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Old 02-23-2008, 10:29 PM   #1
Loki
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Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Following about 8 years after Phoenix Wright- Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations, the game starts anew with Apollo Justice as a rookie defense lawyer. His first trial: Prove Phoenix Wright innocent of murder!

Amazing game! Trial one is longer than the first trial of Trials & Tribulations, which was pretty long IIRC. Additionally, there's all the great fun stuff from [Bonus] Trial 5 of the first Ace Attorney like examining evidence. Additionally, trial one has an insane plot twist I never saw coming! I still have yet to complete it and I started like a bit more than an hour ago!

GET THE GAME!
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Old 02-27-2008, 04:33 PM   #2
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Re: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Mr. Prosecutor was pathetic for Case 2, but I grew to like him in Case 3. Now I'm halfway through Case 4, and just confirmed what I suspected since the middle of Case 1, and I think is about to get totally awesome.
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Old 03-03-2008, 02:36 PM   #3
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Re: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

I JUST beat this overnight, and I have to say while I was a bit disappointed with Case 4, one of the twists at the end really amazed me. I thought the entire game was awesome overall, and I'll agree that case 4-1 kicked the crap out of the previous case 1s due to length as well as the twist in it.

Here's to hoping for GS5 for more Apollo and Trucy exploits. :D
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Old 03-04-2008, 12:31 AM   #4
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Re: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

I'm stuck on Case 3 and I only play during my lunch break so it's not really a long time to get things solved.

Anyway, Ema has matured into a HAWT woman. Not when she puts on her grumpy/snacking face though. Her happy face is great.
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Old 03-04-2008, 08:09 AM   #5
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Re: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

I'm playing through case 4 at the moment..at first I thought it was rather "meh", but the twist at the end of 4-1..niiiice.
I'll probably have it beaten by this weekend.
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Old 03-07-2008, 04:08 PM   #6
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Re: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

I got my copy earlier this week! But I'm only alil bit into case 2 so far cause these games suck my poor DS battery dry fast. -_- The end of that first case made me not so happy! I liked the cool 3D crime scene stuff much more fun then point out where people are on those old 2d maps! Does this one have 4 cases or 5?
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Old 03-08-2008, 09:41 AM   #7
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Re: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lindz
I got my copy earlier this week! But I'm only alil bit into case 2 so far cause these games suck my poor DS battery dry fast. -_- The end of that first case made me not so happy! I liked the cool 3D crime scene stuff much more fun then point out where people are on those old 2d maps! Does this one have 4 cases or 5?
4 cases only, sadly. I'm almost through with case 4, and I gotta say it more than makes up for the lack of a fifth case - so awesome.
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Old 03-21-2008, 04:08 PM   #8
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Re: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

I finished it last week or so. SOooooo awesome best one yet!

More Apollo less Phoenix please!
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Old 05-28-2008, 11:31 PM   #9
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Re: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

I got the game when at launch and played it almost non-stop until I beat it (took me about 36 hours). The cases were great (especially the final one), but I'm one of the people that prefers Phoenix over Apollo. I mean, Apollo was pathetic. It felt to me like he didn't have any control over the court proceedings. He was just there, like a dead weight, letting Klavier lead him on and being used by Phoenix as a pawn for his own purposes. I don't despise him like my sister does, but I'd like Phoenix back plzthx. Trucy, Klavier, and Ema are great supporting characters...it's just too bad there's such a pathetic lead. :P
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Old 12-06-2012, 01:54 PM   #10
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Sorry to bump this 4 and a half year old thread, but I just finished the game after putting off the last case for a couple years.

And man, it was quite a case. It should be renamed to Turnabout: Plot Twist. Seriously, M Night Shyamalan would wet himself playing this. Anyway, I still don't like Apollo that much, but the game is solid, right on par with PW2 and 3 in my opinion.
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Old 12-06-2012, 02:51 PM   #11
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The final case pretty much sells the game. It's probably my favorite case in the entire franchise. (And given Game 2 Case 2, Game 2 Case 4, and Game 3 Case 5, that's saying quite a lot.) "Turnabout Plot Twist," or perhaps simply "Turnabout" period, indeed. They took what excited people about Game 2 Case 4 and Game 3 Case 5 ... and maxed out the meter. Incroyable.

But yes, Apollo Justice remains the black sheep in the family for so many unfortunate reasons, not the least of which is that the cast of characters in the game just isn't as lovable or memorable as the cast in the first two games. Franziska never really lived up to Edgeworth for me, and neither did Godot, but I'd take either one of them over Klavier Gavin. (His character design alone bugs the fuck out of me! >_<) And I think the problem of "flair over substance" plagues most of the other problem characters as well. Who cares about a man with a half-filled bowl of noodles on his head? Or a mafia family who all look like woodland creatures? Or the white "HOLY FUCK I JUST SOILED MYSELF" creepy pedo-rapist you don't want to run into in a dark alley version of Steve Urkel? La Mystoire? The other Borginian characters? Probably my favorite supporting cast character in the game is Uncle Valant: and even he's plagued by the gaudy levels of flair in Game 4. ^^; That stated, I think this black sheep gets way too much criticism from the community and I think Case 4 is so solid, so very, very "I ......... wow ", that one can't toss the game into the dustbin.

I know I personally would love to see various Ace Attorney 4 characters return in Ace Attorney 5. I can only hope the AA5 staff agrees.

Game 4 and possibly Game 5 spoilers in the strictest sense (can safely click once you've beaten the game)
Spoiler: show
I'd love to see more Apollo and Trucy. Am really, really hoping that the player controls Apollo for at least one of the cases. Would love to see Apollo + Trucy be one tag team (just like in Game 4) while Phoenix + his new sidekick form the other tag team.
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Old 12-06-2012, 07:54 PM   #12
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Tyranitar

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
The final case pretty much sells the game. It's probably my favorite case in the entire franchise. (And given Game 2 Case 2, Game 2 Case 4, and Game 3 Case 5, that's saying quite a lot.) "Turnabout Plot Twist," or perhaps simply "Turnabout" period, indeed. They took what excited people about Game 2 Case 4 and Game 3 Case 5 ... and maxed out the meter. Incroyable.
I still like Game 2 Case 4 the best out of any, but Game 4 Case 4 is certainly up there.

Quote:
But yes, Apollo Justice remains the black sheep in the family for so many unfortunate reasons, not the least of which is that the cast of characters in the game just isn't as lovable or memorable as the cast in the first two games. Franziska never really lived up to Edgeworth for me, and neither did Godot, but I'd take either one of them over Klavier Gavin. (His character design alone bugs the fuck out of me! >_<) And I think the problem of "flair over substance" plagues most of the other problem characters as well. Who cares about a man with a half-filled bowl of noodles on his head? Or a mafia family who all look like woodland creatures? Or the white "HOLY FUCK I JUST SOILED MYSELF" creepy pedo-rapist you don't want to run into in a dark alley version of Steve Urkel?
I rather liked Klavier Gavin myself. Makes it hard to choose who my favorite prosecutor, since I like all of them (with the exception of the von Karmas and lolPayne).

Spoiler: show
Kristoph is also a solid villain, on par with Dahlia IMO. Seemingly little reason to commit their crimes, they did them because they are truly evil.


Quote:
La Mystoire?
Spoiler: show
Do you not remember who she really is? This was me after finding it out.


Quote:
The other Borginian characters? Probably my favorite supporting cast character in the game is Uncle Valant: and even he's plagued by the gaudy levels of flair in Game 4. ^^; That stated, I think this black sheep gets way too much criticism from the community and I think Case 4 is so solid, so very, very "I ......... wow ", that one can't toss the game into the dustbin.
Yeah, didn't care for anyone else, especially Valant since he's a bit of a selfish prick.

