THE WILSON GAZETTE

Game Review - Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright Trials and Tribulations

 

By Shanna Deng

 

 

Introduction

 

So far, Trials and Tribulations has been the best game in the Ace Attorney franchise that I have ever played. But then again, I’ve only ever completed three out of the almost 10 games in the franchise. Each case is detailed and challenging, the music is amazing, and the ending is heartbreaking.

 

The Game

 

Trials and Tribulations was made by Capcom, a company licensed by a very popular company named Nintendo. In Japan, it was originally called Gyakuten Saiban 3. It’s a visual novel adventure video game where the main antagonist in the entire franchise, Phoenix Wright, acts as a defense attorney.

 

The beginning of every case has Phoenix Wright accepting a case. Then, he investigates a bunch of random places ranging from French restaurants to freezing spiritual temples to random people’s houses. At those places, Phoenix examines the area, searching for evidence. Also, you’ll meet a bunch of people related to the current case, weirdos ranging from an evil woman who can set butterflies on fire at will, an insane old man who throws seeds at everybody he meets, to an overly derpy detective whose salary is always cut because he derps too much. After you find enough evidence, you go to court, obviously. There’s only a judge, the defense, the prosecution, and the witnesses, and every case only lasts three days, with a few exceptions, because of logic. That’s why. Logic. Well, all you do is pretty much question everything everybody says, shove evidence into random people’s faces, and shout random things at an unnecessarily high volume. Or, in simpler terms, lawyering. After your lawyering eventually pulls through, you’ll get your ‘not guilty’ verdict and then you celebrate before you move onto your next case! Whoopee!

 

Special Features

Some special features have been added to Trials and Tribulations to enhance the eventually boring task of investigating. A big example is Psyche-Locks, locks that are discovered locking up the secrets in people’s hearts, using Phoenix’s Magatama, a gift from his assistant, Maya Fey. Yes, I know, this feature was introduced in the previous game, Justice for All. Your goal when you encounter these locks is to shatter them, making the person you’re talking to tell you an important secret that they’re hiding from you. Usually, these secrets are extremely important to the case and may turn the entire case around. But sometimes, you just need to shatter a person’s Psyche-Locks to make them talk to you. The number of Psyche-Locks a person has ranges, making your task of destroying them more challenging because you have to present evidence to break them. Early in the game, you’ll encounter about one or two. But you’ll eventually have to break four or five, which is the maximum amount of locks. Psyche-Locks aren’t the only feature in Trials and Tribulations that make investigating more exciting. In the final case, Bridge to Turnabout, the derpy detective whose salary is always cut, lends you his prized, amazing, super hi-tech… Metal Detector! You use this metal detector to find a very important piece of evidence that turns out to be vital to the case.

 

Music

Another thing to add is that Trials and Tribulations is the amazing music. The “Pursuit Caught” theme is awesome and makes you want to get your rightful verdict even more, but on the contrary, the “Hazy Scenery from the Bridge” theme is downright depressing. Every single note in every single song is flawless, matching the current condition of your surroundings perfectly. Personally, the music from Trials and Tribulations is my favorite or second favorite, the second best or best music coming from the original game, simply called Phoenix Wright. The music is an enormous part of the game.

 

Humor

You may think that Trials and Tribulations is just a boring, serious court of law game, but that’s not true. The entire game has a strong sense of humor, making lame puns, funny insults and quoting books and movies. Yay, humor and sarcasm…  

 

All In All…

Trials and Tribulations is an amazing game because it is challenging, has great music, and has humor. It’s the best!

 

 

 

 

 

Video Game Review: Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask

 

 

By Tyler Stinson

 

 

 

This game follows up Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. In the advertisement for this video game, people are watching a boxing match and halfway through it, gameplay was shown for the first time. As a player, you get three days to complete the gameplay because in the game, the moon is going to crash into Earth in three days, and you have to stop it in time. You fight bad guys and have unlimited time to do this. The gameplay is amazing for the N64 game standards, but each level is hard, so there are a lot of challenges you will face.

