If you’ve never played a Phoenix Wright adventure, it’s hard to adequately describe the delicious weirdness at work in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies. Like its predecessors, Dual Destinies is more of a syrupy-slick interactive novel than a traditional adventure game - equal parts soap opera, legal drama, and off-the-wall courtroom combat. For fans of old-school text adventures, that means many glorious hours of pressing the A button to trigger that next line of dialogue. Fans of actual, um, gameplay may find themselves pressing B to skip through the characters’ eccentric conversations to find that precious little exists in this game.

After taking a backseat role in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, star defense attorney Phoenix Wright returns to the spotlight in Dual Destinies, and he’s never looked better than he does on the 3DS. Each of the five cases in Dual Destinies is introduced with anime-quality cutscenes, and every character has their own unique, fluid animations when being questioned. Go ahead and play in 3D, too -- the effect is well done and unobtrusive, with characters popping out naturally from their backgrounds. Completing the game will take you upwards of a hefty 25 hours, depending on how quick you are to skip through the dialogue.

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The cases themselves range from the silly to the supernatural, all tinged with an inexplicable juxtaposition of macabre murder and youthful innocence. If Scooby Doo acquired legal representation, it would undoubtedly be Phoenix Wright. Who else would investigate whether a Japanese demon killed an alderman? Or put the screws to a suspicious bomb-disposal expert named Ted Tonate? The tone is unapologetically juvenile even when the subject matter is not, such as when a law teacher is murdered and three of her students are the suspects.Dual Destinies’ theatrics are what make it fun, though. Phoenix’s troupe of earnest defense attorneys and prosecuting lawyers greet every cross-examination with the spectacle of a Mexican wrestling match -- each objection (yelled “Objection!”) is a bodyslam of drama, and an uncovered contradiction shakes the court and makes the guilty parties (and their lawyers) reel in aghast terror. But be warned that a good 90 percent of a Phoenix Wright game is spent tapping through dialogue, so much of my enjoyment of it comes from a love of the characters’ cutesy histrionics.When you do get to actual gameplay, Dual Destinies doesn’t deviate much from previous Phoenix Wright adventures. The action, such as it is, is divided into collecting evidence, either through conversations or searching crime scenes, and then cross-examining witnesses in court, pressing them for more information and presenting evidence to contradict falsehoods in their testimony. Scouring crime scenes for clues is especially enjoyable, and is the part that’s most like a classic point-and-click adventure, letting you tap on the touch screen to search a particular area of the scene and using the D-pad to change your perspective. Cross-examination, though, is the heart of Phoenix Wright’s gameplay, though it can often be tricky to guess which exact piece of evidence will contradict a line of testimony. The judge may penalize you for a wrongful objection that might be perfectly valid in real life, but not in the very particular, fantastical world of Duel Destinies. Trial and error may be used just as much as deductive logic, especially with how convoluted the mysteries can get.The one notable new mechanic in Dual Destinies comes courtesy of Phoenix’s fledgling assistant, Athena Cykes, and her psychoanalytic ability to read people’s emotions. By spotting unusual emotions in testimony, you can draw out more facts from witnesses by running their testimony through Athena’s “Mood Matrix” computer. For example, why does one suspect recall being strangely happy that rubble was about to collapse on her after an explosion? Like fellow attorney Apollo Justice’s ability to read nervous ticks, Athena’s psychoanalysis is mostly just a gimmick to shake up the linear court proceedings. It would’ve been more interesting if these skills were tools that could be used on demand instead of being part of the harshly rigid storyline.