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    Ace Attorney S-so who’s gonna tell them—

    November 23, 2020

    Ace Attorney S-so who’s gonna tell them—

    S-so who’s gonna tell them—

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 11:26 AM PST

    Maybe I'm blind but I've just noticed this on an official AAI artwork

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 02:48 PM PST

    so i finished this like an hour ago while delirious bc i havent slept in 24 hours and i only just noticed how off the head looks </3 enjoy or not sdgfksdj

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 08:27 PM PST

    more psg style content for yall <3 drawing this at 4am was so painful

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 01:37 AM PST

    Some Trials and Tribulations fan art! (No spoilers please, haven’t finished the game yet)

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 11:47 AM PST

    susato in sprite (complete) :D

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 09:26 AM PST

    More information on the DGS localization

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 07:45 PM PST

    susato in 2D (high resolution)

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 09:43 PM PST

    Edgeworth’s start in the anime

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 10:06 PM PST

    I know that the childhood episodes from the anime most likely aren't canon, but something i found cool was in E6 of the second season. Middle-school aged Miles gets into an argument in a shopping mall, and the whole thing is really reminiscent of the Investigations games, being outside of the courtroom and all.

    I just thought that was kinda neat.

    (His outfit in the episode is also most likely a reference to Apollo justice, with the red vest and white shirt underneath)

    submitted by /u/Chum724
    [link] [comments]

    Maya Fey drawn in my middle school art style.

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 07:11 AM PST

    A Cast in Review: Investigations 2

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 08:00 PM PST

    Well, here we are. Unless I get to the crossover, a DGS1 replay, or some fangames, this ought to be my final cast review for the time being. As I start this, I'm curious about how long it'll run for. Given that this game and Spirit of Justice are the two that I have the most vocal criticisms toward, and that the SoJ cast review is my current longest post on-record, I've got the feeling it could take some time. Like with SoJ, some characters will be out of order for varying reasons. Edgeworth himself will be at the very end, for example. So, the previous posts:

    And let's begin.

    DICK GUMSHOE

    So... I'm a bit torn on Gumshoe in this game. On one hand, it's nice to see that the story actually bothers to let him do important things without needlessly yanking his chain and making them pointless. To the script's credit, he also actually earns some genuine praise from Edgeworth a few times in the late game. On the other hand, though, Gummy has retained his three big problems from the first Investigations, being considerably dumber than in the main series, spending a pretty huge portion of this game absent entirely because for arbitrary plot reasons, and having an unfortunately large percentage of his dialogue exist solely to praise Edgeworth's infinite brilliance.

    Thinking on it, this game's version of Gumshoe also has a problem I'll be describing with Kay - it seems almost completely arbitrary when he actually manages to be useful. We have him competing with Kay's Little Thief directly in the ridiculous usefulness of Mr. Analysis, which at least ties in with Gumshoe's previously-established skill with improvised electronics, but it's just one of many things that I think share a universal issue across the whole game.

    I got into it above, of course, but I feel like this game's entire narrative is structured with the specific goal of making Edgeworth look as good as possible at all times, and Gumshoe's almost-random bursts of actual usefulness seem to just be yet another symptom. Edgeworth needs to be constantly provided with the perfect means to solve everything possible on his own because he's such an amazing genius, and so the entire cast and world around him constantly bends in on itself to facilitate that. People act like idiots if necessary, others just randomly spike upwards in competence or conveniently arrive on the scene by sheer contrived coincidence - it just goes on.

    Getting off-topic from Gumshoe, though - every game prior in the timeline also does this on some level, but it's still not funny when the game just outlines instances Edgeworth being ridiculously insensitive to the point of outright cruelty toward Gumshoe just for "comedy".

    SHELLY DE KILLER

    See, De Killer was interesting in case 2-4 because his whole character was structured like a dark parallel to Phoenix. Both are professionals who dutifully perform their jobs for the benefit of their clients, and who place the utmost value in the trust between their clients and themselves. The contrast, of course, came from Phoenix being a good-hearted everyman whose passion in life is defending the wrongly-accused when the system has turned against them, while De Killer is an amoral murderer-for-hire who takes care of his clients, but won't hesitate to kill them if they try to break his code of trust. His code of honour didn't make him a good person at all, but it did make him seem like the decidedly lesser evil compared to Matt Engarde, and it made him engaging in general.

    You know who doesn't have any interesting parallels with De Killer? Edgeworth.

    De Killer is just a murderous bastard in this game. We don't get to see any interesting character dynamics with him save for one I'll be complaining about later on, which is right before the end of the game. To the game's credit, though, it does make him even scarier than he was in JFA, now that there's nothing putting him "on our side", compared to when both he and Phoenix were assisting Engarde.

