Creative titles escape me...but this is a post on interface ><

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is, as I've mentioned before, not a quick game to play. The player has to invest a lot of time and patience and thought in order to get through the endless supply of witness testimonies and Ema's annoying banter. The courtroom sessions are the worst, especially if you're the type of person who wants to use their handheld console for quick and easy games. If they could have made Apollo Justice a computer game, I think at least then it would serve the right audience: those who have the time to sit in front of their computers for hours on end. The good part about all this is the saving interface. No matter how crazy the debate gets over saving a video game, that doesn't apply AT ALL for this one. The player is allowed to save an infinite amount of times to a single save slot on the game cartridge. There are so few ways to lose the game or do anything wrong, as I mentioned in my slightly bitter post from last week, that it doesn't seem like a problem to be able to save whenever I feel like it.

As far as the other active interface is concerned, the menu system allows for saving options, new game options, and (if you've finished previous cases) a chance to replay cases. Your inventory, expertise, and courtroom status bar does not carry over to each case. This allows for pretty much anyone to pick up your DS, play a case you've already beaten in pretty much the exact same way you did, and hand it back to you having not changed anything in the unplayed parts of the game. Heh, okay that doesn't really make sense. Basically, there is only one way to play the game, and everyone plays it the exact same way and needs to find the exact same evidence. Like I said, it's a novel disguised as a video game. And it's not exactly one of those cute "choose your own adventure" novels.

A lot of the active, manipulatable interface in Apollo Justice might be considered dysfunctional to anyone who's never played a visual novel type game before. The controls (such as the footprinting and analysis) can be pretty cryptic and seem to be an utterly useless way of adding DS touchscreen features to a game that REALLY does not need two screens.








In real life, you don't have the footprints of every single person you meet.








Nothing is customizable, and the tasks are defined. BUT! As an adventure type game, it does offer a few of the best types of interface for adventurers: inventory, navigation control (sort of), point-and-click, etc. The player does have a minimal amount of input, choices, and means on communication. I'm very happy that at least when you are talking to people, the game gives you choices of how you want to get the information out of them:


















Apollo Justice offers some platform-specific features, but many I feel could be used with just one screen as well. However, the game does allow you to watch the action taking place, the areas being investigated, and the people talking, while also being able to check inventory and profiles at the same time. The options are always on the bottom touchscreen, while the action takes place on the top screen. Apollo Justice is the first Ace Attorney game to be originally created for the DS (the first three games were made for Gameboy Advance and then later adapted to the DS). This offer some new and interesting ways to use the touchscreen, such as the "perceive" function. This allows you to slow down the witnesses' testimony and zoom in on their appearance in order to watch their nervous habits while they lie to you on the witness stand. The zooming in is certainly not something a player could do without a touchscreen, although I suppose it's possible. I'm pretty sure that horrid footprinting business could be done on one screen as well.









Drugs, Apollo. LSD is what's going on.
















Hmm, decisions, decisions.









I the passive interface in Apollo Justice is everything that player's cannot interact with or change. Although you can examine the evidence, you cannot alter your evidence or inventory. Locations can only be manipulated when you take evidence from the scene, and the Apollo's abilities will always be the same three things: "Take That!", "Hold It!", and "Objection!". Trucy, however, seems to be gaining more magical ability as the game progresses. Too bad she's not a psychic spirit medium like my assistant was in the previous Ace Attorney games.








Fighting-style splitscreen animation: because no courtroom is complete without a Pokemon battle.
















You can't key this guy's car, but at least you get to analyze his girly cell phone. A mixture of active and passive interface.







Overall, the usability of Apollo Justice, based on the interface, is simplistic in spite of the long, drawn out storyline. The game would probably take FOREVER if the player was given more options and controls...and tampering with more than this game currently allows you t would probably not result in anything fitting to the storyline or characters. I am playing as a lawyer after all. Don't want to seem like I'm cheating too much.