Attorney video game gains cult following

The world of video games has deteriorated to poor first person shooters and repetitive offshoots of video games made 20 years ago. However, video games, like other forms of entertainment, have popular cult fan bases thriving on the next installment of their favorite series.

"Phoenix Wright" is certainly a video game series to obsess over. This adventure/visual novel game series began as a Game Boy Advance game in Japan and made its way to the US for the Nintendo DS in 2005.

Phoenix Wright is a defense attorney in the year 2016 in a city that appears to be post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. Often dealing with extreme murder cases and clients who always seem to be guilty, Phoenix must do everything in his power to prove his clients' innocence with the help of a few friends and oddball witnesses.

In the world of the video games, all suspects turn to Wright. With the help of his friend Maya, the spiritual medium, Wright traverses the crime scenes, gathers evidence and talks to witnesses who can provide clues to the mysterious murders.

Once the evidence has been gathered, a bench trial occurs where the witnesses and suspects give their testimony. While giving their testimonies, players must look for contradictions in what they say based on the evidence found and then scream "objection" into the DS microphone to present the evidence and eventually prove the client's innocence.

"The main reason I like the series is probably because of the characters," said Ben Johnson, a sophomore graphic design student from Bowling Green State University. "The characters are so interesting and you always want to know more about them and how they react to events in the game."

The series features a huge cast, but focuses on four main characters: Wright, defense attorney with a heart of gold; Maya Fey, a spunky spirit medium with a love for food and justice; Dick Gumshoe, a bumbling detective; and Phoenix's rival Miles Edgeworth, the snobbish prosecuting attorney.

No video game is perfect, and "Phoenix Wright" is no exception, but this series is capable of a high level of engagement, which most games cannot attain. Its concept and gameplay style alone make the game intense enough to see through until the end. Most games nowadays involve a person sitting down to spend a few hours as a gladiator, superhero or policemen, but rarely does a videogame have the audacity to put the player in the mind of a defense attorney.

"Phoenix Wright" has always been a favorite for the critics, especially in Japan. The fifth game in the series is soon to be released and it has been released as a manga series.

Last year, "Phoenix Wright" was made into a musical as well by an all-female stage troupe known as the Takazara Revue, famous for recreating a wide range of plays including everything from Shakespeare to "Guys and Dolls." The musical version of "Phoenix Wright" involves an all-new story with all of the beloved original characters. The musical was later made into a DVD.

"Phoenix Wright" is quite popular in the United States but not nearly as much as it is in Japan. However, the cult following for "Phoenix Wright" in the U.S. is to video gamers what "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is to movie buffs and drag queens.

Erik Dutridge, a junior majoring in journalism and Asian studies at BGSU, considers himself one of those fans. "I've played through all four games from start finish," Dutridge said. "I was Phoenix Wright one year for Halloween. The costume went unrecognized, and that was fine by me."

In Dutridge's opinion, the popularity of the series is not much of a surprise.

"Simply put, the storyline was well crafted, and the characters were memorable," he said. "They were likeable enough to garner popularity, and people recognized that."

Chelsea Griffis, a Graduate student studying history at the University of Toledo, only played through the first game and was put off by it.

"It could have easily been a thinking person's game, but it was not," Griffis said. "The answers needed to further the storyline were arbitrary and not entirely logical. It was just too confusing to be fun."

One of the few gripes Johnson has with "Phoenix Wright" is the slow gameplay.

"I don't like how every once in a while the game moves at a snail's pace," he said. "I also wish that they would introduce forensic elements much earlier in the game and consistently use them more often throughout the game."

"Being linear is something you expect going into a series like this," Dutridge said. "However, like any good book, after a length of time you can always go back and revisit the scenario and it might seem just as fresh."

The "Phoenix Wright" series is continuing to grow in popularity with fans all over the world. While the DS versions of the games are hard to find in stores, the series is being re-released as a port on the Nintendo Wii's "WiiWare" and is usually sold in the range of 10 dollars.

The newest game in the series, "Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth," will be released on Feb. 16 for the Nintendo DS. This will be the first game where prosecuting attorney Miles Edgeworth is a playable character.

"Phoenix Wright" is not for everyone, but considering the size of its franchise and cult following, the game must be doing something right. It offers something innovative in video game story structures, allowing the player to think through the game. "Phoenix Wright" is not as thrilling as shooting aliens or as romantic as rescuing a princess, but this game is definitely entertaining and engaging for anyone with an itch to get to the bottom of a good story.