Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy review for Nintendo Switch

With the recent release of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, North American Switch owners can now finally play through all of the mainline Ace Attorney entries, which is a great thing. It’s a fantastic series from Capcom, and I’m happy to see them finally bring this collection to the West. While your love of the three entries included here may vary a bit, I’d say all three games are worth playing, whether you were already a fan of the series or just wanted to see what all the fuss is about. It might be a little awkward story-wise if you jump in here, but I don’t think new players will struggle too much as the introduction of attorney Apollo Justice does make for a pretty solid entry point. 

The first game in this collection is Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the last of the Nintendo DS games originally released in 2008 in the West. As the name sort of implies, this is the introduction of Apollo Justice, switching perspective for the series slightly away from Phoenix Wright, the former protagonist of the prior three games. That’s not to say that Phoenix doesn’t still feature prominently throughout, and while this collection carries the Apollo Justice name, you’ll still see a whole lot of Phoenix across all three games. 

The other two entries, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice are both originally from the Nintendo 3DS, and feature 3D character models and animated cutscenes, a departure from the DS releases which still used pixels to render the courtroom drama. While I think I prefer the pixel-based artwork, the transition to the 3D isn’t too jarring, and the animations are still pretty well done. The animated cutscenes are a great addition though, adding some flair to each story and case. 

All three games tend to play similarly, but they also have their unique hooks, concepts, and eventually, minigames to engage in. Everything in this collection feels intact compared to the original releases, but there are a few minor additions, like the ability to listen to the soundtrack for each game, which is a great addition considering the music is so good throughout the series. I’d have loved to see even more content on the extras side of things, but this release is pretty barebones in that department.

Still, at $50 this is a solid collection of three really good portable games, rezzed up to modern HD screens and dimensions, with slight tweaks to account for former touchscreen controls and menus, making all three games feel right at home on the Nintendo Switch. Whether you’ve played the original releases or you’re jumping in for the first time, you really can’t go wrong with checking this collection out. It’s great to have the entire main series collected on the Switch, and hopefully this will help open the door for more Ace Attorney games in the near future. 

Note: Capcom provided us with an Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy Switch code for review purposes