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    Ace Attorney TGS 2020 Postmortem

    September 28, 2020

    Ace Attorney TGS 2020 Postmortem

    TGS 2020 Postmortem

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 08:52 AM PDT

    So, we didn't get any new Ace Attorney reveal. Disappointing, obviously. Given Capcom's usual habit of making initial announcements for Ace Attorney games at TGS, I'd imagine plenty of you are feeling pretty downbeat at the prospect of waiting yet another full year for news. Let's talk about a few things:

    • The hardware leap: with Ace Attorney moving from the 3DS to the Switch (and quite possibly other systems, given the release platforms for the latest remasters), the devs are dealing with a more significant change in hardware than any sequel in the series before. The jump from the GBA to the DS, and then the DS to the 3DS, by comparison, were far more minor technical changes. I would personally suspect that Capcom also wanted to test the waters with expanding the list of platforms to receive Ace Attorney releases using last year's remasters, and if that's true, it would obviously also cause a significant jump in the amount of work that goes into a new title. We know that the new Trilogy release has been selling very well, and that's a great sign.

    • Capcom's silence: they always do this. Like Nintendo, Capcom always keeps a very tight lid on their development projects until they have a major announcement to make. Yes, it's frustrating to know so little of what's going on behind-the-scenes, but that doesn't mean that the series is in danger.

    • The director: no, Takeshi Yamazaki leaving Capcom a little while back isn't anything to be worried about. I still see people around saying "the director left, so the series is probably dead", and there's no reason to think that. For one thing, Yamazaki already left the Ace Attorney team within Capcom after Spirit of Justice was released four years ago, and he wasn't the only director involved with that game. Takuro Fuse was Yamazaki's co-director for AA6. Of course, with Yamazaki leaving the director's chair, there was obviously a need for the Ace Attorney team to be assigned a new director, and like usual, Capcom hasn't said anything further about that. If anything, I might think that Yamazaki leaving the company is a sign that they did successfully find a new director.

    • "Capcom only announces games at TGS": this isn't really true. Yes, Ace Attorney usually gets game reveals at TGS (most of them teased in Weekly Famitsu a few weeks before the event), but there is precedent for Capcom revealing the games elsewhere. It happened with Dual Destinies, for instance. Additionally, two of the main titles Capcom showed off this year (the Monster Hunter entries) were both revealed in Nintendo's most recent Direct Mini, rather than getting their first reveal at TGS itself, and I probably don't need to tell you that Monster Hunter is a much bigger franchise than Ace Attorney. With Nintendo shifting to their "Partner Showcase" model for their online presentations recently, and still having a close relationship with Capcom, I think it's definitely worth treating Nintendo Directs as a strong option for first-time Ace Attorney reveals at this point. It's true that Capcom hasn't made an initial reveal for them using one before, but that doesn't mean it's unrealistic.

    • The pandemic, obviously: Ace Attorney games are developed by a relatively small team within Capcom. We're definitely not at the end of the disruptions caused by the pandemic yet, and so it also has to be considered what a major impact it will have had on the series' development, even in Japan.

    So, discuss your outlook on things and ask any questions you might have in this thread, please.

    submitted by /u/JC-DisregardMe
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    I found the picture on google while searching Olga. It's just contains undescribable energy.

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 12:40 PM PDT

    The third set of icons includes Apollo, Trucy, Klavier and Ema. Will do the more requested characters in tomorrow's set.

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 05:45 PM PDT

    A disappointing turn of events

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 07:50 AM PDT

    NO WAY

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 08:34 AM PDT

    Was looking for Halloween costumes for my cat. I guess Ace Apurrney is popular this year.

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 06:45 PM PDT

    My phantom thief name, get the reference?

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 01:44 PM PDT

    If Manfred Von Karma had a mustache

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 12:10 PM PDT

    Godot Fanart

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 03:52 PM PDT

    Amateur fanart of Pearl Fey as an airbender.

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 06:44 PM PDT

    I'm drawing Godot as a side thing of work, probably not ever gonna finish it completly but I really like how it's turning out!

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 09:58 AM PDT

    A Cast in Review - Spirit of Justice

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 03:05 PM PDT

    Here we are. Took a few extra weeks, but I got through Turnabout Time Traveler again, bringing an end to my main series replay. Spirit of Justice is the Ace Attorney game I went into with the heaviest amount of emotional investment of any, and I've been really eager to talk about it. First, my previous cast review posts:

    And before we start, I need to outline a couple of differences in how I'll be handling this. I normally list the characters in approximate order of appearance, with slight variations here and there. This time, though, I'll be opening with Apollo and Phoenix specifically, and have a section later on dedicated to the relationship between the two of them, because a lot of my opinions on this game are tied to their mentor-protégé relationship, and I don't want random remarks on it cluttering the sections for other characters. Finally, this post will likely run long enough that I'll need to split some characters off into a stickied comment below, so get ready for a marathon of a post.

    APOLLO JUSTICE

    So, I've got plenty to say on Apollo. Most of it I've said before, and I don't want this to go on forever, so let's just hit upon the most important stuff.

