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Published Jul 7, 2026, 1:00 PM EDT

Any objections?

5 years later, this eccentric Ace Attorney spin-off remains the series’ best

Image: Capcom

At its core, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is about the most stressful study abroad trip of all time.

Released worldwide in 2021, the Ace Attorney spin-off follows Japanese university student Ryunosuke Naruhodo on an ill-starred academic journey to Victorian London. Immediately tasked with representing a wealthy philanthropist accused of murder, rookie attorney Ryunosuke has to defend his client against “cursed” prosecutor Barok van Zieks, known as the "Reaper of the Bailey" because every defendant he faces somehow ends up dead — whether they’re guilty or not.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles combines two games: The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, which saw Japanese releases in 2015 and 2017, respectively. A prequel to the main series, Ryunosuke is a Meiji-era student and ancestor to mainline protagonist Phoenix Wright. Like Phoenix, Ryunosuke can never seem to catch a break.

Image: Capcom

Where previous Ace Attorney games had you argue in front of a judge, Ryunosuke fights a losing battle in front of an English jury, which is quickly convinced of his client’s guilt. The trial is basically over until Susato Mikotoba, Ryunosuke’s friend and judicial assistant, finds a footnote tucked away in a dusty Encyclopedia of British Law. Ryunosuke invokes an archaic, never-used feature of English law (as it exists in Ace Attorney) called a summation examination, which allows him one last chance to sway the jury. Despite confusion among the judge, jury, and prosecutor, no one can find a rule against summation examinations. An idea that had once been cast aside comes back in full force.

That’s kind of what The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is all about: old, dropped mechanics and ideas getting a second chance. One of the best mechanics added to The Great Ace Attorney is the Dance of Deduction, where detective Herlock Sholmes (legally distinct Sherlock Holmes, to avoid lingering copyrights in the United States) delivers a spectacularly incorrect conclusion, and you correct his mistakes.

Series creator and game director Shu Takumi actually came up with this gameplay style, where the player corrects a mistaken detective, all the way back in the year 2000. In a 2015 interview, Takumi said he had wanted to make a Sherlock Holmes game for a while, jumping at the opportunity to do so for The Great Ace Attorney. Even the “Jurist System” — which got a trial run in the last case of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and was never picked back up — seems to get a second chance in The Great Ace Attorney’s jury trials.

Image: Capcom

Unburdened by the contradictory backstories and loose threads of mainline Ace Attorney Games (sorry, Apollo Justice), The Great Ace Attorney feels like a passion project from Takumi. The result is a delightfully weird game, which offers an experience unlike any other entry in the series.

Ace Attorney is gimmicky by nature. Spirit channeling, “Mind Chess,” and a bracelet that tightens when people are lying offer fresh tools for Ace Attorney’s core objective: exposing contradictions. The Great Ace Attorney keeps its fair share of gimmicks. It may swap psychic channeling for steampunk gadgets, but the essence is still there. What sets The Great Ace Attorney apart, though, is how those gimmicks are embedded into the game’s story. Where previous Ace Attorney games tend to be loosely connected individual cases, The Great Ace Attorney is much more cohesive. As Ryunosuke learns more about England’s dubious legal system, every Dance of Deduction or Summation Examination helps unravel another thread in a grand conspiracy.

Throughout the game, Ryunosuke observes or faces discrimination based on class and race — English characters are overtly cruel to Ryunosuke and Susato because they are Japanese. Whether the game takes these themes far enough is up for debate, but it certainly takes on a heavier, more grounded narrative than previous entries in the series. It’s one of several reasons why the duology feels like one cohesive game, where every case builds up to a grand conclusion. You become more attached to the game’s cast of characters as you watch them navigate an unjust institution, rather than the corrupt individuals who serve as typical Ace Attorney villains. As figures like pickpocket Gina Lestrade and real-life Japanese author Soseki Natsume appear across multiple cases, you can’t help but invest heavily into every character’s arc.

Will there ever be another Ace Attorney game?

Image: Capcom

In 2014, Takumi said he felt Phoenix Wright’s story was complete after the original trilogy. When Capcom decided to begin development on a fourth game, Takumi advocated for introducing a new main character, Apollo Justice. While Phoenix Wright ended up staying a main (and eventually playable) character in the series, The Great Ace Attorney proves that the series can tell an excellent story without the spiky-haired face of the series appearing even once.

The last brand-new, mainline Ace Attorney game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Spirit of Justice, came out about ten years ago. The Great Ace Attorney 2 was released in Japan about a year later. Since then, the series has gotten its fair share of compilations, remasters, and localizations, but nothing totally new.

Not all hope is lost, though — in a December 2025 corporate report, Capcom announced its intention to grow the Ace Attorney series to a “core IP” on the level of Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter. In the report, Capcom president and COO Haruhiro Tsujimoto said the company intended to do so “through new releases, remakes, and ports.” At this point, nearly every Ace Attorney game has been ported to current-generation hardware — the one exception is Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which remains trapped on the 3DS. If Capcom genuinely wants to capitalize on the Ace Attorney IP, they’re running out of options other than making something new. Any day now…

As you wait patiently for the return of Ace Attorney, with or without Phoenix Wright, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, and PlayStation.