Phoenix Wright's general quirkyness and fun gameplay makes this a must-have DS title.
You play as rookie defense attorney Phoenix Wright. Assisted with Mia Fey, you two basically defend witnesses in a court of law. Before the concept of this turns you off, I have to stress it's not anything like real court cases. It's not even close to anything you might've seen on The Practice or Law & Order. Court cases in the Phoenix Wright world last three days, with attorneys shouting "Objection!" frequently. And for some reason, each case involves murder in some way, shape, or form. I mean, even Law & Order realizes to try other forms of crime once in a while.
The game is split into two game types: The courtroom segments and the investigation segments. When you start the game, you're shown the ropes of the Courtroom segment. It's simple: A witness will give a testimony, and you must cross-examine the witness by pressing statements the witness has given, and find a contradiction between your evidence and the witness's testimony. Once you find that, you present it, and it continues that way. It's pretty simple, although the way of presenting items makes it too obvious to find out if you're right or wrong. For instance, if you're correct, the music stops, Phoenix goes into his diatribe and the game goes on. However, if you're wrong, the music continues, your "chances" show up, and then you lose said chance. This makes it too obvious, and should've been less so.
You get five chances during every courtroom segment. Every time you make a mistake, you lose a chance. Lose all five, and your defendant is declared guilty, and it's game over. You can't regain chances, so if you make too many mistakes in the beginning of a segment, you have a problem where you might make one small error and then lose 30 minutes of progress.
The investigation segments work a bit like a traditional adventure game: Go to locations, talk to people, present items to them to make them progress the story along, you get the idea. You can examine areas to find items to add to your court record, in addition to other mechanics. These are nice, but then Phoenix Wright shows its glaring flaw: it becomes too linear. There are no branching pathways or alternate chances, which makes it a bit stale, and can lead to problems where you're fumbling about for 30 minutes, trying to do the one particular thing needed in order to progress, be it talking to a certain person or finding something. The courtroom segments lead into this same problem in that there's only one right answer. A little leeway or spontaneity would've helped it from getting overly linear.
There are five cases in the game; the four from the original Gyakuten Saiban game, and one additional case that ties in elements to the later games, including a character you meet in a yet-to-be-released-in-the-US game. The fifth case introduces more DS mechanics such as the touch screen and microphone, although the game itself introduces some DS mechanics in the first four cases. Like using the stylus for examining rooms, or using the microphone to shout out phrases like "Objection!" and "Take That!". While these work, the voice communication is a bit hit or miss. While saying "Objection!" is usually recognized when I first say it, it sometimes takes a few tries for it to register me saying "Take That!" or "Hold it!" These are completely optional, and you can go through the majority of the game without using these features, but it immerses you in more when you actually use the touch screen and microphone.
Graphically Phoenix Wright goes for a somewhat exaggerated anime style, which fits with the game, as every character brings a good sense of emotion when they speak. Since it's an adventure game, expect to read lots and lots of text. The text itself isn't bad, but there are a handful of spelling and grammatical errors. Of course, this is Capcom, who's known for such phrases as "The master of unlocking."
In terms of the character design, most of the characters are a handful of stereotypes, such as a bubbly, flirty girl who appears in the second case to a young child obsessed by television shows who appears in case three. Of course, the designs for characters such as Phoenix or Miles Edgeworth are done tactfully as well, and none of the characters seem out of place with the story. However, it bothers me that all but about 3 female characters are well endowed. And the ones that aren't appear to be teenagers. Silly Japan and their boob fetish…
Phoenix Wright brings a nice, robust amount of music during the course of the game, with light, memorable themes, and fast-paced tunes when the time is right. It's not too noisy, and it's not even innocuous. Most of the game's other sounds refer to chirps or beeps when a person speaks. It's odd, but the particular sound oddly "fits" the majority of the characters. There are also sounds for words like "Objection!" and "Take That", and they tend to fit the character that it's being spoken by. It's all a nice touch.
The way Phoenix Wright saves is a bit weird, and the way it's shown may be at times misleading. You'll always get a chance to save at the end of a chapter point, but you can also save at any time. Except you cannot save and continue, only save and "suspend the game" (read: Quit). There is also no way to quit the game to go back to the title screen without saving, so once you save at the chapter point, you more or less can shut the unit off at your own leisure. It would've been nice to be given the option to quit at any time or save and continue.
As always the issue with adventure games, Phoenix Wright has not much in terms of replay value. There is nothing extra to unlock. Which makes sense, I mean, what could they give you, ways to see through your witnesses with magic rose-colored glasses? But the cases themselves hold enough to probably warrant a return trip to now and then.
Phoenix Wright is an underrated title. Had it not been for Internet word-of-mouth, this game would be on those websites where they cover obscure games nobody's heard of. And even then, it's not that well known. Even if you're not a fan of the text-based adventure, you'll love the gameplay (even if it's a bit flawed and overly linear) and story enough to play it again once in a while. It should definitely be in every DS owner's game collection.
Pros: Great art style, decent cases, exceptional music, useful DS functionality.
Cons: Game is too linear, heavy reliance on trial-and-error gameplay.