    I love Case 2 Apollo. He feels completely like a natural continuation of AA4 Apollo, and his relationships with Trucy, Athena, and Phoenix are all great. Apparently he had a pet rabbit when he was younger, which Athena finds hilarious. He's kind of a jerk to Ema in the first few exchanges of her (pretty awful) introductory scene. Yamazaki gave an interview about Case 2 at one point, and it outlines a bizarre opinion of his that Apollo and Ema have never been friendly with one another, despite all evidence to the contrary in AA4 and its surrounding media. But whatever - they're back to friendly banter right after that, so as weird as the first part of the scene is, we can ignore it.

    Apollo shows his growth as a lawyer and as a friend to Trucy all over the place in this case. It's excellent. His personality is exactly the way it should be here, and seeing him defend Phoenix's daughter in her father's absence and go head-to-head with Roger Retinz is incredibly satisfying after how sidelined he was for most of AA5's story.

    Buuut now let's get to Case 5. Apollo is not the same character in Case 5, and I don't mean that like "he develops a bunch". I mean that he stops being Apollo as soon as Dhurke walks in the door, and following a five-minute ramble of exposition about this new backstory that he definitely always had and just never mentioned before, "Apollo Justice" is removed from the game and replaced with a different character entirely, sharing his face and name. Khura'in Apollo is just... frustrating to me. I can't possibly view this version of him as anything other than a mistake, and one made solely because the devs decided late that he needed to be important to this game's main story, after Phoenix had been its main character for most of the writing process.

    Consequently, dorky everyman Apollo, who just wants to do his job as an attorney and be taken seriously, is shoddily transformed into an invincible escapist anime hero in an epic struggle to fight a corrupt monarchy. Basically everything that made him my favourite protagonist in the series goes away instantly. I don't give a shit about Khura'in, and I've never stopped being frustrated by how Apollo is duct-taped into it and then sent off on his own, with the ending choosing to pretend that he's ever been allowed to have a meaningful character arc. Case 5 slaps a massive, disrespectful downgrade onto Phoenix, Athena, and even Dhurke himself in the civil trial just to make Apollo look as good as possible, and I will never be moved from that position.

    PHOENIX WRIGHT

    So, Phoenix starts off as a marked improvement from his Dual Destinies characterization. I have to specify "starts off", of course, because a lot of that good goes away by the end of the game.

    In Case 1, Phoenix acts much more appropriately level-headed, confident, and mature than his AA5 self. The frequency of his "OH, FUUUUCK" face's appearances goes way down, and we even get a nice little callback to the class trial from the original game when he chooses to take up Ahlbi's defence no matter what he's up against.

    His phone call with Apollo in Case 2 is an excellent scene, perfectly demonstrating how much he's come to trust and respect the rookie attorney he hired on two games ago.

    Seeing his friendship with Maya just as strong as ever is wonderful, even if Maya herself ends up cheated out of importance almost immediately. Case 3 also gives him some great scenes with Rayfa, his parenting experience allowing him to both ease her temper and help to support her when she's feeling dejected.

    And then Case 5 happens. I'll go into that catastrophe in the stickied comment.

    AHLBI UR'GAID

    So Ahlbi's... cute, if not much else. He doesn't really change a ton, outside of Case 1. Naïve kid, ambitious entrepreneur, and bearer of an incredible good luck streak when it comes to providing highly plot-convenient help. His sort of little-brother role to Maya is kinda precious.

    SHAH'DO

    Little dog, who will one day become a very big dog. He's inherited his master's proclivity for stumbling into extremely plot-convenient trouble.

    PAHT ROHL

    Dead family man. Not nearly as annoying as the other characters with name puns based on "patrol".

    JUDGE (KHURA'INESE)

    Oddly enough, despite first seeming to be just as cartoonishly contemptuous of defence attorneys and dismissive of foreigners as most of the people of Khura'in, His Magistry actually proves himself to be about the most responsible, level-headed person in the entire country. It only takes a couple of cross-examinations for him to totally change his tune on Phoenix, and while he remains a deeply devout man who dislikes the idea of a defence attorney questioning the royal family in any way, he doesn't tend to let that affect his impartiality as a judge at all. He even stands up to members of the royal family for himself when the situation calls for it, baffled as he might be to find himself doing so.

    RAYFA PADMA KHURA'IN

    The princess. Tell you the truth, I expected to hate her, going into the game. I suppose that was the idea, what with her pompous, high-and-mighty personality. By the end of Case 1, however, when she's escorted out of the courtroom, throwing a tantrum all the while, I had the distinct feeling that I was going to end up liking her much more than I originally expected.

    I groaned when I realized that she was going to be accompanying Phoenix as his investigation assistant in Case 3. Are we really so attached to having a teenage girl in that role as often as possible that we need to do this? Well, whatever - Rayfa goes through absolutely no shortage of great character development in Case 3. We see that she's tried to patch up her bruised ego following the outcome of Ahlbi's trial in Case 1, now more determined than ever to prove that her Séances reveal only the incontrovertible truth. But of course, following another thorough examination by Phoenix, her insights are found to be mistaken once again, and this time, it's immediately clear that her self-esteem has taken a serious hit as a result. She can't just pretend to herself that it was a fluke again, and she feels like a failure.

