Extremely fun game with a cool super hero/sentai aesthetic. The drawing mechanic is really unique, although it takes a little while to get the hang of how to draw each shape. I heard it was like a spiritual successor to Viewtiful Joe, but it's really a completely different game, and I ended up liking it way more than I thought I would.

I gotta say though, Kamiya was wild for this one. Dude added like multiple shoot em up levels ON TOP of the obligatory Space Harrier level. He just went crazy when making this game.

This game is just super disappointing honestly. Coming right after Apollo Justice chronologically, Apollo as a character gets completely shafted while they introduce somebody completely new. Athena and Blackquill are cool characters but half the cases are just kinda boring. The solutions to the mysteries feel more obvious than in previous games (though maybe that's just because I played this 7 years ago and still remember a little bit), but the final case and the ending are actually pretty good. The whole overarching story is OK overall, probably could have been delivered better.

The presentation of this game is actually pretty good though, especially the new 3D graphics. Most of the character models look great, and it's neat how they can do more creative camera angles in a 3D space like panning across the courtroom. Obviously there are things you can do in 2D that don't work in 3D and vice versa but I think they still pulled off the style of animation they'd been using in the older games pretty well in this one. I really enjoyed the soundtrack as well, especially the remixes of Phoenix and Apollo's themes. There are a lot more little aspects that I enjoyed, but overall this one was just OK.

Also they finally added a log so you can scroll up and see old text. Took them seven games to do that somehow.

Pretty neat spinoff to the Ace Attorney series. It leans more on the side of point and click adventure game compared to the main games which are more VN-like. The cases are ok, the last one goes on for a little too long but it was still a cool mystery. I actually kind of like how every case follows a central narrative, instead of the somewhat disconnected court cases of the main series. Though I don't think either style is any better or worse, it's just cool to see something a little different. Not much to say about this game other than Shi-Long Lang is a CHAD.

I spent half of this game confused and pissed off, but then at a certain point everything in the story starts to make sense and it's cool.

The RTS battles are pretty fun but they definitely feel like the weaker part of the game. The presentation of them is really weird too, your units and enemies just show up as lights on the map and it gets hard to tell what's going on when there are a ton of them on screen.

Music and art are also good. Cool game.

Portrait of Ruin is, as the title suggests, a game about portraits. Of ruin.

The way the portraits work reminds me of Lament of Innocence, where there were various levels separate from the castle that you could go to. Except in this one, the castle is its own level instead of just being a hub. The idea of going into portraits to get more abilities in order to explore more of the castle is really cool,but they're unfortunately very linear. The order that you do the portraits in is set unless you do some wacky sequence breaking techniques. The second half is a little better with this, letting you explore the last four portraits in any order. I also liked how they were remixed versions of the previous levels, sort of like the reverse castle in SOTN.

Jonathan and Charlotte are both incredibly fun to play, and it doesn't feel like one character is straight up better than the other. Jonathan has better gear and more options for weapons, and Charlotte has a large variety of spells, both for support and damage. The switching mechanic is unfortunately pretty underused aside from a few early game puzzles. Although I do find it pretty satisfying when both characters out and you can combo enemies to death.

The story is also pretty good, usually Castlevania stories are pretty minimal but this one is quite a bit more involved. I especially enjoyed the callbacks to Bloodlines, which this game is a sequel to. Jonathan and Charlotte also have great banter, and play off each other well.

My only complaints are that it's pretty linear, and also very grindy on account of the subweapons and all the side quests. Other than that, I enjoyed this game quite a lot. Also, extra points for having dual audio in 2006 on a fucking DS game. Based Konami.

This game is like actually true kino. I feel like I said that about Investigations 2 already but I'm saying it again for this one.

I thought Dual Destinies looked nice visually, but DGS really blows it out of the water. This definitely feels like a much more high budget game in comparison with how much effort they put into the presentation. The models look great, and the animations are a step above AA5. They're much more fluid in comparison, whereas AA5 was trying to go for a more limited kind of animation that was in the older games. The artstyle is also great, and I appreciate the whole Victorian-style aesthetic they were going for with the designs and background art. Of course the soundtrack is really good as well as it usually is in these games, but the orchestral style really does a lot to distinguish this from the main series, as well as compliment the game's setting.

In terms of story I actually don't have that much to talk about. I enjoyed all of the cases pretty much, and the main cast is really charming. Van Zieks is probably one of the most intimidating prosecutors in the series. It really feels like you're fucked when you start your first trial in London against him. Sadly he feels a little underdeveloped compared to Edgeworth or some of the other ones, but his deal will probably get expanded on in the sequel.

Only reason this gets a 4.5 is because most of the story just feels like setup, but I wasn't bored or pissed off by it at all. Guessing there will be more pay off in Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2, whenever that gets translated 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Also they removed the log button which they finally added in AA5, what the fuck Capcom?