    It's absolutely ridiculous that Edgeworth doesn't realize who he is. They don't even try to make an excuse or even a joke - it's just a dumb contrivance they could've easily avoided.

    KAY FARADAY

    Well, Kay... you're certainly in this game. You don't really do anything besides occasionally switch Little Thief on for most of it, but good on you for making it into a second game, I guess.

    So, Kay's biggest problem is that her character arc decisively ended in Investigations 1. Everything she had wanted to do in her life during that game's story was accomplished. Sure, she gave herself the additional goal of bringing together a new Yatagarasu team in the end credits, but that isn't touched upon at all in this game outside of an end-credits joke. Everywhere but Case 4, Kay exists just to be dialogue padding and break out Little Thief now and again. She's an extension of a gameplay mechanic. Even her banter with Edgeworth is boring, because Edgeworth himself provides no material to work with and most of the dialogue feels exactly the same.

    "Wow, look at that thing! I wanna steal it!"

    "Don't, Kay."

    "Aww..."

    "Good grief..."

    Congratulations, you can now skip the majority of their investigation dialogue, because you've read it already.

    I guess there's the minor plot point of Kay becoming "friends" with Simon Keyes in Case 2, and then feeling betrayed later on, but even that doesn't really go anywhere. It consists of a few loose lines here and there, and that's about it, because the game is so laser-focused on patting Edgeworth on the back as often as possible.

    Now, in Case 4, Kay trades in the problems outlined above and turns into a completely different character. Her memory loss is the only thing that ever makes her relevant at all to this game's story, meaning that Kay Faraday needed to disappear and be replaced by someone completely different just to matter at all. And of course, this necessitated that Ema be abruptly dropped into the story in her place, to fulfill the game's apparent teen-girl-sidekick quota in her absence.

    Anyway - I still love her design and theme music (the sad version from Case 4 is great, too!), and she does get some fun lines here and there when she's not talking to the brick wall that is Edgeworth. Sadly, even those are sometimes offset by completely pointless, redundant lines that just puncture a scene for no good reason.

    NICOLE SWIFT

    I guess Nicole is kinda fun? Her animations are great, and let you know right away how lively this game's new characters will be. I don't love the character design style of the Investigations games on average, but I've got endless praise for the detailed animations in this game. They're wonderful.

    I just don't think there's all that much to Nicole. You'll pretty much going to feel like she's just bootleg Lotta when you first meet her, and of course you'll learn exactly why she comes across that way soon enough, but it seems like her only reason for existing is because Lotta herself wouldn't have worked as a red herring in Case 1, being such a prominent recurring character already.

    Before long, of course, she just turns into one of Edgeworth's many cheerleaders; a fate she shares with more than a few other characters in this game.

    WINSTON PAYNE

    Unchanged.

    DI-JUN HUANG (BODY DOUBLE)

    Guy's a bastard. I'll admit without trouble that I like the ultimate resolution of the "body double" twist. It's just a well-done plot thread in general, making you wonder for so long what the real story behind this supposedly strong, inspiring leader is, when the man you meet behind closed doors in Case 1 was such a blustering fool.

    Anyway, screw this guy. Plots to have his genuinely admirable employer assassinated just to take power for himself, and goes on to be a slow-motion disaster dragging an entire nation down with him. Also doesn't know how to move out of the way of a slowly-descending air balloon.

    At least his animations are fun.

    ETHAN ROOKE

    Dead. Weird hair. Can fight De Killer, which is neat.

    HORACE KNIGHTLEY

    So, I'll start with the things I give Knightley credit for. He's exceedingly clever for an early-game Ace Attorney culprit, and as much of a general bastard as he clearly displays himself to be, he's still a friend to Keyes, even if it turns out that the feeling isn't entirely mutual.

    But, now let's look at the other stuff. Petty, jealous asshole, reckless about the safety of others who aren't the President, and totally willing to throw Nicole under the bus to cover for his own crimes. Fuck Knightley. Didn't deserve to be murdered, least of all for the misunderstandings of two other people, but still - fuck Knightley.

    JAY ELBIRD

    Irritating, weird-looking waste of quite a bit of time. The polar bear is cute.

    FRANK SAHWIT

    So, with Sahwit making a bizarre return, I'm gonna take this chance to address one of my numerous criticisms for this game's fan translation. No disrespect intended to the team, of course - localizing this game was a massive undertaking, and I'm grateful for the countless work hours they put in with no expectation of pay to get it done. Putting that aside, though, I want to address something I've seen several times before in fan-translated works compared to those officially translated by its creators. A bit of context - Ace Attorney is hardly a series averse to swearing. The first proper word in the first game's script is "Dammit". Now, the first game in general had more of the series' light swearing than later games have, but whatever - main point here is that Ace Attorney characters don't swear especially often. For the vast majority of the series, it's present, but a very rare thing. The series proves that you don't need every other character cursing in every scene to make the story feel more mature when needed, and on top of that, keeping swearing reserved for more emotional or severe moments allows it to greatly enhance a scene when it is used.

