#because Sebastian Debeste is such a cool name imo

[tainebot01]

ACE ATTORNEY INVESTIGATIONS - PROSECUTOR’S PATH / PROSECUTOR’S GAMBIT SPOILERS:

Localizers do you realize you have the potential to do the funniest thing ever with this scene.

[rivalsforlife]

rank the prosecutor themes!!!

Okay!! I’ll do you one better and do all the main rival themes (meaning: I’m including Shi-Long Lang and Justine Courtney in here too. despite Lang probably being very displeased at being grouped in with prosecutors. sorry.) uuunfortunately I am going to get into spoilery territory with this one, but I’ll do this in reverse order, so you can skip the spoiler parts because they’re my favourite ones haha, and I will warn for them.

First, a disclaimer: All the prosecutor themes are fantastic. that is all.

12 - Great Revival - Franziska von Karma: I adore Franziska, but she needs her own leitmotif. This one is basically the same as Miles’ Great Revival, except higher and with a different intro, from what I could tell. and I’m not even sure if the sound gets revamped for the Investigation games…? I can’t quite remember. ANYWAYS, what really made this the lowest of the prosecutor themes for me is that they also use this theme for MANFRED VON KARMA in AAI2, because I guess they didn’t want to create a whole new theme for him when he only shows up for part of a flashback case. So they borrowed his daughter’s. This is a DISGRACE, because Miles Franziska and Manfred are all very different characters and deserve to have distinct leitmotifs. Especially since the whole idea of the Great Revival is that it’s them coming out from underneath Manfred’s shadow/unlearning his techniques, since this plays when Franziska comes in with the evidence to save everyone in Farewell, my Turnabout, I think. So having Manfred have the anti-MVK song is not good.

11- Zacharias Barnham - The Sword of Labyrinthia: things get difficult now because all the songs are good. I’m putting this one here for a couple of reasons, namely because I first listened to this song while going through PLvsAA on 2x speed on youtube because otherwise it would take too long, so I heard this song at 2x speed and now it just feels too slow to me. I said these rankings were going to be very subjective, right…? also it would have been great if they actually finished Barnham’s character arc, you know. Darklaw doesn’t really have a leitmotif so she’ll be missing from this list, by the way, I didn’t just forget that she existed.

10 - Nahyuta Sahdmadhi - The Last Rites Prosecutor: it’s a pretty song. I like how it actually uses what sounds like a human chorus in there, which is distinct from pretty much all AA music? I especially like the part near the end of the loop where it gets all kind of suspended in a sort of “floating in the void”-like feeling, at least to me. It’s down here though because I… don’t really get an “opponent” vibe from him. I don’t listen to this and think to myself “oh, this is the guy I’m going to fight”, you know what I mean? 

9 - Barok van Zieks - Grim Reaper of the Old Bailey: I like how ominous and haunting this song is, pretty fitting for a “Grim Reaper”. It’s nice to listen to, too. It just didn’t really stand out for me above all the rest, so it’s here.

8 - Simon Blackquill - Distorted Swordsmanship: similarly to van Zieks’ theme, this has a very ominous vibe to it. It’s pretty subtle for a lot of it, and it’s way less “in-your-face” than a lot of the other prosecutor themes. It suggests an opponent that isn’t going to face you head on but kind of work in the shadows and take you down without you even realizing it… which is fitting, considering Blackquill’s whole “twisted samurai” motif and the idea of psychological manipulation being his main thing. I like this one, like all of the prosecutor themes, and it’s only here because I… liked others more.

7- Miles Edgeworth - Great Revival: “Grace why did you say both Great Revivals are practically the same thing but put Miles five places above Franziska” OKAY LISTEN. There is only one “Franziska von Karma- Great Revival”. There are multiple “Miles Edgeworth - Great Revival”s, and this is about where I’d average them out. Great Revival 2002 would be ranked about the same as Franziska’s because, yeah, they’re practically the same thing. Great Revival 2013, however,  has an even prettier intro, is more orchestral and therefore sounds even more regal and fitting for DD-era Miles. I am seriously considering making this my alarm to wake up to in the mornings because… it’s so pretty? 

BUT I have to mention the actual orchestral versions of Great Revival, because they are phenomenal. There’s one for every Gyakuten Saiban Orchestra. The 2016 one is the first one I listened to, but it was tragically taken down… so listen to the 2019 one.  All the orchestral editions are pretty much the same… but the orchestral Great Revivals have a new part around 1:30 that is just GOREGOUS. I ADORE it. That would probably shoot this one up a few rankings if they were in the games. I gasped out loud in a dead silent library upon first hearing it, it was very embarrassing. Great Revival imo sounds much prettier the more genuinely an orchestra it is. I love this song? … moving on.

6 - Shi Long Lang- Speak up, Pup: I said that Blackquill’s theme was very subtle – this is the opposite, this is about as “in-your-face” as it gets. It also sounds very cool. It has a sort of… I’m hesitant to use this term, because of how people abused it when I was in junior high, but it definitely has a sort of swagger to it. It pretty well encapsulates Lang’s character and him just… barging onto the crime scene with all his people and making hasty arrests and taking bullets, like, all that stuff I can see coming from a person with this as their leitmotif. But I just like listening to it, it’s one of those songs that has a similar effect to caffeine on my brain. It’s just very loud and cool and I enjoy it.

5 - Justine Courtney - Goddess of Law: I also really love listening to this song. It’s very regal. This song is very good in contrast with Sebastian’s First Class Farewell… like, Sebastian spends most of the time as a bit of a joke, with his light and airy theme… and then Justine comes in with this theme and you kind of feel like “oh, crap, now things are serious.” I like the use of the organ, obviously, giving it kind of a churchy feel which makes sense as she is referring to and worshipping the Goddess of Law, but I also love the faster parts of it too. It shows off her quick wit and intelligence that makes her a pretty formidable opponent for Miles in AAI2. It’s the song of someone you definitely would not want to cross… and is very pretty. 

