#lack of justice for everyone involved. maya and others don’t get justice

[rhymeswithumbrella]

💔

[garretgentleman-art]

I understand why Diego was blaming Phoenix. What else was he supposed to do? He got out of a hell, and immediately found himself in a new one.

- If he blamed only himself, he would not have survived. - He definitely can't blame Mia for not ask Phoenix for help. She is the victim and his love. - And he can't blame the killer. Mia has already thrown him into a prison. He's not available, so this is useless. - There remains only Phoenix. Well, Diego had a strong antipathy towards him anyway. Even without his involvement in hiding the poison, Phoenix is still a stranger who is in Mia's place and role.

The most common act in his situation is the revenge. But he was deprived of it because the justice prevailed without him. And he woke up alone. I know the game doesn't talk about it, but do you understand that if Mia had told Phoenix and Maya about Diego, the plot wouldn't have happened, right? Ironically, Maya and Phoenix still became his reason to live. He got up in the mornings to hate Phoenix and protect Maya. Was it right? Well, this coping strategy saved his life, so yeah, I guess.

You know, I think Mia and Diego are very similar. I'm sure that Mia was investigating Redd White alone because she was afraid that the tragedy would happen again. She blamed herself for Fawles's death, and she certainly blamed herself for Diego's coma. I think Diego and Mia both prefer to silently suffer alone, be strong and feel guilty about things they have no control over. And they both need retribution. Mia chased the people who ruined her life until her death. Diego, on the other hand, did not have the opportunity to imprison his enemies legally, so his pain became destructive.

Important detail. 1) Diego is a self-confident person and believes that he could protect Mia. He projects it onto Phoenix. But does it make sense? Does he think Phoenix is ​​cool like him? No. Does he think everyone should be cool? No, in the game, he said many times that a person makes mistakes and this is normal. It looks like a cover, not a real projection. For example, when Phoenix accused Luke Atmey (case about the stolen urn) that he hid the DeMasque's calling card from the police and did not seek help.

2) Diego after the coma is really self-confident or..? Diego is not focusing on Mia's death in this dialogue. And not even on a revenge. He says Phoenix didn't care. That was what angry him the most. Phoenix looked happy while Diego suffere. And more importantly, Diego blamed himself, and believed that in his place it would have been so with everyone (good adequate people), including Phoenix. But he mistaken. I'm pretty sure Diego is clinically depressed, Phoenix is not. And Diego doesn't realize it. Or doesn't want to, I’m sure that his doctors warned him that he falls into the category of risk. Ironically, when he was a defence attorney, he must have encountered a victims of crime who felt irrational guilt, and this must have resented him. Now he's in their place. I don't think Diego can be a defence attorney again, by the way. Survivors victims often become prosecutors, because they want to fight criminals (this happened to Miles too, even his attitude towards defence attorneys has changed). They lack the kindness and faith to protect a potential killer because they have a trauma. And they have a lot more empathy for the victim and their family

Even Phoenix could not stand this pity party of self-blaming! (skip)

I'm not sure that Phoenix is a more reliable person than you or Maya's mother, but ok.  The fact that you ask for help TWO people for safety is already very good. Who knew they'd screw up? Well, okay, all three of you closed eyes to the opportunity to get more allies, and it's clear why. Diego, Iris and Misty feel guilty. They was afraid to speak directly to Maya (+phoenix in case of iris), and therefore prefered to protect her in secret. They are ready to die for her, but not to talk. They wouldn't even dare to tell Pearl the cruel truth about her mother. Depressed idiots. And one more thing. Maya has never visited Diego in the hospital and doesn't even know he exists. He felt abandoned. He obviously doesn't blame her for this, but I'm not surprised he avoids her.

It's hard to live without sweet fantasy... Well, realising of mistakes is certainly good, but I would prefer the consent to visit a psychotherapist

Umm, yes, it's easy to do when you see your mentor at every court trial.

Yeeey, he approved Phoenix as her heir! ...and put him on a pedestal because he hates himself. I find it insanely amusing that Diego's only completed arc wasn't about overcoming his mental injuries, It’s was about his relates to Phoenix. About acceptance of him. This is the most phoenix-centric character in the entire game! After von Karma siblings who always ignore him, it's very flattering... (I love it) Bonus

[inspector-montoya-fox]

let’s talk about the criminal mistreatment of Athena Cykes

Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies isn’t really big on women. They’re either dead, fully motivated by self-interest, or on the wrong side of the law. And in the wacky world of Ace Attorney, the game seriously lacks in original wacky female characters. And then there’s Athena Cykes; Phoenix’s new, cute! protégé with a brand new skill for some fresh gameplay and a seriously messed up backstory to captivate the player. Here’s the problem: that pretty much sums up Apollo’s character and reason for being introduced literally one game prior. So why introduce this new character when she wasn’t even needed?

