The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve Review
The sequel that ties up loose ends
The Great Ace Attorney 2 was released in 2017 in Japan, a mere two years after its prequel. The rest of the world had to wait another four years for the end of Ryūnosuke’s adventure. Finishing what Adventures started, Resolve is a grand performance that puts this game high on my list of favorites despite a few rough edges.
With the foundation set from the first game, there’s no need to re-explain the gameplay and less to talk about presentation and characters. Thus, this will be a somewhat shorter tome than that which I wrote for the first game, but please feel free to check that one out if you need a review of the pertinent details.
I’ll also be referring to the prequel as TGAA1 (The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures) to keep it short.
And lastly, this one will be more spoiler-heavy than my previous story, as I’m doing this assuming those reading have played both games.
Theme for the story:
Presentation
Overall, I don’t like the new tracks as much as the prequel’s, which isn’t to say I found them to be bad. In particular, I found Kazuma’s new theme to be weak — on its own, it’s fine, but compared to his theme from the prequel it felt like a weaker version.
When it comes to graphics, models, and scenarios, most are from the previous games, but there are new locations and characters which — besides some members of the jury — look quite good.
At the start of the cases, this game is missing is the anime-style intro that featured in the prequel. It seems that the prequel didn’t sell all that well in Japan, so the budget for this game likely suffered as a result, which I imagine is the reason for the animations to not be here.
Story
No need to talk about the gameplay when it’s unchanged from the prequel, so I’ll be directly going over with the story.
First Case
While I like the first case of the TGAA1 better from the perspective of stakes and atmosphere, I think this is a more fitting first case, as the pacing is much better. It not only flows better, but it’s also shorter and makes more contextual sense than did its counterpart in the prequel.
This case also directly connects with the first case of the prequel, as it’s about Jezaille’s murder not long before she’s able to leave the country without facing consequences.
It also shows Natsume again, who has spent some time writing in Japan and has gained some fame, a fame that he let go to his head. And while this is his last chronological appearance, it’s not the last time we’ll see him in this game…
Second Case
…because Natsume is back in the second case, which actually happens between the fourth and fifth case of TGAA1. Natsume can’t catch a break, and he’s back to prison, accused of trying to murder his neighbor, and it’s up to us to defend him again. Can’t fault him for wanting to leave Britain after all these problems.
Unlike last time around, this second case has both investigation and trial parts, a welcome change. And I think after all we’ve interacted with Natsume it’s even easier to be sympathetic towards him.
Compared to the previous second case, I like this much better, as I wasn’t happy with how TGAA1’s was structured (no trial) and how the story was handled in terms of tone.
And, in contrast to TGAA1’s fourth case, I imagine it’s less divisive too. While I think TGAA1's was fine, and that it was needed for Ryūnosuke to get back on his feet, there’s also the angle that it is a “mundane” case that’s coming after the big events of the third. This is also the penultimate case of the game, having no ties with any other case (at the time of playing it).
Third Case
While, at first, this looks like it isn’t really connected to the rest of the story, it serves to flesh out Van Zieks by allowing us to peek into the man behind the reaper mask. It also leaves a lead to the final case and a reminder of government corruption, which has been pervasive throughout this duology. In TGAA1 we have an unfair trial in the first case as Japan wants to sweep it under the rug as fast as possible. The third case touches upon buying witnesses, jury, and judges. And the fifth case happened due to secret collusion between the Japanese and British governments. This was followed by the first case in this game (a continuance of TGAA1’s first case), and then this case as well.
The conundrum here is between defending the defendant and defending his status, as he’s a scientist who was working in a teleportation device, which then allegedly caused the death of the victim. And either the experiment was a sham and he’s being framed, or the experiment half worked and caused a freak accident.
Just as the first case in this game happened due to government corruption and impunity, government actions are the reason here too. The murder occurred to prevent further blackmail stemming from concealing activities done in the name of the law.
It also shows the return of a certain someone (you probably figured who it was the moment they appeared). I’d say is the one instance I think the game could have benefitted from being 2D, as I consider that keeping their identity ambiguous would have been easier that way.
