Or are there a select few that are essential? Ghost Trick is one of my favourite games ever and as I understand it, the same director is behind Ace Attorney. Never played any of them.

Yes.

Yes.

Even the Ace Attorney Investigations spin-off game, but play the main series first. People rank them differently, but I think everyone can agree that all of them are at least "good" and what varies is their level of greatness.

If you loved Ghost Trick, I think it's pretty much a lock that you'll love this series.

And no, there are not a select essential few. They all follow pretty much the same structure and if you're coming to this series, you're coming primarily for the story.

I was going to say this as a joke answer before I realized somebody posted it seriously. (I'd assumed that there are Phoenix Wright games that fans don't like too much. (Don't tell me what those are, if there are any.))

Yes. Some might say AA4 isn't, but even if it is the weakest game in the series it's still worth playing. Even moreso now that AA5 actually makes Apollo a real character.

The original trilogy is all interconnected enough you really need to play all of them to get the most out of it.

Investigations is the only outlier that doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme, but it's still pretty good, so it's also worth playing.

@fluxwavez: Yeah, just seeing a trailer for that new game's DLC reminded me somewhat of Ghost Trick. Don't know if I'll ever get a sequel (spiritual or direct) to that game, but if this series is good then it's probably the next best thing.

Edit: Um, what's the best version of the first 3?

Ghost Trick was written by the writer of the first Ace Attorney trilogy, if you didn't know.

Yep.

Yes, I love them all. Even the ones that people like the "least" are totally worth playing through.

@aegon: I prefer the DS versions. The iOS and Wii versions are probably fine if they're your easiest option, but the interface always seemed a little clunky on the iOS version to me.

This pretty much.

Pretty sure it goes DS >> Wii >>> iOS

Alright guys, looks like I'll be playing some Ace Attorney.

Yeah they are dude. If you have the cash to spare I'd probably recommend grabbing the DS versions of the first 4. If you don't the ios 3 pack for like 17 bucks is alright. I think the one big complaint is the artwork that was done when it gone blown up for ipad.

One thing I have to add, is I would recommend spacing them out. After the first case in each game(which is usually like 30 minutes to an hour), the cases get pretty damn long. With the exception of a few(usually case 4s I believe) the average case is probably about 4-6 hours long. With the way the text can sometimes crawl and the occasional pixel hunt or game logic not lining up with your logic I can see getting burnt out if you try to marathon them. I love the hell out of that series though. I also love Ghost Trick.

Yeah, if you try to marathon them you will die.

There isn't a game in the series that isn't worth playing, though they all have their ups and downs (Apollo Justice is the weakest by far).

Play them all. PLAY THEM ALL.

Apollo Justice sure isn't.

But yeah, anything that says Phoenix Wright or Miles Edgeworth is fine, although they decline gradually in quality with each game.

Apollo Justice is a good game. People are being haters. Nothing in Apollo Justice is as bad as the circus case from the second game, and that's a fact.

I would say so. 2 is a bit shit but the last case is alright.

Fuck Apollo Justice. What a terrible idea what they did to Phoenix. And Apollo is annoying as fuck.

But I'd say that, out of the original three, the second one is the weakest link of the chain. The third one is my favorite, by far. The last case was absolutely amazing.

I enjoyed Apollo Justice and found it completely fascinating what they did with Phoenix's character. I haven't played it since it came out though so I could have just been happy to play an Ace Attorney game that was actually made for the DS hardware. I remember the second game being overall less enjoyable, though it has a fantastic final case which none of AJ's come close to matching.

I'd say they're definitely all worth playing, but as others have said don't try to marathon them or you'll get burnt out. The DS versions are the best way to play the games, the Wii versions are mostly fine but the DS feature specific stuff in case 5 of the first game is pretty awkwardly handled, and the shake to present feature can lead to accidentally presenting the wrong evidence and getting a penalty.

I've heard about lots of people running into game breaking bugs in the iOS ports that would prevent you from progressing and having to start the entire case over, and with cases that can last hours having to replay all that story-driven content could potentially kill any interest in the series you had. Also the graphics just look really weird and kind of gross because they used vectors on the DS sprites to up-res them, rather than going back to the original artwork that was hand-drawn before being sized down to GBA resolution.

Edit: Also the iOS port uses the GBA music rather than the improved soundtrack from the DS ports, there's animation problems, framerate problems. It's just overall an inferior product, and I'd say avoid it at all costs. The Wii ports aren't perfect but you're still more or less having the same experience as the DS or original GBA releases.

1, 3 and 5 are no-brainers: YES

2 is not that good and features what I consider the worst case in the series (2-3, obviously). The last case redeems the game though.

4 is horrible IMO, but now that Apollo is a real character and an understanding of 4 is sort of necessary to understand 5, you sort of have to.

AAI: depends on how much you like Edgeworth and Gumshoe. If you love them like I and a whole lot of other AA fans do, it's definitely worth checking out, but it loses a bit without the courtroom scenes.