    This fan translation, on the other hand, falls victim to a problem that I know to exist in a lot of fansubbed anime, as well as other fan translations for games that I've played before. Between just Knightley in Case 1 and Sahwit here in Case 2, I'm pretty sure this translation's script contains more swears than the full scripts of any of the officially-translated games in the whole series. Of course, the most vulgar word used thus far in any official English Ace Attorney script is Lang's use of "bastard" in the first Investigations, and to my knowledge, this translation never goes that far, keeping things limited to "damn", hell", and at least one instance of "ass", but we've gotta look at quantity vs. quality. (The English dub of the anime also has an instance of the word "bitch", which is repeated in a flashback, but that's Funimation, not Capcom.) Bottom line - the prevalence of minor swears in this translation is just distracting to me, and one of the things that feels like an unfortunate, unintended reminder that this is, indeed, a fan translation, and not the official thing from Capcom.

    Anyway, there's not a ton to say about Sahwit himself. He's about the same as in the first game, just a little funnier in his efforts to seem like a decent guy despite being a career criminal. His mugshot is hilarious. It's just the exact same one from the first game, but they scribbled a new shirt onto him, and because the artstyle difference between this game and the original is so vast, he doesn't fit in at all. I couldn't hope to guess why they didn't just draw him a new one, considering that his design was otherwise fully updated to match the rest of this game's cast.

    RAYMOND SHIELDS

    I've had a lot of positive feelings toward Ray's overall character ever since getting to Case 3 in my AAI2 rewatch. True, his constant comments on how cute all the girls and women are regardless of age is annoying, feels out-of-place, and I wish it wasn't there, but I think he's wonderful otherwise. He's fun, charming, and fills an amazingly well-chosen role as the former assistant of Gregory Edgeworth. I seriously can't stress enough how much I love that they decided to do that - not only does his past give him amazing potential for various relationships with other characters present in this story, but it also saves Greg himself from a fate that otherwise would have kept him for good, being little more than a background extra used to kick off the main conflicts of the original trilogy. Ray's presence gives Gregory so much more character than he ever had before, and I need to praise this game for it.

    There is an "unfortunately", however. I'd be lying if I said that this game fully capitalizes on the brilliant idea that is Ray. For starters, he's one of the numerous victims of what I consider a significant mistake in this game's overall writing. Mentioned it above in Edgeworth's section - I'm talking about the game's refusal to ever dig into Edgeworth's corrupt past, and what drove him to change. Ray introduces himself into the story with dialogue that indicates he knows about Edgeworth's reputation as Manfred von Karma's great student, but it takes very little time for him to stop being apprehensive about trusting his late mentor's son, and by the end of Case 3, when his character has peaked, his arc finished, there's really nowhere left for him to go, even with two more full cases left, both of which he appears in. In the wake of this story, I can only feel like the much better idea would've been to put Edgeworth's former corruption in full focus, making Ray still a clear good guy, but one who's understandably extremely hesitant to believe that Edgeworth could ever have changed as much as those around him claim in just a couple of years.

    It also doesn't help Ray that his being invented just for this game and retroactively slotted into the previous story surrounding DL-6 leaves us stuck with the implication that he didn't attend Edgeworth's trial in 1-4, and that he's somehow never met or even apparently heard of Phoenix, the lawyer who defended Edgeworth in that case, even proving that Von Karma was Gregory's killer. This is probably one of the biggest failings the series has ever suffered at the hands of the "no-spoiler rule". A huge amount of story and character potential just has to be sacrificed for no good reason, simply because this game isn't allowed to touch on anything to do with Phoenix directly, nor does it seem willing to properly talk about Edgeworth's former corruption in anything more than the vaguest of terms.

    So in summary, Ray was severely cheated by the no-spoiler rule.

    I like his younger self as well, and I love the running tragedy of his relationship with Katherine.

    SEBASTIAN DEBESTE

    I'll tell you a little story. Before the Investigations 2 fan translation was finished, I had seen bits and pieces of the game here and there. A number of unfamiliar characters and settings, mostly. This teenaged prosecutor who would apparently act as a rival toward Edgeworth looked incredibly annoying, and I was fully prepared to hate him once the translation was finished. In a lucky turn of events, however, I actually didn't find Sebastian anywhere near as irritating as I'd expected to. His arrogance wasn't quite endearing, but it was entertaining when stacked up against how stupid he is. His animations are pretty fun, and while he's totally inept as a rival, Courtney is there to pick up the slack. So, what about later, and particularly in this rewatch? Well, it's pretty mixed.

