Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit

2025-04-18
Our favorite Baron of Autism, Prosecutor Supreme, Miles Edgeworth returns and, thanks to the recent Ace Attorney Investigations Collections release in English, a whole army of weebs who gave up on learning Japanese when they had to start memorizing hundreds of kanji can finally play it (that's me!!). Our handsome ruffled Logic Lord brings with him all the things that were great about the original. That means--yes--more insanely young characters like a judge who is uhhh 26 and a bodyguard for a president who is hmm 24. Sounds about right! More beautiful animations as Edgeworth owns people with his overwhelming cerebral might. My favorites were the kid who hits himself in the face with his metal pointer with a pleasing "SWIIIT" noise, leaving a red mark. And of course the person who goes to lean against nothing until a pig pops up from the bottom of the screen ("OOOINK"), followed by a chipmunk sitting on the pig's head, finally with a cat hopping up to be held by the strong-man chipmunk so the person can finally rest their elbow on the cat's back like an armrest. It's fucking delightful. Mechanically much is the same which is A-OK with me though this time Edgeworth rolls up his sleeves by Mind-Chess'ing people. That's right ol' Edgey gets a whole chess-themed minigame for condescendingly outsmarting the rubes who dare face off against him. It rules.

Of course the beating heart of the game is its windy plot of conspiracies and hidden motives and unknown parties. It all wraps up nicely in a final act with a payoff reminiscent of finishing the original trilogy of Ace Attorney proper. Holding it all up is another all-timer cast of characters. I'm genuinely blown away how good Shu Takumi's team is at creating these characters who you often start feeling one way about and then through fantastic characterization and development they make you feel a totally different way about. I'm being purposefully vague for spoilers reasons but, man, the cast you end up with at the end I really grew to love. Top notch work.

I don't buy that AAI1 isn't worth your time and that you should skip to AII2 but what's on offer here definitely is a step up and the perfect cherry on top to Edgeworth's Autist's Delight Sundae.