    It's understandable, really - Rayfa's only fourteen, and her entire life thus far has been focused around only her duties as Royal Priestess and heir to the throne. Couple that with the emotional abuse Ga'ran has been throwing at her for as long as she can remember, and her downcast reaction to another fruitless Séance is exactly what you'd expect. I love the little moment at the start of the second investigation in which Phoenix tries to help her feel a bit better by prodding her into accompanying him again. Funny that he's better at acting like a dad to Rayfa in just this one sequence than he was to Trucy in the entirety of Dual Destinies.

    Of course, Rayfa's troubles definitely don't end there. Maya's second trial proves that she was completely wrong about this case from the very beginning, she learns that her Séance was actually deliberately manipulated to trick her into casting suspicion on the wrong person (clearly leaving her terrified that she's caused false convictions before), and she has to discover that her beloved father has been orchestrating extrajudicial killings of citizens he finds inconvenient. That's a hell of a lot to take in in the space of a few days. Everything in Rayfa's life has been thrown into question, leaving her plagued with doubts about herself, the convictions she's ensured thanks to her Séances, and her family. Who is she supposed to turn to for emotional support? Her abusive mother? Her caring father, who she's just learned was sponsoring extraudicial murder? It's a miracle she comes out of all of this with her emotional state left intact at all.

    Sadly, Rayfa becomes a victim of some writing problems in the final case. Here, her characterization basically spins off into a nearly verbatim retread of Sebastian Debeste. She's not bad, she's just a noticeable step down from her Case 3 self. Following a little discussion I had with another user here several months back, though, I will give Case 5 Rayfa some points for basically being the same character that Nahyuta's trying to be, but much less shit. Just like him, she's been manipulated into ensuring the convictions and deaths of countless innocent people, and she's spent her entire life being fed emotional abuse and propaganda by her mother that has made her spiteful and arrogant toward defence attorneys, and yet all it took was one trial exposing the flaws in Khura'in justice system to completely shake her out of the mentality her entire life has pushed her into. Seeing those flaws, she has both the desire and initiative to fix them despite having less influence in the court than Nahyuta or the Judge, and once it comes down to a conflict against her "mother", she's standing her ground and fighting to ensure the truth is uncovered, while Nahyuta continues to be Ga'ran's doormat.

    Just compare her insights and behaviour surrounding Jove's Séance to the way she behaved in Case 1. She's a whole different person.

    PEES'LUBN ANDISTAN'DHIN

    Not writing that name again. Funny guitar murderer. Case goes on way too long. His fantastic animations are the perfect demonstration of just how vast an improvement the skills of the artists and animators went through between games. The voice blip jokes that he brings with him were the first Ace Attorney joke in years to make me pause for laughter.

    Interesting that he's given just a tiny bit of actual story significance later on.

    GASPEN PAYNE

    Fuck, is he awful. There really isn't anything likeable or entertaining about him. I miss his brother. Somehow, though, he's not the worst prosecutor in this game.

    INGA KARKHUUL KHURA'IN

    Pretend I included the rest of the name.

    So, Inga is a bit weird. For Case 1 and most of Case 3, he's just a classic slimy bastard with an oddly misplaced speech pattern. His quirks are kind of amusing. It's not until Case 5 that anything becomes especially interesting about him, and even then, it doesn't happen until after he's dead. I'll admit that seeing him become the victim in Case 5 was a bit more satisfying than any stabbing ought to be. Think about his final moments, too - he shot Dhurke no less than three times, still ended up chased out of the tomb by him, and now here he is, fatally stabbed from behind, looking up to see Dhurke standing over him, seemingly still alive.

    It ends up as kind of a shame, though, that he ends up being given so many interesting traits only after his death, and despite the prominence of spirit channeling in the game, he never ends up getting any extra screentime via channeling. I think the last case could've been more interesting if he had stayed alive at least long enough to carry on his conflict against his wife onscreen. The heavy implication that he was doing all of this for Rayfa's benefit and not his own is the thing that makes his abrupt death feel the most like a total waste of potential.

    ATHENA CYKES

    Poor girl. Sidelined almost entirely just one game after her debut, and she didn't even get to be that game's main player character. So, to hit the positives first - Athena does get plenty of good screentime in this game. Her dynamic with Apollo in Case 2 is better than ever. These two are close friends, both equally determined to save Trucy from her false charges, and I love every minute of their banter together. At any given time, Athena can be genuinely complimenting Apollo, teasing him, enjoying a friendly joke, outright flirting with him - all of it feels perfectly in-character for her, and it all reminds me of why I consider her and Apollo the best defence teamup since Phoenix and Maya. There's a downside to her role in Case 2, though - after spending the first three quarters of the episode doing all of the above while also showing how much she cares about and admires Trucy, she pretty much stops existing in the trial's last segment. Once it comes time for Apollo to face off against Roger Retinz, Athena almost stops talking entirely, and is pretty much there just to act as an extension of Apollo's reaction faces. I don't really get the reason.

