Even though I was somewhat disappointed with PW: Justice For All, I was looking forward to Trials and Tribulations. I knew it was the last of the “GBA remakes,” and, therefore, wouldn’t have a lot of new gameplay mechanics… but that doesn’t really matter right? Because let’s face it, the actual gameplay of the Phoenix Wright series sucks. If we were just judging it on it’s adventure game mechanics, it’d probably score lower than I did on my SATs. Okay maybe it doesn’t suck, but who plays Phoenix Wright games for the actual “gaming” elements anyway?

Seriously, the puzzles usually don’t make sense, there’s not a lot of variety to what you have to do and the majority of the time the gameplay breaks down to this: make a guess, make another one, oops too many penalties, RESET. The games are far too linear and even though you might be able to come up with several contradictions and ways to solve puzzles, unless you’re able to figure out the exact solution that the games want you deduce.

Nope, there are 2 reasons why people enjoy the Phoenix Wright games: 1. Insane Inane Storylines and 2. Inane Insane characters. I’ll try not to spoil anything, but Trials and Tribulations story and cast are my favorite in the series so far. Phoenix wright returns as the main protagonist again. I guess you can say he’s pretty harmless or whatever. The real star of Trials and Tribulations is the new prosecutor, Godot. There’s just something about him that awakens my inner fanboy. Maybe it’s the fact that he wears one of eye visor things like Cyclops, only it’s three times as cool because there’s three eye slits.

I enjoyed the new (and returning) characters as well, even though Jean Armstrong (pictured right) is going to give me nightmares for a long long time.

Storywise, there’s the usual amount of twists and turns that a Phoenix Wright game goes through. Just when you thought things couldn’t get more crazy, they do. And after that, they get even crazier. And after that, even more crazierer. It’s one big ball of crazy craziness that’s crazier than any crazy thing that Britney Spears, Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier can come up with.

I really enjoyed Trials and Tribulations… probably moreso since this is the last game to have Phoenix as the main character. He just kind of grows on you. As stated earlier, I’m not too big on the gameplay and there were times where I wanted to throw my DS in frustration because I wasn’t able to figure out what to do next ( I refused to use gameFAQs… especially in a game like this with little replay value…), but the characters and stories were highly entertaining and made me LOL and ROFLMAO at time. Seriously. I ROFLMAO’ed.

Score: 8.5

By the way, I’m really looking forward to the next game in the series since it’s the first one that’s specially made for the DS. I can’t wait to see what kind of gimmicks and special features will be included.

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