u/Bekenshi

I’ve been on a kick going through the Shu Takumi/Kazutaka Kodaka/Kotaro Uchikoshi games (or at least games they had a heavy hand in) that I’ve missed or have fallen through the cracks for a big ranking I want to do for arbitrary “it’s fun” reasons. I’m writing this 10 minutes after rolling credits, so everything is still incredibly fresh on my minds. PL vs. PW has always been an interesting enigma in the back of my mind, if only primarily because it’s one of the only games in this “hybrid VN” sphere that I knew *literally* nothing about. I went into this game blinder than a bat, down to not even knowing if people like this game or not. I have genuinely never seen a single soul discussing this game, so I was particularly excited to dive in not knowing if I was going to be enthralled or totally bored to death or whatever.

I will say that PL vs. PW doesn’t leave the best first impression, the opening hours are full of interesting ideas and obviously they’re tasked with setting the stage for everything that follows, but moment to moment “happenings” are honestly a bit of a slog to get through. The opening trial was especially dull, even for Ace Attorney tutorial case standards which, outside of a couple very specific examples, don’t necessarily have the best reputation of being particularly thrilling or gripping. But the thrill and grip certainly did come.

I don’t know if I’d be able to place my finger on the pulse of the exact moment that it happens, but the game suddenly really hits its stride and becomes genuinely compelling as hell. The setting is interesting, the side characters are a lot of fun. The sprinkles of the overarching mystery that the game begins dropping become much more engaging, and before long you realize 4 hours of your time got deleted because you’ve been locked in place. I honestly cant overstate how well paced the middle stretch of the game is. That first Witch Trial where it starts to settle in that the rules that govern this world and its magic system flip your conventional logic upside down (someone can just disappear from a crime scene by casting an invisibility spell on themself) make for some really creative back and forths during the trial segments. This is important because while I did enjoy the Layton and Luke sections and most of the puzzles were fun, much like the mainline games the trials still stand on top as far and away the most fun part of the experience. The ending of that first Witch Trial where the accused is caged and dropped into a pit of blazing flames while she screams about Espella…actual chills. And the next Witch Trial is even better. Way better.

The Golden Court is genuinely one of my favorite trials in the franchise. Layton being turned into one of those golden amiibo, Emeer my beloved (and I love how Barnham undergoes the Simon Blackwell effect of willing to compromise the rules of his position just to get him to shut the hell up), the interrogation of a bird heralding all the way back to one of Phoenix’s greatest moments, Jean Greyerl (no further elaboration). It’s pure cinema from start to finish, and it even ends super strongly. I loved seeing a more vulnerable, even emotionally volatile side of Phoenix after what happened to Maya. It’s grey sweet how much she means to him, and they explore that for just the proper amount of time for you to feel the gravity of it without committing to the obvious fakeout for too long because lmfao they obviously didn’t kill Maya. Everything was really carefully set up and laid out for the finale to deliver something truly insane, and what we got was…well…

I’m sure someone reading this is expecting this to be the part where I go on about how absurd the ending is and how contrived it is yada yada, but I’m the absolute wrong person for that job. I *love* endings like this, man. Super ambitious, divisive, messy. Two of my favorite video games of all time have endings pretty infamous for being wildly divisive, something about being willing to go completely nuclear and take a huge swing just really works for me. I quite enjoyed the ending, even if I’m partial to a lot of the tropes it employed (I adore twists that center around some elaborate ass shit that originated from something as simple as a father’s love for their daughter, and I’m also the biggest fan of “everything you’ve known is a Truman Show sized lie” that you’ll ever meet). It’s far, quite far, from being anything close to a perfect ending with some very noticeably sized plot holes and inconsistencies and the fact that they just…completely…forgot….Barnham…existed? What the hell was that about, I kept waiting for him to have some relevance to the happenings but he literally just stays locked away in a dungeon the entire time? Did they just run out of time or did they never have any vision of a completed character arc or story for him? Insanely disappointing as I actually liked him quite a bit and I was curious to see where the narrative would take him after his reaction to Maya’s fakeout death. Also not crazy about *just* how upstaged Phoenix is throughout the game, the collaboration really felt like it was exclusively focused on showing you how cool Layton was, which is fine, but please put some respect on my boy’s name as well too thank you. The reason he’s there in the first place was a MISTAKE? Come on now, so damn disrespectful.

I’m really curious to hear others thoughts on this one, since I’ve genuinely never heard what any other fan who has played this thinks about any part of it. What’s the general consensus? Whats YOUR consensus?

tl;dr - game was very fun and I was surprised, very far from perfect, I love the ending but also what the hell. Thank you for becoming Battler Ushiromiya for our sakes, Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright. What did YOU, dear reader, think about this game?