My Little Investigations Review

Ever since I accidentally stumbled across a copy of the first Ace Attorney game in a Gamestop long, long ago I have consumed as much of the franchise as possible. Filled with wit, charm, humor, and lovable characters the Attorney series and subsequent Investigations series have easily become one of my staples in my video game library and will always hold a special place in my heart.

While my love for the series is apparent, I must admit I had heard only bits and pieces about My Little Investigations and how the team behind it was trying to put the same spirit the Attorney games had into it. Having heard little about it and missing the demos the team had put out before I went into the game skeptical, but excited! And boy, did it pay off!

Check after the break for the rest of the review! It's as spoiler free as possible so don't worry too much about it giving away any of the story.

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Things were off to a great start from the intro the screen as the game gives you a taste of the animation to expect in the game as well as a touch of the soundtrack brilliantly composed by Trot Pilgrim! But looks shouldn't be the only thing to judge a game by. One thing I was worried about was how difficult would the game be for those not familiar to the Attorney series? Would they be lost? Thankfully my fears were quickly squished by a quick trip to the options screen.

Not only was there an option for tutorials, but an option to tell you if you could use an ability your partners had or if you had evidence that could be combined. Very useful as it can be a horrible pain to think you haven't discovered everything you can and then pixel hunt for an hour in frustration. Kudos to the development team for including these options and giving the option to turn them off for the more experienced investigator.

You'll be seeing a lot of Professor Pinkie Pie as you learn the game

'But what about the GAME, Cal?' you might be asking at this point! Well, I'm getting to that. When the game starts you are introduced to one of the many cutscenes the game has which is something right out of the playbook of the Attorney games.

Except cut scenes like this to add to the story!

But one thing I did notice that most of the Attorney games don't have that My Little Investigations has is voice acting. I was surprised to see the words on my screen come to life in such a way and I expected it only to be included during the opening scenes, but how wrong I was! Every single line is voice acted! An impressive feat for most games on the market, let alone a pony indie game. Most importantly of all the voice actors/actresses do a wonderful job, with a fair amount of them sounding very close to their counterparts in the show! My only problem with the voice acting seems to be a technical issue and not the fault of the VAs themselves as I did notice some lines that were delivered appeared to be much quieter than others and sometimes made them hard to hear. But other than this little bit of nitpicking, the VA work is fantastic and really adds to the game!

Once you get into the game proper and learn the gist of what has happened it is time to investigate! The game at this point takes mostly from the investigative style of the Edgeworth Investigation games where you guide Twilight around and locate evidence and talk to ponies of interest. All this information is carefully tucked away in an evidence and profile screen very familiar to Attorney fans.

And speaking of the Attorney series, the game immediately starts to take ques from the series in terms of writing as Twilight not only inner monologues quite a bit, but the characters all have an exaggerated goofiness to them that the Attorney games have in spades. Thankfully, the goofiness adds to the characters instead of detracts and you'll find yourself smiling quite a bit at some of the antics in the game.

Speaking of antics, there is plenty to get in to as the game expands beyond just Ponyville adding unique locations and characters to the mix. The team went all out to make not only the world feel alive and varied, but populated as well.

Ponies everywhere!

 The visuals and writing only make up parts of the whole puzzle though! As mentioned before, the soundtrack is wonderfully done by the talented Trot Pilgrim. While it would have been enough to just craft an original soundtrack for the game, Pilgrim goes a step further by adding little musical themes a fan of MLP and Attorney would recognize! A very nice touch I must say.

As Seth said, we need more objecting Twilight!

With the elements in place how well does it do at telling a story? While the story does seem relatively straight forward and not too surprising, you will find a few twists in it as it unfolds that are quite welcome as well as some explanations for plot holes you thought might not be addressed! The team really did work hard to make the story cohesive and make sense! And while it might be a simple start, first cases in the Attorney series were always pretty simple as well which makes me really excited for future episodes in this new series.

Already this review is starting to get a bit too long so I'll sum it up for you guys! Story, writing, music, VAing, art, and animation are top notch with just a little bit of nitpicking here and there about audio. As a fan game I would have to rank it as one of the best the fandom has ever created and a testament to our creativity and dedication to the series. For fans of both ponies and Attorney I highly suggest giving this a try and if you aren't an Attorney fan I recommend trying this anyway! And at about a 4-5 hour journey, it's a nice way to spend a Saturday.

Final Score: 8.8 9.5/10

My Little Investigations Download

Twitter: Calpain