(major spoilers ahead)

Let’s start by pointing out that, throughout Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice, Athena only handles one case on her own. And that case (Turnabout Storyteller) is a mess, imo. We don’t get to investigate as Athena, her skills as a rookie attorney are being constantly diminished by everyone, even her client, and she relies on Blackquill to bail her out when shit hits the fan. In the original trilogy, Maya also helped out Phoenix when in need, but Phoenix was literally the main playable character, having enough cases to redeem himself after stumbling once or twice. Athena is given only one chance throughout the span of two games.

If Athena was the only new character, tackling only one case on her own would be more acceptable because, with the absence of Maya, she’d play the pivotal role of Phoenix’s assistant, aiding him. And that would actually be ideal. Imagine Athena being introduced in Dual Destinies as Phoenix’s assistant, investigating with him and providing advice during the trials. The game would wrap up nicely by having us explore the Space Centre and have her backstory unravel. That’s basically the first game’s premise: Maya is introduced in Turnabout Sisters and by Turnabout Goodbyes we explore part of her backstory (mainly Misty Fey going MIA) via Edgeworth’s trials.

What really screws up Athena’s chances of succeeding as a new character, are the other new characters, Apollo Justice and Trucy Wright. Apollo Justice was literally supposed to be a reset for the franchise. Bridge to Turnabout wrapped up all the story arcs of the trilogy in such a masterful way that there wasn’t anything more for Phoenix and Maya to do. The 7 year time jump and the introduction of Apollo were supposed to kick off a new trilogy and showcase a new era of the law, a time in which the system started failing, despite the fact that it was already messed up. I go into detail about why Apollo Justice failed in this essay no one bothered to read (yea i’m bitter, bitch) but basically, to sum up, Capcom didn’t have the balls to strip the series of its main character and due to backlash, brought him back one game after.

I 100% believe that Dual Destinies tries its hardest to be what fans wanted Apollo Justice to be. As a result, it has too much on its plate. Giving Apollo a new backstory, portraying Phoenix’s return as an attorney, trying desperately to sell the Dark Age of the Law and repeating ‘the end justifies the means’ about a million times, delivering interesting cases with interesting witnesses (at which it fails miserably, imo), all the while introducing Athena and exploring her backstory, which includes the new prosecutor and new detective, whose final twist, although unexpected, doesn’t save the game. That’s a lot, like too, too much.

What was the reason for Athena’s introduction? As I mentioned above, Apollo was literally introduced one game prior to Dual Destinies, providing the writers with countless opportunities for interesting storylines. What we got instead were interesting storylines which were never to be revisited again, e.g. Apollo and Trucy being Thalassa Gramarye’s children, and the jury system. What the fuck. Instead of progressing Apollo’s saga as a rookie attorney taken under Phoenix’s wing, he gets sidetracked for the sake of Athena, but as we soon find out, that isn’t even the case. Actually, Apollo as a new protagonist gets sacrificed for the sake of Athena, and in turn, Athena gets sacrificed for the sake of Apollo being a sidekick. Again, what the fuck.

After Apollo Justice, the games try and fail to course-correct Apollo’s character. Dual Destinies tries to shoehorn Apollo and Athena’s backstories into two cases (The Cosmic Turnabout and Turnabout for Tomorrow), while wasting such an opportunity with its first three cases (no, Turnabout Academy’s rushed exposition on Athena and Juniper’s friendship doesn’t count). And I’m being blatantly honest when I say that I literally couldn’t give less of a shit about Clay Terran and dArK Apollo with a bandage over his eye. I literally don’t care because the game doesn’t do the work in order for me to care. It just dumps a bunch of new info on Apollo and Clay’s friendship at the beginning of a trial for which there isn’t even an investigation. That’s just lazy. Instead, I’m much more interested as to why the robots at the Space Centre recognize Athena.

