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Anime Ace Attorney Retrospective

Maxie

Guest
This text is meant to be a lengthy retrospective and as such it’s full of spoilers. Because of this, the text is aimed at people who are familiar with the games, or who care little about the games being spoilt. It’s written from the perspective of someone with no prior exposure to the series, except for the OBJECTION! meme. I went in blind and played all six of the mainline games on a 2DS over the past few months. By ‘mainline’ I mean I have not played any of these:

Ace Attorney Investigations 1&2 – NDS games about Edgeworth’s prosecutor adventures

Phoenix Wright vs. Professor Layton spin-off

Due to the retrospective’s nature and length, I’m putting it whole behind a spoiler tag. It’s sometimes a review, mostly a rant, usually a summary of the games, always a good chance to remember what they were all about. I must admit that the reason for writing this piece was the annoying rambling of some of you who keep insisting that only the Trilogy is worth a play-through, and that it’s a stellar play-through.


1. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – the big boy


AA1 starts off very cute. The first case sets the tone just perfectly, with the delightfully laughable premise of a full courtroom turnabout – not only you’re expected to fend off the prosecutor’s accusations, you also indict the real killer! Whether or not the indicted gets a guilty verdict in their own respective trials is something players are never informed of, nor do we even know who in the hell will defend people proven guilty by you. Your job is to prove beyond doubt that your client did not kill the victim, and hurling a valid accusation at someone else seems to be the easiest way to do so, right? Otherwise, you’re bound to lose by default. In AA games, having a shit attorney is a death wish. Courts are biased, prosecution is near almighty, evidence gets submitted willy-nilly.

This turnabout is only the first one I encountered, with way more to come. It took me a good while to start taking for granted what we’re shown in every single trial, that is absurd turnabouts regarding the evidence. In the first trial, we prove that the statue of the Thinker is, in fact, a trick clock, complete with an alarm, leading to the indictment of a witness, a Frank ‘Sawhit.’ The series is full of such silly puns in people’s names. Nevertheless, the first trial’s silliness has to give way to the second one’s more canonical tone and form.

Your boss, Mia Fey, is killed off instantly, but this does not inconvenience her in the slightest, showing up in all three Trilogy games, thanks to the spirit channelling gimmick. Your sidekick, Maya, Mia’s younger sister and the first real client you have (because, let’s be honest – fuck Larry), is able to to channel dead people, transforming her body completely – the dead come back to life, for as long as Maya is able to handle them. You defend Maya in court against a typically absurd accusation of murder, utilizing logic, but also some hearty bluffing. It’s great so far.

Maya’s a cute character, but not really that important in the first game I believe, as she only ever summons her sister, and only to tell Phoenix to shape up. Otherwise, her wisecracks, constant hunger for junk food, and wasting Nick’s (Phoe-nick’s, get it?) money on bullshit get old quick. The first trial also introduces Miles Edgeworth, the character we’d expect to be the biggest and recurrent opponent of Phoenix Wright, except he prosecutes like three cases in AA1 and not many more after that. Consider him your anime childhood friend with a redemption arc.

The murder of Mia Fey is resolved, and we hop to the next murder right away, this time of some actor working on a stupid tokusatsu show. There are next to no non-murder cases you work in whole of Ace Attorney. The case this time is whimsical for way longer than I would’ve desired, with the granny character being a major (and, unfortunately, recurring) offender, but this nonsense passes the moment we face the final witness, also the obvious killer – the show’s producer, Dee Vasquez. The contempt she has in store for the whole judicial charade is uncanny in the context of AA1, but, unfortunately, many-many more characters like her are going to appear in the series.

The final case, Edgeworth’s apparent killing of his late father’s associate on a boat just before Christmas, with its legendary “It wasn’t Christmas yet!” turnabout, Manfred von Karma’s meltdown and absurd tie-in of both the actual incident of Edgeworth not-killing somebody and his father getting shot ages ago is something unique, at least in AA1. Half the fun of the last case lies in figuring out the time frame, because the investigation itself isn’t fun at all, for fuck’s sake, with the disgusting bum and his disgusting snot bubble. Edgeworth is given an anime-tier redemption and all ends well.

All in all, AA1 turns out to be a pleasant surpri-

Wait, what the hell. The story is blatantly over, why is there one more case? Apparently it was added much later, designed by post-Trilogy staff and glued to the first game as an excuse for selling it the second time at the same price. And I must tell you, Rise from the Ashes overstays its welcome hardcore. The premise itself is great – Chief of Police Gant being the murderer and blatantly meddling with your investigation, the game demanding you NOT TO submit the final piece of evidence, lest you invalidate the whole trial, thanks to Evidence Law (never mentioned again), the sheer chutzpah on the guy! He’s great people.

The characters, a mixed bag – with Gant and the whole Joe Darke thing being good, but also idiots like officer Meekins with his loudspeaker making me drop the fucking game for a week. Rise from the Ashes is absurdly long, too long to justify even its great finale. It also adds your client’s sister, Ema Skye, to the main plotline. She’s a high school girl aspiring to be a forensics expert one day, replacing Maya as your barely legal aide. She’s chipper and enthusiastic for now, but God, is her future sombre.

All in all, AA1 turns out to be a pleasant surprise, although I do not fully understand why was it so forcefully localized, made to take place in a fictional and weirdly Asian version of Los Angeles. Next instalments only add to the confusion as the pretence becomes more and more difficult to uphold, with more people dressed very overly like the Japanese, acting like them, working in their traditional trades, even selling ramen from a street stall. I believe the ‘Japamerica’ universe the translators conjured up is a big meme at this point, and let’s leave it at that. Frankly, if AA1 was to be the first and last game in the series, I wouldn’t even be disappointed. It was kinda good, all in all.


2. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All – the sequel we never wanted


Oh Christ. AA2 is an awkward game, much shorter than AA1, much worse than AA1, at least until the stellar last case. Until we reach it, we have to suffer through a number of some abhorrent shit, though. The prologue doesn’t make one optimistic in the slightest, and I don’t mean that they changed the stellar soundtrack. Our boy Nick can’t remember how to do anything, having been hit on the head by the murderer. I was actually afraid they’re going to pull full-on amnesia, but thankfully, we were spared this.

The real killer of Maggey turns out to be a bigger dumbass than usual, and she herself seems awfully chipper for a girl just recently victim to her boyfriend’s demise. I think this tone shift is what brings AA2 down a lot – it’s a lot more goofy than the first game, even character design-wise. Still less goofy than Rise from the Ashes, the case added to AA1 already after the Trilogy was completed, with its ridiculous cowboy character and Damon Gant’s anime-coloured suit. Something must have happened to the designers at some point. Nevertheless, let’s hop to the first real case.