Quote:
I know I personally would love to see various Ace Attorney 4 characters return in Ace Attorney 5. I can only hope the AA5 staff agrees.

Game 4 and possibly Game 5 spoilers in the strictest sense (can safely click once you've beaten the game)
Spoiler: show
I'd love to see more Apollo and Trucy. Am really, really hoping that the player controls Apollo for at least one of the cases. Would love to see Apollo + Trucy be one tag team (just like in Game 4) while Phoenix + his new sidekick form the other tag team.
Agreeing with this. If they did this, then I'd buy a 3DS just to play it.
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Old 12-06-2012, 08:34 PM   #13
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In response to your spoiler boxed question of do I remember {spoiler}, yes, of course I remember.

Spoiler: show
I assume you're asking if I remember Lamiroir's identity.

SERIOUS SPOILERS, PEOPLE! Don't click if you haven't played.

Spoiler: show
Thalassa Gramarye, a.k.a. Trucy's and Apollo's mother

Yes, I remember.

Tdos: Well you did call her "La Mystoire" earlier so I didn't know.
Talon: I always get her name mixed up.

Also, now that you've beaten the game ... you can enjoy Peachi's/Daisy's comics! (No, not our Daisy. ^^; )

Spoiler: show
Below is the "Zak Gramarye is a Jerk" series of comics.













If you enjoyed these, there's more where they came from. There's actually more than what Peachi put up on her PhotoBucket. Dunno why she never uploaded the rest. Ask Muyo / Jeri / me to share 'em if you're interested.
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Old 04-14-2015, 07:51 AM   #14
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Alright, so, having recently re-completed Ace Attorney 3, the next stop on my Ace Attorney tour is of course Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, a.k.a. Ace Attorney 4 or simply AA4 for short. The first time I played this game was also the last -- some time back around 2009 or 2010. So it's been a good five to six years since then, and the time is ripe for a revisit.

Last night I started playing the game, and I saved mere minutes before the end of the first case and called it a night. This morning I picked up where I left off and completed the case, post-verdict story and all, in under ten minutes.

Spoilers for Case 1 and Case 1 only.

Spoiler: show
This is a pretty good tutorial case. The fourth title in the series, Takumi Shuu and his team over at Capcom have gotten the hang of what works well and what doesn't, what's popular and what isn't. The case is very user-friendly for people who may have never played an Ace Attorney game in their lives but it's also very friendly towards seasoned veterans. Congrats to the team for making a solid intro case.

It's a little shorter than the intro case in Ace Attorney 3 (despite what Loki says in the OP post, I know). To be honest, I think it might be the second shortest of the first four games'. But it doesn't feel too short, which is a plus. Short, yes, but not too short. You don't feel like you were cheated out of a case. It's a good intro, especially given the fact that ...

... It drops such a huge bomb in the form of a seven-years-disbarred Phoenix Wright. That was without a doubt one of the single most controversial aspects about this game before Ace Attorney 5 became a reality, and I can see many a first-time player's mind being utterly blown by the facts that:
  1. Phoenix was disbarred
  2. he's been spending the last seven years of his life as a piano-playing bum
  3. he seems to have morally descended somewhat into a sort of scoundrel, what with his:
    1. hanging around joints like the Borscht Bowl Club
    2. forging evidence
  4. he has a daughter
  5. absolutely no mention nor sign of his other friends and family (seen in previous titles)
But without giving anything away to first-time players, I'll just say that I think this controversial decision was not altogether bad.

Spoilers for the end of the game, but pertaining to Case 1:

Spoiler: show
Spoilers for the very end of the game, I said! Please don't read on if you haven't beaten the game yet.

Spoiler: show
I was quite surprised by how quickly the judge handed down his Not Guilty verdict to Phoenix as well as how quickly/willingly Kristoph Gavin admitted to being the murderer of Shadi Smith. Maybe it was because I went to bed right before we finally got Kristoph to give up pretending, and consequently I forgot some of what we had presented him with last night. I will say that the flashback pertaining to the forged evidence, i.e. the impostor blood-splotched Five of Hearts, was most helpful in at least making it somewhat clear how/why Kristoph would've been proven to be at the very least present at the crime scene if not probably the killer as well. (Paraphrased: Kristoph: "That evidence is inadmissible! That can't be the real card!" Phoenix: "Oh? And how would you know that, Kristoph? I'd think that the only person who could know that this evidence is fake ... would be the real killer himself.") What it helps to know -- and here's our first end-of-game spoiler -- is that we'll revisit this case later, at the end of the game, and we'll prove/show both how and why Kristoph did the deed.

Knowing that Shadi Smith is Zak Gramarye (and all that that entails) sure does make for a very different experience with this case! In hindsight, it seems so obvious that Shadi's possession of the locket implies that Trucy is his own daughter and that she's only Phoenix's adopted daughter. But when you're playing the game for the very first time, I don't think your mind is able to think that way. You're so floored by the fact that Phoenix has a daughter now -- a fact he keeps repeating over and over again, "That's my daughter," "That's my daughter," "That's my daughter" -- that you don't properly process what's going on here. I imagine that my own first-time thinking was probably that Shadi stole the locket from Phoenix's wife / Trucy's mother or something and that that's why Phoenix snatched it back.
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Old 04-15-2015, 07:46 PM   #15
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Currently about halfway through Case 2. (Mildest spoilerific way I know how to tell people how far I am found below.)

Spoiler: show
I'm currently through the entire first day of court, and have just begun the second day of investigations.

I'm enjoying the game so far quite a bit. Man is it the black sheep of the family though! You can really tell just how hard they tried to be new and awesome, and just how badly that would have backfired on them with many a fan. I'm much more forgiving in 2015 than I think I was in 2009/10, although I recall that even in 2010 I was quite the apologist for this game. And "apologist" isn't the right word in my opinion! Because I do genuinely think the game is good, while a term like "apologist" makes it sound like I secretly admit the game is a turd but publicly I want to defend it. Anyway, digression: the point is, I'm having more fun with the game now, I think, and I credit that to being more laid back towards it, more accepting of it as canon, warts and all.

Case 2 discussion follows. Pretty light on spoilers, and spoilers only cover up to where I am in the game at present.

Spoiler: show
One thing that the second case tries out and that I find really very interesting is that it throws a whole bunch of seemingly disconnected events at you all at the very start, and it's not until you've been playing for a good thirty to sixty minutes that you finally reach the convergence point in the story. Most Ace Attorney cases tend to go about it the other way around: they start you off with a known anchor point, a known nexus, if you will, and then from that nexus you then discover that multiple subplots branch out. "Wow!" you say, "I didn't know things would get so complex! :o " Apollo Justice Case 2 is kind of the reverse: "Wow! I didn't think it'd all come together in such a simple manner!"

It's amusing to see how Capcom of North America grapples with localizing many of the game's cultural elements. None is more obvious in this case than the yakuza family, the Kitakis, and how Plum Kitaki (the don's wife) explains to Apollo and Trucy that the Kitakis are expatriates from "the old country." The don himself, Mr. Kitaki, uses Italian mafia terms like "Capice?" to get his points across. It would all work ... if they were actually Italian. ^^; But they're not. They're Japanese. And the player knows it. Capcom-NA can't whitewash everything out of the Kitakis without affecting the story, and so some distinctly yakuza things get left behind. One example is the Kitakis' claim to being neighborhood philanthropists. Not saying the Italian mafia don't ever claim this either, but this is a very strong claim amongst yakuza, and seeing it there in the game brings a knowing smile to my face.

