Ace Attorney

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You guys may shit on AJ a lot as a mainline game but it did something that the next gen games fucking ruined: Actually advanced the worldbuilding and the plotline in a (loosely) reasonable way.
Bunny Tracks said:
Even when you ignore how bad, and nonsensical the plot is, things are just wrong. Everyone's either flanderized, OOC, gets shat on for no reason, is just a dick, or is conspicuously absent.
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I don't agree that characters are flanderized in AJ. Some of them are, sure, not exactly easy to keep the OG cast in without making some mistakes, but most of them at least had reasons to be the way that they are. Ema for instance ended up working in a shit position she didn't even want, so her being grumpy and taking it out on everyone else is just a cop cliché at best. Just your edged cop that is lazy and doesn't like to work because they got stuck in the worst position imagineable. Or, Phoenix actually acting different from the goofball we knew because that case 7 years ago ruined his reputation and had him get his badge taken away, so him being more mature but also kinda edgy is something I reasonably can see of his character.

While I can agree that some cases were dogshit, like the fucking guitar serenade case, everyone hates that one in specific myself included, others had the same level of quality of the prior games. It just didn't need to be the T&T finale all the way through to be a good game.

If you wanna talk flanderization of story and characters, look at Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice. Admittedly I like SoJ more than DD, but they're both absolute trainwrecks that removed any possibility of there being any apollo centric story or hell, any new lawyer story in favor of regressing Phoenix back to AA but now he's mid 30s.
 
Scarlett Johansson said:
Now I am curious. What other examples like this are there? In the franchise I mean. Logic wise.
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The irony of turnabout serenade is that Apollo points out Machi can't have shot the gun and carried the victim but Klavier simply says he never affirmed that, it was only a theory made by emma and Apollo has yet to prove impossible.

There is also the hilariety of Lamiroir being threatned by the killer while Machi is in custody and no one cares about that as it would prove machi innocent.

And not a specific case but i always find funny/absurd how a lot of problems in the case happen because o police incompetence or the trial being a day after. People meme on Miles updated autopsy report but think about, how the fuck are we doing a trial when the autopsy hasnt been finished yet.

Also, Big Top is full nonsense (the cape glued to the bust shut up) but the case only happens because the police somehow never inspected the killer or else they'd find the bloody weapon.

And i dont know if people here played great ace attorney but those games try to hard to subvert old game expectations, completely absurd scenarios ("Assassin exchange program"). 1-2 is especially absurd since Ryonosuke was locked in the closet therefore incapable of doing anything yet Holmes accuses him of killing his best friend, which is double offensive after the retcon in the second game.

Hell, motive only matters when the MC accuses someone, even if the defendent was also proven innocent.

I played an ace attorney clone named tyrion cuthbert once that is basically ace attorney with magic and is very low budget with some hard deus ex machinas but handles cases a bit better since the police cant detect magic so they're useless without being allegedly corrupt.
 
LucasSomething said:
And i dont know if people here played great ace attorney but those games try to hard to subvert old game expectations, completely absurd scenarios ("Assassin exchange program"). 1-2 is especially absurd since Ryonosuke was locked in the closet therefore incapable of doing anything yet Holmes accuses him of killing his best friend, which is double offensive after the retcon in the second game.
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I'm actually mid of playing it thanks to the localization and the quality between mainline and TGAA is night and day. A lot of it really caught me off guard so far, and I particularly enjoyed the case with Gina and the jew.
 
Diggus Bickus said:
I'm actually mid of playing it thanks to the localization and the quality between mainline and TGAA is night and day. A lot of it really caught me off guard so far, and I particularly enjoyed the case with Gina and the jew.
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I enjoyed TGAA myself (#VanZieks gang gang) but the first game doesn't hold a candle to the second one imo. My only real complaint with TGAA is that the pointless yapping is off the charts due to extremely frequent flashbacks and re-explanations of things that happened not even 10 minutes ago.
 
Diggus Bickus said:
I'm actually mid of playing it thanks to the localization and the quality between mainline and TGAA is night and day. A lot of it really caught me off guard so far, and I particularly enjoyed the case with Gina and the jew.
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I feel like most people praise it as the best because it subverts a lot of AA tropes every single case so it feels extremely fresh and unique on a first playthrough. There are just too many twists to the formula, new mechanics like multiple witnesses and Jury filled with potential and overall harder gameplay that requires a lot of evidence checking.

I too liked TGAA better at first but as it went i grew to not like it as much. I just feel like hindsight hit me and a lot of cases felt painfully contrived and you realize Holmes is a walking deus ex machina. TGAA2 still has the best overall case quality tho, there is no "token bad case", even if i hate the finale.

Celebrate Nite said:
>Steam Only
Of course it is, fml
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I pirated it back when it was filled with typos, it should run fine even on an old machine if that helps.

btw one other ace attorneylike out there is laws of nadragia, there is only a demo yet. It's more like Papers Please where you have a timer and you must solve a bunch of short cases per day and get money to pay rent (you can fail and not get a game over, just lose money). It's okay but with the way the hud works and you having both law terms and "facts" as "evidence", it felt more overtlycomplex for no reason and more like doing paperwork.
 