Maya’s accused of murder, again. This time we see her spirit channelling gimmick as an actual trade she and her clan have had going on for centuries… Imported from Japan, of course. The absurd localization makes us believe a rural anime village just sprung up somewhere in the US, complete with Japanese housing etc. At least we’re given a lollipop for our trouble – Maya’s magatama amulet allows Phoenix to sense when people are lying, their lies coiling around them like chains, which we’re to dispel with proper arguments and evidence. It makes for more lively investigations, since you can actually lose if you fuck up magatama sequences.

The case also introduces Maya’s shitty family, which is going to come back soon and bite us in the ass. Her asshole aunt and cute as a button cousin Pearl are a welcome addition, if only due to the former’s machinations and the latter’s absurd shipping of Phoenix and Maya together. Silly girl, in the sexless and loveless universe of Capcom games your little fantasies are worth less than the next case of AA2. I must say the final turnabout of this case was mildly amusing, with the twin sisters’ switcheroo, however much contrived it appears.

Let’s go next. Turnabout Big Top is the circus murder case. It’s loud and obnoxious, with the whimsical shit getting actually unbearable. Sorry, but I choose not to remind either myself or you of its contents. Never again, I thought to myself. Poor, stupid me. If I were to know what comes in the sequels…

I’ve deliberately avoided mentioning prosecutor Francisca von Karma, the last game’s main bad guy’s daughter, replacing Edgeworth in AA2. Her whipping people with an honest to God whip! inside the courtroom! was such an odious addition to the game I decided to avoid mentioning her altogether, if only to spare myself the memories of her role in the game. Luckily, these are limited to AA2 and that one case in AA3. She’s somewhat better in the final case of AA2, if only because the final case of AA2 is amazingly good and it could salvage anything.

Farewell, My Turnabout has you finally defending someone who actually killed a guy, even though you don’t know of it yet. Your client, an action flick star, happens to secretly be a giant asshole who hired an assassin to kill his rival, having first ensured that his assistant suffering from dependency syndrome will never testify against him. Cue Phoenix’s despair once he finds this all out. The main gimmick of this case, whether or not the assassin is to be considered a ‘tool,’ adds to the atmosphere greatly. Finally no family dramas, no contrived bullshit, just a plain ol’ contracted hit, along with layers of deception. Even the assistant being a weak character did not spoil my fun.

Remember how this one ends? Your client begs the judge to be found guilty, so as to be spared the assassin’s retribution for mentioning his existence in court. The payoff is great, and putting Francisca on that plane to fuck off for good was just the perfect way to end my gameplay. AA2 is undoubtedly worse than the first one in many regards, but the magatama gimmick and the final case salvage it somewhat. If you were into Maya’s antics, even the first real case can be considered good. Now, brace yourself for full-on Maya fans pandering.


3. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations - coffee memes and lots of melodrama


This one straight up sets a precedent for the series, in case you weren’t forewarned by the glimpses of it in the first two games. The courtroom turns into Phoenix & Co.’s therapy session. Let’s get to it slowly, shall we? The game starts with a throwback to Mia Fey’s first case – Phoenix himself being accused of murder. Turns out his bitch lolita-esque girlfriend did it and tried pinning the thing on him. Be prepared to see Dahlia Hawthorne again, of course being related to a different crime. AA3 was somewhat inventive in this regard, but, unfortunately for the series, the novelty of this turnabout runs out once we see it again and again in the sequels. Cases are no longer stand-alone adventures, now they form whole arcs.

I was happy to see the first case handled by Phoenix in AA3 not to be a murder, at least to a point. It starts as a grand larceny case, only to turn into a murder case once you have some good old blackmail going on. The case is unrelated to anything else, although it sports prosecutor Godot for the first time. Godot is some masked maniac constantly sipping coffee, allowed to prosecute seemingly out of nowhere and for no good reason, which alone makes him an unbearable meme. At least his demeanour is markedly different from Edgeworth’s smugness and von Karma family’s haughtiness and forcefulness. Godot doesn’t seem to give a fuck about his job, frankly. He’s in court just to see late Mia’s student at work – the student being Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney.

The next one is as silly as they go. Some gangster impersonated Phoenix to have Maggey Byrde framed for murder of a guy who owned him money, you’re defending her in a retrial, almost forced to do so by Gumshoe. Also, you get to meet and indict the gangster, a fellow called Furio Tigre, straight up snarling at you in court. It involved signature Ace Attorney switcheroos and… that’s about it. It’s not very interesting. Phoenix wins a not guilty for Maggey, detective Gumshoe does not rip out your guts.

Turnabout Beginnings is a peculiar little case, an investigation-free court thing with Mia defending a death row prisoner from being convicted for even more murder. The prosecutor is young Edgeworth, for all of you thirsty fangirls out there. Also, it includes Godot before he put on the mask, as Diego Armando, Mia’s partner and lover. That is, right before he sipped one coffee cup too many, losing hair colour, eyesight, and all professional dignity, falling into coma and waking up to see Mia dead since AA1. Also, Dahlia Hawthorne returns to be her usual bitch self. All in all, an intense piece with an interesting gimmick – your client does not really mind being convicted, already being a death row prisoner.

Ladies and gents, AA3 is less whimsical than the previous game, but I believe the final case to be weaker than Farewell. Bridge to Turnabout is divided into two trials – with attorney! Edgeworth facing the returning Francisca von Karma, then with Wright facing Godot. And believe you me – Edgeworth’s half, less melodramatic and relying strongly on old-school Ace Attorney logical traps, trumps the second half, ie. the murder case proper. The strongest turnabout of it is, of course, Maya channelling executed Dahlia all this time, in order to avoid getting killed by her, were she to be channelled by little Pearly in turn, prodded to do so by her bitch mother, also Maya’s aunt. Jesus. It has also the brilliant moment of turning off the lights to prove that Godot is a shine in the dark beaner.

The second part includes a shitload of spirit channelling switcheroos, twin sisters, locked room mysteries, fallen bridges, Larry’s retarded rambling, all in all – Ace Attorney standards. Whether or not it’s a fitting end to the Trilogy is another matter. It does put a lid on the Fey family drama, at least. Finally our heroes decide to stop channelling Mia every other day to have her butt in, despite her being dead as a doornail for years. Frankly, I was let down by Trilogy somewhat, yearning for more of that AA1 courtroom game, rather than AA2-3 courtroom antics and sob stories. Trilogy fanatics keep ranting that Ace Attorney ends at PART THREE! So I’ve decided to call their bluff. Is the sequel any good?


4. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney – double the memes, some fun slips in


This one was a big ass fucking bother. As the first game designed for NDS, AA4 is significantly more impressive tech-wise, with 3D evidence poking and prodding, some touch screen forensics thrown in for good measure, higher resolution, more lively animations… But is it also good substance-wise? Despite being just four cases, AA4 is far from being short, with each and every case having dramatic resolutions as well as a shitload of overdesigned, often ugly-looking characters. And extended conversations, rolling endlessly in the visual novel way. In this regard AA4 strayed far from the first game – not that the Trilogy is blameless, because even AA2 is markedly more silly than the big boy.

The first case is a shocker. Game’s set quite some time after the Trilogy, with Phoenix being disbarred, apparently for forging evidence. He’s now a bum in a garish beanie, making money as a trick poker player, being paid for providing the challenge – he’s unbeatable. His stage magician daughter helps him cheat, is why. Did he finally fuck Maya? Of course not, it’s a Capcom game. He’s adopted one of his clients’ daughter. I’ll get back to this one later. For now, we’re introduced to our new protagonist – Apollo Justice, a well-meaning kid with a way too loud voice, trained by Kristoph Gavin.

Apollo adds a refreshing new mechanic to the game, namely – his bracelet. Apollo’s unusually acute sense of sight makes him react to people’s tells as they lie, making the skin on his wrist push on the bracelet a little with the power of anime. Whenever Apollo feels uncomfortable around the bracelet, someone’s gonna have to speak up and get molested by his gaze. For us it means moving the camera to look for weird little twitches, playing with clothing, even sweating profusely, as the witness repeats themselves. It’s tells, because the first case involves poker, right? AA4 and its sequels tend to be incessantly thematic.

Anyway, Apollo’s first client is Phoenix Wright himself, who’s apparently just killed his daughter’s disguised father, only he didn’t do it, it was Kristoph Gavin, in a fit of absurd jealousy over not being employed seven years ago by Phoenix’s daughter’s now-disguised former stage magician father, to defend him from being accused for killing his troupe leader and father-in-law. That’s it, that’s the plot of AA4. Apart from the next case, Turnabout Corner, all are a part of one arc. Get used to it. What you shouldn’t get used to is Phoenix himself being a much darker figure than usual, seemingly chill and adult (he’s much older and raised a kid, after all), but scheming and detached whenever necessary. All to stage Gavin’s eventual demise at the hands of the Jury system, employed for the first and last time in the series.

Turns out we’ve been spoilt rotten by detective Gumshoe’s warm blanket of silliness and incompetence. The pain never ends once Gumshoe disappears from Ace Attorney, replaced in AA4 by Ema Skye, the forensics nerd who helped you in Rise from the Ashes. Ema still hasn’t been appointed a forensics specialist and serves as a police detective, to her dismay, as well as to ours. She’s bitchy and unbearable at first, and only ever grows less so towards the end of the game. The other personality we weren’t prepared for is Klavier Gavin, prosecutor since 17 years old (because they let you prosecute in high school in Europe, apparently). Kristoph’s kid brother is the proverbial chad, often straight up mogging our goofy-looking protagonist with his absurd good looks, charisma, and real rock star career. This guy would make warpig explode, for sure.

Thanks to younger Gavin’s rock career, we have to suffer through one of the most annoying cases in Ace Attorney. His concert is the site of the murder of his co-star’s producer/Interpol agent off to blow someone’s damn head off with a with a giant revolver for stealing an insect cocoon, supposedly the material for some rare medicine. Of course the killer is Gavin’s annoying band member, why did I waste several hours getting to this no-brainer? The sheer writing quality drops significantly in minor cases, a tradition since AA2’s infamous circus case. It has a cute musical puzzle though, with you listening to a recording of the music and checking which instrument fucked up, and why (because of murder!). It’s almost clearly designed and not annoying, too!

Luckily, we’re introduced to some meaty stuff in the finale. I must say that the final case of AA4, while not as cool as AA2’s, is one of the best ones out there. Kristoph Gavin plants a time bomb inside a shut-in art forger girl’s study, framing her for the murder of her father and ensuring that she’s not gonna survive the trial – you may call it contrived, but the poisoned nail polish she uses when going out, combined with her habit of biting nails while stressed, makes for a decent enough plot device. What follows is the throwback to the infamous case in which Phoenix Wright used forged evidence.

And we get to experience the MASON System, ie. access to Phoenix’s memories scattered around two timelines – after the trial which cost him the badge, and after Apollo’s investigation of the art forger father’s murder. Pieced together they make for the finale, with you being finally able to indict Gavin for all the fuckery in AA4, leading to the rehabilitation of Phoenix. So, more sequels. AA4 wasn’t a bad game per se, but I believe the transition to NDS to be largely forced and not that beneficial to game structure. The art style and writing grew more tiresome, though. Don’t get used to the idea of Apollo being our new protagonist, either. What future has in store is way more cruel.


5. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies – our boy is gone


I hated this game so much. It introduces yet another lawyer trainee, Athena Cykes, her gimmick being the extraordinarily acute sense of hearing – she can hear people’s hearts, folks. God knows what she thinks hearing someone with arrhythmia. This discrepancy in heart rate leads to her conducting short therapy sessions on the spot, ie., lengthy sequences of you trying to pinpoint which statement feels odd as the guy’s talking about murder. His statements are supplied with four emotional state gauges; happiness, anger, surprise, sadness, growing weaker or stronger. I disliked these sequences. Even their usage in the final case, with you trying to take down the ‘emotionless’ secret organization agent masquerading as the new detective, was a big waste of time and effort.

Athena being an annoying cunt doesn’t help either – she’s too young and forcefully chipper, in the brawny and goofy way Maya never was. Maya never pretended to be a trained lawyer at 18 either. Luckily, AA5 isn’t exclusively Athena’s game. Our protagonists trade places throughout the cases, with some stuff being handled by her, some by Apollo, and a smidgen landing in Phoenix’s lap. The confusion is strengthened by the game’s non-linearity. While four of the five cases belong in a single arc, they’re not chronological, leading to an awkward in medias res moment I found weakening to the plot. I did not play the DLC case, as it’s apparently some whimsical bullshit.