Athena’s backstory, although redundant and painfully familiar, is pretty interesting. Why is it redundant and painfully familiar? Because Maya Fey also lost her mother due to an incident with an upcoming prosecutor and eventually was misled into thinking she was the culprit, the truth being revealed by Phoenix at the end. Despite the similarity, the details surrounding Metis Cykes’s murder are so captivating. Aura Blackquill is introduced, a mysteriously sexy tech gyal whose dialogue on Metis seems to suggest that they were romantically involved, Blackquill’s imprisonment is explained, there’s hostages involved, and the Phantom is revealed. Turnabout for Tomorrow isn’t my favorite case but in terms of setting up Athena’s backstory, it does everything right.

I honestly love Athena. I love that we have another female attorney alongside Mia and Calisto Yew. I love that she introduces psychology into the trials. I love her yellow suit and her narration, and her moon earrings and relentlessly joyful attitude. She’s such a joy to have around. That’s why I hate how Dual Destinies handles her character, having Apollo ask her questions on who she is and what she does during The Monstrous Turnabout’s investigation and waiting until Turnabout for Tomorrow to continue her exposition. Instead, Apollo gets most of the attention. If Capcom wanted games 4-6 to be Apollo’s trilogy, they should’ve done that. Not dilute Apollo Justice by including hobo Phoenix, not introduce Athena and have Phoenix return in Dual Destinies, not do anything they did with Spirit of Justice. I really wanted Dual Destinies to be Athena’s game.

Spirit of Justice handles Athena even worse than Dual Destinies. She is quite literally reduced to a side character and, even though we get to play her first solo case, her character gets absolutely zero development. Whereas Phoenix is reunited with Maya and resets the law in a foreign country via a revolution in which Apollo is caught in the centre of, Athena babysits Trucy (another female character who is given nothing to do). Also, Athena being sidetracked, getting turned from a new attorney to just a character without a purpose becomes so obvious when she’s literally rendered obsolete once Maya returns in Turnabout Time Traveler, during which she becomes Trucy’s lab rat... ???

I literally feel bad for Athena because she was created unreasonably but created with care nonetheless. Dual Destinies tackles too many story arcs and themes all at once, and if the writers removed some of them to focus more on Athena instead, she could have been the next Franziska: a young lawyer with drive who rises to the ranks of the best but not without her flaws. But, um, we got an Apollo Justice Lite, instead.

[pinksweatergettingbetter]

warning, the following has mainly snarky (and possibly furious) opinions on Spirit of Justice. Reader discretion is advised.

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alright, we’re here live with phoenix wright at temple temple 

lets see where we go.

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aw he’s worried about maya. thank god someone is.

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“I didn’t come all the way to khura’in to be useless”

prove it, edgey

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oh its one of those lady gaga guards again

Lah’kee. aww cute

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“I advise you accept the invitation”

well he can’t really decline it, miles.

Also “Lakhee” haha. at least edgeworth’s ability to mess up names is still here.

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hm i wonder how she’s really spying on everyone. something ridiculous no doubt. 

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oooh the ‘audience chamber’

i smell a cutscene 

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ooh i was right

kinda

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“this place is still as magnificent as last time”

wait what do you mean last time

it was listed as a new location in the map

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“looks like you’re doing well”

damnit nick you made me laugh.

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phoenix now has ‘bludgeoned by child’ to add to his list of stuff he’s survived 

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we’ve already established that you cant get spiritual power from the orb unless you’re a medium already. come on now.

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“For in Khura’in, only those who possess spiritual power may sit on the throne” 

uh im all for feminism and that but you might wanna open your king or queenitude to a wider and possibly more qualified range of people. 

i mean spirit mediums are awesome and all but summoning ghosts does not necessarily make you a good politician. 

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“But the queen seems almost giddy for someone who’s husband was just murdered”

well I'm glad you told me that, phoenix, because i cannot fucking tell on her flat ass face

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poor rayfa... she’s really grown on me. i hope she’ll be okay.

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hmm. something just happened that i *think* should have tripped the magatama... but who cares. nothing works anymore.

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“When it turned out Dhurke was forging evidence the people were devastated, and trust in the legal system plummeted”

anD THUS BEGAN THE DARK AGE OF THE 

NO

NO NON O NON NOOOOOO WE LEFT THAT BEHIND IN DD DO NOT BRING IT BACK.

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“We have the divination seance, so we don’t need lawyers anymore”

yeah you also don’t need prosecutors anymore either. all you need is a judge to go “huh, looks legit” and into the slammer they go.

...and yet... and yet...

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WHOA WHAT

SHE MOVES?!

also thats literally Morgan’s laugh but flipped. She’s evil. 

