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As it was the first Ace Attorney game on the Nintendo 3DS, the developers made use of 3D graphics they focused on preserving the look of the earlier Ace Attorney games' 2D art, and wanted to ensure that the graphics looked better than those in the simultaneously developed Professor Layton vs. Due to the game being made a long time after Apollo Justice, the developers wanted it to make a big impact, and came up with the idea of the player working to revive the trial system. The development team included the producer Motohide Eshiro, the directors Takeshi Yamazaki and Yasuhiro Seto, and the composer Noriyuki Iwadare.
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The player can use some character-specific gameplay mechanics: Phoenix can see "psyche-locks" over witnesses who are hiding something, Apollo can spot visual cues in witnesses that indicate deception, and Athena can detect conflicting emotions in witnesses' voices.
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The gameplay is split into investigation sections, where the player searches for evidence and talks to witnesses, and trials, where they search for inconsistencies between witness testimonies and the evidence. The player takes the roles of three defense attorneys Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes, who defend their clients in multiple cases and try to restore confidence in the courts. The game is set around a year after the previous game, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, in a time where the court system has entered a dark era of false charges and fabricated evidence, caused in part by the event that led to Phoenix being unjustly disbarred. It is also set to be released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in 2024 as part of the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy compilation. It is the fifth main entry in the Ace Attorney series, and was originally released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013, with iOS and Android versions following in 20. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies is a visual novel adventure video game developed and published by Capcom.
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