a while but I remember the second case became very difficult to follow after a point.
Also those chess dialogue parts were not that fun imo.

Actually I'm in the middle of replaying the whole series atm!

I see where you are coming from, but to me an overly complicated murder mystery is a good murder mystery haha. So long as the writer manages to keep his shit together and avoids plot holes, I mean. And I think the complicated shit works out brilliantly here so it's my favorite game in the series, but yeah I can see why it wouldn't be for everyone.

I positively love seeing the puzzle pieces fall in place though. It's like a bunch of small little things in a case will suddenly make sense the case after and it's just so wonderfully done.
 
Glad you liked it. As sad as it is, I helped on the fan translation (I did localizing) and I still haven't finished Cases 4 and 5. Hopefully I'll get to them during my company's 4th of July shutdown.
 
On a related note, is there any decent english insert art for this game? I have a copy with "NEW Best Price! 2000" slapped on the top of the label which I wouldn't mind replacing with something else. The image in the OP is the same one from the GBATemp thread, but I'm not seeing anything for the back of the case.
 

Theodoricos

Member
Absolutely, Investigations 2 is definitely up there among the best Ace Attorney games and more people who are fans of the series should play it. I wouldn't put it above AA1 or AA3 though, both of which I enjoyed a little bit more, but it was such a leap forward from Investigations 1.
 
It's a big improvement, but I feel like it still has a lot of problems AAI1 had, like really bloated cases and plenty of forgettable side characters.

Logic chess is really dull as well.
 

Hopeford

Member
On a related note, is there any decent english insert art for this game? I have a copy with "NEW Best Price! 2000" slapped on the top of the label which I wouldn't mind replacing with something else. The image in the OP is the same one from the GBATemp thread, but I'm not seeing anything for the back of the case.

If I recall, the translation patch .rar comes with art for the front and back of the box in a pdf.
 

Bakkus

Member
I really liked how every case were fully connected, but man, every case was soooo long. Every single one could have been trimmed a lot between Edgeworth's originally fun but after a while really tiresome smarmy remarks, and when you investigate the wrong place and are stuck listening to Edgeworth, Kay and Gumshoes mostly unfunny dialogue for a long time.
 

higemaru

Member
Yeah, I played through this last year and it's definitely tied for 2nd favorite with the first game. It finally did the interconnected case thing that I had been wanting them to do for years. And I love the side characters and how they brought back side characters from past games
 

Genio88

Member
Well, I played all the main serie and the first Miles one, but never got the chance to play this, thanks for the tip, i'll play it on Surface Pro 4, had nothing else to play right now
 
Such a fantastic game. The characters, story, music and writing (in the fan translation at least) is all top notch and definitely a highlight of the series. I'm really happy early impressions of AA6 have compared it to this game in terms of case structure. The fact that every case is connected lead up to the best final case in the series with twist after twist culminating in a seriously satisfying conclusion.

It's just a shame so few of the cast will ever appear in an Ace Attorney game ever again. I really want more of Courtney, Shields and Debeste, not to mention the 'forgotten' Gumshoe, Kay and Franciska.
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
I briefly started this and stopped for whatever reason. I remember liking it a lot, so it's weird that I stopped.
 

Javier

Member
I remember playing the original patch that only had cases 1 and 2 and never got around to play the rest. I need to get on that.
 

Hopeford

Member
I remember playing the original patch that only had cases 1 and 2 and never got around to play the rest. I need to get on that.

If you do, remember to check out the translation's GBAtemp page because if I recall they had a bunch of save files ready in case people were starting over and didn't want to replay cases 1 and 2.
 
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