    Let's get to Case 4 now. It's Athena's only case as defence leader in this game, and it unfortunately feels the need to wind back the development she went through in Dual Destinies pretty noticeably, turning her back into the short-tempered and confidence-lacking newbie she was in Turnabout Academy. She even comes close to another PTSD attack when put under deliberate pressure by a certain asshole prosecutor, before Simon steps in to back her up. Of course, this leads into the excellent Cykes-Blackquill defence team dynamic, so ultimately, I can tolerate Athena's downgrade in competence.

    Her banter with Simon is fantastic. It's abundantly clear that the two still care about and trust each other just as much as they did in Dual Destinies, and Athena is trying her best to get her ex-con friend reacclimated to everyday society. That said, though, Simon takes very much a tough-love approach to helping Athena out in the trial, and doesn't quietly tolerate obvious mistakes on her part. It's important to take note of the reason, though - Simon knows that Athena can do better, he knows that she's tough enough to handle even his harshest criticisms, and he knows exactly how to get her back on her feet when she's really struggling. Who would've guessed that "grab ahold of her shoulders and shake her" was exactly the right choice? It's a perfect showing of the level of trust these two have in one another.

    She's fun on her own in Case 4, as well. She's great with emotions, but terrible at catching jokes, going off her interactions with Uendo, and her hotheaded personality makes interacting with Owen a bit of a challenge for her. "Auntie Athena" is kind of intense.

    ... Athena going along with Phoenix's idiotic "don't tell Apollo what's going on" request halfway through the civil trial is aggravating, as is her demotion to joke character in the DLC. I counted no fewer than four "Athena shows up to say hi, and then bolts to escape Trucy again" jokes in that case, accounting for the majority of her appearances.

    (And a random fun fact - between her dialogue and Ema's, we can safely assume that Athena is the only person in the Wright Anything Agency who can actually drive.)

    TRUCY WRIGHT

    I don't hesitate to say that 6-2 has Trucy at her best. She's only ever improved as a magician, given time, and she shows a level of talent easily worthy of the Gramarye name. At the same time, though, this is where we finally see proof that she's not infallible. She ends up duped and manipulated by Betty and Retinz, and her mistakes nearly cost her her freedom, reputation, and entire family business. Nevertheless, with some emotional support from Athena and Apollo, she bounces back and proves essential to solving the case for real.

    And speaking of that emotional support, her detention centre visit is the best scene she's ever had. She does her best to keep up her performer's smile, but this time, it just can't stick. Apollo knows she's hurting far more than she lets on, and with the right prompting the dam finally breaks.

    When I first saw the promotional material for this case, including a Perceive sequence as she insists "I'm fine, Polly", I just knew this scene was going to hurt me, and I was right. Watching Trucy break into a frightened ramble about her fear that she really did screw up and cause her co-star's death, and then seeing her finally break down crying in front of her friends - I damn near teared up. I have a lot of emotional investment in the newer cast, and Trucy is no exception. There's actually a really good little character moment with her if you pick the wrong piece of evidence to present to her after the trial, as well. While picking the correct one is obviously the better choice, and will put a genuine smile back on her face following some encouragement from Apollo, she still shows the same performer's dedication she's so well-known for if you get it wrong, earnestly thanking Apollo for at least trying to cheer her up.

    For another good point, she's learned by now that keeping Apollo in the dark about how a magic trick was performed is really not a sensible decision when it's critical to understanding a murder case.

    I need to address the bad parts as well, though. Trucy still gets no screentime with her best friend Pearl, being cleverly removed from the scene in Kurain Village just in time to dodge her, and in the DLC case, she regresses to her one-dimensional joke self from Dual Destinies. She doesn't even exchange a single word with Maya, and we've been waiting anywhere up to thirteen years to know what their relationship is like.

    Having her voiced by Kira Buckland is a wonderful touch, longtime Ace Attorney fan that she is.

    MANOV MISTREE

    This poor sap didn't do a thing to deserve what Retinz did to him. ... Well, aside from taking part in the "prank" against Trucy, anyway. Wasn't his idea.

    BONNY DE FAMME

    Bonny's alright. I was afraid she would just end up as ship fuel, when I first saw her in the magazine scan that revealed her. Fortunately, she came through mostly unharmed. Anyway, she's kinda cute, and has a really fun, energetic dynamic with her twin sister.

    BETTY DE FAMME

    Glad she exists, despite the "twins" twist not exactly being new for this series. I was feeling a bit put out to see the first implication that "Bonny" was actually secretly nasty. I just want Trucy to have friends, after reading so many sad fanfics that depict her as an unpopular loner.

    Betty does run into a problem that a lot of characters in this series have, though - sure, she didn't have any idea that Retinz was really planning to frame Trucy for a murder, of all things, but she does try her best to have Trucy convicted, and yet the game totally stops acknowledging that once attention turns to taking Retinz down, just painting her as a cute little Tsundere instead, and fuck that trope in general.

    THE JUDGE

    Same eccentric old friend as always. He gets very little screentime in this game, of course, only appearing in two cases in the main game, plus the DLC. They do take advantage of that time, though. He's as snarky with penalties as ever, and it's clear that he doesn't like seeing Trucy accused. Watching him irritably chastise Apollo for interrupting Trucy's magic tricks is hilarious. He also gets plenty of chances for funny exchanges with Simon in Case 4, and especially Edgeworth the DLC.