So – your first case, but actually the last but one, is really awkward. The complete revamp to 3DS aesthetics doesn’t help – suddenly the game has 3d models, evidence lists are no longer a tasteful grid, instead becoming an annoying list, Athena’s Mood Matrix minigame deducts from the usual logical romp in favour of armchair psychology and endless replaying of testimonies. So we detected happiness, but you were also a little sad? What the f-

Who cares about the bombing. It’s introduced in medias res, with Apollo dressed up as some anime avenger in bandages and a dramatic coat, your client being obviously framed in an asinine way, the whole premise serving only as a stepping stone before the game’s finale. But it’s put right in the beginning, because fuck you. It is the next case which serves as a proper introduction to AA5, the visit at a whimsical not-Japanese village full of Japamerican yokai enthusiasts, with a wrestling feud and the real killer introduced in the case’s anime cinematic intro. I shit you not, it’s spoilt from the very beginning, by design! Multi-angle investigations are cool, but they come at the expense of being unable to investigate anything else than crime scenes – no more silly comments from your aide. There’s also a new prosecutor I will discuss later.

The next case formally kickstarts AA5’s plotline – the Dark Age of the Law, introduced by Phoenix’s disbarring between the Trilogy and AA4, makes Themis Legal Academy teach its students how to adapt to this peculiar period of notorious evidence forging, bum raps, and record low trust in the legal system. The murderer this time, finally revealed after obligatory court drama and power of friendship antics, is fully convinced that this is the way to proceed in law, and that his way is well worth being taught to students. The challenge of AA5 is – how to stop the Dark Age? Apparently, by proving the new prosecutor Simon Blackquill not guilty of the murder he has seemingly committed years ago.

Blackquill is a character quite symptomatic of latter days Ace Attorney. It’s some absurd man in a Japanese-inspired garb (we’re in Japamerica, people), formally a death row prisoner, brought shackled into court to prosecute. He breaks his shackles all the time, has a pet falcon bringing him documents and pestering the defence, throws fucking knives at people – it’s ridiculous. Whether or not you find it amusingly ridiculous or unbearably ridiculous is your personal choice. His tard wrangler is an equally ridiculous detective, Bobby Fulbright, the paragon of justice. Bobby’s loud and overbearing in his paladin-ish zeal, which I sincerely thought just bad design. The trademark turnabout in the finale comes out of nowhere, if only to get played down by the Mood Matrix sequence. Bobby could’ve been a better character.

I’ll handle the whole not-JAXA fracas at once. Apollo’s cosmonaut friend gets killed, his doomer senpai is framed. Athena’s mother’s murder by Blackquill from seven years ago gets connected to it. Athena’s mother’s crazy lesbian co-worker, also Blackquill’s elder sister, holds the whole facility hostage until the killer of Athena’s mother is found before Blackquill himself gets executed (next day!) To make it even more melodramatic, Athena was apparently the real culprit all along, or so we’re led to think. That’s right, we’re facing yet another retrial of a case from seven years ago, delightfully composed into a convoluted storyline including robots, a samurai, and the face-thief detective Fulbright, actually some international spy with a peculiar psychological condition – he doesn’t feel very strongly about anything and learnt how to fake having a personality. We bring down this Codexian gentleman with the power of the Mood Matrix. Oh happy days.

AA5 is not a good game. It’s probably the one I liked the least. The additions of Athena and her gimmick are dubious at best, the transition to 3DS tech came at the steep price of everything getting streamlined to save money on producing 3d assets, the cases tend to turn into long dramatic rants interjected with rather middling logical puzzles, the flow of the game is interrupted by incessant “show X on a picture” moments. Also, the family drama bullshit from AA3 and AA4 appears to be stronger than ever. Well, that was a big waste of time, let’s get to the last mainline game. It’s bound to be good, right?


6. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice – Tibet-hating simulator


We’ve reached the conclusion of AA, provided no game will be released on Switch. This one is a peculiar beast, in two ways. First of all, AA6 is a big fanservice bait, with most of the supporting cast (well, except for Gumshoe and Larry) coming back, if only for a moment. On the other hand, it introduces a wholly new locale, that being – the Tibetan kingdom of Khurain, the home of spirit channelling. You know, Maya’s shtick from Trilogy times. Maya herself returns too, studying the finer details of the channelling technique in Tibet, where she invites Nick to, heh, celebrate her imminent graduation. Murders ensue, letting Nick take part in a brand new flavour of court drama.

In Khurain, being an attorney is a death warrant. The locals hate attorneys, because one of them killed their queen. Due to the murder, the Defence Culpability Act was introduced, making attorneys suffer death penalty along with their clients, were they to lose in court. The few who dare to work never win, because of the Seance – the royal priestess invokes the victim’s last memories as a piece of evidence, regarded by Khurainians as conclusive. The gimmick this time is – last memories tend to be subjective and selective, therefore Nick is able to overrule them, given enough evidence and sheer bluffing. The Seance is certainly better than the Mood Matrix. The problem is, getting to the good parts is gruelling.

Nick ends up defending his kid Khurainese guide framed for murder, causing great shock and distress to the nation. Nefarious plans get sped up both on the gov-side and on the side of the revolutionaries, the Whatever Dragons, led by Dhurke, the last queen’s apparent murderer. I must admit that the premise looks kind of enticing on paper, but it’s realized the same way AA5 handled its plot – in a whimsical and melodramatic fashion, full of family feuds and sob stories. Khurain cases form a story arc, as opposed to two Japamerican cases, handled by Apollo and Athena respectively. There are five cases in total, excluding the DLC, which I did not play.

Japamerican cases are as wacky as ever, although even their wackiness is a welcome change from big dramatic arcs. If only the Mood Matrix did not swamp them as usual… The first one includes salty stage magicians trying to ruin Trucy’s career, only you manage to stop their wild accusations. It includes some logic dive as you try to figure out the trick utilized to kill the victim, the trial is peppered with fiddling with a video recording. It’s not even that bad, if not for the twins and the long-dead-actually-alive magician turnabouts. The second one is bad, though. A traditional Japamerican rakugo master gets suffocated with noodles, Simon Blackquill’s favourite Japamerican udon noodle craftsman get accused. There’s no Apollo, just Athena being inept, Blackquill saving her ass the time as an aide, prosecutor Sahdmandhi being absurdly abusive in court. You win, proving that Athena is not a rubbish lawyer. Turns out having a split personality helps with rakugo.

