My Quest for Justice

About two weeks ago I somehow found myself watching the following trailer for Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice.

I don't know how I feel about someone
other than Phoenix yelling objection.

Prior to watching the trailer I knew very little about Apollo Justice, and I didn't want to. Phoenix Wright is one of my favorite characters of all time, and I didn't want any part of a game that he wasn't in. As you can imagine my mind nearly exploded when I saw Phoenix Wright in this trailer, and on top of that it's brilliantly made. It was at that moment that I decided that I needed to buy Apollo Justice.

I wanted to play Apollo Justice, but I first needed to finish the second and third Ace Attorney games. Since the series has an ongoing continuity I didn't want to miss out on anything. During the past two weeks I finished what I had left of the second game and completed the entirety of the third game. I thought I was done and ready to buy Apollo Justice, but I then found out that the character Ema Skye was in the DS only case of the original game. Since she seems to be a main character in Apollo Justice I decided to buy the DS only case as DLC for my Wii version of the original game. I have now completed that as well and have a review forthcoming.

With the entire series under my belt I decided it was finally time to purchase Apollo Justice. Since most of the Ace Attorney games for the DS cost a small fortune I knew that Apollo Justice wouldn't be especially cheap. Much to my surprise I could buy the game new for $56 dollars. However, I always try to purchase games as cheaply as possible. I knew I could find the game cheaper on a website other than amazon, which is where my nightmare began.

My early search proved beneficial when I found the game factory sealed at GameQuestDirect.com. I promptly used paypal to pay the $25 dollars and began waiting in eager anticipation for the game to arrive. The next day when I woke up I received an email claiming that Apollo Justice wasn't in stock. I was refunded my money and forced to look for the game elsewhere.

After the previous setback I decided that I would be happy buying the game used. When buying games used I always need to have the case, while the instruction manual is an afterthought. The weird thing about DS games is that stores always try to sell just the tiny cartridge when you buy them used.

I found two sites that had the game in stock and used. One at Geeks Etc. was selling it for $16.99 and another for $24.99 at nintendosforsale.com. Both of these websites claimed that the game "may or may not" come with the case and instruction manual. I figured that since they actually have the game they should know, so I emailed both websites asking if they came with the case.

I never heard back from Geeks Etc., but now the game is out of stock and the page has been edited. I did however, hear back from Nintendosforsale. I received a wonderful email from a gentleman named Stephen claiming that the game will come with both the case and the instruction manual. I was ecstatic and immediately went back to the site to order the game.

$84.99!? Are you out of your mind!

Turns out Stephen realized that the game was rare, because the price was changed to $84.99! Also, along with the price change the description of the games description changed. It now says that the game comes with just the cartridge, which is the opposite of what Stephen told me in his email. Needless to say I was infuriated. This website tried to price gouge me after I had inquired about a product and on top of that I was most likely lied to. You can see the page I tried to purchase from here. I can understand that they upped the price for a rare game, but $84.99 is ridiculous. I have emailed them inquiring about the game again, but I have yet to hear back and I expect that I won't.

Despite my poor experience trying to buy Apollo Justice I was determined to buy it anyways. I then decided to wait and see if any more were added to amazon. I got lucky when someone put the game up new on amazon for $42. I waited to post this until I knew the game was on its way to me. It has been shipped and I should be receiving it sometime this week.

It's ironic that I encountered a great injustice while trying to purchase a game that's centered all around justice. This is not the first rare DS game I have tried to purchase and it will not be the last. Hopefully next time I will not have this much trouble finding the game new at an affordable price.

Update as of June 2013: Since writing this the price of Apollo Justice has gone down considerably and for some reason it's also much more widely available. On Amazon you can get it for around $20 if you are so inclined. Now that I have it I've even seen multiple pristine copies at my local Gamestop for $25.

     -Manny