The panty snatcher is one of my least favorite characters in the history of the franchise. I had actually forgotten his existence! His fugly face, his fugly voice (or how I imagine it, in that nauseating falsetto), and his disgusting identity as a panty snatcher. (Seriously! Who the fuck steals panties!? A fascination I have never understood.) Eager to get him out of my life, I'll admit that around two thirds of the way through his testimony I decided to dispense with the "Press everything! \o/ All the Capcom text for me! " pleasantries and to just present contradiction-revealing evidence the moment I knew I could.

What follows contains spoilers through the very end of Case 2, so read on only if you've cleared the case completely.

Spoiler: show
I honestly forgot both the victim and the killer in this case. It wasn't until they revealed that a Mr. Pat Meraktis was the man found dead in the park that I had a name and a face to work with -- and even then, it conjured up absolutely no memories from 2009/10. And as for the killer? Still no clue.

... That is, until I started to really think about it. And based purely on process of elimination, I think I know who the killer is.
  • I know 100% that it's not Mr. Eldoon, because I remember from 2009/10 that he's a genuinely nice guy and he's innocent.
  • I know 100% that it's not Pa Kitaki, Ma Kitaki, or Wocky Kitaki, because I remember from 2009/10 that their entire family is innocent too.
  • Obviously I know it isn't Apollo, Trucy, or Phoenix.
  • Nor is it Ema or Klavier or the judge.
  • And I'm 99.99% positive it's not the panty snatcher.
  • Pat Meraktis, the victim, is dead.
  • And so that leaves only one other person ...
Alita Tiala, the defendant's fiancée. So, here's the thing:
  • I have absolutely zero memory of her being the bad guy.
    • Can't picture her evil face animation.
    • Can't recall any of her confession on the witness stand.
  • And I don't think I have a foolproof explanation to work with for her yet.
  • But ... I'm like 99% sure it's her, because it makes sense in the following ways.
First, it makes sense it's Alita because of what I just finished explaining: by process of elimination, Alita's the only one left! Everyone else I've been introduced to is in the clear, whether because of 2009/10 memories (half of them) or because of common sense with these sorts of games (the other half of them).

Second, it makes sense that Alita would be the bad guy for the following reasons:
  • Speculation: she's only marrying Wocky for the money.
  • Speculation: she wants Wocky to die so that she can collect on his inheritance.
  • Speculation: she took the initiative of finding Wocky a defense attorney, and she specifically selected Apollo, because she wanted to torpedo Wocky's chances of getting an acquittal. She didn't count on Apollo being good, or on Phoenix being a good mentor. She'd likely heard the rumors about the washed-up has-been Phoenix Wright and she probably figured that a rookie fresh out of law school under the tutelage of washed-up Mr. Wright would stand no chance against the prosecutor's office.
  • Speculation: we first found her in front of the park because she either:
    1. couldn't help but to return to the scene of the crime
    2. was in the very act of disposing of the slippers and/or the sideview mirror at that time
But as you can see, it's a whole lot of speculation. Because absolutely nothing of this has been revealed yet, if indeed any of it is even true. And here's the other thing: there are problems with this theory. Or at least, problems right now. Problems that might go away once I get more info.
  • Problem: why would Alita want Wocky dead/incarcerated/both before they got married? They're not yet married. So it doesn't make any sense. Shouldn't she want to marry him first, then get rid of him?
  • Problem: I get that she was framing Wocky and that poor Pat Meraktis was just in the wrong place in life at the wrong time, but still: why go about it like this? Why not be a more traditional black widow and just slip poison in Wocky's tea or something?
  • Problem: I get that she might have wanted to kill two birds with one stone -- that Pat Meraktis posed Alita a problem insofar as he kept badgering Wocky to get that piece of shrapnel looked at by a medical professional -- but the thing is, wasn't the damage already done here? What does silencing Mr. Meraktis really accomplish for Alita? "Oh: you've turned down the volume on People Advising Wocky To Get That Looked At." So what. Big fucking deal. He was already not taking it very seriously, and even if you killed Pat Meraktis, chances are good that if Wocky was about to change his mind anyway, he would've done it with our without Dr. Meraktis's help.
So I dunno. Alita's my prime suspect right now, but it's mostly because "I'm cheating" in that I know for a fact that none of the other introduced characters so far could have done it whereas Alita I'm drawing a blank on, thus making her my only eligible suspect.
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Old 04-16-2015, 01:05 AM   #16
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I'm enjoying the game so far quite a bit. Man is it the black sheep of the family though! You can really tell just how hard they tried to be new and awesome, and just how badly that would have backfired on them with many a fan. I'm much more forgiving in 2015 than I think I was in 2009/10, although I recall that even in 2010 I was quite the apologist for this game. And "apologist" isn't the right word in my opinion! Because I do genuinely think the game is good, while a term like "apologist" makes it sound like I secretly admit the game is a turd but publicly I want to defend it. Anyway, digression: the point is, I'm having more fun with the game now, I think, and I credit that to being more laid back towards it, more accepting of it as canon, warts and all.
I think that the main point of contention against it doesn't really have much to do with Apollo, or the cases or anything along those lines, it's a lot more about the
(Spoilers for a character in Apollo Justice/Trials and Tribulations, should be safe if you've played the beginning of AJ)
Spoiler: show
Feeling that they just took a giant shit on Phoenix's life to set him up as the mentor. Trials and Tribulations was such a good ending point for Phoenix, because even though it was ambiguous (Will he go with Maya or Iris?) it was certainly pointed in the right direction whatever way it went. And then, through no fault of his own, absolutely everything goes wrong, and not only does he not have a happy ending, he doesn't even seem to be in touch with Maya/Iris/Pearl/Edgeworth/Gumshoe or any of his friends through the course of the game. It'd have been one thing for a new series of games with Apollo as the protagonist, I could've easily gotten hyped for that, but keeping everything in the game worlds connected by ruining Phoenix's life soured me on Apollo very harshly.
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Old 04-16-2015, 07:15 AM   #17
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Originally Posted by Muyotwo View Post
I think that the main point of contention against it doesn't really have much to do with Apollo, or the cases or anything along those lines, it's a lot more about the
(Spoilers for a character in Apollo Justice/Trials and Tribulations, should be safe if you've played the beginning of AJ)
Spoiler: show
Feeling that they just took a giant shit on Phoenix's life to set him up as the mentor. Trials and Tribulations was such a good ending point for Phoenix, because even though it was ambiguous (Will he go with Maya or Iris?) it was certainly pointed in the right direction whatever way it went. And then, through no fault of his own, absolutely everything goes wrong, and not only does he not have a happy ending, he doesn't even seem to be in touch with Maya/Iris/Pearl/Edgeworth/Gumshoe or any of his friends through the course of the game. It'd have been one thing for a new series of games with Apollo as the protagonist, I could've easily gotten hyped for that, but keeping everything in the game worlds connected by ruining Phoenix's life soured me on Apollo very harshly.
I get that. Believe me, I do. But ... (spoilers for the end of Apollo Justice)