Sahdmandhi is the new prosecutor, an international one at that, meaning – he hops on that plane all the time to handle both Japamerican and Khurainese cases. He’s smug and abusive, despite larping some sort of a Buddhist mystic, and looks like an anime protagonist. If Gavin and Blackquill were ridiculous characters, then Sahdmandhi is straight up vile. He has none of the professional charm good old Edgeworth had. Also, he happens to be Apollo’s adoptive brother, the murdered queen and Dhurke’s son, a former revolutionary, currently blackmailed to uphold the regime, in order to avoid punishment directed at his kid sister, the royal priestess. Soap opera plot strikes back. It’s not a great achievement to predict the rest of AA6 once you know of these facts. Let’s just say that the final trial, with queen Ga’ran acting as prosecutor and actively overriding laws (!) in the middle of a trial going on (!!) is one of the dumbest parts of Ace Attorney to date.

It was a tiresome journey, and even Ema Skye finally not being a jaded cunt, and Edgeworth coming by to say like a dozen lines and fuck off, did not help me enjoy AA6 any better. In fact, over the past few months I’ve noticed I’m forcing myself to carry on, oddly fascinated with the downfall of this series, at first witty and interesting, then turned into a festival of cringe-worthy memes and recycled anime storylines. If I were to play some popular VN/adventure game instead of the Ace Attorney series, I’d consider stuff like 999, or the first Danganronpa game. AA1 really was the best instalment of its series, with every next one being plainly worse.

Trilogy fanatics were partly correct in their assessment – the first three games, also due to having been re-released half a dozen times at this point, are the most reasonable Ace Attorney experience. However, the sickness sets in quite early, and you shouldn’t really stick along once you feel it’s kind of getting tiresome to follow. It simply does not get any better. Gimmicks add up, technological side gets more impressive, but the core is gradually getting eroded. It’s my first and complete exposure to the mainline series, so my accusations cannot even be considered just some boomer grumbling. I probably couldn’t have even mustered enough autism to complete the run, had I not been spoilt rotten by AA1 and the stellar final case of AA2.

EDIT: I include a similar text on Great Ace Attorney

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/ace-attorney-retrospective.132452/#post-6650222
 
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Psquit

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Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, is good for what it is. Worth a playthrough even if it's just silly.



I loved the final witch trial. It goes full anime.
 

YLD

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Joined
Mar 30, 2020
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24
Great round-up, though unlike you I was more open to the idea that I was liking it less and less simply because the honeymoon phase was over. At first the idea of a courtroom game is awesome, especially as the music and character animations are top-notch; whoever designed it knows his craft regarding visual gags and expressivity, the first "objection" duels are exhilarating.

But the series didn't mysteriously become bad over time: looking back, the tedious moon logic was always there, the retarded Japo characters were always there, the boring pixel-hunting investigations were always there, etc. It's just that the novelty wore off, and my patience with it.

It's still a great series, and emulation makes it ten times better, because then you can just brute-force through choices with quicksaves, and you are really doing yourself a disservice by not deliberately picking the wrong options. The banter is the one area where the writing is indubitably great, and the way other characters roast you and shit-talk you when you make a mistake is genuinely very funny.

So indeed a marathon is likely to bring about major ending fatigue, but as a first-timer it's absolutely worth checking out. There is a good amount of decent writing and drama, better enjoy it while it's fresh before the unfunny japofaggotry sets in.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
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Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
I recently played through the Dai Gyakuten Saiban games (the ace attorney games w/ sherlock holmes in the 19th century) to the extent that they're currently translated. The games are great, some of the best adventures I played. The soundtrack is god tier.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
I've always found it a bit hard to understand Ace Attorney's cult-like status. Yes, the first game is a very nice game that I would recommend, warts and all. It's charming (even the ludicrous Japamerica), it has some clever writing, and while the gameplay is basic, it can be properly called a mystery solving / court case winning game without making a total mockery.

But there was never enough peanut butter in the jar to spread it out over a trilogy, let alone 6 games or whatever we ended up getting. The animu Japamerica one-dimensional characters were fine in AA1 but every new character became progressively more annoying and braindead, with shrill screaming and every other auditory shit sandwich. The mystery writing got more and more convoluted already by AA2/3 with 'just because' logic. None of the new gameplay additions were actually fun or made the detecting more logical.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
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Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
All the new puzzle mechanics they added in the Ace Investigations games were good to me. Logic Chess, Clue Combining, Deductions, etc. I also like the "theater of logic" puzzles where you clean up Sherlock Holmes' messy deductions in the Dai Gyakuten Saiben games.

I dont really like anything they did with the mainline series after the original trilogy. Especially Apollo's gameplay where you observe people for signs that they're lying. Way too tedious.
 

purupuru

Learned
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Nov 2, 2019
Messages
414
The circus case is actually one of my favorites mainly for its atmosphere: the cold bloody reality of murder investigation meets the fantastical craziness of the circus members. One second you are in the tent playing with tiger and crazy girl, the next you are standing in the snow looking at the empty crime scene and the music cuts off. Also the way Takumi portrays those circus members is rather nuanced. They are not just some goofy nutjobs, and neither are they just ordinary wage slaves in funny suits, they have lived a large part (if not all) of their lives away from the mainstream society in this seclusive small world where their idiosyncrasies becomes the norm and common sense doesn't necessarily apply. Now of course the character designs are totally over-the-top like any AA character should be, but there is subtlety here and there in the writing. Though to be fair I did not play the English version (couldn't bear with it after the first case), so what I said may not apply in japamerica.
The Dai Gyakuten Saiban games are pretty great, I would say both game as a whole is even a bit better than AA1 (which imo is head and shoulders above the rest of mainline works). Though it kind of shows that Takumi Shu is no longer the naive and passionate young man he once was:(
Also if anyone still haven't played Ghost Trick go play it, it is a Takumi Shu game not butchered by localization and it's arguably also his best work.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
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In Dai Gyakuten Saiban 1 you get an entire carriage in your inventory, and you can go inside it. It's fucking nuts.
 

Gruncheon

Savant
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Apr 30, 2015
Messages
125
That was a great read - thanks Maxie.

To my eternal shame, my teenage obsession with AA1 was a big reason in my deciding to become a lawyer - I must have completed the game about 6 or 7 times.

I've never anticipated anything as much as I did the release of AA2, but even my Mountain Dew-atrophied 16-year old brain could immediately tell that there was a drop in the quality of the writing. I can still remember sitting at home after school on the day it released, sense of deflation growing every minute. The defendant in the first case was a klutz. They translated her nickname into English as the 'Goddess of Misfortune' which was about the laziest, most literal translation you could go for. That lazy, thoughtless writing never improved. Later, I found out that the first game's translation was done by Alexander O Smith, who also did the famously excellent translation for Vagrant Story, and that they'd replaced him for the second game. I recall scanty other things from the game, but that circus case sticks in my memory - snow, a fucking horrible clown character, some bullshit puzzle with a winch? That case was what really broke the game for me. The last case was excellent, but I was so burnt on the rest of the game that I found it hard to muster up some goodwill towards it.