Diggus Bickus said:
Or, Phoenix actually acting different from the goofball we knew because that case 7 years ago ruined his reputation and had him get his badge taken away, so him being more mature but also kinda edgy is something I reasonably can see of his character.

While I can agree that some cases were dogshit, like the fucking guitar serenade case, everyone hates that one in specific myself included, others had the same level of quality of the prior games. It just didn't need to be the T&T finale all the way through to be a good game.

If you wanna talk flanderization of story and characters, look at Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice. Admittedly I like SoJ more than DD, but they're both absolute trainwrecks that removed any possibility of there being any apollo centric story or hell, any new lawyer story in favor of regressing Phoenix back to AA but now he's mid 30s.
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Honestly, I don't think anyone would be opposed to an "edgy, depressed Phoenix". The problem was that it was handled in the sloppiest way possible. Like, not even after losing his attorney license did he act desperate or even worried, at most he was apathetic.

Fuck, they even hinted at him probably turning into an alcoholic but it was just a set up for a joke. To my knowledge, both the Japanese and English versions have him drink grape juice and not wine.
 
Psyduck said:
If you had to kill off a prominent character for the next game in the series, who would it be, how would it happen, and why did you choose them?

Even though i love him, i've thought about how jaw-dropping the reveal of the Phantom would be if it was Gumshoe instead of Fulbright.
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Joke Answer: Apollo. He dies off-screen in the Khura'in revolution, or whatever the hell is going on over there. I choose this because this could actually happen since Capcom has no idea what to do with him, and has all but written him out of the story.

Serious Answer: Kristoph. He gets executed, but then somehow pulls a Dahlia only he's much more successful. I choose him because we don't even know if he's actually dead, and because he's so underutilized despite being so insanely interesting, and the fact that we all know he would be vindictive enough to try, and get revenge from beyond the grave.
 
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斯尼 德之王 said:
Honestly, I don't think anyone would be opposed to an "edgy, depressed Phoenix". The problem was that it was handled in the sloppiest way possible. Like, not even after losing his attorney license did he act desperate or even worried, at most he was apathetic.
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I wouldn't call it sloppy. Everyone has different ways to react to things. Him discovering that his entire career was going down the shitter over a phony piece of evidence was something I consider less apathetic and more so shocking, but those kinds of shock that you're stunned and overwhelmed with everything, so you don't know how to react. The game text really conveys it that way, given that the forged evidence was a sucker punch and out of nowhere. This is something they actually kept consistent throughout most of the mainline games before DD too.

If you remember JFA, the bad ending where "maya dies" also has Phoenix react in a similar way to him losing maya. He's not desperate in the ending, he's not super angry, he's overwhelmed. He doesn't know how to react, and comes off as emotionally shut off and apathetic. No I'm not talking when he bangs his head on the desk and screams for maya, I'm talking about the bad ending shot where he's walking away with his suitcase in grayscale.

In AJ, Phoenix essentially got his own bad ending, and reacted the same way. I can't say I blame him at all either, and it's completely in character.

Psyduck said:
If you had to kill off a prominent character for the next game in the series, who would it be, how would it happen, and why did you choose them?
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Honestly? Pearl. Wouldn't it be cool that a mainline game story focuses on Morgan and the whole Fey bloodline again to finally give it some closure? In T&T it didn't really have that much closure even if Case 5 was a fantastic case, there were still many open ended ways for it that open up for cool sequels.
 
Diggus Bickus said:
Honestly? Pearl. Wouldn't it be cool that a mainline game story focuses on Morgan and the whole Fey bloodline again to finally give it some closure? In T&T it didn't really have that much closure even if Case 5 was a fantastic case, there were still many open ended ways for it that open up for cool sequels.
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Not really, the Japanese text pretty much says Morgan is on death row and the english version only implied it. She's probably dead at this point and has no one to really channel her, unless there is the Apollo route of giving a bullshit backstory to have someone else be her secret third daughter.
 
Doctor of Autism said:
Not really, the Japanese text pretty much says Morgan is on death row and the english version only implied it. She's probably dead at this point and has no one to really channel her, unless there is the Apollo route of giving a bullshit backstory to have someone else be her secret third daughter.
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Whaddya mean nobody left? Maya's one and she channeled in SOJ (As bullshit as it was). Even if pearl doesn't die, maybe Iris could, or something of the sort. I just want the feys to be used in a way that isn't a self fellatio the way SOJ did.
 
Diggus Bickus said:
Whaddya mean nobody left? Maya's one and she channeled in SOJ (As bullshit as it was). Even if pearl doesn't die, maybe Iris could, or something of the sort. I just want the feys to be used in a way that isn't a self fellatio the way SOJ did.
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I meant anyone that would willingly help Morgan that is known.
 
I love Morgan. She is a complex character. The anime finally shows what her cell looks like too.

I love Phoenix and Maya, but the more I think about it....the more I find Edgeworth more appealing. Something about him. I think it is because he, like Franziska, presents this cold exterior but inside they both mean well and both have their moments where the facade breaks. Mia >>>> Manfred but aside from that I feel like Edgeworth has the better character group Verity, Kay, etc yassss Idk if I'm making sense.

