How Long Would It Take You To Beat Every Ace Attorney Game?

Quick Links

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials And Tribulations

• Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

• Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations Collection

• Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit Of Justice

• The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

• How Many Hours In Total Does It Take To Beat Every Ace Attorney Game?

Capcom's Ace Attorney franchise of lawyer-'em-ups has lasted an impressively long time. Since its 2001 debut, fans have become enamored with the desk-slamming action and brainteasing puzzles on offer, to say nothing of the ever-expanding cast of off-the-wall characters. It has, in essence, developed into a soap opera, with numerous interlocking plot threads and family trees to keep track of.

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With the release of various HD compilations in recent years, the Ace Attorney games have never been more accessible or any prettier. There are, however, a lot of them – and they're a considerable timesink. Where should newcomers kick off their legal journey, and just how many hours can you expect to spend mulling over the Court Record?

Updated September 12th, 2024, by Bobby Mills: The past few years have been a constant stream of surprises for the Ace Attorney fandom. Aside from the one-two punch of both The Great Ace Attorney and the Miles Edgeworth Investigations Collection getting localized, we've been treated to anime, stage shows, and more merch than you'd ever fit in an evidence locker. With the fanbase growing by the day, we thought we'd tinker with our handy guide to how many hours you'll be spending with Wright and Co. Rest assured, it's less than law school would be.

This breakdown will contain a handful of minor spoilers for these extremely plot-heavy titles.

For the purposes of the article, we're considering only the mainline entries that are accessible on home consoles – this excludes mobile spinoffs, browser games, and so on.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

20 Hours

It all begins here. Phoenix's greenhorn days are the focus of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, the inaugural adventure that, if you're playing the Japanese version, is by far the slightest in the saga. Cases 1 to 4 are the core experience, and since a couple of these are shorter tutorial-oriented chapters, you can easily be done with the main story inside ten hours.

Play literally any of the English localisations, however, and there's a certain bulbous, throbbing growth stapled to the end of the game to contend with: case 5. Named 'Rise From The Ashes,' this was a bonus intended to entice players to double-dip back in the day, and which is now included as standard in all re-releases. It is infamous for its legendary length: 12 hours for it alone, which more than doubles the playtime of the package.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All

20 Hours

Unlike its predecessor, Justice For All received no extra content when it hit English shelves; so all you'll get are the original 'core four' cases. It's a divisive entry, which spends the bulk of its middle third on filler storylines populated with irritating secondary characters. Turnabout Big Top remains, by far, the largest bail-out point for newcomers.

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Though there's no Rise From The Ashes to inflate it, Justice For All is roughly a match for the first game's playtime. There's only one tutorial case this time – but the finale, Farewell My Turnabout, is gargantuan (and a masterpiece). Expect to tap out around the 20-hour mark.

If you're playing the HD trilogy remaster of Justice For All, be aware that there's a really nasty softlock that was unwittingly introduced by the new save system.

In the second chapter, The Stolen Turnabout, specifying you want to present evidence about Mask DeMasque before you're supposed to, and then saving that erroneous choice, will trap you in an endless loop of game over-ing. This forces you to restart the entire game anew. Be careful!

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials And Tribulations

25 Hours

If Justice For All represented a bit of a disappointment for fans, Capcom would make the mother of all comebacks with Trials And Tribulations. Widely hailed as one of the finest games the series has to offer, it spins an irresistibly engrossing yarn that sees you bouncing between time periods to unravel a serpentine conspiracy.

Playing as Phoenix in the present and Mia Fey in flashback, the pieces coalesce into a tremendously satisfying whole, but you'll need to work for it. The enigmatic prosecutor Godot won't make things easy, and there's the dastardly Dahlia Hawthorne on your plate, to boot. The five cases on offer here – the first time more than four have been available by default – will last you circa 25 hours.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

20 Hours

With all the climactic finality of Trials And Tribulations, series director Shu Takumi was ready to hang up Phoenix's badge and call it quits on the saga. The sales numbers, however, commanded otherwise, so Takumi was soon tasked by Capcom to continue things.

Anxious not to rest on his laurels, he designed Apollo Justice, a newer, younger attorney to take over from Wright – but corporate cold feet ensured Phoenix's marketable mug still stuck around.

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Is Apollo's journey worth a desk-slamming double dip?

It's a mostly competent, if uneven, tale. Apollo is technically the lead, but a disgraced Phoenix keeps swooping in and hogging the narrative spotlight – though the climax is sublime. We're back to four cases for this one, all of fairly comparable length, save for Turnabout Succession, which functions as two chapters in one. Twenty hours is about average.

Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations Collection

60 Hours

Much like Luigi and Shadow the Hedgehog, resident prosecutor (and intended secondary character) Miles Edgeworth became an unlikely fan fave. In a way, it's understandable: his tragic past, aloof demeanor, and effortless style make him prime fodder for the traditional online fervor. Capcom listened and delivered a couple of standalone quests for Edgey-poo in the 2010s.