I played AA3 a couple of years after that. I can only remember it in broad strokes, but I have a good association with it purely because it was better than AA2. Reading your report above, I might avoid playing that one again to preserve the good memories.

I'd heard good things about the Investigations series and Dai Gyakuten Saiban - are they worth playing if you liked AA1 most out of the series?
 

Vorark

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Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1,394
The first AA remains the best. NDS (more like GBA) version cause the sprites are really charming.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
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I'd heard good things about the Investigations series and Dai Gyakuten Saiban - are they worth playing if you liked AA1 most out of the series?

I'd say check them out because I thought they were great. But for context, I actually like the first 3 AA games and really enjoyed all the drama and mopey bitchmade family subplots that the OP hated. Although, I can agree that AA 5 is satanic torture and I haven't played AA6. Ace Attorney Investigations 1 is more lighthearted and fun, especially in the first 3 cases. The 2nd game is more serious and it's better, to me.

Dai Gyakuten Saiban is probably the best balance of drama and comedy the series has ever struck. There are dramatic overtones but the it doesn't do a late game turn to drama, instead it's basically drama and comedy in equal measure throughout (at least so far the second Dai Gyakuten Saiban isn't fully translated).
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
I didn't expect to find this in the Adventure subforum, instead I thought Jewitron would dump it on the JRPG forum ASAP. In any case, I disagree with some of the opinions. I haven't played the latest game so I cannot say anything about it. The 1st 3DS game is somewhat weak yes, and too melodramatic in certain moments. Nevertheless, it's way better than Apollo Justice's own game, but most of the game is trying to fix the damage said game's plot did to the series and it shows. Wright doesn't have much participation in a game named after him. IT is true that the "emotion detecting" bullshit was padding since there was no risk involved. A quick way to fix it would have been to give you a limited number of attempts before the judge lost his patience, just like the trials.

As for the Great Attorney spin-off... IT ROCKS!!! IT IS AWESOME!!! At first, I was a bit weirded out, since the art style is quite different from the Ace Attorney games, characters here aren't as absurdly goofy as the main series. Nevertheless, it starts to ramp up quite quickly. Moreover, the cases are more logical since it they cannot fallback on weird technology to solve the case. I wonder why Japan didn't translate this one, when it is obviously a good game within the franchise. Also, it is as ridiculous as the average PW game, seeing how during the second case there's a large discussion about murders while that Russian sailor is standing here with a snake coiled and no-one gives a shit, or choosing wrong deductions on the logic puzzles, which results in hilarious commentaries. In fact, I'm not sure whether the Sherlock Holmes in the game is the real deal, or some lunatic that pretends to be him. Not even the other characters are sure.
He also has weird hi-tech gadgets that no-one seems to mind to boot. :lol:
Right now I began the third case, where the Prosecutor is introduced as someone that looks like a Dracula cosplayer.
 

Maxie

Guest
I’ve finally got to playing Dai Gyakuten Saiban as fan-translated by Scarlet Study, and I’d like to share a few thoughts on the game in the same manner I did before on the mainline series. As before, be aware of spoilers ahead. I picked the game up lured by the prospect of it being directed again by a Shu Takumi, the director of the Trilogy. Judging by this alone, the game should be at markedly different from latter days mainline AA, if not simply better than it. Now, was it?

This one takes place tad near the fin de siecle, and boy, does it show. I immediately fell in love in this historical setting, if only because the very firm Japanese-then-British context of the games invalidates any and all attempts at conjuring up Japamerica. Our boy Ryuu-chan, Phoenix’s ancestor, is a student of English dragged into the legal world by a false murder accusation. His best pal, the young attorney named Asougi, swears to defend the hell out of him in court. But it never happens, due to politics. Asougi is to visit Great Britain soon as an exchange student to learn the British law firsthand, and the prospect of losing in court could ruin his reputation before he even got to board any ship. So you defend yourself, with Asougi providing moral and legal guidance as your aide.

It’s a cool start. The tutorial, set in Japan, is barely basic, though – we’re thrown right into the middle of the political context of the world, with the Imperial Court of Japan being strangely reluctant to indict, let alone prosecute the British lady who happened to have murdered the victim, himself also a British gentleman (the latter going by the name of John H. Watson, which fact will come back indubitably). Asougi is incredibly sore about it, conjuring up his best Internet nationalist impression to counter the equally ridiculous anti-Jap sentiment of the British lady. In this surprisingly lengthy trial, Ryuu-chan defends himself and swears to help Asougi reform Japanese law, somehow. It’s no white lie, as Asougi stuffs him in a bag and takes him to Great Britain on a ship.

The cruise proves to be rather dire. Asougi ends up dead, Ryuu-chan wakes up in shackles. Late Asougi’s legal aide, a dainty little lady with a mean judo throw, barely contains herself behind that prudent facade. Susato, as she’s called, is willing to help you investigate Asougi’s apparent murder, as you prove you were locked in a wardrobe at the time, sleeping soundly. My beloved readers, this one is a highly peculiar case, because there’s no trial to speak of. That’s right, just investigation. You find out the weird guy next door is in fact a disguised runaway ballerina, and that Asougi died having unluckily tripped on her kitty, smashing his head against the bedpost. Ballerina’s sailor friends and guardians helped her hide the whole ordeal and blame you for it, to avoid her getting deported.

All ends well, thanks to Sherlock Holmes’s deductions. Ryuu-chan takes up Asougi’s mantle and decides to become the Great Ace Attorney, with Susato’s help. For the first time in the series, our legal aide has legal background, and actually proves to be useful in court. She’s also cute as a button in a dignified, subdued way. Sherlock Holmes is portrayed as a wacky lunatic, young and dashing, full of highly misguided brilliance. You help this chap correct his deductions, unravelling the truth in the process. The gimmick behind this is pretty nifty and greatly livens up investigations. Taking advantage of 3DS’s graphics, you inspect crime scenes and molest witnesses with your inquisitive gaze, searching for clues in their appearance, posture, gaze, etc., rotating them and changing the camera angle. It’s great fun.

The third part introduces the first British trial proper. Right off the boat. Chief Justice Vortex recognizes your proposal of taking Asougi’s place by giving you a challenge – go defend a man in court, post-haste. If you win, you’re made attorney. No investigations this time, you’re brought to court and made to find stuff out as you go. Even your client is refreshing, the shadiest you’ve ever defended in the series, including Matt Engarde from AA2. Cosney Megundal certainly gives off the vibe of someone who’s paid off everyone and manipulated everything to get acquitted, and has you standing for him in court out of formality. The case includes an absolutely bonkers piece of evidence/crime scene, an omnibus horse carriage you can enter and inspect from within. It also lets you get acquainted with the second major gimmick of the game, the jury system.