    First off, I found him much more irritating the second time around. Back when I was first trying the game for myself, I wasn't as bothered by how incredibly slowly it moves, at least in the first two cases. This time around, though, the dragging pace of the story was a lot more noticeable, and it was never helped by how frustratingly often Sebastian shows up just to ramble a bunch of idiotic, effortlessly disproven "theories" on the events so Courtney can eventually step in and correct him with her own cross-examinations. The reason this becomes a problem is that, despite Courtney very much being the main rival, rather than him, they still give Sebastian a huge amount of screentime in Cases 2 and 3, and he's just a constant, stagnant annoyance for that whole time. He's an idiot, and that's his whole schtick throughout both cases, other than abusing the police working with him and generally being an arrogant shit. The game waits all the way until near the end of Case 4 to even begin his actual character arc, and even considering that I think that arc is quite good on its own, it doesn't redeem these many earlier scenes with him. He's not just stupid and inept - he's both in a way that actively endangers other people, and yet near the end of the game, it's Kay saying that she wants to go and apologize to him for their earlier meetings. If not for Edgeworth, Sebastian could've easily caused more than one person to go to prison for crimes they didn't commit, and Courtney is right there the whole time, irresponsibly enabling him. We'll get to her in a moment.

    Let's cover Sebastian's actual arc now. Like I said, I think it's good. Late in Case 4, we're finally given context for his idiotic, arrogant personality, and it's done in such an unflinching, brutal way that I have to praise it. Blaise outlines with no particular hesitation that he considers his son a useless idiot, and explains that his bribery is the only reason Sebastian has reached the point he's currently at. It's a powerful moment that recontextualizes all of Sebastian's earlier appearances, and it leads to his part in Case 5, brokenly teetering on the end of a complete mental breakdown under the stress of a lifetime of emotional abuse. It is not, however, enough to make up for how shitty he was for so much of the game earlier on.

    JUSTINE COURTNEY

    Don't care for her. Courtney has a very similar problem to Sebastian, in that she's simply in way too much of the game prior to Cases 4 and 5, which are the only two where her actions are given proper context. She spends Cases 2 and 3 as a harsh, obtrusive wall fighting against Edgeworth's efforts to solve two separate cases and constantly threatening to end his career. This seems to be a recurring issue with certain Ace Attorney rivals. The typical structure of the game requires them to oppose the hero for most of the story before whatever big plot thing surrounding them happens in the last one or two cases, and unfortunately, the way that Courtney is put through these motions makes her come across as being much shittier than the late game will want us to believe.

    Throughout her first two case appearances, Courtney fights as hard as she possibly can to contradict Edgeworth whenever possible, even when it's abundantly clear that his theories are correct. She blockades his investigations and cuts in on his questions as frequently as she can. She backs Sebastian up no matter how stupid and off-base his arguments are. That last one is the worst of the bunch, because it consistently frames Courtney as totally and irresponsibly willing to continually enable Sebastian's dangerous idiocy. Once again, if it wasn't for Edgeworth's persistence and intelligence, Sebastian would put innocent people on trial for crimes they didn't commit, and Courtney would, without question, be at fault. Now, just based on sheer volume of these occurrences, I'm mainly targeting Cases 2 and 3 here, but Courtney's worst part by far actually comes in Case 4, when she goes out of her way and fights as hard as she can to indict Kay, an injured amnesiac, on the charge of a murder she clearly didn't commit, using evidence that Courtney herself knows to be forged. The ultimate given reason for all of this is that Courtney was aiming to use her position as a judge and member of the P.I.C. to take Blaise down from within his organization, but let's double-check why: Courtney is going after Blaise for his long career of abusing his position to destroy the lives of innocent people who have done nothing to deserve it. What are Courtney's methods for this? Why, they're "abusing her position to destroy the lives of innocent people who have done nothing to deserve it". Huh. How curious.

    So I don't like Courtney, but let's not be totally negative here. I do have some good things to add about her. In Case 5, she improves immensely. With the reveal that John is is adopted son, she gains a whole new branch to her character, and seriously - it's amazing how much this improves her. I love every single scene she has together with John. They're all terrific. Even this has a downside, though - there's a certain pretty awful moment in Case 3, when Edgeworth is confronting Gustavia at the end. Gusty has just outlined what a horrible parent he is, on top of just generally being a reprehensible human being. What does Courtney, whose role in Case 5 will revolve mainly around being a mom, say about this? Slight paraphrase, but "We're not here to judge whether Mr. Gustavia is a good parent". Fucking seriously? She'll act completely irresponsibly beyond the requirements of her job to cause trouble for Edgeworth, but then she'll just let Gustavia's bastardry slide because it's not strictly relevant to proving his guilt in the murder?