4 - Godot - The Fragrance of Dark Coffee: my feelings about Godot are… complicated and not entirely positive… but I adore his theme. He’s the first prosecutor to really have a proper leitmotif that’s all his own… and even though it’s not a “I’m so ready to fight this person” leitmotif or even a “this person’s particularly intimidating” leitmotif, it’s very laidback and relaxed. Honestly what gets this one so many points is, guess what, once again, the orchestral songs! Part of this is a lot of bias, because they replace the piano parts with the flute in the orchestral editions of this song and I played the flute for six years so I am partial towards it. But also it just… sounds extremely pretty? It’s very relaxing and… it just sounds gorgeous in the orchestra editions. I haven’t listened to the jazz version yet but I bet that would be gorgeous as well. Here’s the most recent 2019 orchestra version of this song, but the 2008 and 2016 ones are good too (my favourite being the 2016 one, which again got taken down bc copyright :( rip)

3 - Klavier Gavin - Guilty Love: out of the mainline games, AA4 has the best soundtrack imo, which is justifiable considering who the prosecutor is. Okay, this one is a huge contrast from Godot’s theme… it’s actually a huge contrast from all the prosecutor themes. The only one who comes close to this level of Rock is Lang’s theme. It’s fun, it’s upbeat, it’s soooo much fun to listen to. It really does set Klavier apart from all the other prosecutors - this isn’t the song of your enemy, this is a song of a person who’s here to find the truth and have a good time doing it. You go into the courtroom getting ready to face off against the dreaded Second Case Prosecutor, the most insufferable version of every prosecutor until now, and you get ROCK MUSIC. … literally, he apparently actually plays it in the game. which, pun intended, rocks.

This gets bonus points, of course, for being made into an actual song with lyrics that you could hypothetically sing, made by Shu Takumi. If you haven’t listened to this one yet you totally should, it’s a good time. listen to Klavier Gavin ditch his date to go to court. PARTICULARLY for the parts where Apollo’s theme gets in there. like, uh, Klavier. pining much?

– OKAY NOW SPOILER WARNING. I’m going to go into a bit of AAI2 spoilers here, nothing too major like the mastermind or anything, but if you don’t know what the deal is with Sebastian then I’d just recommend avoiding this for now. And then after that are major DGS2 spoilers, so if you haven’t played either of those games and don’t even want to look at anything remotely spoilery you can probably just skip out on the rest of this post.

2 - Sebastian Debeste’s Themes: okay, so. First Class Reasoning is just such a… light, airy, bouncy song. It sounds kind of absent, like it’s running off chasing butterflies instead of investigating a crime scene. It’s not the song of a formidable opponent (which makes the contrast with Justine Courtney’s leitmotif much better). This plays pretty notably in the one argument you have with him that’s so nonsensical it doesn’t even justify the traditional confrontation music, you have this instead.

And then in the final case you get First Class Farewell.

This sounds infinitely more mature than First Class Reasoning. The two instruments kind of do a… back and forth with each other. I think I read somewhere it’s like a tango? Whatever it is, it is something where you need to keep up with the argument and the logic, something Sebastian hasn’t been able to do… until now. It has him standing up to his father, standing on his own, and showing that he truly has the potential to be a great prosecutor. If we ever somehow see Sebastian as a prosecutor in future games, I want this to be his leitmotif. Individually these two songs wouldn’t take this spot, but put together and showcasing Sebastian’s character growth – and that First Class Farewell plays in one of the most emotional AAI2 scenes – is what brings it up here. It’s a really good use of leitmotifs.

Speaking of great use of leitmotifs…

1 - The Masked Disciple’s Leitmotif. I… cannot say anymore than this without spoiling the entirety of DGS2, so I’m actually going to put the rest under a “keep reading” if you’ve finished DGS2. So, uh, if you haven’t, just… when DGS2 is translated, play it, it’s really good. And this leitmotif might actually be my favourite song in the entire series, for reasons that are under the cut. I… really hope this works, if it doesn’t, scroll as fast as you can and don’t look back.

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…….. so. Asougi, huh.

The Revived Prosecutor is! INCREDIBLE. At the time I’m writing this, the only way to really experience DGS2 as someone who does not know Japanese and only knows English is by watching these twitch streams, and you might notice that when this first starts playing the streamer actually pauses so we can listen to it. it’s that good.

It starts off as such an intimidating, imposing song. It’s a song of your enemy. It’s so strange, so different from the Asougi we’re used to, and you’ve really got to wonder if he’s the same person.

AND THEN SAMURAI WITH A MISSION KICKS IN. It felt like an actual, physical gut punch.

It has lacks that familiar, Japanese-y kind of feel to it, though. It’s Asougi, but it’s different. Asougi is the Samurai With A Mission, and he’s fulfilling his very murdery prosecute-y destructive mission, which is so different from the Asougi that Ryuunosuke idolized in DGS… and even though this person is so different from the Asougi we knew, it still is Asougi. It also has a few hints of the Professor’s Theme in there, which is also incredibly good considering… well.

Honestly, one of the reasons I’d want a remake of the original trilogy – like a full-on remake – is so that they’d do something like this with Miles’ themes. His “Great Revival” is good… but it doesn’t suit AA1 Miles. If we had an actual “Demon Prosecutor” theme, which was mostly replaced by DL-6 when talking about Miles’ trauma, and then get to something like Great Revival for his… well, Great Revival, that would be fantastic. That’s the one regret, that Miles came too early for ace attorney to get around to making proper leitmotifs like this.

Also again this song is just really fun to listen to. And that’s probably what’s most important here, right?