 

This Zelda game has a lot of history behind it. Majora's Mask came out in 2000 on Nintendo Game Cube, so the game is 16 years old. The story behind the game is that a Skull Kid steals Link's ancient artifact called Majora's Mask. Link now is in a new world. He encounters a salesman named Mr. Smiley and he gives you supplies along the way and tells you that you have three days to get the Skull Kid in order to save the world. 

 

 

Gameplay: 5 stars

Cutscenes: 5 stars

Puzzles: 5 stars

Level design: 5 stars

Challenge: Intense

Overall Rating: A+

 

 

 

 

Game Review - Pokemon Platinum

By Shanna Deng

 

 

Introduction

Pokemon Platinum and the other games that take place in Sinnoh have been my favorites so far. The Sinnoh region is large and detailed, the battles are challenging, but still fair, and it features the first female champion, Cynthia, who is also the best champion. That is a fact, not an opinion.

 

 

The Game

The Sinnoh region is where your journey takes place. In my opinion, the Sinnoh region is the best and most interesting of the six regions. That may just be because Pokemon Diamond was the first Pokemon game I’ve played. There are many towns, cities, and routes to take, which makes your journey interesting and fun. The Sinnoh region takes you from Cycling Road, a steep downhill ride from Eterna City to Oreburgh City to Mt. Coronet, the central and biggest cave in the Sinnoh region, if not the biggest cave in the entire Pokemon franchise! There is a perfect mix of grasslands, caves, water, forests, and swamps, which can offer you many types of Pokemon.

 

 

The Battles

As I’ve said before, the battles in this game are mostly challenging and introduce you to many unique Pokemon and trainer classes. The game also gives you just enough levels to make it through, but not too much as to make you a killing machine, demolishing everything in your wrath. In X and Y, for example, by the time you arrive to the 7th Gym Leader, Olympia, the trainers and Olympia herself are around level 40, a normal level range from the 7th Gym Leader. But the game gives you so much EXP that, even with more than six Pokemon, or a full team, all of your Pokemon easily exceed level 70, destroying Pokemon that are weak to you. To stay at a somewhat normal level, you would have to train three full teams, or 18 Pokemon. In fact, in Pokemon Platinum, the Gym Leaders, Elite Four and Champion can be several levels higher than you!

 

When you get to the Pokemon League in Pokemon Platinum, your Pokemon are a little below level 50. In the Elite Four, you can only gain so many levels, reaching level 50 or a bit higher. Cynthia’s ace in her already amazingly balanced and strong team is at level 62! Not only that, but her Garchomp has a super powerful and balanced moveset. Garchomp’s main two moves are Dragon Rush and Earthquake. When you add the STAB bonus, the power of both moves boost from 100 to 150. If a move were to be super effective x2, the power would rise to 200. If a move were super effective x4, the power would boost to 250, equivalent to the highest-power move, Explosion. Also, combined with Garchomp’s insane attack and speed stats, it’s pretty much a killing machine, which is what the strongest trainer in the Sinnoh region’s strongest Pokemon should be like. But it’s not completely invincible. Since it’s dragon and ground-type, it has a x4 weakness: ice-type. But Garchomp knows Earthquake and if it used it against your ice-type, the attack would have 200 power boosted by an over-200 attack stat. But that doesn’t mean the rest of Cynthia’s team is weak. The rest of her team is about level 60 and is extremely balanced. The other Pokemon she has are Spiritomb, Milotic, Roserade, Togekiss, and Lucario. Have fun getting your face frozen in what I call the “Cynthia Domination Face”. I’ve worn it recently.

 

 

Music

Similar to most other games I like, this game has good music. Some people disagree with one YouTuber, ABrandonToThePast, even saying that the Sinnoh region had no memorable soundtracks. I completely disagree. Cynthia’s theme is my favorite champion theme in the entire franchise. The Pokemon League theme is depressing, as if the game is telling you that you’ve come to the end of your journey and after you become Champion, there’s nothing left to do… NOT! You get to explore several faraway areas, encounter many more battles and Pokemon, and do some other after-game stuff. But after that you’re pretty much done.

 

 

Conclusion

This is my favorite game in the Pokemon franchise and is one of my favorite overall games (not that I have a favorite). There are so many things great about it and I’ve replayed it several times, never getting bored of it!