5. Justice For All
While hardly a bad game, Phoenix Wright: Justice For All is one of the shorter entries in the series. Again, though, this is hardly a bad game. And it definitely doesn’t suffer from “sequelitis”.
As a direct sequel to the original title, Justice For All brought back Phoenix Wright and team back into the fold, but added plenty of new and fun characters to the mix. In fact, it was because of Justice For All that we got fan-favorite characters of the series like Pearl Fey, and Franzika Von Karma. Furthermore, the game introduced the Magatama, which introduced a staple of the series in the form of Psychelocks. A way to “break” someone’s guard and find out a deep-rooted truth they were hiding.
What really made Justice For All special though was how much the story connected to the original title. Apparently, after the developer team made the original game, fans really fell for both Phoenix and Miles Edgeworth, his friend slash rival. Knowing this, the team decided to use Miles only sparingly and created a story that showed what had come after the events of the original title. This included having Phoenix very angry at Miles for “dying”, and had Franzika desperately trying to beat Phoenix in court to prove she was better than Miles. Then when Miles would return, the fun would really start. And it did!
So why is it at the bottom? Well, the four episodes are one thing, as it lent to a short play time at times, especially with a small recap level to start you off. Also, it had one of the more “ugh” cases with “Turnabout Big Top”. That being said, it certainly did much more right than it did wrong. And clearly, the shorter playtime didn’t hurt fans too much, as they made several games after that.