    PATRICIA ROLAND

    I liked her when I was originally playing Case 2. Hoped she wouldn't end up as the culprit. Big surprise where that got me. It's interesting that you could easily consider her pretty sympathetic just based on Case 2 alone, once you learn her reasons for killing Knightley.

    I think Case 2 is way too long for how complex the actual crime is, and wastes a huge amount of its runtime, so that has the unfortunate effect of hurting Patricia a bit, so let's just move past Case 2 and skip ahead to her later appearance in the final case.

    I don't really care for her use in Case 5. The case kinda just keeps piling more and more terrible things she did in the past into an increasingly large stack, but she isn't there for most of it, and so it doesn't really feel like it adds anything to her character most of the time.

    She's very lazy about naming animals.

    SIRHAN DOGEN

    Screw this guy. I don't like him at all. He's an unrepentant, murderous bastard, and giving him a dog he occasionally pets, making him "cool", and revealing that he once randomly decided to save two freezing children for no apparent reason doesn't change that. I guess ending the game by having him become sort of a father figure to another murderer I don't feel sympathetic towards at all is kind of fitting, if nothing else.

    Dogen's another of the many characters in the Investigations games to not look like they fit Ace Attorney's artstyle in general.

    REGINA BERRY

    why was it decided that Big Top characters needed to reappear in this game

    Regina is only marginally less irritating than she was the first time. It seems like she might have matured at least a tiny bit, but the game doesn't really ever dig into it.

    ISAAC DOVER/PIERRE HOQUET

    "The flavourless one in a pair of characters who inadvertently caused the entire Ace Attorney series to happen by both being selfish assholes". That was what I was going to write here. I got as far as two words, and then I was struck by the immense irony of calling Dover "flavourless" compared to Gustavia. Just wanted to share that story.

    Anyway he's an ass with almost nothing to him, character-wise.

    JEFFREY MASTER

    A great character in a terrific case. This poor man deserved better.

    On a surface level, Master is highly entertaining. Going deeper, he has an incredibly well-done relationship with Katherine, which is equal parts heartwarming and incredibly tragic.

    Something I really appreciate and wanted to note in here, though it's not strictly related to Master himself: when you look at just the first game in the series, which was so mundane in style compared to all of its successors, you'll almost certainly imagine that the final case Gregory Edgeworth ever took on was something equally mundane and grounded. I love that this game establishes instead that the case which prompted Ace Attorney's entire running story was just as wacky as any other in the series' universe.

    KATHERINE HALL

    The other side of an incredibly heartwarming yet tragic relationship. Kate is terrific - just like her adoptive father, she's entertaining in behaviours, but also has a character that goes much deeper than that. She was deeply, unjustifiably wronged by the actions of Gustavia, Dover, and Von Karma, and her devotion to repaying the kindness that Master showed to her all those years ago drives her to such desperation that she takes a number of highly-questionable actions in trying to seek justice for everything that happened, even when some part of her recognizes that there might well be better ways to do what she wants to, as Ray addresses near the case's end.

    She deserves credit for her ingenious method for drawing out and identifying the true killer from the IS-7 case, aiming to ensure that only they could possibly be harmed by it.

    DELICIA SCONES

    Truly (and of course intentionally) bizarre-looking, and just sort of hard to get a read on. She's a deliberately strange character like Meekins, but much more important to this case than Meekins ever was to 1-5. I don't know if I can really say a lot about her.

    LARRY BUTZ

    Ugh. Investigations Larry is just as wearying as ever, and sadly, this game doesn't even give him anything fun like his role as the Steel Samurai in the previous one.

    GREGORY EDGEWORTH

    Boring as all get out, but I love what they did with Greg here. His constant thoughts about his son, and fretting over how easily he'll be able to make friends - it's great. Beyond the mention that his personality as a player character is extremely dry (much like his son in this subseries), I don't think I have anything negative to say about him. Maybe his voice clips - they're not great. Great choice of VA to provide them, but I don't think the takes they went with were the right ones.

    One other thing, though it really isn't a failing of Gregory himself - still feels like shoving Blaise into the DL-6 storyline as the person who actually gave Von Karma his penalty takes away from the gravity of Gregory's accomplishment in doing so, because it's made clear that Blaise wanted to do that anyway, and was already looking for an excuse.

    MANFRED VON KARMA

    Did this bastard ever look young? Seriously - what's the reasoning behind never really changing his appearance? He's only 49 in the flashbacks, and yet he still looks like the same aged vampire he was at 65.