Spoiler: show
While Phoenix's life undeniably took a turn for the tragic, there are two things we must remember:
  1. the last seven years were all part of Phoenix's master plan to:
    1. ensnare Kristoph Gavin
    2. persuade the Japanese government to overhaul their legal system to include trial by jury; and to persuade them to also not have such a stringent requirement for a conviction, that is to say that the old "innocent unless proven guilty beyond all possible doubt; even a sliver of doubt must mean exoneration!" model was broken
  2. Phoenix may not have cut off ties with the past to the extent that fans often think he did
Regarding the latter, an example from just the other day: while Phoenix is resting up in the Hickfield Clinic, Apollo and Trucy go to pay him a visit. There, Apollo sees mountains of DVDs. "The Steel Samurai," "The Nickel Samurai," "The Pink Samurai," and so on, he notes the titles. He asks Phoenix if he's seriously going to watch all of these, to which Phoenix answers that he will since he has little better to do. Then Apollo asks him about the DVD's origins. And Phoenix tells him that "a friend" of his sent them to him. To a long-time fan of the franchise, it's obvious that Phoenix's answer is deliberately vague, the words perfectly cherrypicked so as to allude to a Fey without specifically naming a Fey. But it's pretty clear from this one exchange between the two men that:
  1. Phoenix received Steel Samurai DVDs from either Maya or Pearl.
  2. And thus either Maya or Pearl must have learned, within 24 hours, of Phoenix's hospitalization.
  3. And thus Phoenix must still be in touch with either Maya or Pearl.
While it certainly sucks for us players that we never got to see Maya, Pearl, Edgeworth, Gumshoe, or any of the others in AA4, it doesn't have to mean that they were written out of existence entirely. It's quite possible that some of them, like Edgeworth and Gumshoe, are still in Tokyo. And it's quite possible that all of them, including the Feys, at least visit Phoenix in Tokyo from time to time. Remember: the gap between cases isn't always so small. For instance, the gap between Case 1 (when Apollo first meets Phoenix) and the beginning of Case 2 (when Apollo, down on his luck, decides to bite the bullet and seek employment with Wright & Co. Law Offices) is roughly two months, from April to June. So before Apollo really even gets to know Phoenix on a more intimate level, we could totally surmise that one or more Feys visited the office, that Phoenix dined with Edgeworth and Franziska, etc. Who knows. Yeah, I'm supposing the existence of comforting answers that lie within the unexplored gaps of the game's timeline, but my point to you and to every other fan who's upset by the damage caused by AA4's canon is that those gaps can offer you some comfort. Ultimately, AA4 only displays about five weeks or so of Phoenix's life while covering a temporal ground of seven years. A lot could have happened offscreen during that time.

Still, yeah, at the end of the day there is no escaping the facts that:
  1. Phoenix was disbarred and disgraced.
  2. Phoenix has spent the last seven years of his life, at least in the public eye, as a bum.
  3. Phoenix does not share his life with another woman, as it strains belief to think that Trucy would never bring up the fact that she has a "mommy" in the same sense that she calls Phoenix her "daddy."
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Old 04-16-2015, 11:59 PM   #18
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Completed Case 2. Handy-dandy 3DS app indicates that my current playtime is 7 hours 50 minutes, and before when I completed Case 1 it said that it was 2 hours 37 minutes; and so doing a simple bit of arithmetic, we see that it took me 5 hours 23 minutes to complete Case 2.

Honestly? It felt a bit shorter than that. Maybe like around 4 hours or so. I was actually quite surprised by just how short everything was in this case, how quickly everything moved along except for when I had no fucking idea of what to present or examine next during investigation phases because OH MY GOD, THIS CASE. ^^; Yeah, sometimes this case's navigation isn't the best. But those unintended time sinks aside, everything went by so fast. (Trial phases? No problem. It was just the investigation phases that ... *inhale hiss* ^^;; )

Spoiler: show
When they indicated that Alita Tiala would be taking the witness stand right off the bat for Day 2 of the trial phase, I was shocked. Not that I explicitly remembered Mr. Eldoon or Trucy or anybody else taking the witness stand, but I just ... I dunno, I just thought that surely there'd be somebody else up there prior to Alita, such that the day in court would be longer (like it usually is).

One thing that the game never did explain was:

Spoiler: show
Why Dr. Meraktis would have been driving like a bat out of hell at the time he hit Phoenix Wright. It would have made a lot of sense had he been in the middle of trying to hide Alita's body, but we find out during the final few minutes of the trial that the hit and run with Phoenix had to have happened 30 minutes or more before the shooting in the park, and that's because the panty thief stuffed Trucy's panties in the tailpipe and rendered the car immobile afterwards as a result. So like ... okay, you have Pat Meraktis driving like a bat out of hell at (say) 9pm, he hits Phoenix Wright, and then at around 9:30pm he begins to make his way to the park? Is that the timetable here? Because if so ... what was he doing in between when Alita paid him a visit -- iirc purportedly in the afternoon, but maybe not -- and when the panty thief stuffed panties into his car's tailpipe? Like ... I don't get it. If he had already strangled Alita, then why didn't he put her body in the (then still-working) car then? And if he hadn't yet strangled Alita, then it stands to reason that he hadn't yet heard the bad news yet from her either -- so what the fuck was causing him to drive like a maniac? It's just this weird, un-fully fleshed out plot thread that's still left hanging over at the end of the case. Really annoying. >_<

One thing I'm kinda sad about on my replay is:

Spoiler: show
Apollo's Perceive ability isn't quite as fun as I remembered it being. It's a tad bit annoying, actually. ^^; It doesn't really require any deductive reasoning -- you can, as far as I can tell, spy on any frame of the testimony and not be penalized for wasting time on a dead end one. And they're usually reaaaaaaaaally obvious too, both which frame you're supposed to examine and which specific corner of the frame you're meant to hone in on. I think the worst thing of all about them is, they feel like really irritating deus ex machina salvation moments for the defense. Like, you're at a point in the game where you lack the decisive evidence necessary to connect all the dots together. And in AA1 thru AA3, this would be resolved by having Gumshoe or Maya or someone burst into the courtroom brandishing newly-analyzed evidence. But in AA4, you don't have that. In AA4, instead you have Apollo ... simply calling someone out on a physical tell. And the killers are all so guilt-ridden that they can't help but to theatrically flip out in Super Defensive Mode when he calls them out on this. And this -- these theatrics -- is what then catches the perpetrator red-handed and forces him to admit his guilt. And it's like ... that's not how you want a case to go. ^^; You don't want it to be super sleuth, super sleuth, super sleuth, brick wall, SUDDENLY I CAN SEE HER FIDGETING WITH HER FINGER, case closed. You want it to be super sleuth, super sleuth, super sleuth, brick wall, suddenly more tools for the super sleuth. Like in AA1 thru AA3.

All this stated, though, I can't help -- every single time I reach a Perceive section -- but to imagine what fun it'll be to a) get to do more Perceiving in AA5 and/or b) get to try out the new game mechanics they have waiting in store for me there. So I dunno. Maybe I'm fickle. "I hate it! " I say, while fantasizing about how fun it's gonna be to get to do again in the sequel.

Oh, btw: all spoiler tags are safe for first-timers who just beat Case 2 themselves. No downstream spoilers in any of them.

Oh, and whoops: one last thing to bring up real quick.

Spoiler: show
So I ended up almost nailing it perfectly on the head. How much of that was subconscious knowledge (I don't think very much), how much of it was deductive reasoning based on what I could/did remember (I think this was 95% of it), and how much of it was new deductive reasoning (this was maybe 5% of it), I don't know. Anyway, yeah: even Apollo figures it out pretty early into the second day of field investigations, so I'm not going to be patting myself on the back much for this one anyway.
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Old 04-20-2015, 06:21 PM   #19
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Currently halfway through Case 3. Specifically: (click if you think you're this far in order to confirm it)

Spoiler: show
I'm about five minutes into our first ever conversation with Valant Gramarye.

So! Thoughts! (Safe to click if you're as far in the case as what I indicated in the box above.)

