I love these games, but I've been having a problem with Trials and Tribulations, which I just picked up (it's been out a while, I know). There's this murder I'm investigating, and on this guy's desk, it has a book of poems that CLEARLY mention two people at a table when he's told everyone he's only seen one, and mentions something that clearly sounds like one of them is about to die. Does the game let me jot that down? NO. It disregards it as some stupid poem. Then I find an unlabeled bottle hidden somewhere else in the room. It's green. The victim died of poison. I can pick it up, but Phoenix and Maya only go "DURR, I WONDER WHAT THIS COULD BE?"
Simply put, I think miles ahead of what the game allows me to think. I still love it to death, but come on! If you make a clue so obvious, you should allow the person to pick it up when he finds it!

Professor Layton is so much better.
But, the interaction in the actual story is extremely limited in Layton cause you just solve puzzles to advance the story with only a few of the puzzles having anything to do with the story.
Oh well, the puzzles are still fun to solve.

Yes, Layton is amazing.
Do you know if Miles Edgeworth is good? Because I'm on the third game and the formula is getting a little stale. Does being a prosecutor kick things up a notch?
EDIT: Man, Trials and Tribulations is the creepiest Phoenix Wright game ever! I just used my dead mentor to titillate an old man so he could give me information!

I thought that in the Miles game you were still a lawyer, not a prosecutor.

It's more of the same, really--it's just that the investigation part and the cross-examination part are sort of lumped together, which makes things move a bit more briskly. But it still suffers from the problem of making you work things out step by step when you're already three-plus steps ahead of the game.
Even so, one-and-a-half cases in, I'm still enjoying the formula. The storytelling is still solid, and smug, uptight Edgeworth makes for a nice change of pace in terms of protagonists.

Although i enjoyed Miles Edgeworth i just don't think it was as strong as Phoenix Wright or Apollo Justice. The whole not being in court thing just spoils the atmosphere a bit for me. The first Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice are equally as strong in my books.

You're not in court? Rats!
It would be awesome to be on the other side of the courtroom, calling witnesses and countering the defense's arguments.

These games are so overrated. They have their moments, but for the most part they've so cheesy, and most of the humor and character development are just annoying anime slapstick crap made for 12 year-olds. Plus your former boss who constantly takes possession of the body of your female friends and takes their shapes is practically disturbing.
A lot of adventure PC games like Tex Murphy simply own these games in every way, from writing, to character development, to gameplay, investigations, and basically everything.

the thing is, if you bust in to a court room making wild claims without evidence and an easy transition, you're going to get tossed on your ass. Yes, you can think ahead, and I can think ahead too, I've played these games I did find it odd how it wasn't being acknowledged, and at the time it felt like an arbitrary expansion of gameplay without value, but when I got to the point where I actually had the opportunity to use the items it requested it made sense and allowed us to explore the scene fully before continuing.I have every Ace Attorney game other than the new Miles Edgeworth game, and I have a handful of Tex Murphy games, to be honest I much prefer Ace Attorney to Tex Murphy. Mostly because the first two games in the Tex Murphy game are unplayable. Not from a technical stand point, but from a mechanical stand point.
I've played through only a few PC adventure games, like Monkey Island and Beneath a Steel sky. I'm playing through Phantasmagoria now and I've enjoyed the Lets Play of Phantasmagoria 2 by the Spoony Experiment. I absolutely hate Monkey Island (the first one, not interested in any others), I can't stand Tex Murphy, and I find most others boring as hell. I really like Beneath a Steel Sky, because it's got a fun atmosphere with characters that are sarcastic and fun. That's why I like the Ace Attorney series because they offer adventure style game and are fairly light hearted (if not filled with cute characters) gameplaty. Maybe I'm a bad guy because I can enjoy a large number of games, whether they are super serious or super silly, maybe because I like to play games that my kids can enjoy too, that makes me a bad person. But to say that these other games that have a completely different style are superior to the Ace Attorney series is bullshit. They have different tones and different demographics. that's like saying The Wiggles are completely terrible because The Beatles are so much better.
The Wiggles do what they do right and sufficiently, they don't have to be The Beatles. Appealing to one demographic and focusing on them is preferable to trying to appeal to everyone.
The Ace Attorney games were released for the Nintendo DS, arguably a system designed for kids in mind. Ace Attorney is a game designed for young teens.I just really miss the characters from Phoenix Wright..

I don't know about that. There's some serious charm in Phoenix Wright, mostly stemming from how batshit insane it is. Here's a dude with a cyborg mask on like he's Data, and he'll drink coffee and throw that shit at you if you piss him off. Or better yet, here's this prosecutor with a fucking WHIP, and she'll use it liberally on you. Deep down, you know this would never fly in any sane court, but you're enjoying the way this comically-skewed court operates.

GBA right?
Ahem, anyway... I really enjoyed the first game, though it's totally off the wall in places. I'm not sure if i'd want to play 3 or 4 of them in a row though, it might get repetitive.
But the thing about all adventure games is that the puzzles are essentially there to prevent your progress. It always drove me crazy in old adventure games when I was supposed to be in a hurry, and there was a perfectly simple and logical way for me to proceed, but instead I had to spend 3 days working out the surreal system of combining items to overcome the obstacle.
Phoenix Wright essentially has the same problems as all other adventure games, it's just that it's presented in a slightly different way.
The thing I found most interesting about the PW games is that everyone thinks the court system is some form of weird invention of the games, when infact it's a reasonable representation of the japanese justice system.

PC.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
The original GBA game was released in 2001, with the Japanese and English DS ports in 2005. The game's story introduces Phoenix Wright, Mia and Maya Fey, and Miles Edgeworth, along with other minor characters that reappear in later games. The original GBA game contained four cases; a special fifth case named "Rise from the Ashes" was made for the DS version that utilized additional investigation techniques that relied on the features of the DS, such as the microphone and touchscreen.
The second game was released on the GBA in Japan in 2002, and on the DS in 2006 and 2007. The game contains four cases, in both the Advance and DS versions, and takes place about a year after the events of the first game.
The third game was released on the GBA in Japan in 2004, with Japanese and English DS ports following in 2007.
The fourth game was released in Japan in April 2007 and in North America on February 19, 2008. It is the first installment to be developed specifically for the Nintendo DS. The title was localized in America and other territories as Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Some of the localization work they put in is very strange, like inserting memes. I quote from a segment I just played.
"SuPer-Admin Restricted Desktop Access password-protected? What!? This is madness!"
"No, Maya, that is SPARDA."
GROOOOAAAAANNNN...

I thought it was funny.. back when it was topical..