Trials and Tribulations is a visual novel adventure game in which the player takes the roles of Phoenix Wright and Mia Fey, defense attorneys who defend their clients in five different episodes. The gameplay remains unchanged from Justice for All, the previous title in the series.
From the start, only one episode is available to play; when the player completes an episode, a new one is unlocked. The episodes are divided into chapters, which consist of investigations and courtroom sessions. During investigation sections, the player aims to find evidence for use in the courtroom sessions; the game moves on to the next chapter within the episode when the player has gathered enough evidence. The player moves and performs actions through a menu with four options: "examine", which lets them move a cursor over the environment and examine items; "move", which shows a menu with locations the player can move to; talk, which shows a list of topics the player can discuss with witnesses in the area; and present, which lets the player show evidence or character profiles to a witness. Some witnesses do not want to discuss certain subjects, leading to a lock symbol appearing over the subject. By showing the witness a magatama, the player is able to see the secret they are trying to hide in the form of locks, called a "Psyche-Lock"; by presenting correct evidence or character profiles, the player can break the locks and be able to discuss the subject.
During the courtroom sections, the player defends their client and cross-examines the witnesses. They can move back and forth between the statements in each testimony; if they find a contradiction between a statement and the evidence, they can point out the contradiction by presenting a relevant piece of evidence or character profile. The player can also choose to question a statement, which sometimes leads to changes in the testimony. A life bar, representing the judge's patience, is shown in the upper right corner of the screen. If the player presents incorrect evidence or profiles, the bar will decrease; if it reaches zero, the player loses and their client is declared guilty. The bar will also decrease if the player makes mistakes while trying to break psyche-locks; however, the player can not lose while trying to break psyche-locks. 50% of the life bar gets restored when the player manages to break a psyche-lock, and it gets fully restored when the player completes an episode.
Plot
Characters
Similar to previous games, Trials and Tribulations focuses on the careers of defense attorneys Phoenix Wright and Mia Fey. Other featured characters include Maya Fey, Mia's sister and a spirit medium who acts as Phoenix's secretary and assistant, and her young cousin Pearl Fey. After Mia was killed during the events of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney; Phoenix took over her law practice. Nevertheless, he regularly consults with her on cases by having either Maya or Pearl channel her spirit, which allows them to assume her appearance. Phoenix also occasionally receives help from prosecutors Miles Edgeworth and Franziska von Karma, who both hold him in high regard. The game's featured antagonist is Godot, an eccentric, coffee-loving prosecutor who keeps his identity concealed behind a mask and who seems to harbor a personal grudge against Phoenix.
Story
Five years before the events of the game, Phoenix Wright, then a young university student, is charged with the murder of his classmate Doug Swallow. Mia, acting as his lawyer, exposes one of the prosecution's witnesses, Phoenix's girlfriend Dahlia Hawthorne, as the real murderer, revealing that she used Phoenix to hide evidence tying her to the poisoning case of Mia's former partner Diego Armando and then planned to kill him as well. For her efforts, Dahlia is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. Out of gratitude, Phoenix tells Mia that her defense of him inspired him to switch majors and to study to become an attorney.
Several years later, in the present, Phoenix, representing alleged thief Ron DeLite in court, faces off against rookie prosecutor, Godot. Though Phoenix is able to get Ron acquitted, he is subsequently arrested for the murder of his former boss Kane Bullard, based on evidence Phoenix presented in his defense. At the very last second, he manages to identify Luke Atmey, a corrupt private investigator standing trial for theft, as the true culprit, having realized that Atmey framed Ron so he could use double jeopardy to escape punishment.
A few months later, Phoenix's reputation takes a hit when he fails to properly defend a former client, Maggey Byrde, against accusations that she poisoned a talented programmer, Glen Elg. Convinced that someone impersonated him, Phoenix secures a retrial and conducts his own investigation. He discovers that Elg was developing a computer virus on behalf of loan shark Furio Tigre, and that Tigre, needing money to repay a large debt, killed him to steal it, then arranged for Maggey to take the fall by posing as Wright and give a very weak defense in court. With no conclusive evidence, Phoenix manages to get Tigre arrested by making him say something only the real killer would know.
The fourth case takes place during the beginning of the fifth, with an injured Phoenix reviewing Mia's first case six years earlier, in which she and Armando worked to defend death row inmate Terry Fawles, who was under suspicion of murdering policewoman Valerie Hawthorne during an escape attempt. Mia's persistence pays off when she learns the truth: years earlier, Terry, Valerie, and her younger sister Dahlia staged a kidnapping to steal a large jewel from her family. Dahlia then faked her death, leaving Terry to be convicted of murder based on Valerie's testimony. Terry had escaped in the hopes of learning the truth, but unbeknownst to him, Dahlia had already killed Valerie and planted the body in his car. Before judgement can be passed, Terry commits suicide by swallowing poison, forcing a mistrial and freeing Dahlia. After learning that Armando had been investigating her further, Dahlia also poisoned him and gave the bottle to Phoenix, ensuring that they would both cross paths with Mia.