I do feel like Mia's potential is wasted somewhat. Yes her role in AA1 is important in two of the cases....but then she is just kind of.....floating until AA3 where she becomes relevant again. Its a shame she's now all but forgotten. Maya they never know how to develop character wise aside from perpetual damsel in distress and plot device.

Don't care for Pearl but her and Larry having the loser pity party was iconic.
 
I've recently been playing GAA (just beat 2-1) and whilst its been good, goddamn would I have been irritated if I bought that first game fullprice, it takes 4 trials for you to finally get a normal case

An irish character getting repeatedly called a bogtrotter amuses my anti-fenian ways
 
Celebrate Nite said:
To be fair, regular AA does this to an extent as well
  • Event happens
  • To Be Continued
  • Next part re-tells event in flashback
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Giving flashbacks of things that happened in previous chapters or cases is one thing. Having to endure an extended flashback and yap session on Cross Examination #1 when I'm in the middle of Cross Examination #2 is ridiculous. It makes dialogue move at a glacial pace.
 
Psyduck said:
If you had to kill off a prominent character for the next game in the series, who would it be, how would it happen, and why did you choose them?
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Edgeworth. No real idea how it would happen, but fuck having him getting wheeled out for another pointless memberberry trial with an even more frilly shirt than the last one. Also it would upset fujoshits more than anyone else dying. In universe? Maybe it's the excuse to make Phoenix cool again, instead of the flanderized garbage he is in 5&6.
Shining Wit said:
it takes 4 trials for you to finally get a normal case
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This complaint about GAA is dumb. It deliberately plays with the series format, including having a case that focuses entirely on giving the dance of deduction a strong showing. (And you can argue that episode 2's investigation and episode 3's trial combine into one traditional episode only with separate plotlines)

GAA2 backpedals on this and the game became way less interesting structurally.
Diggus Bickus said:
In AJ, Phoenix essentially got his own bad ending, and reacted the same way. I can't say I blame him at all either, and it's completely in character.
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The cynisism is a result of him getting screwed over but the general presentation where Phoenix is a confident and masterful lawyer is really just an extension of T&T. The whole point of that game was to turn Phoenix into the next Mia. He literally cannot behave like he did in Trilogy post 3-5 because that would completely ruin his character arc over the 3 games. It would be terrible writing. And it was. Thanks Yamazaki.
Scarlett Johansson said:
Yes her role in AA1 is important in two of the cases....but then she is just kind of.....floating until AA3
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What? She's the mentor character who incredibly important for the development of both Phoenix and Maya over all the games. And there was many an instance of Mia Ex Machina, which got kinda annoying after a while.
 
Checking this thread made me eager to search some ace attorney games and i found a korean one named Staffer Case, about a 196X british detective trying to solve "staffer cases", where "staffers" are people with one weirdly specific superpower. I only played the first case but i like it so far, and case 1 and 2 are free demos.


It plays like AA where you must find contradictions, but instead of going through individual testimonies, you must answer questions posed by your team, and you have a fuckton of files each with their own presentable thing, including testimonies and your team arguments, on top of the power files, so it quickly escalates into a looot of information.

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Your teammates have powers and spice the formula a bit. One can detect "vibration changes" thus letting her see heartbeats (potential lies) in testimnoies, another can make very detailed pictures with traces like footprints AND correct time (how convenient) and another has vague psychometry from objects so you can "remember" noises and smells. It sounds simple but it has potential and plays with nuance.

Someone having heartbeat changes when talking about the victim doesnt mean they killed them because it makes sense they'd get nervous around death or there is a hidden context under that line. The victim of the first case had an "impact trace" on his hand so it was assumed someone hit his hand, but it turned out he was the one who attacked someone else, which is a very ace attorneyesque twist.

The game in general has this ace attorney vibe of "oh this clue is gonna totally reveal a twist later" and the overall case progression, but it's a low budget chill detective visual novel so it doesnt have the bombastic drama of usual AA. Its slow, half the game is you staring at files, no game over and a hint system but the hint system is weird as it can sometimes show multiple hints even if they arent the solution (i guess you have to understand they're related).

One weird but cool thing happened where it shows two hints but both were valid, except 1 argued for a suspect and the other argued over suicide, and the MC can reach both conclusions, except 1 is wrong and you get a pseudo "bad end" where the game lets you return to the branch thankfully.

Also, devs are very obvious ace attorney fans.

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Shining Wit said:
An irish character getting repeatedly called a bogtrotter amuses my anti-fenian ways
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Said Irish character was a surprisingly cool twist villain, though! Much more fun than the final villain in said game, in my opinion.
Psyduck said:
If you had to kill off a prominent character for the next game in the series, who would it be, how would it happen, and why did you choose them?
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Any recurring or semi important character from the trilogy could work, I think. Larry, Oldbag, Will Powers, or more sadly someone like Iris or Gumshoe. Heck, I think if you kill the Judge and replace him with another one permanently, it would be very impactful. Good for a final case chapter.
 
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