While they are technically prequel games, they take place so far in the past (late Victorian times, probably at the turn of the 20th century) and improve upon so much that they honestly just feel like a soft reboot to the Ace Attorney franchise.
Dual Destinies (AA5), despite liking certain aspects, never really grabbed my attention the same way these did. I always just found myself wishing for more with it by comparison, especially in the story department. Great Ace Attorney really knocked it out of the ballpark on that and all fronts.
Also, just Herlock Sholmes being the insane man he is (with that amazing spoonerism of a localized name). My friends have a running joke that he’s the center of a massive poly lmao
Edit: Definitely give them a shot if you haven’t already, and think you might be up for it. “The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles” is the listing of the two games combined on Steam
I really enjoyed how silly the original Phoenix Wright but got frustrated with how unintuitive and weird some of the solutions and right answers in court were. Do these games improve on that at all?
My experience is that overall the solutions were really clever and gratifying in these games. I did have the occasional hang up with having to look something up, but they were mostly my own fault from only playing it 3 hours at a time weekly (or longer if I got caught up with other stuff), forgetting some details in between