    Anyway fuck Von Karma. His personality is unchanged to match his looks. He doesn't yet have the obsessive hatred of the Edgeworths that we know from the first game, and I still can't help feeling like this subseries kind of tries to downplay what a malignant bastard he always was. In particular, this game feels like they tried to use Von Karma as a stepping stone to make Blaise Debeste seem more impressive. I'll get into that when I'm whinging about Blaise in his own section below, though.

    TYRELL BADD

    I'm really happy with Badd's appearance here. It's just a really solid use of his character that cleverly sidesteps the problem of his going to prison after I-5, giving Gregory a staunch ally in his final case. Really, though - they gave Badd some subtle changes to his sprites to reflect that he's younger here, so why not Von Karma?

    RON AND DESIRÉE DELITE

    I just want to use their little cameo to mention that I still love them both.

    DANE GUSTAVIA

    Right bastard, this one. Ruthless, entirely self-serving asshole who doesn't feel a hint of regret for all the suffering and death his selfish actions caused. They make some fun subversions with him, too. Admitting to Dover's murder years down the line, simply because he's totally confident that the statute of limitations will ensure his safety, the game raising the possibility that he might still ultimately get away - I don't like Gustavia at all, but I have to respect him as a character. He's a damn good one.

    JILL CRANE

    Dead, but at least given some decent background toward the end of the game.

    LOTTA HART

    I still like Lotta. This game doesn't give her much material to work with. Her little character moments with Nicole are great, though. Sadly, once Lotta has finished with her requisite time-wasting here in Case 4, she and Nicole pretty much just exist to encourage Edgeworth, like so many other characters.

    KARIN JENSON

    Not much to say. She fits the artstyle, which stands out in this game's weird-looking cast. She mostly exists to facilitate the crime in this case, and to then prove essential in exposing it.

    BONNIE YOUNG

    Didn't know raisins could perform autopsies.

    Same plot role as her granddaughter, in essence. She exists to be a pawn in Blaise's schemes. At least she and Karin have fun animations.

    EMA SKYE

    Here for the sole purpose of replacing the temporarily unavailable Kay as Edgeworth's peppy teen girl assistant, on the excuse that forensics will conveniently be required.

    I love her design here. I can't say much else. She's just fanservice combined with plot convenience, and didn't need to be here. Are you noticing a theme in Case 4? I don't like it at all, and its characters are a major part of why.

    FRANZISKA VON KARMA

    They gave Franziska pretty good material here, all things concerned. It's a shame that she doesn't really get to do a lot with it, but at least they don't run all over the place with stupid, incorrect deductions on her part. There's a benefit to having Sebastian around.

    Even Franziska ends up as part of Edgeworth's massive cheerleading squad by the endgame.

    BLAISE DEBESTE

    I don't like Blaise. I didn't the first time, and that didn't change on a rewatch. I have the same opinion of him as ever - he's a shoddy amalgamation of traits borrowed from Manfred von Karma and Damon Gant, and his only unique, interesting trait is his abusive treatment of his son. He's unbearably annoying, acts incredibly stupid in his confrontations with Edgeworth considering what a conniving monster he is in the game's background, and any satisfaction gained from "defeating" him in Case 4 is stolen from you in the next case, when he's set up to just easily wriggle his way out of trouble anyway. On the whole, he not only feels like a bootleg mashup of earlier, better villains, but it also feels like the story is constantly trying to one-up those villains directly just to make him seem more impressive. He was the one who gave Von Karma the penalty that started his campaign of revenge against Gregory Edgeworth. He's even more dangerous than Damon Gant, using similar methods to reach an even higher position within the legal system.

    Much like with Patricia Roland, the late game just keeps piling more and more vile actions into his personal history long after you've stopped seeing him in-game, and I don't find it impressive at all. We already understood he was a monstrous bastard with no depth hours earlier, and just trying to multiply the effect long after his final defeat doesn't earn him any extra points.

    With most of them as effectively faceless blobs of nothing, the P.I.C. is a massive wasted opportunity, and Blaise is right at its centre. In relation, I want to again mention an idea I've suggested for him before. I think this game could've been considerably better if it had actually been willing to dig into Edgeworth's past, and Blaise's position as chairman of the P.I.C. means he's perfectly suited as a sympathetic antagonist for that hypothetical story. Imagine a version of Blaise (or some other character in his position) who is going after Edgeworth for entirely legitimate, understandable reasons based on all the corruption and general underhandedness in his past. He isn't quite so willing to simply forgive Edgeworth's years of dishonest methods just because the man has changed, and he has strong reason to believe that Edgeworth has caused false convictions in the past due to his use of Von Karma's methods. I've never liked how the games just stopped acknowledging that as soon as Edgeworth reappeared in 2-4, and even this game isn't willing to explore it. The most we get is the one scene with Gumshoe and Kay insisting upon what a wonderful, heroic person he is in the face of Ray's initial and short-lived distrust. Make it an example of reformed-bad-guy-turned-good vs. overall-good-guy and give us some real fucking adversity for Edgeworth to face instead of just structuring the story to make him look as perfect and heroic as possible at all times.

