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radiantsroom · 4 months ago

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Adding onto this now and I think a predominant issue I have is just how passive Apollo is. By passive I mean that within the story, he does not do much on his own. I already touched on this above but the more I think about it the more it bothers me.

In pretty much every Ace Attorney game, the protagonist functions as someone the other characters can bounce off of. From opposing prosecutors to the witnesses they meet, the attorney always gives room for the other characters to show off their colorful personalities, which is important with a cast as wild and silly as the ones in Ace Attorney games.

That being said, Apollo does not show off what Phoenix and Ryunosuke do - his own set of quirks. I'll only be speaking on Phoenix from the original trilogy and Ryunosuke, as I have not yet gotten to playing Dual Destinies or Spirit of Justice (or the Layton crossover).

With Phoenix, despite him being a rookie attorney, he carries a sort of sarcastic, jaded energy with him that interacts very well with the wacky cast of characters he meets in each case. The bluntness and just sheer tiredness with which he meets each character makes for a lot of great moments of humor in the game, but also serves to give us the idea that Phoenix is someone used to silliness and just too tired to fight it. That said, he also has those moments of seriousness that show us that beneath his thick skin he really does care about justice and defending the truth. In cases like 1-4 and most of Trials and Tribulations, the personal connection Phoenix has with the case and the raw emotion that brings out in him makes for really enjoyable and just plain good character moments. He is driven and you get the sense that he wholeheartedly loves being a defense attorney.

Ryunosuke, to me, leans more into a 'Fish out of Water'-style character - what with him being in a country foreign to his own in addition to suddenly finding himself a practicing lawyer while still a young student. While this on its own already makes for a good character concept, he also has Susato by his side. By contrast, Susato is an intellectual and well-educated person who knows far more about the Western world than Ryunosuke. Where he gets confused by the machinery and society of Victorian England, Susato is there to explain it to him. But where Susato fails is her gullibility - specifically when it comes to Sholmes. That's where Ryunosuke steps up and proves himself more capable than Susato. Where she is easily dazzled by Sholmes, Ryunosuke is better able to deal with him and get to the bottom of his wild deductions. Point being - Ryunosuke and Susato make an excellent pair that elevates both characters to be more enjoyable.

Then we come to Apollo, who is painfully plain by contrast and kinda falls flat on both counts of personal drive and interesting assistant interactions. The best way I can describe Apollo is that he's a wet cat. He kinda gets pushed around by almost everyone around him into doing what the narrative needs from him. Looking at his second case again, he literally gets bounced around between Trucy, Eldoon and Wright with no real drive or input from himself. This kind of passiveness carries on through much of the game and he finds his footing far too late for it to properly feel like his game. By the final case, Wright has thoroughly overshadowed Apollo in his own game.

Meanwhile his interactions with Trucy, while at times wonderfully endearing and incredibly enjoyable, kinda boil down to mumbling about whatever silliness or insult Trucy comes up with next. It honestly almost feels like Trucy is the one leading and Apollo is just following her around and getting insulted along the way. Again, Trucy often gets to show off her character far more than Apollo ever gets to. It leaves me feeling like I know more about every all the supporting characters than Apollo.

That leads me to my main issue with Apollo as a character and honestly one of my bigger issues with Apollo Justice overall - Apollo fades into the background to allow the rest of the cast to shine. One of the game's strengths is a great cast of supporting characters but that comes at the cost of Apollo feeling like cardboard. While that may work for some, it didn't with me. It kind of just left me wanting more from Apollo - like I have no idea who he even is beyond "rookie attorney". It's not in an exciting way, either. I know he appears in later games like Dual Destinies, yet since I haven't played those yet I can only say how I feel about Apollo right now - and that's bored.

Apollo Justice - An Overall Opinion

So today I finished playing through Apollo Justice and I have some thoughts. This won't be very in-depth, just a surface level impression deal of things.

It's immediately clear that this was an ambitious attempt to follow up on the Phoenix Wright trilogy, which I really enjoyed playing through. It starts off with an excellent first case - one of the best in the series - that immediately got me interested in where it was going to go.

That said, it was not without its issues. While it succeeds in places like streamlining the game mechanics and some excellent character work between Apollo and Trucy, it feels like it isn’t confident enough to make Apollo his own character. He’s constantly getting tugged along by the narrative and ends up feeling exceedingly passive. This immediately makes itself clear in the second case, where Apollo gets sent on three separate side-quests that just so happen to lead up to him running into his first client. Even then, half the time it feels like Trucy is dragging him around. Contrast this with Phoenix's second case, where he finds Mia dead and insists on defending the dejected and hopeless Maya. Where Phoenix clearly has a strong sense of personal justice and a drive to defend the innocent, Apollo doesn't - not initially. By the last case he does manage to shape up to that same kind of bravado that Phoenix showed.

However, I think it’s too little too late by that time and he ends up overshadowed by Phoenix in his own game. I understand that Apollo is meant to be a fresh rookie trying to find his footing but so was Phoenix. I can't help but compare the two, especially since Wright is literally present and acting as a mentor to the young attorney.

I still really enjoyed this game, but I definitely need a little time to mull over it and solidify my thoughts.

#ace attorney #apollo justice