Hands On: Dragon's Dogma 2 Delivers Hard-Hitting Action In a Dark Fantasy World

26.10.2023 - 17:11 / pcmag.com / Apollo Justice / Ace Attorney Trilogy / Ace Attorney

Capcom has had several excellent video game releases this year, and there are more hot titles on the way. If you can tear yourself away from Resident Evil 4, its Separate Ways DLC, or Street Fighter 6, you can free yourself to crush prosecutors in crazy courtroom capers or slay monsters in the coming weeks and months. We put three upcoming Capcom titles through their paces at a recent Capcom showcase including Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Resident Evil Village for iPad and iPhone.

Capcom’s Ace Attorney games are a series of comedic visual novels centered on courtroom drama, with supernatural sleuthing thrown into the mix for narrative spice. The franchise debuted in 2001 on the Game Boy Advance and has enjoyed multiple sequels and ports since then. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy follows Phoenix Wright’s apprentice, the titular Apollo Justice, who must defend his clients from an eccentric cast of prosecutors.

The three games included in the trilogy are Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, and Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice. Capcom has given the three games a graphical facelift, with delightfully sharp models and brighter visuals than the Nintendo DS and 3DS originals. The trilogy also features minor improvements for smoother and more accessible play. This includes a backlog system that lets you review previously read text; a chapter selection feature so you can replay your favorite episodes; and a story mode that auto-plays the game, so you can sit back and enjoy the plot.

Besides the obvious graphical improvements that looked clean and beautiful on a docked Nintendo Switch, the gameplay remains relatively unchanged. The demo required lots of reading, with a focus on evidence inspection and witness corroboration. Despite how dry that sounds, the Ace Attorney titles are charming, and their comedic elements add levity to the tragedy that these legal dramas entail. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy heads to Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One on January 25, 2024.

This dark action-RPG looks and plays like the original Dragon's Dogma, so if you’re a fan of that game, you'll probably dig this one. You play as the Arisen, a cursed warrior who ventures across a supernatural fantasy world to slay a reborn dragon. You defeat monsters using one of four starting vocations (archer, fighter, mage, or thief), each with their own unique skills and weapon styles. Aside from a few remapped controls, the core mechanics remain faithful to its predecessor.

Skills are powerful strikes with added effects and special properties that you can mix into your vocation's basic combos. For example, the fighter's Blink Strike is a useful gap-closing lunge. The limit