Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law: - I'll Take the Case!

The thought of playing a lawyer game is admittedly very weird. Capcom unleashed upon us a series of games (Phoenix Wright) which throw you into the position of an ace attorney as you battle it out for your clients in court. These titles received mild success over the years on this side of the world, but they are quite obviously more geared toward the Japanese market. So what happens when Capcom finally tries to make a similarly styled game geared more toward the Western audiences? Enter Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is directly based on the animated comedy series which used to air on adult swim for a couple of years. The storyline is as follows - Harvey Birdman is a rather brash and sometimes dumb ex super-hero turned super lawyer... minus the 'super' part. In this game it's up to you to defend your clients in five different cases where the charges range from arson, theft, and even digital piracy.

The Phoenix Wright games were riddled with jokes and various humorous moments, but despite that, they were fairly serious affairs. Harvey Birdman takes a different route. The game's various cases play out like episodes of the show, and as such, there's never a serious moment. Some may prefer the overly serious (and cheesy) antics of Phoenix Wright to the hilarious randomness of Harvey Birdman, but I think they both work very well in their own right, even if I do prefer the stylings of Phoenix Wright.

The game is primarily played out as a classic point and click adventure game. It's your job as Harvey Birdman to collect evidence while you investigate various locales and gather clues from the many people you will encounter outside of the courtroom. For the most part the evidence is usually pretty easy to see because the items tend to look remarkably out of place. These sequences are incredibly linear - they require you to talk with every person and find every clue before you can advance the story. Investigating is actually fairly boring but that's nothing new for this type of game.

The real fun is in putting the evidence into use. I was initially worried that the courtroom sequences wouldn't be nearly as entertaining in this game as they were in Phoenix Wright, but thankfully that's not the case. In court it's your job to listen to testimony and shoot it full of holes by finding contradictions which is done by presenting evidence on very specific statements. Each time you present the wrong evidence you lose one of four emblems, and when you lose them all it's game over. The evidence is incredibly subtle at times in this game so it can be very difficult. In complete honesty Harvey Birdman is more difficult than any Phoenix Wright game.

In court you can also press witnesses for additional information. Sometimes it's actually required before your evidence will have any sort of pertinence to the case, but other times you'll get nothing out of it. The 'press' option often times just serves as fluff because it gives you more to do. At the same time it is disappointing that more often than not pressing will get you no where - not even present you with new dialogue or story. This is one aspect which Phoenix Wright did much better.

There are very few real problems with Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, but there are a few small ones worth making note of. They mostly stem from the fact that it's constructed not nearly as well as any of the three Phoenix Wright games. While the jokes are more often 'hit' than miss, but there's still the awkward moment when the game tries to make you laugh when you're just sitting there in silence. Most of the jokes are completely random and thus the game is definitely not for everyone. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen the show at least once.

The game's biggest flaw is that it's just too darn short. This might have to do with the fact that it's originally a PSP game and it's fully voiced and animated, but the game left me hungry for more. You can complete Harvey Birdman in the time that it would have taken you to finish just three cases in your typical Phoenix Wright release. Even if Capcom didn't want to make the cases longer they could have at least put more of them in there.

Graphically the game looks really good - it's fully animated and voiced and is presented exactly as the television show. The only real problem I have with the game is that the various areas you visit while investigating are, most of the time, lifeless pictures. There's some animation here and there but for the most part it's quite boring. Besides that this is a well drawn game that has a pretty interesting art style with some very interesting character designs.

I'm not a big fan at all of this game's soundtrack. Don't get me wrong - it's very fitting with what you're seeing on-screen, but absolutely none of it meshed really well with me. What's more is that there are only a handful of songs even in the game, and during moments with dialogue it's completely absent. The sound effects are decent, but again, nothing that completely stands out. Voice acting is the high point here - most of the actors from the show have reprised their roles for this game and do a wonderful job at it. It's disappointing that Stephen Colbert didn't return though.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is also available on both the PSP and the PS2. This Wii version is the most attractive of the three because of it's control scheme which makes use of the Wii-remote's on screen pointer abilities. The controls are as easy as pointing at the screen and pushing the A or B buttons while aimed at the on-screen selections. No problems here.

Final Recommendation
This is NOT a game you want to impulse buy if you've never watched the show. The same goes for if you aren't a fan of the Phoenix Wright games. This is a complete niche title and I can understand why many people wouldn't enjoy it. I however, did. It's certainly not as good as Phoenix Wright but it's still a perfectly enjoyable game.