Each British trial has six juries, led by a foreman. They’re ostensibly picked at random, but, in a delightfully farcical way, most of the time they are either acquaintances of the witnesses, or are able to shed some light on the trial itself. This happens during Closing Arguments – jurors are awfully quick to vote guilty, which allows the game to pepper the trials with segments in which you, the defence attorney, try to convince them to change the vote. You press the jurors for more information, confront their statements, prove this or that with evidence – it’s a great addition to the game. Confronting statements does not take place only in Closing Arguments, oh no. Witness bench is able to house up to four people now, present even if they don’t testify themselves. Sometimes these passive witnesses act unusual hearing some statement, which lets you confront them.

I shall now stop to take a closer look at DGS’s mechanics. For all intents and purposes, the game is an alternative evolution path, a different branch of 3DS Ace Attorneys. I must say I prefer this path. First of all – unlike in AA5, DGS uses 3d in a more interesting way. The screens are lively, with characters moving about, interacting with the environment, and often interjecting conversations, letting you take part in larger convos without the asinine skipping between characters we got so used to by now. Investigations follow the Trilogy format of a single wide screen you scroll left or right, rather than the 3d maps you could rotate in AA5. Thanks to Sherlock’s deductions, you spend much less time collecting evidence, and instead take part in logic dives. The evidence you have most often holds hidden clues you uncover via closer examination. There’s no to-do checklist, and out of all cases only two follow the investigation-trial format.

Thanks to reduced evidence clutter, trials focus on pressing and comparing statements, proving jurors wrong in Closing Arguments, and much less bluffing than usual. Ryuu-chan may be a legal greenhorn, but he tends to avoid foolishness in court. The game itself has a much more grounded tone, with heavy political undertones and a far more realistic scope of the crimes. There’s a fair share of silliness, but I’ve never found it as offensive as in the mainline games. Even your rival, prosecutor Barok van Zieks, seems more reasonable than usual. The man has this quasi-vampiric appearance and likes to throw behind him goblets (and bottles!) of wine, but his reasoning is always sound, and his desire for truth praiseworthy. He’s also much more intent on reminding you what’s to be considered legal and what is pure balderdash. He hates the Japanese, though.

Back to Megundal. He’s found not guilty after a highly sketchy trial, leaving Ryuu-chan deeply dissatisfied with himself and with his newfound profession. But then he dies in a freak fire, apparently killed by someone. Van Zieks has this effect on the accused – they tend to die, even if prosecution loses trials. This is never fully explained in DGS, but I expect it to be resolved in the sequel. Nevertheless, at this stage we know what to expect of the game. The new mechanics are stellar, the tone is top-notch, the writing is witty after so many years of pure torture of mainline AA sequels, the audio-visual presentation is charming, mainly thanks to the chamber music soundtrack… And the next case is just a joy to play.

The fourth episode has you defend Natsume Souseki, an actual Japanese writer from the period, who’s apparently lived in London for a bit. It’s a mix of everything thus far, including an investigation full of logic dives, Sherlock’s deductions, a rather limited set of evidence, some world-building, the trial with trademark turnabouts (wrong side of the street!), confronting statements, pressing the jury… In the end, there was never a murder. DGS is a strange game up to this point. First, you have a murder you can’t really prosecute. Then, death was an accident. Then, the trial is hardly conclusive at all. Now, there’s not even that. Mrs. Garrideb’s bout of knife-throwing marital anger inconvenienced everyone profusely, but no lasting harm was done. It’s something of a comic relief case, not strongly related to the story arc we’re to experience soon, but I found it very, very good. Unlike what we’re to experience soon.

Look. I’ve sung this game’s praises up until now. I shall stand by my words staunchly. Equally staunchly shall I dismiss the final case as markedly worse than anything we’ve had the chance to experience this far. It’s much longer than other cases, with four investigation and four trial stages, during which we will conduct but a single bout of Sherlock’s deductions and a single Closing Argument in court. The rest of the case resembles AA5 a lot, unfortunately. It’s bloated with meaningless conversations first and with circular arguments next. Evidence piles up as the bailiff brings more and more junk into court, even though we’re to use relatively little of it. The final challenge is, essentially, a very Phoenixian bluff – forcing detective Gregson to show his hand before sensitive evidence is compromised. It also includes a lot of stereoscopy, both as a mechanic, and as a joke. Try not to end up cockeyed.

Story-wise, it’s a peculiar mixture of solid intrigue and meaningless childhood sob-stories, something unprecedented in the game so far. Late Mr Megundal had hidden at the pawnbroker’s some evidence that could have incriminated him back in the omnibus carriage trial. His two partners-in-crime squabble for it now – Gina, our friendly pickpocket tsundere with a heart of gold, and “Egg Benedict,” actually Rupert Chrogray, a telegraph technician who wanted to sell Megundal some confidential government intel. Gina was blackmailed into hiding Megundal’s part in the omnibus murder, Chrogray wants to retrieve the intel Megundal hid at the pawnbroker's. With the help of his petty criminal childhood friends, Chrogray manages to steal the stuff, killing the proprietor and framing Gina for murder. Ryuu-chan steps in to settle the score. Gina learns to trust her friends, Chrogray learns that one can’t and shouldn’t escape his past. In the meantime, Susato has to come back home, in a manner completely different from Maya’s departure in AA1.

Despite a dose of melodrama towards the finale, DGS trumps latter day mainline AA in tone. It’s consistently rooted in the legal world, even if said world proves to be ridiculous at times. Its fish-out-of-water main character works much better than either of Phoenix’s trainees, or than older Phoenix himself, frankly. Even the annoying kid sidekick of Sherlock Holmes did not trigger me much, despite her being much, much more whimsical than anyone else in the cast. Finally, the game is mechanically solid, with way more interesting challenges than those from AA5 and 6. It's also a much more conscious approach to 3DS’s possibilities and limitations. Very good game, truth be told. I’m awaiting the translation of the sequel anxiously, also thanks to some of the shameless cliffhangers present in DGS.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
Finished Great Attorney some time ago, my own thoughts here:

I agree with most of the points above, but I disagree that the final case is standard Ace Attorney inanity: While there are some anime moments, it doesn't reach the over-the-top insanity of the average AA case, and follows its own internal logic, for the most part. I'm not sure why the Dracula cosplayer considers Sherlock Holmes a fictional character, when the man himself is known by everyone and provides actual results. I like how the guy reminds you that just because you found clues from snooping around in the crime scene, they're not automatically valid, even if the whole "painted blood" thing seemed a bit of a stretch.

