One fairly common complaint about PW:AA:JFA is that the cases were "shortened" from three days of investigation/trial to two. Of course, the game is hardly shorter due to the extended lengths of each of these sections, but I think the decision to divide the cases in this manner was a quite rational one, and the subject begs exploration.

The basic format of cases in GS has never varied (excepting the x-1 cases, which, being basically tutorials, do not support multi-day proceedings). On Logical Day 1 (Including Day 1's investigation and Day 2's morning trial), the case is introduced, most of its major characters enter, and (in the trial portion) the bare facts of the crime are investigated. It usually ends with some sort of shocking revelation that makes Phoenix's case viable.

On the final Logical Day, the murderer is revealed, the dark and twisted past of the case is revealed (what is it with Phoenix and dark and twisted pasts?), the murderer is revealed, and the final confrontation occurs in the courtroom. A "Not Guilty" is handed down, and confetti flies.

The second day has always occupied a nebulous and ill-defined position in the case. In 1-5 has a second day because it uses the unique format of 3 crime scenes, one for each day. In 1-3, its existence is necessitated only by Cody, a witness unknown on the first day. This works fine for "Turnabout Samurai", but in how many cases can you realistically expect an unknown witness to show up for the second day. In fact, since both his and Oldbag's testimonies pertain to the identity of that picture, the trial could have easily been restructured to a two day format (probably including moving Sal's testimony to the final day). In 1-4, it really is unnecessary. Larry's testimony could easily serve as the climax of Logical Day 1. The final day could have been expanded by adding to Polly's testimony, perhaps?

I don't mean this as a suggestion; my point is that the format for PW is easiest to write cases for in a two-day trial system.

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But, the fact of the matter is that three day trials do exist in PW1. I'm not complaining about the length of the cases - well, maybe a little bit. I miss the three day trials from PW1. In fact, I rather enjoy the second day of the three day cases. Yes, they were unecessary but they exist for the sake of plot continuity and give the player more time to ponder and contemplate the case at hand. PW2 seemed rushed with just the two day trials.

One of my main complaints about JFA is that there's not enough time to think about what the case has to offer. It's like, "Get in! Get done! Get out! That's it! Case closed! Have a nice day!" By shortening the case down to a two-day trial you're effectively erasing the fact that court proceedings only have a three day time limit. Why not take advantage of that three day time limit and deliver the climax on the final day, aka "The hour of ultimate truth and judgement"?

Personally, I'm hoping there will be more "Three-day" trials in PW3.

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Huh, to be honest, I hadn't really noticed the smaller number of days in JFA's trials. I attribute this to the addition of pre-murder "investigation" periods and the increased number of save points.

Yes indeed, I actually thought that the "shortening" of the cases was an improvement, as the cases weren't really much shorter, and we got to spend more time where its the most fun: in the courtroom. After all, many of the courtroom segments (including case 1) were long enough to be broken into multiple parts with saves in between, so we weren't really missing out on courtroom action. I think part of the reason for the change was that people were complaining that the investigation segments of the first game were dull, and mostly just felt like "busywork," so in JFA, they cut one day of investigation and added the psyche-locks, and I think that it was quite effective.

That being said, it does involve some sacrifices, like those that Macbeth pointed out. I think that cases two and three were fine. Case two was short enough to do in two days, and I kind of liked how each day of case three had a different subplot (day 1: Max/Regina/Trilo love triangle, day 2: Bat's accident). In fact, I kind of liked the rushed feeling, but not necessarily more than the slower, more meticulous process of the three-day trials. It was like "You have no time to prepare so you have to think on your feet!" I do think that case four would have been much improved with a third day, though. The drama and intrigue could easily have been stretched out, and made the ending all the more powerful.

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My thoughts exactly!

There was definitely enough to work with in Case 4 to extend it for three days. If it weren't so short I would easily consider the best case thus far in the history of "Phoenix Wright games released outside Japan".

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Last edited by Mr. Bear Jew on Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

If the court aspects themselves weren't longer the second time around, I'd be more inclined to agree, but the proceedings last so long that at times it feels like it's actually more than three days, especially later in the game.

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Anyway, as for the topic, I didn't really mind either way. The cases themselves were about the same lengths, so I don't care how it's divided up. I do normally prefer 3 day trials though, because I prefer taking things in small chunks--when the investigation and court periods were both drawn out so much, it got tiring and made it hard for me to focus. Maybe that's just me, though.

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There are two. *not really spoilers*

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I Never really Noticed the Length of the Trials, I Did like AA:1 Better than AA:2... But At least AA:3 Looks Promising

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EDIT: Whoops! Never mind. Thanks, Ivan!

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I didn't even notice until you pointed that out O-O Shows how unobvious to me it was. I guess it was to....well, I agree with you guys for the reasons for shortening, but I didn't even notice...

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I dunno... I personally think that a lot of the cases in AA 1 would have been shorter with the psyche-lock feature. You have to remember that this allows you to catch the witnesses on many of their lies before the court session, e.g.

Not really. The magatama isn't an unlocker of secrets, it simply tells you that someone DOES have a secret. Since it isn't really a lie-detector so much as a device that triggers when someone's hiding something, you can't even use it to tell WHAT they're hiding. You need to have evidence to unlock the answer, which unless they added some in to go along with the magatama feature, wouldn't have been there...also, by the time they'd added said new evidence in, the case would have gotten longer anyway.

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Well yeah, but in said spoiler if you had known that said characters were lying, you could have found contradicting evidence and found the real killer much faster. The problem was that you didn't know that she was lying, so you had nowhere to go otherwise.