Spoiler: show
This is one of those cases which is paradoxically a least/lesser favorite (because of the story itself, the culprit, the sleuthing, etc.) and at the same time a most/greater favorite (because of several of the introduced characters and the overarching impact it has on both AA4 and the AA universe as a whole). As an example of what I mean inside of that second parentheses, a small little spoiler: this case introduces us to the nation of Borginia, and it's a nation which returns in a big way in the first Miles Edgeworth video game, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. There are a number of greater examples I'd love to point out, but they're spoilers to first-timers and so obvious to veteran players as to not needing to be pointed out.

Luminol finally makes its much-anticipated return, but boy if it's underwhelming compared with what fun we had with it in the bonus case of the first Ace Attorney. I really hope that something on par with the locker room (AA1 Case 5) shows up later on or I'm going to be really disappointed.

Gavin continues to be the most underwhelming prosecutor in the history of the franchise that I have played. It's not like I hate the guy, but he's just such a boring caricature of a character. "Oh, look at me: I am ze German, ja?" "Oh, look at me: I am ze big rock star, ja?" Godot was cartoonish too, but he was good cartoonish, and really interesting, becoming more and more interesting the more the game progressed. Edgeworth might've been a little more "boring" than Godot, but that comes with the positive territory of being a whole lot less cartoonish and a whole lot more ... how do I put it ... "foundational." Edgeworth just feels like someone who's every bit as important to this universe as Phoenix himself. And Franziska ... well, she's probably my second least favorite, sure, but I still feel like she is more fun and less annoying than Gavin is. Gavin is just whiny. ^^; Very, very whiny. And he doesn't feel especially clever in the courtroom. Not sure how much of that is the cases' writing and how much of it is Gavin's writing, but still.

One last thing for this section ... takkupanda, if you're reading this: I didn't notice any running gag with ladders and stepladders in previous AA games, but since you drew attention to it in your post today in the AA3 thread, it made me realize that the ladder/stepladder argument I saw yesterday or two days ago when playing early Case 3 is part of this very running gag you so love. So enjoy that when you get there!

Spoilers for the very end of the game:

Spoiler: show
WARNING! Spoilers for the end of the entire game, I said, not just the current case. Sorry. Just making sure.

Spoiler: show
It's really different playing through this case knowing full well who Lamiroir is, what her relationship is to the children, etc. Things in particular that have stood out:
  • how quickly and how positively the children bonded with her when first meeting her
  • HOW DOES NO ONE NOTICE THAT LAMIROIR'S BROACH IS JUST LIKE TRUCY'S EXCEPT A DIFFERENT COLOR!?
  • While incredibly tragic, I do like how her brain damage is foreshadowed here by establishing the facts that she is 1) amnestic and 2) visually impaired.
  • The fact that she couldn't speak Japanese English stood out to me hugely ...
  • ... And then they go and reveal that that was all a ruse and of course she can speak Japanese English after all! Well of course she can! She's from here, after all!
  • the fact that Valant is lingering around the concert venue, even though it seems like he has absolutely zero connection with this case whatsoever ... it makes a lot more sense given the information about Valant and Thalassa that we'll get in Case 4
Another thing that has really stood out to me, something only just now delivered, is Trucy mentioning that Phoenix is away on important business with a "top secret mission."

I'm not sure how much of it is knowing for a fact that he's guilty and how much of it is the presentation, but god damn if it's not obvious that Daryan is the culprit. I don't remember how or why he did it, but it is so. frickin'. obvious that he's the bad guy thanks to a lot of metagame information clumsily provided to us by Capcom. (Example: all of his "OH SHIT! @_@" guilty-face animations.) I think that when you're playing the game for the very first time then your three lead suspects are 1) Daryan, 2) Valant, and 3) Gavin. But for metagame reasons 3 is really low down on the list, and so that leaves it just between Daryan and Valant. And since Valant hasn't really been around enough to form an opinion on one way or the other, that leaves you with just Daryan and all of his guilt-ridden scenes. I think this contributes to Case 3 being one of the weaker cases in the franchise gameplay-wise. Plot-wise it's fine, but gameplay-wise it's really boring compared with other cases in this and other Ace Attorney games.
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Old 04-21-2015, 04:31 PM   #20
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Completed Case 3. Current playtime is 13 hours 59 minutes, so subtracting the previous playtime indicates a Case 3 playtime of 6 hours 9 minutes. Approximately five to fifteen minutes were spent today with the 3DS just sitting at the menu screen while I checked my phone real quick, so the actual case completion time is a little less but oh well -- we'll treat it as 6 hours 9 minutes because there's no use crying over spilt milk.

Case 3 discussion:

Spoiler: show
Daryan Crescend remains one of the franchise's most obvious villains. Adding on to what I noted last time, Daryan gives us such wonderful things as:
  • coming as close to calling Lamiroir a no-good bitch as you can in a rated-PG story, and then five minutes later we find out that soooooooomeone has just clobbered Lamiroir over the head with the intent to scramble her brains and she fled for her life
  • not even attempting to hide his dislike for us, saying such things as "I never liked you. Either of you," and constantly laughing at us derisively. Yeah. Because that's something good guys tend to do in stories like this one.
  • Eavesdropping on our conversation with Machi Coincidentally being in the area while we're interrogating Machi, and then pulling Machi away from us right as Machi is about to spill the beans and identify his co-conspirator. And then when we tell the good detective, "Just five more minutes!" he's all, "Mmmyeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah no. " Yeah. Because that ain't a sign of guilt.
It's so bad that the only reason a first-time player wouldn't believe Daryan Crescend to be the killer is because it is so obvious as to be believed to be a red herring. That's the only reason. Ugh. Weak whodunit is weak.

I'm not sure how much of it was the case being easy to figure out, how much of it was subconscious memory, and how much of it was me being 1337, but I blazed through the second day in court. I think I presented the wrong piece of evidence or selected the wrong menu option a grand total of one to two times max in this segment, and the one/both times I messed up I immediately got it right on the second try. There were a lot of places where I felt I was taking a leap of faith, thinking, "Surely this can't be right! D: But I can't think of what else would possibly be better!" and the game'd tell me I had chosen wisely and advanced me along the path. I could easily see the second day in court being infuriating for someone who isn't so fortunate.

I had forgotten all about the cocoons, so it was nice to be reminded of their existence. I was sure that the case had something to do with drugs (e.g. narcotics). Did not expect it to be about either a medicinal cure or a highly sought-after poison.

I find it hard to believe that almost no one outside of Borginia has heard of these cocoons if, as Lamiroir claims, everyone inside of Borginia knows about them. Even if the Borginians do not know what the cocoons are used for (which is also stated by Lamiroir: that she and that most people do not know the cocoons' uses), the fact that they all still know that the cocoons are a controlled substance entity and that taking them outside of the country will result in the death penalty for you ... it just breaks my suspension of disbelief that noooooo one outside of Borginia minus the occasional Daryan Crescend would know about them. Anyway ...

It is interesting to see how much Apollo and Gavin are willing to subvert the legal system's orthodox lines in the sand -- "You're the prosecutor, you're the defense attorney" -- in their mutual pursuit of the truth. Sure, we saw Phoenix and Edgeworth doing it too in the earlier games, but here it's the most blatant we've ever seen it. Apollo practically throws Machi to the wolves as far as Machi's culpability in the cocoon smuggling is concerned, and Gavin likewise has absolutely no apologies to offer Daryan in his pursuit of the truth even though it means he is constantly ignoring the judge (and courtroom procedures as a whole) and merrily engaging in roundtable discussions with Herr Forehead. The two make a great brainstorming team, yes, but it's amusing all the same at how ... at how willing to ignore the rules they are. It makes me both smile and get sad just thinking about how this would never happen in 99.9% of real courtrooms.

