Ace Attorney 5 And Its New Emotion Sensing System Is A “Blast”

Capcom brought Ace Attorney 5 to Tokyo Game Show, which begins with the old courthouse getting blown up. The demo showed the culprit, a police officer with strange goggles and a disdain for defense attorneys. Unfortunately, an innocent girl named Shinobu is blamed for the mess. Phoenix Wright steps up in a snazzy new blue suit to defend her “Turnabout Countdown”.

Shinobu is Kokone’s childhood friend. Who’s Kokone? She’s Phoenix Wright’s new spunky assistant.

Ace Attorney 5 has 3D graphics, but Phoenix Wright’s iconic finger pointing and sweat dripping animations look just like the sprites. Capcom changed some of the scene transitions like you walk into court from a first person perspective and the camera spins around the courtroom when the jury chats. Turning the 3D slider on adds depth to the background, but Phoenix’s finger doesn’t point out of the screen.

Winston Payne’s younger brother is one of the prosecutors in Ace Attorney 5 and he asks Barashima Shingo who works in the bomb squad to take the stand. Shingo is as eccentric as any other Ace Attorney character with red/blue goggles that bug out and a wrist computer he uses to talk with. Well, aside from shouting “Objection!” or “Hold it!” Phoenix doesn’t talk either. Ace Attorney 5, at least for the demo, didn’t have voice acting. The Nintendo 3DS game has familiar beeps and bops as sound effects.

Ace Attorney 5 has players press for more information and present evidence to counter contradictions. I foiled Shingo, but the case wasn’t over yet. The proof Phoenix had wasn’t enough so Shinobu had to take the stand.

That’s when Kokone pulled out *her* wrist computer called the Heart Scope. This nifty device adds a new gameplay mechanic to Ace Attorney 5, which lets players see emotions when another character testifies. The Heart Scope can detect happy, sad, surprised, and angry. You can compare the emotions a witness expresses to the ones you expect they would have. If there’s a contradiction you can press for more information.

In the demo, Shinobu should have felt happy or relieved because she wasn’t injured during the bombing, but she was sad. Pointing out this contradiction pushes the demo forward, but the demo ended shortly after that.