There's also cases where murder IS NOT the main crime, which is quite a fresh air compared to AA's regular case. Hell, you can even meet characters you tore down in previous cases instead of fading into the background, and they understandably hate your guts for having broken their lives/reputation.

The prosecutor is quite like and edgier and more hostile Edgeworth, but unfortunately the game doesn't explain why he hates your guts, clearly setting up future sequels. There are a few DLC cases which are not translated yet though.
As for the British lady of the first case, she also shows up again in the first case of the second game, so it's not like she's been forgotten about.

Specifically, Ryuu is framed, again, this time by the murder of said lady.

Also, the assistant lady is indeed way more helpful than the ones from previous games, but she's pretty much the stereotype of favored Japanese woman: Resourceful, cute, a bit shy but also strong in her own way, and clearly feminine.

Athena is annoying but that's because she's another stereotype, but a more standard weaboo one.

The greatest question though is why isn't this game translated and released officially to the West? It could be because it would overshadow AA's franchise, but I don't think so considering how different it is. Perhaps nipponese people are hoarding the best stuff for themselves?

Although, seeing what C(r)apcom has done to the RE franchise in RE3, I'm not sure if this game and the sequels would have its script horribly butchered for these extra SJW points or worse, if they were to be released nowadays.

I almost forgot: This youtube channel has playthroughs of all AA games, including the ongoing translation of the Great Attorney 2, for those interested.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ZSlyzer
 

Maxie

Guest
For whoever cares - on Scarlet Study's website there appeared a half hidden image of a character from Great Ace Attorney 2

masked.png


Translation release soon?
 

ValeVelKal

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
1,605
The best A. Attorney game is Aviary Attorney :



It is not a joke, I found it better than AA1 and AA2. After playing Aviary, I could not go back to Ace 3 and further.
 

Calthaer

Educated
Patron
Joined
Jan 29, 2021
Messages
86
Strap Yourselves In
It took me like 10 years to complete AA3. I finished the first two, but then when I hit the third I just ran out of steam somewhere near the middle. Maybe the clues to pick the right dialogue option were more obvious in the original Japanese, but I found it tough to figure out - even when they had the keyword highlighted.

I started in on Miles Edgeworth, but...meh. I think I have Apollo Justice lying around somewhere too, maybe - or maybe I sold it because I hadn't opened it.

Wish the series had had better writing. It was pretty awesome to have the same company that did Mega Man and Street Fighter take the vibes from those games and apply it to an adventure game / legal sim.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Aviary Attorney is excellent, but I found it fairly 'light' in the sense that most of the time you're basically putting the square block in the square hole and round block in the round hole. I think what really carries it is the wonderful style.

Ace Attorney became less and less interesting when it had to become more and more elaborate in its ridiculousness, whereas the campy stuff was relatively simple in the first iteration. I guess I sympathise with the devs, because it's hard to take this kind of setting further without becoming more extreme.
 

Dzupakazul

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 16, 2015
Messages
707
My personal order goes somewhere like AAI2 > PW3 > PW1 = PW6 > PW2 (its final case deserves a mention as probably the best in the series, but abysmal 1 and 3 don't help my memory or overall replayability) > AAI > PW5 > PW4. I generally sympathize with the characters and I find their gimmicks amusing rather than annoying. Aside from the mysteries I cherish the ridiculousness and the over-the-top anime spectacle. I have yet to play The Great Ace Attorney.

Unlike Maxie I fully embrace the prosecutors going more and more over the top; it's just a feel-good retreat for me to see another prosecutor break out a loud trademark yell and pull out more bullshit. It helps that the prosecutors are generally characters that are fun to hate and roll eyes at. Klavier was weak in that regard because he helped you more than he antagonized you (something that in the original game only happened when the case was nipped in the bud and was a huge moment for the cold update-the-autopsy-report jackass in a cravat), and Sahdmadhi lacked the charm and smugness in favor of some pretty vile comments as you say, but I think of the cast of characters in each game fondly and positively nonetheless. Plus the games consistently have really good music and artwork, and I dig that a lot too, will keep me coming back.

I do understand and sympathize with the idea that the series has generally been declining somewhat and I do commend you for sticking with the series for so long in spite of already being rather tired by PW3, which is, IMO, a very strong game and the one I'm personally most fond of coming back to.

Part of why I liked PW3 and AAI2 the most is also probably that they build memorable character moments for characters I've already grown to like. PW3 has a lot of great background for Phoenix and Mia and some of the most fun mysteries, and a villain prosecutor that wins no case and still remains menacing. AAI2 has very compelling cases, builds up on AAI characters, has a few celebrated cameos and the overall buildup and resolution works out much better than the wishy-washy plot of PW5 and much of PW6's melodrama (which I still generally liked).
 

Maxie

Guest
For whoever cares - after a year of radio silence, Scarlet Study has released an English version of Episode 3 of Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
For whoever cares - after a year of radio silence, Scarlet Study has released an English version of Episode 3 of Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2
Cool! How many left?
Also, I wanted to give my own commentary of the latest AA game, but we had a shit year and I lost motivation on writing walls of texts, dunno if I'll do so for now. Is the Ace Attorney and the Layton game full of pointless puzzles like the latter's series, or is it somewhat restrained?
 

Maxie

Guest
For whoever cares - after a year of radio silence, Scarlet Study has released an English version of Episode 3 of Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2
Cool! How many left?
Also, I wanted to give my own commentary of the latest AA game, but we had a shit year and I lost motivation on writing walls of texts, dunno if I'll do so for now. Is the Ace Attorney and the Layton game full of pointless puzzles like the latter's series, or is it somewhat restrained?
two episodes left, God only knows when will they be released since there will be some Phoenix Wright event
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
i thought AA 6 was the best out of the new trilogy. maybe because of the "fan service" aspect you said but truly the new characters are given a time to shine especially appolo's arc is satisfying. i am a fan of apollo even if he's kinda underused in his own game. the first trilogy is the best, while AA 2 is the worst out of 3, 2-4 is the best case in the series.

layton vs ace attorney is pretty fine and Dai blew the expectations out of me shame they never bring it over here. thanks scarlet study.
 

Wunderbar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 15, 2015
Messages
8,809
This is what happens when you ban Maxie from the shoubox. He starts contributing to the society!
 

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