    I want to mention his interactions with Trucy again, though - Udgey is obviously a genuine fan of her magic shows, and he almost treats her like a grandchild of his at times. It's really nice.

    EMA SKYE

    Oh, Ema. You've finally got your dream job, you're all smiles after years of frustration and grumpiness, and what does the universe do to you? Well, a hell of a lot, almost none of it nice.

    To start, Ema meets up with her friend Apollo, and he kind of acts like a total dick to her for the first half of her introductory scene before she straightens him out. That scene is so weird overall, and I kinda can't stand it. Apollo just acts like Ema's never been anything but an irritable grouch toward him, and he practically runs away at the sight of her, but then ten lines later they've gone right back to normal, acting like a pair of good friends again, as they should.

    So, from there, Ema is paired up with another prosecutor who annoys the hell out of her. This flowery bag of dicks tells her to arrest one of her friends, accusing Trucy of deliberately murdering her co-star, he outright refuses to tell Ema the reason for the accusation, and then her job forces her to testify against poor Trucy. This does net us one of my favourite Ema scenes ever, though, when she prefaces her testimony by stating for the record that she doesn't believe Trucy is guilty, so that's a plus.

    Now, after that case, Ema catches up with Phoenix in Khura'in, but once more is denied the chance to just have a good chat with a friend of hers, because she's forced to arrest Maya. There's an implication that she and Maya met offscreen, interestingly enough. These games don't usually like to let major characters meet for the first time offscreen, so it's a refreshing change. So, Ema has to testify against Maya, and even watch as she is convicted, left to believe that Phoenix, a good friend of hers and one of her personal heroes, is doomed to be executed. She also has to deal with considerably more frustration from Nahyuta in this case, her stress-eating Snackoo habit coming back out in full force.

    Then, in Case 5, she ends up stuck with the unbearable difficulty of being the one to discover Dhurke's body, and deliver the horrible news to Apollo, back in the courtroom. Seriously - what the hell did she ever do to deserve all of this? Did existence itself just consider the idea of Ema Skye being happy so offensive that it needed to directly intervene?

    At least she gets to investigate alongside of Edgeworth in the DLC, with no further trauma or emotional distress included. She does her best to meet the standards of her personal hero, even if her enthusiasm causes her to screw up here and there.

    A couple of other complaints - Ema comes across as kind of inept at times, in this game. I get that she's got to make the odd mistake here or there so that the defence will have opportunities to take some ground in the trials, but the shift to bring her away from being so frequently grumpy has also caused her to become noticeably less bright on average than she normally is, and that's pretty irritating. Gumshoe messed up regularly because for all of his good intentions, he was kind of dumb. Ema isn't. Additionally, of course, there's the game's insistence upon using her as a mouthpiece for its rather pathetic attempts at pretending that Nahyuta isn't a reprehensible sack of shit. Ema comes across like a weak, pouting doormat whenever it comes to Nahyuta, and that's a complete disservice to her character. Klavier was never half as bad as Nahyuta consistently is, and Ema had no problem telling him to fuck off.

    ROGER RETINZ

    What a class act of a villain. Kind of a waste, confining him to a plot-irrelevant filler case.

    Retinz is absolutely delightful as a scummy, conniving weasel of the highest caliber. His artistically obnoxious behaviour makes him wonderfully hateable without being too annoying, his competence as a culprit is nearly unparalleled, his story is engaging and actually ties into Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (I get the overall sense that 6-2 was written by the only person on the team who actually gives a shit about that game), his transformation and breakdown are both fantastic - I can't get enough of this guy. Heartless bastard is right up there with Manfred von Karma, so fixated on revenge against Magnifi Gramarye that he took on an apprentice and trained him to take on his old stage name, then killed the guy in order to frame Magnifi's granddaughter, who had abolutely nothing to do with his grudge, as well as cheating Trucy out of her family business and ownership of the Gramarye performance rights, all just to take personal revenge against an old man who had been dead for nine years. Incredible.

    I really mean it when I say that this case would've been perfect as the finale to an actual Apollo Justice sequel. It's got everything it needs, from an exciting and unique murder case, to great Trucy-Apollo interactions, all the way up to scenes that outline just how much Phoenix has come to respect Apollo.

    PUHRAY ZEH'LOT

    Dead, and without anything to make me sad for it. Maya probably cared about him, too, and she has to go through both being falsely accused of his murder and learning that he was a complete bastard.

    MAYA FEY

    I've said it before, and it still stands - Maya's characterization in this game is utterly on point. She's grown up, gaining far more maturity and wisdom, but she's still our good old goofball Maya. Still Phoenix's best friend after two years away (quite a few more, from our point of view), Ms. Fey made her return to the cast in a new form that leaves me perfectly content.

    ... Perfectly content aside from how completely shafted she winds up being in the story, that is. Maya doesn't get to do a damn thing for most of the game. She doesn't properly appear at all until Case 3, and then she has to spend most of that case offscreen as a defendant, or performing a channeling. She gets an absolutely wonderful scene with Rayfa at the case's end (which gets at least two full flashbacks later on, indicating that the writers were pretty proud of it), and plenty of heartwarming scenes with Phoenix, but throwing her into the defendant's position is a complete cop-out. She's not accused because of her awful family history, or because of her relationship with Phoenix. She's accused because she's Maya Fey, and these games can't let go of nostalgia.