While the first Investigations title is as common as muck on the second-hand DS market, until 2024, Investigations 2 was a whale whiter than Edgeworth's cravat. Mediocre sales numbers of the first game precluded the sequel from ever migrating to Western shores – and for over a decade, fans had to settle for translations they'd put together themselves.

The Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, then, finally reunites the two halves of Miles' story. Though they're a little different gameplay-wise to what series regulars might anticipate, with their third-person perspective, their stories are not to be missed. They're roughly 30 hours apiece, making this gorgeous HD remaster an amply worthwhile purchase.

Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

30 Hours

Conceptually, the Ace Attorney and Professor Layton series are near-identical. Both involve a cast of colorfully-outfitted characters poking around point-and-click environments, attempting to unravel the truth behind increasingly ludicrous crimes. Sure, the Layton games do go off the rails with their stakes from time to time, but there's a kinship there that can't be denied. It seems the developer overlords agreed, as this 2014 crossover on 3DS demonstrated.

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The good professor, Phoenix, Maya, and Luke are sucked into what appears to be a fairytale world called Labyrinthia, where magic is real, witches are burned on the regular, and a mysterious 'Storyteller' pre-ordains everyone's fate. Of course, the ever-sceptical Layton doesn't buy it for a minute (after all, he's dealt with hallucinogenic vampires, time travel, and towns populated with robots).

Swapping between the two duos makes for a fab gameplay loop – Layton and Luke hoover up evidence by solving puzzles in the field, which Phoenix and Maya must then use to defend would-be executes in the courthouse. By the time the story reaches its truly bonkers denouement, you'll have notched up about 30 hours.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

30 Hours

Apollo got to claim ownership over the series' logo for a grand total of one game before Mr. Blue Suit was crowbarred back in. In Dual Destinies, the legal system is in chaos following Phoenix's disbarment scandal, and courthouses are being openly bombed. It's up to a re-certified Wright, Apollo (who's going through an existential crisis of his own), and the spunky newbie Athena Cykes to restore public faith.

How long this 3D outing takes you will depend on the system you play it on. The original 3DS version didn't include the DLC chapter, Turnabout Reclaimed, as standard, and in fact, it's now considered lost media with the closure of the eShop.

The HD trilogy, however, restores it, raising the case count to a whopping six. You'd have spent 25 hours on the main game, but with Reclaimed intact, you can safely bump that estimate to 30.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit Of Justice

40 Hours

Before the Great Ace Attorney games hit the scene, Spirit Of Justice comfortably took the crown as the meatiest Ace Attorney package. Deservedly so: this sixth installment deals with the weighty concepts of a political coup and insurgent activity in an exotic land, and that's not the kind of story you can just skim over.

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Apollo, Phoenix, Athena, and their entourage get pulled into a monarchical dispute in the kingdom of Khura'in, where Maya's gone to complete her training. The autocratic Queen Ga'ran has seized power, with the former ruler nowhere to be found.

Like Dual Destinies, the 3DS version offered a DLC chapter that was lost until the HD trilogy resurrected it, bolting an additional five hours onto an already-bulky experience. Expect to dedicate 40 hours to this beast.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

60 Hours

Few players expected that the Great Ace Attorney prequel duology, which tells the tale of Phoenix's Meiji-era Japanese ancestor, would ever see an English release. After all, the Capcom localization team had spent the better part of two decades trying to convince Anglophones that the franchise took place in Los Angeles, never mind the abundance of ramen carts and cherry blossoms.

And yet, voila: in 2021, both games were combined as The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and translated, with loving care, for an overseas audience. While this one technically violates our rule about spinoffs, it has enough in common with the mainline entries to be considered part of the central timeline.

Chronicles is two chunky titles in one, and narratively, they're inseparable; so be prepared to put aside upwards of 60 finger-pointing hours to see it all through.

How Many Hours In Total Does It Take To Beat Every Ace Attorney Game?

Lawyers are nothing without their organizational skills, so let's tot up the total number of hours in a convenient chart:

Game

Estimated average playtime

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

20 hours

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All

20 hours

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations

25 hours

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

20 hours

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection

60 hours

Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

30 hours

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

30 hours

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice

40 hours

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

60 hours

That comes to a nice round average of 305 hours, or 12.7 days. Let's be reasonable and round that up to fourteen days; after all, you've got to account for sleep, munchies, and bathroom breaks (in most people's cases). That means, if so inclined, you could experience all of Phoenix and Apollo's journey in just about a fortnight.

These being visual novel/puzzle games, burnout is perhaps inevitable – so would we actually recommend you marathon them? Probably not, but you should absolutely give them a go all the same. There's nothing quite like Ace Attorney, and with a seventh entry heavily rumored to be on the way, we'll be punishing desks for some time yet.

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