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“it’s missing? I'm sure Dhurke had it when he went into the tomb”

why is phoenix so fucking stupid when he goes to kooraheen. its like when he sets foot on their soil his brain just drops every single shred of self preservation it once had. i mean i know he used to show evidence to blatant criminals but like, at least he had misgivings about doing it.

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“From his odd hairstyle, may we assume him to be a relative? Perhaps, your younger brother?”

‘no, he’s my son.’

haha but in all seriousness considering Jove’s facial similarity to phoenix and the amount of shoehorned backstory for Apollo, they could pretty damn well be related.

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wow. not only does phoenix yell EW NO HES NOT RELATED TO ME but he /also/ lets slip that he’s related to Dhurke. You know. Right in front of the queen who hates the living shit out of Dhurke.

Thanks for draining my baby’s braincells, SOJ......

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“whats she whispering to that guard?”

oh i dunno nick maybe something about that thing you said about Apollo being related to the queen’s ARCH NEMESIS.

GOOD FUCKING LORD.

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“That’s one swanky throne. I wouldn't mind taking a seat there myself.”

the audacity. and yet i love him for it.

“The jester and the crown. I imagine it’d make quite the interesting picture”

Ouuuch

“You know, Edgeworth, I hate to say this, but you’re absolutely right.”

he’s remembering that time he got all doe eyed over Dhurke’s mouldy jacket. 

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why is the bazaar also a new area

we’ve been there before

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...oh. warbaads sound like lions?? the fuck????

its a form of mimicry? to protect against predators??

when did he learn this again?!

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oh god. of course. of course it would be Vore Machine who makes a fucking gunshot noise in the middle of a crowded area.

brilliant.

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“since more people are joining us, ive decided to employ something that sounds like a gunshot to scare the fuck outta them!’

flawless strategy as always, dingel.

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“What with the murder/suicide!”

he shouts with a huge grin

“Hopefully this means Tahrust’s death won’t be in vain after all”

GOD. even brain dead nick noticed it was abso-fuckin’-lutely pointless.

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“see, i give my fellow rebels things that sound like gunshots, that will of course draw attention AWAY from them. yes, the loud noise things will definitely ward OFF the royal guards” genius.

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“those firecrackers are more useful than i thought”

yeah because he used one on a fucking vulnerable child. maybe try it again when the actual trained police are on your tail, see how well that turns out for you. 

also fuck you Datz.

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aw i love Rayfa and Nick’s interactions. She’s adorable and he humours her so much. It’s sweet. 

this is genuine by the way; its the highlight of the kooraheen cases for me. as i said Rayfa’s really grown on me. she was annoying at first but now it’s just kinda... cute?

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“But hearing her all alone I... I can’t help but think of Trucy”

OW

OW

OW

OW

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“it’s as if your brain-to-mouth filter shuts off the second you step out of the courtroom” 

oh man edge. you'd be snacking on your words if you saw his internal monologue. 

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phoenix: men are messy. i am messy. 

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where IS nayna...

in other news, Phoenix continues to dad at Rayfa

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(weeping) oh god Rayfa’s so cute

please be kind to her pleaaase

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(rayfa seems really worried for Nayna...)

yea maybe you should do something about that nick

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Phoenix: rayfs maybe you uhh shouldnt do the divination thing i can do that

wehhh protect her nick

god she’s even feeling bad for being a brat. please just give her a hug or something, jeez;

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i know its just a call back but how /did/ he get his hands on some J’suis Lebelle?

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“I like my natural stress-grey very much ,thank you!”

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“Do you suppose if I slept on it, I could see my father once more?”

OW

WHAT THE FUCK SOJ

obviously phoenix agrees with me. jesus.

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shdgah i thought the notepad was a sandwich 

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Huh! Inga was face-blind. who knew?

i kid, i kid. its probably related to queenbean’s magic surveillance shit 

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hehehe everybody luuuurves edgeworth

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Phoenix: drugs??? oh no I'm a cool kid. say no

(steals drugs)

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n’awww. her birfday was the safe code. i guess even bad men love their daughters.

OH AND HER BABY LETTERS IN THERE TOO AHH

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(yells) gfakgkkajafksj THERE’S AN ‘ASSASSINATION PLAN”

GOD

fake. fake fake fake. fake as fuck.

people don’t write little “my evil plan” notes to themselves. 

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Rayfa: *sees picture of someone other than her mother holding her as a baby* MY WHOLE LIFE IS A LIIIIIIIE

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“I wonder what’s afoot?”

THE GAME, EDGEWORTH, THE GAME!!!

