Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies is a visual novel adventure video game developed and published by Capcom. It is the fifth main entry in the Ace Attorney series, and was originally released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013, with iOS and Android versions following in 2014 and 2017. It was also released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in 2024 as part of the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy compilation.
The game is set around a year after the previous game, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, in a time when the court system has entered a dark era of false charges and fabricated evidence, caused in part by the event that led to Phoenix being unjustly disbarred. The player takes the roles of three defense attorneys Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes, who defend their clients in multiple cases and try to restore confidence in the courts. The gameplay is split into investigation sections, where the player searches for evidence and talks to witnesses, and trials, where they search for inconsistencies between witness testimonies and the evidence. The player can use some character-specific gameplay mechanics: Phoenix can see "psyche-locks" over witnesses who are hiding something, Apollo can spot visual cues in witnesses that indicate deception, and Athena can detect conflicting emotions in witnesses' voices.
The development team included the producer Motohide Eshiro, the directors Takeshi Yamazaki and Yasuhiro Seto, and the composer Noriyuki Iwadare. Due to the game being made a long time after Apollo Justice, the developers wanted it to make a big impact, and came up with the idea of the player working to revive the trial system. As it was the first Ace Attorney game on the Nintendo 3DS, the developers made use of 3D graphics; they focused on preserving the look of the earlier Ace Attorney games' 2D art, and wanted to ensure that the graphics looked better than those in the simultaneously developed Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. The game's localization was directed by Janet Hsu, and was incorporated into the overall development, allowing the localization team a larger degree of insight into the developers' intentions. The game was generally well received by critics, who praised the audio, visuals and character art, but criticized the game for sometimes not accepting logically valid input during trials. The game achieved the estimated sales, which were high compared to how the franchise had performed in the past.
Gameplay
Dual Destinies is a visual novel adventure game in which the player takes the roles of three defense attorneys: Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, and Athena Cykes. The player aims to solve multiple cases and get their clients declared not guilty, which is how the game's episodes are cleared.The gameplay is split into two types of sections: investigations and trials. During investigations, the player goes to the crime scene, where they have access to a menu with four options: examine, which brings up a cursor used to search for evidence and clues; talk, which lets the player interview a witness at the current location, choosing from a number of a topics to discuss; present, which lets the player show the witness evidence; and move, which brings up a list of locations the player can choose to go to. At some points, the player can use Apollo's "perceive" mechanic to watch for visual cues in a witness as they are talking, such as a twitching eye, that indicate that they are lying. The player can also sometimes use Phoenix's "psyche-lock" mechanic to see locks on the hearts of witnesses who are hiding something.
During trials, the player cross-examines witnesses. They can move backwards and forwards through statements in the testimony, and can choose to press the witness for more information on a particular statement; sometimes, the witness will revise their testimony based on this. If the player spots a lie or a contradiction in the testimony, they can present evidence to demonstrate the contradiction. If the player presents incorrect evidence, the judge's confidence in the player will be lowered; if the judge's confidence in the player is depleted, the game ends.
At some points, the player can use Athena's "mood matrix" mechanic to detect conflicting emotions in witnesses' voices during their testimonies, such as sudden happiness in the middle of fear. Four different emotions can show up in testimony analyses – happiness, anger, shock, and sadness – which will light up with different intensity. The player goes through the testimony, and aims to determine the cause of the conflicting emotion. Near the end of trials, when the player is close to solving the case, they can use the "revisualization" mechanic to look back at known facts and make a series of deductions by picking the right choices, to reach a conclusion.