I'll probably start Case 4 either some time much later tonight or else not until tomorrow or Thursday. We'll see.
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Old 04-22-2015, 06:07 PM   #21
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Case 4. Currently about (if I had to guess) two-thirds of the way through the first day of court. Details after the break to help you gauge if you can read yet:

Spoiler: show
The only witness called so far has been Spark Brushel, and if I remember correctly I'm like on his third or fourth salvo of testimony.

The case has been fun so far. The story has been an interesting blend of stuff I remembered and stuff I completely forgot. The Ema Skye side of things has been a blast, even if (admittedly) it's largely on rails and does a good job of disguising that fact. But most of what I'll want to discuss is only safe for people who have already beaten the entire game, so ...

Spoiler: show
Spoilers for the end of the entire game! Turn back now if you haven't cleared Case 4 yet.

Spoiler: show
I had remembered Vera Misham (though not by name), that my client was a young woman with periwinkle hair and a bandanna/handkerchief in her hair, that she was an illustrator, that she was the daughter of the murder victim. But I had forgotten that her father was also an artist, that he was caught up in making forgeries of paintings, as well as how he died.

Having seen what I've seen so far, and remembering what I remember of the game, I think I can piece together the how part of the question of Drew Misham's death. I think that there was a postage stamp inside of that tiny little picture frame, provided to Mr. Misham by Kristoph Gavin seven years ago, and that that stamp was laced with atroquinine. Gavin had intended Misham to use the stamp soon, for reasons I still cannot recall nor deduce. But Misham instead placed the stamp in a picture frame and set it aside ... for seven years. Then, for reasons unknown, he took the stamp out and affixed it to an envelope -- after licking it, of course -- and placed the letter in his postbox. Fifteen minutes later, Drew Misham died from atroquinine poisoning. This would explain how the poison wound up where it did in his studio: a, inside the tiny picture frame, and b, on the rim of his cup but only on a specific, lips-sized area of the rim, nowhere else. It would also explain how Kristoph is the culprit (and thus Vera Misham is innocent of murder), which is something that I feel like I distinctly remember.

But I feel like I also remember that this case is kind of a razor's edge, that it's not so easy to prove that Kristoph Gavin should be punished but that Vera Misham should walk free. I don't remember all the details. I just feel like the case is one where Kristoph openly mocks us, driving home the point that the Jurist System would allow for cases like this one to easily be ruled against Kristoph Gavin and in favor of Vera Misham where the old system (AA1 thru AA4.3) would either see Kristoph walk or else would see Vera be convicted. Something like that.

I did not remember the forgeries at all. O_o And I can't for the life of me recall nor figure out what they might have to do with the overarching case, i.e. with Phoenix Wright vs. Kristoph Gavin. Maybe Drew Misham was involved in Phoenix's case seven years ago with Zak Gramarye? And/Or maybe Phoenix has been in touch with Drew Misham and had specifically asked him to prepare paintings atop tracings which mirrored the events of Apollo Justice's cases? I have no idea.

I also don't remember -- and am really excited+confused by -- Phoenix's mentions about how this is a "simulation." So much of the Phoenix side of things makes it seem like the trial of Vera Misham is taking place in virtual reality, yet everything else about the case feels as real as ever. I can't figure out if a Drew Misham really died or not, nor can I figure out if the trial of Vera Misham is really taking place currently or not. I feel like it is. But I have no clue what is going on then as far as all this "simulation" talk goes.

I've been breezing through the field investigations. I feel like there are three possible contributors -- subconscious recall, conscious cleverness, and plain luck -- and I have no idea what percentage any one of them accounts for in my case but it's probably at least 5% of each. I think part of the reason my playtime for this game will ultimately prove to be "low" (or at least low compared with my own expectations) will be this factor, this factor of blowing through the investigations super efficiently. Take Valant Gramarye for instance. I talked with him, I thought to present the letter Trucy got from Phoenix but was scared he'd tear it up ( @ me), presented something else to test the waters, sure enough he gave the default "Not interested" answer as I expected he would, I then manned up and presented the letter, he responded, I then thought to present Brushel's business card, he responded, and then whammo, we're done. Valant excuses himself, tells us where we can find Brushel, and it's over. All happened in like five to ten minutes. I didn't feel particularly clever for thinking to present either of those two things, but in hindsight I felt like I had either been very clever, very lucky, or (most likely?) very guided by having played this game once before. I swear there was zero conscious awareness, if this subconscious factor is indeed the major contributor to why I knew what to present immediately, but still.

Okay, a few things of discussion I thought to save for those who are playing the case for the very first time. (This next spoiler box is safe for you to read even if you're a first-time player so long as you've reached where I am right now.)

Spoiler: show
Uncle Valant's a complex character. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just leave it at this, based entirely on what we've seen so far in Cases 3 and 4.

Spark Brushel is gyuuuuuUUUUUUUUGH! >.< So gross, so creepy. Thing is, he's a lot less disturbing for me on this playthrough a) than I thought he would be / b) than he was the last time I played. But I think the main reason for that is, I hardly ever look at his face when he's onscreen now! I avert my gaze and just read his text. He's the only character I've had to do this for. It makes him much more tolerable than I remembered him to be / than I thought he'd be. But I can only imagine that if I were forced to look at his face more often, I'd find him every bit as intolerably disgusting and creepy as I did when I first played the game.

I really loved Ema's X-ray machine! I know it's pretty much a gimmick on rails, that all you really have to do is move a knob several times (to predetermined checkmarks, no less) and then move your stylus all over the touch screen, but still! It's really fun, and man was my mind blown as we revealed what lay beneath Drew Misham's forged paintings.

The IRL aspect of the Jurist System is probably one of the main reasons I enjoy this case so much. If you don't know much about Japan's court system, then I can see why this case may not resonate as much with you. In short, Japan's legal system was a lot like what you see in AA1 thru AA3 prior to 2009 and is a lot like what you see here in AA4 Case 4 from 2009 onwards. You can read more about it here, but I'll give you the layman's breakdown:
Before 2009: you had the accused, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, and the judge. There was no trial by jury. The prosecution and the defense made their cases to the judge, and the judge -- who was both judge and jury -- would decide a) if the accused was guilty or not and b) if guilty then what the sentence was to be.

From 2009 onward: Japan decided to implement a form of trial by jury. But it's not like ours. Instead of twelve jurors, there are only six. And instead of being called "jurors," for whatever silly reason they're called "lay judges." The idea, I guess, is that a "lay judge" has more authority to call for certain actions than would a traditional juror. *shrug*
It's pretty neat stuff. :o So you see, Apollo Justice, which came out the same year as the IRL Jurist System went into effect, was a game clearly concerned with the new system and which decided to put it at the fore and center of its ultimate case. Neat, huh? I won't say more for right now -- I don't want to spoil anything -- but I figure that saying this much is 1) safe and 2) appropriate to put you in the right state of mind as you play the case. Because keep in mind: not a single soul playing this game in Japan back when it came out was not thinking of the IRL connection. So now you know (roughly) what the Japanese knew back then, and you can now better appreciate the case -- appreciate it as you were meant to.
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Old 04-23-2015, 06:46 PM   #22
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On the last spoiler box.

Spoiler: show
That's very interesting, I didn't know when Japan moved to the jury system so it's cool that they timed the last case to be topical. I certainly hope that in actual Japan court systems the defense attorneys didn't have to produce the real culprit every time to get their client off the hook, though.
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Old 04-23-2015, 07:34 PM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Muyotwo View Post
On the last spoiler box.

