There was a time Phoenix Wright was the game to own for Nintendo's little dual-screen wonder. It was the kind of game no one was making on a system that was meant to do what no one else was doing. That made it special. Fast forward to 2014, four sequels and two spin-offs later, and now we have the first three games--

Meanwhile, the 3DS has seen its own exclusive Phoenix Wright sequel that finally brings all the innovation the fancy new hardware can afford to the table. It would've been a painstaking process, no doubt, but the first Phoenix Wright's final mission brings such welcome changes to the table, using the DS's audio and touchscreen functions, that the other two games, which still haven't gotten a similar treatment, are dimmed by comparison. Instead, the only other real enhancement to this new version is the ability to play the games in their original Japanese forms, which is neat if you understand Japanese, though Jeremy Blaustein's English localization is wonderful enough as it is.

There is, of course, the off-chance that the trilogy might be someone's first exposure to the life and times of Phoenix Wright, or at least their first exposure in a great many years, and it's as refined a jumping-off point for that as can be expected. For anyone for whom this is their third, four, or fifth time around, there's nothing new to discover, aside from the convenience of having all three games in one handy digital package. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but knowing what the 3DS and this series is capable of, the games' flaws have never been more glaring, and not nearly enough has been done to overrule the objections players have had for years.