    Case 5 doesn't do much more for her. We ultimately discover that she's improved immensely as a medium, managing to maintain a channeling for days without a break, right after she's been trapped as a kidnapping victim, but this case cheats her out of a proper appearance even more blatantly than Case 3 did. Like Ema, she gets plenty of emotional gut-punches, too. All the traumatic shit that happens in Case 3 is followed up by Inga taking her hostage, leading up to Dhurke's botched rescue attempt, in which she has to see him shot right in front of her and then watch him bleed to death, throwing herself headlong into his revolution plans immediately thereafter.

    The DLC is a letdown for her, too. Even upon replay, I just can't view Turnabout Time Traveler as anything more than a painfully unambitious case limping its way along entirely on nostalgia bait, and this includes Maya being Flanderized into an incredibly childish parody of herself with only one good moment in the entire case.

    DATZ ARE'BAL

    I like Datz. He's a goof very reminiscent of Larry, but with nearly none of Larry's worse traits. I'm not so fond of his courtroom appearance in which he lies over and over at no real benefit to anyone, making much of that trial feel like a total waste of time, but after that point, I haven't really got any criticisms for him. His friendship and trust in Dhurke feels believable, he's got plenty of entertaining quirks, and he's a genuine help to the protagonists at considerable risk to himself.

    TAHRUST INMEE

    A bit more split on this guy. On one hand, I really respect what Case 3 tried to do, outlining in full detail that Khura'in's justice system is fucked, and I do like the portrayal of his relationship with his wife, but he's another major victim of the "sympathetic culprit who tried really hard to frame an innocent person" thing. The case tries really hard to sell the idea that there really were no good options available for protecting his wife and their unborn child, but I can't help feeling he still didn't have to make the choice to kill himself and sacrifice Maya's life (after she had become friends with him and his wife for two years, mind), because I'm pretty sure there were several other options. One of the worse parts to it, though, is the way that the rebels just freely help his wife escape from the court after the trial is over. You're really gonna tell me they couldn't have worked out an escape plan before all of this that wouldn't directly get Maya and Phoenix killed?

    BEH'LEEB INMEE

    Sort of the same thing.

    THE PLUMED PUNISHER

    Edgeworth is right to be outraged.

    TAIFU TONEIDO

    Hello, traits borrowed from Russell Berry. If this old fool hadn't been so ridiculously dramatic and indirect about telling Geiru to pursue her own dreams, this case wouldn't have needed to happen.

    BUCKY WHET

    Gotta wonder what Bucky's like when he's sober. The fact that he and Simon of all people are childhood friends is hilarious. Anyway, Bucky's a decent guy. Not a ton to say about him.

    UENDO TONEIDO

    Best individual witness in the series, bar none. Uendo is a masterwork of character animation, playing around with a 3D model to incredible effect and presenting no fewer than four memorable personalities in one single character. I love this guy, and this case. Seeing Athena's promising theory about Owen being the culprit completely collapse the instant he's revealed is one of my favourite moments in the whole game.

    GEIRU TONEIDO

    One of the better attempts at a sympathetic culprit, in my opinion. Imagining her hanging out with Simon is also hilarious, of course. Does he even realize how ridiculous he looks next to these people?

    Yes, Geiru has the usual "tried to frame someone else" problem, but what I appreciate about her is the fact that she clearly feels horrified and regretful about the murder she committed, and that it wasn't something she extensively planned in advance. An emotional upheaval and an awful misunderstanding led to her doing something terrible that she can't possibly take back, and while it would certainly have looked better for her if she hadn't tried to frame Uendo and then testified against Bucky when he instead wound up accused, I still think she's a much better attempt at a sympathetic killer than most in the series.

    SIMON BLACKQUILL

    Simon's still great. Back when he still believed he would be executed, he carried himself with an air that combined theatrical menace with a childish sense of humor, but now he's had to step back into normal life, returning to work as an overworked prosecutor and watching as the number of people who take him seriously at all slowly creeps its way down. I already talked about how much I love his relationship with Athena, so no need to go over that again.

    Simon absolutely going to town on Nahyuta is the other highlight of Case 4. There's nothing more satisfying. Piece of trash deserves every word of it.

    DHURKE

    Ahh, boy. What do I say about Dhurke? I could complain some more about how much I hate Apollo's Khura'in backstory, but that's already been done. Let's try another angle.

    Dhurke is an awful parent, between the neglect, abandonment, and emotional manipulation. That's not to just say he's a terrible person or anything, mind - he's just not really the right guy for the job, no matter how hard he tries. He's a friendly, jovial guy, but he's not good with emotions, and his attempts to reconcile with Apollo are awkward at best. It's obvious that he feels terrible for leaving his adopted son alone in his birth country of America all those years ago, and I can't imagine he's thrilled to be asking Apollo a favour as their first interaction in around fifteen years. On that point, though, I can't say I'm especially fond of the choices he makes. His reckless behaviour has already gotten him killed, and in keeping that a secret from Apollo, he knowingly drags the son he abandoned into a political conflict that nearly gets Apollo killed for a cause that he has no stake in more than once, and he's even putting Maya in danger at the same time, what with borrowing her body and all.