Spoiler: show
That's very interesting, I didn't know when Japan moved to the jury system so it's cool that they timed the last case to be topical. I certainly hope that in actual Japan court systems the defense attorneys didn't have to produce the real culprit every time to get their client off the hook, though.
Unfortunately it's quite possible that they did. In real life, prior to 2009, Japan had one of the highest conviction rates in the entire world. Something like 99%. (Actual statistic. Not the cliche armchair "99%" grab, but for real 99%.) The reason for this was: the prosecutor's office never pushed a case forward unless they were aaaaabsolutely certain they had an airtight case against the accused. So like, when you ask me if IRL defendants had to prove their innocence by way of identifying the actual culprit (just like in the Phoenix Wright games), honestly I wouldn't be that surprised if that's the sort of ammunition it took to get yourself acquitted. Because obviously you wouldn't have an airtight alibi, etc etc, as if you did then the DA's office wouldn't have taken you to court to begin with. It's only because you were so boned -- no alibi, a reasonable motive, reasonable means, etc. -- that they filed charges. So you'd pretty much require extraordinary counter evidence, on par with providing the real culprit, to get yourself off the hook.

This is the real-life basis for a number of factors in the franchise:
  1. Why do we play as the defense attorney? Why not the prosecutor? Because in Japan, the prosecutor is seen as having the win in the bag already by the time the case goes to court. The defense attorney, on the other hand, must overcome the odds to win. Well that's who gamers want to play as then -- the underdog with the challenge before him, not the favorite with the assured victory.
  2. Japan had already romanticized prosecutors a lot. So AA was Takumi Shu's & Team's chance to romanticize the traditional villain, the defense attorney.
    • Because of the fact that the prosecutor's office only tends to pursue litigation against assuredly guilty parties, the Japanese populace -- moreso than over here -- sees defense attorneys as immoral, money-following "bad guys" who try to get their known-to-be guilty clients off the hook. (AA subverts this assumption right from Case 1 by giving us innocent client after innocent client after innocent client.)
    • The most popular television show of the decade, HERO, was a drama starring Kimura Takuya as an unorthodox prosecutor. The series greatly romanticized prosecution, in much the same way that AA romanticized defense. (I didn't think the show was that great myself but I'd say it's required viewing for anyone who both watches Japanese TV and who loves the Phoenix Wright games.)
    Takumi Shu was (clearly) interested in exploring the 180° opposite scenario. What happens in a story where the accused are innocent, the prosecution are villainous, and no one believes in the accused's innocence save one lone man? Phoenix Wright is like a pariah: someone who no one wants to be (say) but who everyone can admire. It's romantic. He goes into a thankless profession and, because he's truly interested in helping out the innocent rather than making mob money, he scrapes by but only just. (He seems to live okay-comfortably but many things suggest in the games that he isn't made of money.)

Recommended reading: Conviction rate in Japan

Recommended viewing: HERO (TV), Sore demo Boku wa Yattenai (film; Wikipedia plot blurb spoils outcome)
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Old 04-24-2015, 06:41 PM   #24
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Last night, I finished what I would consider to be "Case 4 proper" and docked onto what I confused for a fifth case a few weeks back but which I now realize the game makers considered to be more like a "Case 4.2" or just simply "the continuation of one enormous Case 4." I guess to put it simply ... (the return of the nested spoiler tagged breadcrumb clues!)

Spoiler: show
If you've perceived Spark Brushel's giveaway, click on.

Spoiler: show
If you've seen Vera Misham take the stand, click on.

Spoiler: show
If you've seen Vera Misham fall backwards in real time -- not just in the opening movie file to the case, but now actually in the real time of the case -- then click on.

Spoiler: show
If you've gone back in time seven years, click on.

Spoiler: show
If you've met Shadi Enigmar, Trucy Enigmar, and a very young Klavier Gavin, then you're pretty much where I saved the game. (Inside the courtroom, but nothing's been presented or done yet.)

So if you're at least that far, then by all means click the next spoiler box and read all of my thoughts on the case up to this point. (Safe for first-time players too!)

Spoiler: show
I had forgotten about the plot twist that Vera Misham is the real forger, but I feel like this was something I subconsciously remembered, weakly, near the very beginning of the case ... as I feel like it was something I had thought of, but then I pushed it from my mind and promptly forgot all about it once the game clearly established Drew Misham as the forger.

While the creative team's breaking of the fourth wall (if it can be called that) is perhaps somewhat cute, it's still a supremely annoying bit of the very worst of Ace Attorney games when they have us have to press Gavin first, to establish for the umpteenth time! , that a letter was placed by Misham inside of his postbox shortly before his death -- and then you can point out that there was likely a postage stamp inside of the tiny picture frame with the atroquinine stain. It's like, come on. For fuck's sake, game. If I figure it out early, you should let me present the correct things that early. It's one thing to say, "They can't help it! These sorts of games are unfortunately limited by their programming/design. You just kinda have to go with it! " But it's quite another when the team provably recognizes that players might have already pieced together that a postage stamp was inside of that picture frame yet they still give us a strike if we present the picture frame when Klavier asks to see what other route besides the coffee cup could have possibly poisoned Drew Misham. I mean, it's like, come ON: even if you didn't know/think that a stamp was inside of there, the simple fact that the picture frame is the only other place in this room which contains an atroquinine stain besides the coffee mug suggests that it could be the real way the victim was poisoned and not the coffee mug. C'mon, game.

I absolutely love how everything is starting to come together. If AA3 Case 5 did it in a big way, AA4 Case 4 does it in the biggest of ways. Brace yourselves for it, first-time players!

Alright. And now for the discussion that is only safe for veterans who have cleared the entire game.

Spoiler: show
Precautionary warning! Don't read on if you haven't beaten the game yet! Thanks.

Spoiler: show
While there are a lot of differences between them too, I feel like there are a lot of similarities between:
  • AA3 Case 4 and AA4 Case 4's first segment (or 4.1, if we want to call it that)
  • AA3 Case 5 and AA4 Case 4's remainder (or 4.2, 4.3a thru 4.3d, and 4.4 if we want to call them that)
The first part of Case 4 very much feels like the prologue to the rest of the case, in much the same way that AA3 Case 4 feels like a prologue to AA3 Case 5.

Also, both AA3 Case 4 and AA4 Case 4.1 are the shortest cases in their respective games yet still feel like really satisfying, fully-or-almost-fully fleshed-out cases. Both of them just feel like they end right before you're about to get closure.