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Edgeworth’s bitten by a fuckin dog and he STILL Cant manage a human emotion. good lord.

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hmm. i know that was supposed to be comedic but the lack of visuals really kinda dampened the thing.

...plus, to choke edgeworth, the pressure would need to be applied to the front of his neck, not the back, and since the dog is on the front, it cant have choked him. it couldn’t have even pulled the “cravat” tighter because it’s not actually tied up.

(sigh) oh whatever.

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Datz, emerging from a manhole to recruit 

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Wow Datz sure loves to scare the shit out of children. What a class act.

“HAHA FUCK YOU KID, I HOPE YOUR DOG’S LOST FOREVER AND MAYBE DIES”

SUCH a class act.

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“Ahlbi’s not exactly the picture of self restraint...”

phoenix he’s nine

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“I worry about his future sometimes...”

of course you do, dad ;)

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“You cant go trespassing like that, even if it’s for a good cause; it’s just not right!”

hey, trilogy and AJ nick would say otherwise, old man. you use to be cool. and interested in doing bad things for good ends.

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weird haircut - friend of phoenix 

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“a big orange spider leg” AHLBI 

he's right, but he shouldn’t say it!

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“they were being pursued by royal guards!”

:) hey phoenix :) maybe next time dont tell the queen :) that they’re involved with her mortal enemy :) maybe :)))))

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alright and that’s part 2 of the investigation over. apparently there’s a part 3? they sure are breaking the established time codes for cases in this game... oh well! stay tuned for the next time!

[demoiselledefortune]

Finished Dual Destinies:

- Loved the final case (besides it being split into two cases for no good reason); very good final twist (which I did not expect but seemed very obvious in retrospect) and found a way to showcase everyone despite the overall game’s issue of spotlight stealing by Phoenix.

- Why are the Blackquills so hot? o_o

- Athena is <3

- Miles’ 3Dification doesn’t look very good XD tones down his facial expressions too much.

- a destroyed courtroom makes a pretty cool setting.

- Apollo’s arc feels a bit aborted even though it’s complete. Given that we had an occasion to explore his background and develop him, it feels way too little. I liked what he did get to do thought (the construction of doubt and trust as flip side) and how it works with Athena being similar to Phoenix whereas Apollo has an approach more similar to Miles.

- Phoenix actually completely lacks a character arc, for the first time ever in a AA. There’s shade of potential arc about mentorship and about returning to the law but they don’t come to anything. That makes his spotlight stealing.

- Speaking of Phoenix the writing when you play makes it look like he came back to law to resolve a specific case but knows nothing about the case, nor who was the victim, nor that she’s related to someone in his office, and neither when the execution date was set up for, and basically did nothing in the one year he got his badge back to actually solve the case. Good job, Phoenix! I’ve been told on replay it looks like Phoenix may actually know those things (and picked up Athena on purpose?) but the game doesn’t seem to address that in the text in the end?

- There’s a whole series of parallelism to Justice for All. Countdown has the Lawyer being hit on the head, Monstrous the kind setting in a traditional isolate village and another direct reference, and Cosmic/Tomorrow has a series of parallelism to Farewell which are funny to dissect:

Hostage situation

Tense thriller like set up with deadline

Involvement of an international man of mysterious right out of pulp genre

Somebody showing up dramatically with recovered evidences

Miles showing up out of nowhere

Lesbians

Maya drawings

Ending plays up on the fear the culprit may have of being murdered

Since I kinda hated Farewell, but I liked this one, I guess i approve of how they picked up those themes and put them back again XD

Other overall comments on the game as a whole:

- Athena should at least have been led on the first case. The bait & switch there was painful and unwarranted; and if she had you could at least vaguely claim that each protagonists had been lead on 2 cases each.

- Athena’s case is the only one with no direct JfA parallelism, I feel

- Missed the possibility of examining any places (although i liked the extended crime scene investigation, which felt a  bit AAI like)

- Missed Ema.

- Missed Trucy and i know she was right there but she barely did anything (at least we got a few moments of her assisting her dad which was cute as hell)

- For a game that keeps talking about the Dark Age of the Law, this one was remarkably lacking in political satire for an Ace Attorney. The closest thing we got was Academy, and it never felt like it was commentary as such.

- For people keeping count, this is the third time Miles is here on a case where  a child is being accused of murder, and the second time when they’re accused of killing their parent (no counting Reminiscence; or Samurai). Gotta love those traumatism digging traditions.

- No seriously, why are the Blackquills so hot? o_o