Fourth and Fifth Cases
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed that these are both just one single big case, but that’s a minor gripe.
In this case, we’re hit with the surprise that Gregson has been murdered, and Van Zieks is the accused. With his reputation as the Ripper of the Bailey he can’t find someone to represent him, but won’t accept our help easily, either.
A minor complaint I have is that if cases 4 and 5 were actually different, we could have had another case with Gregson having Gina in tow, and had an even more impactful murder. But maybe that’s just me being greedy and wanting an excuse for another case. After all, I do think they made it emotive enough and the case gave me a new appreciation for Gregson.
As weird as it looks to have Mikotoba and Sholmes together given how old the latter looks in comparison, it was still a joy to see them interact in the dance of deduction. I found this to be the best song out of all the game’s dances of deduction.
Judge Jigoku being the culprit was a welcome surprise to me. It would have been even more shocking had we seen a little more of him prior to this case, especially outside the court, but I guess there was no good place to have him appear.
This case also has something I’d have liked the third case to have — a bombastic breakdown — a pity that Drebber had no such thing. I am bothered by the reason for the breakdown, however, with having a convenient wireless hologram in the 19th century. In the end, I can let it slide, because if not that they’d have used the bunny phones without much change (although I found the pulling-ear-feature a bit too much as well).
Revelations
Resolve is possibly the best subtitle this game could have gotten, as the previous game set up many plot points, and you need this game to follow them to their conclusion.
The first shows us how, in the end, Jezaille didn’t leave unscathed like we might have thought after what transpired in the first game.
The second is mostly self-contained, but it also introduced Balmung’s collar in an inconspicuous manner, which ties to the professor killings that have been teased since the previous game.
Later we get to know more about Van Zieks and how his hatred towards the Japanese stems from what he felt was betrayal by someone whom he considered a close friend, Genshi Asogi, Kazuma’s father. Asogi is revealed to be the professor, a killer who targeted criminals in the high spheres of London, except he was framed so that London could save face.
Kazuma’s reason to come to Britain is to find out about the real circumstances of his father’s death, as his execution was carried out in secret. Kazuma also wanted to enact revenge on Van Zieks who acted as the prosecutor for that case.
We learn that the Ripper of the Bailey was something Stronghart came up with, inspired by the professor’s killings, to try those the law couldn’t try. The telegram of the final TGAA1 case was an extension of that, and it is revealed that Gregson and Jigoku were parts of all of this.
Mikotoba was shown to be Sholmes’ partner, and Iris wasn’t actually the daughter of John Willson — the man killed in TGAA1’s first case.
Looking back, when we weren’t busy being invested in solving the case in front of us, we were being revealed new information that gave a new context to characters and events, shining light in places where we didn’t know there was darkness.
Complaints
It’s hard to complain about plot contrivances in the Ace Attorney franchise when they are so common, so that ship has sailed. As convenient as it is for the amnesiac Kazuma to get to Britain and be placed under Van Zieks, it’s not why this section exists.
This game tied up the loose ends from the previous ones, both from things we knew were missing and things we didn’t yet, like Kazuma being alive.
And this knowledge takes me back to the second case of TGAA1, where Sholmes lies about Kazuma’s death. I ask myself: Why?
To ship him back to Japan. Why?
Because Sholmes thinks Kazuma’s life is at risk. Why?
Because he intercepted a telegram with Kazuma’s name and 3 more where one of them had been assassinated, the idea was to protect Kazuma from assassination by returning him to Japan. But the first and only murder at that point happened in Japan, why would Sholmes think he’d be safe in Japan? And that decision basically changes the whole development of the game.
Final Thoughts
Despite my complaints, I consider this to be one of my favorite games in the franchise, and I’m a fan of the franchise as a whole. If new games come out in the future I’ll surely play them, just as I have with every other game. Great music, characters, and intrigue are to be found here.
Thanks to its pacing, the amount of information given to us, as well as the investigations present in the second case, Resolve doesn’t feel like just a sequel to TGAA1, it feels like much more of a game. If I considered the prequel “a half that’s less than half”, then this is a lot more than that.