    Blaise being the cackling, mustache-twirling cartoon villain that he is just instantly erases any chance at getting an interesting character struggle out of Edgeworth facing off against him, and it definitely isn't helped by how comically stupid Blaise acts at times. When Edgeworth has been arrested pending his P.I.C. hearing in Case 4, and Blaise stops by his cell, there is absolutely no possible justifiable reason for him to just stand there and constantly spill critical, case-making information during the Logic Chess segment that covers that section, and yet he just keeps doing it over and over again. They don't even frame it like a smug villain taunting the hero over how he can't do anything even when he knows the truth - the dialogue makes it clear that Blaise really is just fucking up again and again, and he never bothers to just walk away despite there being nothing stopping him at any point.

    And he looks weird. Welcome to the club, Blaise. (His Objection voice clip is also awful.)

    DI-JUN HUANG

    Seemed like a very good man. I'll mention again that I do think the body-double twist was quite well-done. Seeing the circumstances of original president's murder is very sad, and gives me plenty more reason than was already provided to hate Dogen, and yet it comes up only a very short time before the game tries to make him seem cool and admirable. Y'know, the brutal assassin. I'd like to take this opportunity to echo my own earlier sentiment - fuck Dogen. Is this just Japan's "honour" thing again? Is that the reason that the game tries to push so hard on the question of who the better person is between him and De Killer, both murderers-for-hire?

    PENNY NICHOLS

    I guess it's kind of fun that Penny of all characters would get a supporting role in this case. She gets very slightly more character in this case, even if it's at the loss of her Steel Samurai obsession.

    WILL POWERS

    The pointless character returns continue. The opening segment of this case is padded to an incredible extreme, and giving a bunch of screentime to both Powers and Penny is part of why.

    JOHN MARSH

    John's pretty good. He starts off irritating, but that was obviously the intent. Seeing the front he puts up as an egotistical teen actor crumble as soon as his mom shows up is both funny and endearing. The mutual care shown between him and Courtney is great, too. Case 5 fits a nice little mini-character arc in for him in an admirably short time.

    JACK CAMERON

    Dead. One of the top contenders for weird, unfitting character designs in this game.

    DAI-LONG LANG

    Seemed like a good man, like his friend the President.

    SHI-LONG LANG

    Of two minds here. I've already praised the body-double story thread, and Lang is tied into it, but I just think this whole section feels way too crammed in at the last minute. Seems to me like Lang could've made proper appearances earlier on, rather than just one quick bit in Case 2. It's good to finally get some background on his hatred of prosecutors. His behaviour right when he first appears in Case 5 almost seems like a gross erasure of his development from the previous game, but they actually fit it in fairly well, making it clear that he's acting out of extreme emotion more than anything else.

    Sadly, he ends up as yet one more Edgeworth backup dancer before too long. Losing Shih-na robbed him of a fair bit of his potential for on-screen presence.

    SIMON KEYES

    Keyes just doesn't impress me. I see so much praise for the amazing final villain, but I genuinely don't get it. Is it really just the shocking reveal that makes people like him? If that is the case, I genuinely think Fulbright did it better.

    I have a larger problem with Case 5's presentation as a whole, and Keyes is a victim of it. Despite this game being ridiculously long and slow, it still doesn't effectively make use of its runtime to deliver story beats in an efficient, organic manner, and so by the time of Case 5, there's still a colossal pileup of story that it needs to get through, and as a result, The Grand Turnabout is a long, meandering drag through disconnected setpieces and scenes filled with long, boring exposition dumps framed only by the murder of the fake president. The story never feels like it focuses on anything properly, instead just dumping as much information as possible into single long bursts, and then wandering off to another scene to do the same thing over again. One character hit particularly badly by this is Simon Keyes himself.

    There is absolutely nothing about his appearance in Case 2 that sets up for his eventual reveal as the villain. That Simon and the one who appears for the final confrontation here might as well be different characters entirely, and the only way the game has on hand to justify the transformation is to dump about an hour of exposition about a child who will turn out to be him into the very last big investigation phase before you head off to confront him.