    Speaking of, no attempt is made to explain why the hell he waits until after the civil trial is over to bother telling Phoenix that Maya is already safe. He doesn't really do anything helpful throughout that entire event, which comes immediately after he nearly got Apollo killed without even telling him the reasons behind what they were doing.

    I probably sound like I'm being highly negative. I do like Dhurke, honestly. He's a heavily flawed person, but that's what makes him interesting. He knows that he hasn't made the best decisions, and he has more than a few regrets he wants to make up for. His plans for revolution are ridiculously idealistic, given the odds he's up against. Were it not for Apollo's Case 5 upgrade into an invincible anime hero, Dhurke's bloodless revolution never would've had the faintest chance to succeed.

    Basically, Dhurke's recklessly heroic nature makes him a strong, dependable leader for the rebels, but it's also the root cause of most of his flaws, and it kind of annoys me how infrequently those flaws are addressed both in-game and by fans. He has an exceptional Objection shout.

    ARCHIE BUFF

    Weird. By all accounts, he was a good parent, but he was also a thief with a misguided sense of respect for the artifacts he pilfered.

    ARMIE BUFF

    Ace Attorney is really attached to traumatizing kids. Armie seems to be on the road to recovery, though, despite the tragic and horrifying loss of both of her parents.

    I like Armie. Her not-always-cooperative behaviour is completely justified, given that she's twelve, and both of her parents have been killed. Maybe the "oh she's actually a girl" twist isn't really super-necessary, but she's definitely one of the only two things I like about the dumpster fire that is the civil trial. She also gets a great character moment with Athena, who draws from her own traumatic past of her mother's death and Simon's wrongful conviction to promise that things will get better for her, with time.

    PAUL ATISHON

    Not quite as fantastic a villain as Retinz, and maybe he dates the game's localization to late 2016 a bit, but this guy's great. He provides most of the civil trial's funniest moments, and I can't say many bad things about him. The trial he's involved in, yes, absolutely - but not him, really. Maybe give him a "fuck you" for murdering Armie's father and then trying to kill Apollo.

    PEARL FEY

    Pearly gets basically nothing to do in this game, and is still practically unchanged from her nine year-old self. What a surprise. It's nice to see her interacting with Apollo, but seriously - we've got this whole story segment set in Kurain Village, and yet Pearl is almost entirely irrelevant. If the team was so set on forcing an Apollo v. Phoenix trial to happen, an actual conflict between them based on Phoenix's relationships with Maya and Pearl would've been nice.

    The one upside is that the end credits give us the only post-timeskip interactions between Maya and Pearl that we've ever seen.

    MILES EDGEWORTH

    Edgeworth also doesn't get a ton to do in this game, of course. Having him as Phoenix's investigation partner for their part in Case 5 is, fun, and provides plenty of good comedy moments to lighten the mood in an emotional beatdown of a case. My favourite is the moment when he chastises Phoenix for encountering a mess on the ground and immediately wondering if Athena caused it, as if he wouldn't have guessed exactly the same thing of Gumshoe. Second place is his outrage over The Plumed Punisher.

    The DLC makes him another pretty severe victim of Flanderization, sadly. The only justification they provide for his acting like a total dick throughout most of the case is that he's dealing with the stress of being Chief Prosecutor and having to take charge in prosecuting Ellen's case because no one else will touch it thanks to the Sprocket family's influence. That's really not enough to cover how abrasive Edgeworth acts overall. The case also makes the bizarre choice of pretending that Edgeworth turning against Pierce is in any way unusual for him. Uh, yeah - of course he doesn't just let the shady-as-hell witness with a grudge against Sorin force a Guilty verdict. That isn't groundbreaking characterization for him, it's the bare minimum for post-development Edgeworth.

    AMARA SIGATAR KHURA'IN

    Amara's nothing special. Her act as Nayna is a bit of a clever trick, even if it's pretty damn predictable as soon as her sudden disappearance is brought up. As "the good sister", it almost feels like she's being set up as the twist culprit, but no. It really was just her knockoff Power Rangers villain sister. Amara's emotional moments also don't really hit their mark for me, seeing as she doesn't really come across as an especially great person. She even goes out of her way to try and throw Maya under the bus to protect her cover as Nayna.

    Seeing her suddenly get shot on the witness stand is much more impactful than when it happened to the Phantom, though.

    GA'RAN SIGATAR KHURA'IN

    It's not a good sign when I have considerably more praise to give to a filler villain than the game's main villain. Ga'ran starts off as a genuinely imposing figure, but then she abruptly transforms into a ridiculous cartoon pretty much the moment the final trial begins, instantly spelling out that she's going to end up as the main villain behind pretty much everything. Despite this, the trial still goes through the motions of setting up both Amara and Nahyuta as possible suspects before finally presenting the "twist" that it was really all Ga'ran.

    She just loses all of her steam as soon as she takes up the prosecutor's bench, and the setting has given her such an utterly ridiculous amount of power and influence over the court that there's no good justification whatsoever for her idiotic behaviour that eventually gets her defeated. For basically the entire trial, she could just order her guards to arrest or execute Phoenix and Apollo, which would instantly nullify the revolution's chances of succeeding and give her a complete win, but stupid villain pride keeps her from doing so for hours on end until she's handed Apollo everything he needs to beat her.

