lauren and I have been playing through the Ace Attorney trilogy, it's her first time and my first time in probably 10+ years for the first two, and a couple years for the third. we finished Justice for All last night, and I gotta say I think that game doesn't get enough credit. it suffers from a lot of irritating moments of "what the hell does this game want from me right now?" but I think I actually liked it more than the first game this time around. PWAA is consistently pretty good but I think the highs of JFA are way higher, although the lows are undeniably lower. holy shit the circus case sucks
let's go into spoilers mode here because I'm going to talk about the circus case in some specifics, and the final case in less specifics
everyone remembers it as the case where multiple grown adult men lust over a sixteen year old girl, and I knew that would be gross, but I think it's made even worse by a reliance on wacky implausible coincidences and a cast that just straight up sucks. there is not a likable or sympathetic character in that case. the clown is annoying as fuck. the ventriloquist is a freak (and in love with a 16 year old.) the magician is an asshole (and in love with a 16 year old.) even the dead ringmaster isn't sympathetic, having raised his daughter to be completely detached from reality (and also was going to push her to marry the magician! great!)
they try to make the killer sympathetic in the end by saying, "hey, isn't he such a sweet guy? isn't it tragic that he accidentally killed the ringmaster who raised him and his brother?" and it's like. yeah okay except that he was aiming for, again, the 16 year old girl who he knows accidentally put his brother into a coma. sorry! I have no sympathy for that guy! jesus christ! anyway, that's enough about the circus
I think Ace Attorney games are more or less defined by their final case and I think the Nickel Samurai case is top tier. it forces Phoenix to really think about what he's doing as a lawyer and why, which I think is crucial to his character for two reasons. one, he never really cared about being a lawyer. he had a specific goal in mind, and he achieved it in the first game. Phoenix needed to find a purpose. at the start of the game, he's not even working! he just goes to his office, rejects anyone who asks him to be their attorney, and goes home. he's already gotten what he wanted, so why continue doing it at all, besides the fact that he's already put the time and effort into getting a law degree?
reason number two I think is especially interesting in how it ties his character arc into that of the prosecutors and even the player themselves. Edgeworth and the von Karmas are all about their perfect win streak and their willingness to do anything to preserve it... and because Phoenix is the player character, of course that means that the player is going to win every case! so now we're eight cases in, all eight cases of his short career, and Phoenix has a perfect win streak. a perfect win streak that, if it continues, will completely undermine everything the game has had to say about the prosecutors
as a semi-related aside, I learned last night that the entire reason Franziska von Karma exists is because they realized Edgeworth couldn't keep losing every case to Phoenix or he would quickly shift away from the cool and impressive image that put him at the top of the character popularity polls. I think they were very smart to replace him as the main antagonist with Franziska, a character who acts like a cool and impressive young prodigy, but is actually a completely immature hothead who refuses to accept that she's lost. it allows her to maintain the image and dignity of Edgeworth without actually earning it, in a way that feels funny and appropriate for her character. I really liked Franziska this time! I never liked her before but I saw a lot of depth to her character that I hadn't picked up on all those years ago
imo, without getting too in the weeds of spoilers, the Nickel Samurai case does a great job navigating Phoenix through those two issues so he comes out the other side in a much better position to continue being the protagonist of Ace Attorney. just in time for his final game as the protagonist of Ace Attorney!
I'll be curious to see how I feel about Trials and Tribulations this time. frankly, I was raging throughout the final case when I played it a few years ago. I absolutely hated it. I hated the case and I hated the larger plot and I hated everything that was happening. it wasn't that long ago so I'll be surprised if my opinion changes much, but I really don't want to hate it. I know it's widely considered the best in the series and I would love to understand why that is. we'll see!