Plot
Characters and setting
Dual Destinies takes place roughly a year after the events of the previous game, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. The legal system has entered an era known as "the dark age of the law", filled with false charges and fabricated evidence. The game features three playable protagonists: Phoenix Wright, the owner of the Wright Anything Agency who has retaken the bar exam to once again become a defense attorney; Apollo Justice, a junior attorney at the agency; and Athena Cykes, the agency's newest hire who specializes in analytical psychology. During their court cases, they frequently clash with Simon Blackquill, a practicing prosecutor despite being an inmate on death row for murder. Other characters include Trucy Wright, Phoenix's adoptive daughter; Miles Edgeworth, the district chief prosecutor and Phoenix's friend and rival; Pearl Fey, a spirit medium and Phoenix's friend; Juniper Woods, a law student and Athena's childhood friend; and Bobby Fulbright, an enthusiastic police detective who constantly claims to fight for justice.Plot
After Athena Cykes - a defense attorney who specializes in analytical psychology - joins the Wright Anything Agency, Phoenix Wright tasks her and Apollo Justice with defending Damien Tenma, the mayor of Tenma Town, who is accused of murdering Nine Tails Vale alderman Rex Kyubi. Despite opposition from prosecutor Simon Blackquill and his detective partner Bobby Fulbright, Apollo and Athena expose Kyubi's real killer as Tenma's aide, Florent L'Belle, who had plotted to kill Kyubi and frame Tenma to gain access to Nine Tails Vale's treasure to pay off a huge debt.Additional content set after these events tells the story of Phoenix's first case after regaining his badge, having to defend an orca accused of killing aquarium owner Jack Shipley. Investigating the case, Phoenix proves the orca innocent, only for her handler Sasha Buckler to be accused of the crime; Phoenix later determines Shipley's death was accidental, resulting from an attempt by employee Marlon Rimes to murder the orca out of revenge for an incident the year prior where the Orca allegedly killed Marlon's girlfriend Azura Summers, but Phoenix proves to Marlon that Azura died from a heart condition and not from the apparent Orca attack. Distraught, Marlon promises to atone for his crimes.
Afterward, Athena's friend Juniper Woods is charged with the murder of her teacher, Constance Courte. Athena takes her case and reveals the killer to be Courte's fellow teacher, Aristotle Means, who had killed Courte to protect himself after she discovered that he had been accepting bribes from student Hugh O'Conner's parents to give him good grades.
Sometime later, following a bombing at a space center, Apollo's friend Clay Terran is found murdered, and fellow astronaut Solomon Starbuck is declared the primary suspect, with Apollo and Athena taking on his defense. During Starbuck's trial, a bomb goes off in the courtroom, injuring Apollo and detective Candice Arme is killed in the process. Juniper is accused of both the bombing and Arme's murder, but Phoenix and Athena defend her and reveal bomb squad specialist Ted Tonate as the real culprit of both crimes. Feeling personally involved in the case, Apollo takes a leave of absence from the agency to investigate on his own while Phoenix takes over Solomon's case. He proves Solomon's innocence via the testimony of the space center's director Yuri Cosmos, but a new piece of evidence places Athena as the prime suspect in Clay's murder, resulting in her arrest.
Phoenix's investigation brings him to look into an incident seven years ago, in which Athena's mother Metis was killed and Blackquill was convicted for the murder after he confessed. Meanwhile, Tonate confesses to murdering Arme but pleads his innocence with regard to the courtroom bombing. With one day until Blackquill's planned execution, his sister Aura takes several people hostage, including Phoenix's daughter Trucy, demanding that a re-trial of the case be held to convict Athena for Metis' murder. With no time left to secure a proper courtroom, Phoenix decides to hold the trial in the courtroom destroyed in the earlier bombing. Together with chief prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, Phoenix deduces that a third party was responsible for the murder, proving both Blackquill's and Athena's innocence. Blackquill reveals that he confessed to the crime in order to protect Athena, while Athena reveals that she became a lawyer to one day prove Blackquill's innocence.
Edgeworth declares Blackquill a free man and places him back in charge as a prosecutor for the case while he retrieves vital information. Phoenix learns that the true culprit behind both Metis' and Clay's murders was the Phantom, an international spy that has disguised himself as Bobby Fulbright, who has actually been deceased for about a year now. The Phantom posed as Fulbright to steal evidence that would expose his true identity, fearing he would be killed by his enemies should it be revealed. To this end, he arranged the courtroom bombing to destroy a moonrock that would reveal his identity. With the assistance of Edgeworth, Blackquill, Apollo and Athena, Phoenix manages to break the normally emotionless Phantom, who is shot non-fatally by an unseen sniper. After proving the Phantom's guilt, the Wright Anything Agency sees Solomon off as he heads into space.