    Apollo staring intensely at her tits is essential to solving the case. Really tasteful, you guys.

    (As expected, I'm hitting the text limit, so the rest will be in a couple of stickied comments. Read on!)

    submitted by /u/JC-DisregardMe
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    Ace Attorney in Among Us

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 10:09 PM PDT

    "Just barely... but I still made it!"

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 11:17 PM PDT

    Everyone Meet Feenicks Wite. a submission I made for an art competition I'm hosting in my Discord server. https://discord.gg/hbErvXt

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 01:35 PM PDT

    Can everyone see mia when Maya turns into her in the first game?

    Posted: 28 Sep 2020 12:08 AM PDT

    So, I've been replaying the first ace attorney game, and there's one thing that has bothered me about it. When Maya turns into Mia, it's very unclear if everyone can see that. I think it's obvious that Phoenix can, but in turnabout sisters, nobody else reacts to her presence. However, in turnabout samurai, when Mia helps you with the investigation, the assistant comments about how Maya looks different, and Cody, the kid, respects Mia a lot more than he did Maya in an earlier scene. There's probably no clear answer to this, but if anyone has some sort of an idea about it, I'd be glad to know.

    submitted by /u/elchistes
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    Anyone else noticed Prosecution and Defense are swapped in the PW anime?

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 06:42 PM PDT

    Anyone else noticed Prosecution and Defense are swapped in the PW anime?

    I dont know what to think about the anime. Sometimes its really cool to watch but i feel like they mess up so many thinks for no reason. What are your thoughts

    https://preview.redd.it/3wnhqf0smsp51.png?width=1345&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a8bd02026d1abce798e5bf9c078a994dba893f7

    submitted by /u/GL0R97
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    Welp, Here’s My First Post.

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 02:51 PM PDT

    To start things off, I guess I'll talk a bit about how I got into Ace Attorney.

    About 4 years ago, I found myself impulsively listening to random video game songs on YouTube. Among them was "Pursuit ~ Cornered" from the first game. It sounded so great to me that I decided to check out the game it was featured in.

    I dusted off my old DS (I didn't get a 3DS until about a year later) and started The First Turnabout. Initially, I thought it was... okay. The music was pretty good, and the character models reflected a lot of effort on the artists' part, but it didn't quite reel me in until I objected to Frank Sahwit's third attempt at a testimony.

    At that moment, "Cornered" began to play, and I realized that I'd be in for a wild ride.

    I've been an Ace Attorney fan ever since.

    submitted by /u/Mematic_Rhino_1147
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    What are your unpopular opinions in the AA franchise?

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 06:23 AM PDT

    I will start. Turnabout Serenade is a great case and you all are to scared to admit it.

    submitted by /u/RetroRemedies
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    Hi everyone! It's me again! This time I decided to arrange "Objection 2004" from Trials and Tribulations in honor of me finishing the game for the first time! I think you guys will really like it!

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 07:43 AM PDT

    How do you make court animation memes?

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 08:01 PM PDT

    As in those where people say diffrent stuff. Could anyone help?

    submitted by /u/Bennettchan18
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    See you all next year.

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 04:31 AM PDT

    So, there's no new Ace Attorney at TGS 2020, and for me, this reconfirms any more Ace Attorney news for the next year.

    They never announce an Ace Attorney game outside of TGS. I'm not optimistic that they care enough to break that tradition. So I guess we just wait another year again.

    sigh

    submitted by /u/Catorpedo
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    Should I Aspire to Make an Ace Attorney Movie Series?

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 04:48 PM PDT

    I have plans to write and direct an Ace Attorney movie series in the future. I have one complete script with the amount of movies ranging from 3 to 13. I'm wondering if fans of the series would be interested and if I have a chance at getting to make them because I'm in highschool and would have to wait a few years. Would a US based Ace Attorney movie series be interesting to you guys and do you think I have a chance to make them?

    submitted by /u/KaleBennett
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    help me understand the contents of AA 4-6

    Posted: 27 Sep 2020 05:42 PM PDT

    so I finished playing the original trilogy a few weeks ago and now I'm done with the anime as well. I was looking into the wiki and I'll move on with the main series.

    I checked the page of "Spirit of Justice" and noticed some anime prologue images and anime cutscene images (of course I'm not going to read the actual info to avoid spoilers and I'm not trying to pay too much attention to the images). what are those all about? does AA 4 and 5 contain any of that content? in what order should I watch & play the series (not asking about different AA games but take for example what I wrote about Spirit of Justice)? those got me kind of confused so please help me understand without being too spoily :p

    p.s. since I'm here (new and I hope to stick around) I want to say I really loved how the original trilogy resolved; T&T was amazing! I love how throughout the games writers manage to strike a perfect balance of comedy, seriousness, sadness and all sorts of emotion! Great music as well! Final case holds a special place in my heart <3 Rise from the ashes has been amazing too with lots of new game mechanics! Really hope to see Iris return though

    submitted by /u/xSimus
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