I don't remember all of the details from here on. Here's what I do remember, or at least what I think I remember. (Incomplete list.)
  • Shadi Enigmar = Zak Gramarye = Shadi Smith. Duh.
  • Thalassa Gramarye = daughter to Magnifi, wife to Zak, mother to Trucy = Lamiroir.
  • Valant Gramarye = complex dude who had a love-hate relationship with Zak, who was himself in love with Thalassa, who sincerely sees Trucy like a niece but at the same time who is also willing (and seeking) to screw her out of her inheritance and make it his own, etc.
  • Thalassa's amnesia + blindness is due to brain damage caused by a stunt gone horribly wrong: Zak misfires a revolver, the bullet going straight through Thalassa's brain. This is why Valant responds so negatively (and the game notes it, too! ) when he sees the revolver in Case 3.
  • Magnifi = was dying in the hospital, or something, but wanted to die on his own terms; presented a challenge to Zak and Valant, and explained that whoever did it first the right way would win his inheritance (i.e. his ultimate magic trick); both Zak and Valant want it, and try for it; but Valant is too late and Zak does it first; what "it" is, I do not remember =\ ... though I vaguely remember it having something to do with firing a gun ... something like, Valant "chickens out" and fires elsewhere, disappointing Magnifi, while Zak doesn't chicken out ... yet ... also fires elsewhere? I don't really remember the details. I just feel like maybe neither one of them shoots Magnifi dead. But if anybody does, then duh, of course it's Zak.
  • Kristoph Gavin provides forged evidence to Trucy Gramarye, instructing her to give it to Phoenix Wright. Kristoph's plan was to bring down the mighty Phoenix Wright, framing him as a forger of evidence.
  • Shadi Enigmar bails on Phoenix, perhaps right before he's about to be found guilty. (Something about not being able to be found guilty in absentia, maybe? I don't remember ...) So Phoenix is left not only disbarred but with an orphan on his doorstep too. ^^;
  • Kristoph needed Misham dead because he needed the one person who knew Kristoph's secret re: Phoenix the Evidence Forger to be silenced for good.
  • Apollo and Trucy are siblings. Duh.
  • Apollo has, iirc, one of the two bangles ... and Lamiroir has the other. This is what positively IDs Apollo as Lamiroir's son.
Like I say, it's an incomplete list. So, I guess to draw attention to the things I do not recall ...
  • I don't recall the significance of Case 2 in all of this. I know that all four cases are revisited as we explore the intricate tragedy of Phoenix's and the Gramaryes' pasts, but while I can make sense of why we'd revisit 1, 3, and 4, I don't recall how Case 2 ties in.
  • I still don't recall or understand whether what I just completed was reality or not. When the game ends the Vera Misham part and gets us started on the Zak Gramarye part, it also makes it seem like the Vera Misham part of the game was all just a recording of events that took place in the past already. I guess this is done for spectacle? To sell the illusion that we, the player, are in fact a member of the jury? But it's confusing. ^^; I'm so accustomed to thinking of myself as playing as Apollo Justice that ... yeah ... ^^;
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Old 04-25-2015, 09:08 PM   #25
Talon87
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Finished the next major installment of Case 4. (Nested spoiler tags follow to help first-time players to find out if they're as far along in the plot as I currently am.)

Spoiler: show
If you've seen Valant Gramarye take the stand, press on.

Spoiler: show
If you've seen Phoenix press Valant about the color yellow, press on.

Spoiler: show
If you've seen Klavier halt the proceedings and call an emergency witness, press on.

Spoiler: show
If you've seen Zak Gramarye vanish, well then you're pretty much right near the very end of this chapter and thus at least as far along as I am.

So if you're good to go, then by all means click this next spoiler box. (Safe even for first-time players.)

Spoiler: show
Ohmygosh, so where to even begin? It is such fun to get to play as Phoenix Wright again -- absolutely no offense, Apollo! I'm one of your fans too! -- and it is so satisfying to finally get to the root of what led to Phoenix's disbarment seven years ago. Of course, I already knew what it was -- vaguely -- having played the game before. It's pretty unforgettable -- "Phoenix inadvertently submits phony evidence, the judge throws the book at him, and so begins {continued in spoiler box below}." What I forgot were the specifics: that the forged evidence was a torn-out page from a diary (if not the entire diary), that Phoenix was handed the evidence by none other than little Trucy, etc. But even though I remembered the general gist of this chapter, it was still satisfying to finally get the answers out in the open. I can only imagine the exhilaration and the subsequent relief felt by first-time players.

One thing I loved about this chapter was the throwbacks to the Phoenix Wright era of the games. We get the old Game Boy Advance graphics, we get the old look of the courtroom, and most importantly ... we get the old music. I didn't realize that this was the case at first! At least not for every track. (We'll get to that in a second.) I so loved the music, subconsciously, that I found myself humming it in my head when I came home today. So I turned on the computer, opened up my music folder, opened the Apollo Justice soundtrack, and took several educated stabs in the dark. Nothing. Was pretty confident in which track name it was ("Examination ~ Allegro") and went to Game 3's folder, Trials and Tribulations. Still nothing. Finally went to Game 1's folder ... and voilŕ. Found it. Oh, how sweet it was to get to listen to the classics! I may not have realized that ""Examination ~ Allegro" was the 2001 version, but the one song that was featured in this trial that was utterly unmistakable -- priceless, really -- was "Investigation ~ Cornered," the original, the 2001 version from Game 1. In other words, one of the de facto theme songs of Phoenix Wright. (The other obvious one being "Objection!".) God, this song ... this song, man! I love it so much. It is so frickin' epic every time it plays, and it is such a great song all on its own to begin with, that because of the two being put together it conditions one to associate the melody with such amazing "OBJECTION!" rallies, like an epic back-and-forth game of tennis. It's just so good. "OBJECTION!" "OBJECTION!" "OBJECTION!" God bless the original. Others are good, but the original is priceless.

One thing that really bugged me about this whole affair with Phoenix getting disbarred, though ... okay, I get that ignorance is not a defense in the eyes of the law, but surely intent has to count for something! Surely the law cares about the difference between a man like Phoenix, who unwittingly submitted forged evidence that he received only that very day in the courthouse from his client's daughter, and a man who would truly seek to thwart justice by intentionally submitting forged evidence. It just seems so ridiculous to me that the judge would show no interest in hearing Phoenix out. Everything else about this case's writing was sublime, and of course the "Phoenix is disbarred" tragedy pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is delicious tragidrama too, but I can see many fans who are already upset with the fact that Phoenix is disbarred -- "What pot of gold!? Are you nuts!? " -- being quite disappointed by the final moments of this chapter of the case.

Back to things I liked ... It's great to finally get backstory on the Troupe Gramarye. (Although I remembered most of what was shared here. ^^; ) Valant is ... well, like I think I said before, he's complex. And we still haven't gotten to the meat of Valant Gramarye's complexity yet, but we're getting there. We got some morsels in this chapter.

One thing I have to admit I disliked was some of the Press and Present flow. Normally the games are unapologetically linear -- press every screen, one screen at a time, and only after you've gone through them all once should you then present on one of them -- but that's just the thing: because the game operates this way 99% of the time, we get accustomed to it and start thinking it will behave this way all of the time. And so then when the game's designers decide to spice things up and try something different -- "Ooh, we know! How about we make the player have to press Screen 4, then go back and press Screen 3, and then re-press Screen 3 a second time before they can finally advance? " -- it ends up frustrating me royally. I got through most of them via unintelligent brute forcing, though an early one I succumbed to looking up via walkthrough because I was too excited about the story and had no patience for the brute forcing that I would ultimately end up doing anyway (because feelings of guilt/shame in using a walkthrough for this game ).

This next box is only safe to click on if you've completed the entire game.

Spoiler: show
As always, my customary reminder that end-of-game spoilers follow! Press on at your own risk.

Spoiler: show
Completing the sentence I started in the spoiler box above: "Phoenix inadvertently submits phony evidence, the judge throws the book at him, and so begins Phoenix's quest to bring his framer to justice."

One thing that really surprised me about this chapter is just how complicit in Kristoph Gavin's evil plan Klavier Gavin appears to be. I'm like 99.9% certain that by game's end Klavier is exonerated as an innocent man with a good heart; but even knowing that, I have to say that for where I am in the game right now, man if I don't have my doubts about Klavier. He just seemed so ... in on it. ^^; So eager to set Phoenix Wright up for failure, so disinterested in hearing Phoenix's explanation about how he came to possess the forged diary page. It's one thing for the judge to say he has no interest in hearing Phoenix's excuses, but Klavier ... I dunno. It just came off as him being delighted to watch Phoenix fall from grace.
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