    It also tries to set him up as this impressive master planner who staged the events of this game and played everyone against one another perfectly, but at least a couple of his schemes are entirely reliant upon ridiculously convenient coincidence that he never could've planned for, and the stakes of his final confrontation itself fall pretty flat, because unlike Alba, who was actually in a political position that afforded him the chance to escape justice, Simon is a middle-class circus performer with no hope of getting away, even if Edgeworth did ultimately fail to prove his guilt in the president's murder. He's still admitted to numerous other major crimes, and is surrounded by police and other law enforcement.

    I don't buy into his sympathy angle, either. Yes, there are plenty of things in his past to feel sorry for, but as I've quoted before, there's a big difference between having a sympathetic backstory and actually being sympathetic. Simon Keyes only qualifies for the first of those two things, and gleefully throws away the other by scheming up murders and trying to pin them on teenagers.

    (Everyone but Edgeworth comes in with just enough room for this initial post. Check the comment below for Edgeworth's section!)

    submitted by /u/JC-DisregardMe
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    An Ace Attorney mask.

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 07:25 AM PST

    High effort political Ace Attorney meme

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 01:22 PM PST

    I'm in Danger

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 05:30 PM PST

    Physically pogged when Mike Meekins Came back in Apollo Justice

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 07:26 PM PST

    Mike Meekins best character please make him AA7 protagonist

    submitted by /u/Gleimstem
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    Please don't be like Godot...

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 12:36 PM PST

    Please don't be like Godot...

    Please don't wear your mask any where its not to be. Especially over your eyes. Be safe! (I'm chill with you liking coffee) i know what godot is wearing dont worry.

    Not like that,

    Like this.

    submitted by /u/The_Skilled_Monk
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    To anyone who has played 3-1 in any non-english langage

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 09:15 PM PST

    I was replaying in French after years and realized that Grossberg calls Diego Mia's fiance and not her boyfriend. That got me curious : what does Grossberg say in other langages ? And most importantly, in japanese ?

    submitted by /u/honhonbageutte
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    demon phoenix wip...?? ��

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 04:27 PM PST

    Why do people think Godot was abusive to Mia?

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 02:03 PM PST

    I mean sexist. That's a better term

    submitted by /u/Mr_Tenda
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    Layout for Ace Attorney Seven (our creation)

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 06:14 PM PST

    So Mr. Tenda and I have been creating the layout for Marvin Grossberg: Ace Attorney (AA7). In it, we have developed the basis for all five cases in it, as well as all the defense attorney and prosecutor for each case:

    ​

    1. Hit & Run murder (Grossberg vs Payne)
    2. Blackmail murder (Mia vs Payne)
    3. Gregory's Final case (Gregory vs Manfred)
    4. Mafia case (Grossberg vs Manfred)
    5. Murder of corrupt politician (Gant appears) case (Grossberg vs Payne)

    ​

    ​

    What started off as a joke has been bubbling into a very (imo) creative and thoughtful endeavor. It's been a pleasure working with u/Mr_Tenda thus far, and we're having a blast! Feel free to ask questions to either of us.

    submitted by /u/TheWiseSquid884
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    Imagine Him As The Main Villain in AA7

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 02:14 PM PST

    Least favorite thing about your favorite Case?

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 07:20 PM PST

    My favorite case in the series is Bridge to the Turnabout. This case is as good as the series can get.

    However, I really dislike the whole spiel about Phoneix getting convinced Maya is dead for like... an hour. There are so many moments in the series that treats the player like an idiot, and this is one of the worst. Seriously, has anyone else playing it never questioned who is channeling Dahlia? As soon as the game reveals Iris and Dahlia switched the place, it becomes so obvious that Maya is channeling Dahlia, and the game makes this as some kind of amazingly grand twist, bombarding the constant "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth" lines and Phoenix literally going insane. All they had to do was to just not make Phoenix freaking out about the whole thing.

    On a smaller flaw, I believe Dahlia should not have gotten executed, rather she should have killed herself for the plan. This is one of the rare moments of full 'execution' in the series, and considering how the series showed other inmates convicted for the crimes on par with Dahlia's have been left alive in the prison without execution, like Sahwit and Master, Dahlia's execution is somewhat oddity. It is also a wild coincidence that she was executed at the perfectly right time. Instead of getting executed, Dahlia should have been sentenced to life imprisonment and later commit suicide as a part of the plan. This would have showcased her determination for revenge on Mia.

    These are my least favorite things about my favorite case. What about yours?

    submitted by /u/onex7805
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    Why does Rayfa remind me of Queen Padme Amidala?

    Posted: 22 Nov 2020 06:29 PM PST

    I don't know why, but after playing SoJ when thinking about Rayfa, for some reason, Queen Padme Amidala from Star Wars comes to my mind. Why is my subconscious associating these 2 characters together? Is there a strong parallel I'm not aware of?

    submitted by /u/sorcerer666
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