The Great Ace Attorney Replay

The urge to replay the Ace Attorney series struck me hard in lieu of the releases of Dual Destinies and the in-progress fan translation of Ace Attorney Investigations 2. I have all the US-released games on DS, but decided to play it on an emulator this time around to take screens that jumped out at me or were good for reference when writing fic. However, I soon had over a thousand screenshots on my hands and going through the folders to look at them was overwhelming, and I couldn't remember what I was thinking or why I took certain shots. So, I decided to create this blog as a spot for dumping screenshots and adding my own rambling. I hope you enjoy it! There will be unmarked spoilers for the entire series everywhere. Tread lightly if you haven't played them all, or blacklist the specific game title with Tumblr Savior.

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Do you still use this blog? If so, what’s your favorite AA game and what’s your least favorite? And why so?

I've mostly retired this blog. Debated deleting altogether because these observations are so old and I know I'll get secondhand embarrassment reading them (I've deleted many a post in the past, I only imagine that number would go up) but this blog still gets activity and I-I guess people enjoy them? So I'm leaving it up, for now.

As for favorites and least favorites--

Favorite: Justice For All. Initially it wasn't, and I'd shared the fandom consensus (or what the consensus of it was in 2007) that it was "good, weaker than the first entry, with the worst filler case and the best final case in the series". While the last point remains true, I've since replayed the original trilogy a number of times, and think that while they're all good, JFA is the one that gets better with every replay. It's character-driven to the point it's easy to miss the throughline that unifies all the cases (hint: it's got to do with identity) which can make it feel disparately assembled compared to AA and T&T, but that's why I love it. I love the soundtrack, I love the characters, I love the darker tone, I'll even be bold and say its filler case is actually the best of all the filler cases!

Least Favorite: Apollo Justice. I can appreciate the risk it was willing to take--but it's just not a very well-realized one in the end. Add thinly-developed characters with barely-there relationships that the game begs us to invest ourselves in even as the game itself remains wholly uninvested in them, and it's easy to see why it was regarded as the franchise's lowest point for a while.

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Omfg your URL is fucking amazing. I totally forgot about that line until I saw a post from you and tbh I'm in love

:D

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The first allusion to Apollo’s friend, I forgot it occurred as early on as the second case. I’m so used to thinking of him as the victim, it’s strange to remember that Apollo knew him as alive prior to that case...

It’s interesting to see all these bonds established--from something that’s fully fleshed out in the beginning as Athena and Juniper’s (well, not “fully” in the sense that we know their history--that’s for case 3--but fully in the sense that we get a good grasp of their friendship) to ones briefly alluded to like Apollo and Clay’s. It makes for a more involved experience, and I think the writers of Dual Destinies understood one of the major things that made the original trilogy such a success was the memorable relationships between the characters and how essential they are to making the cases compelling.

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The beginning of an adorable partnership. Dual Destinies’s repeated depictions of coping mechanisms and mental health is one of my favorite things about it.

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Well, according to you, Apollo, it’s high praise if you want to make it into pro-wrestling...

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Given his prior reactions to being called a demon and general cracks made about his hair looking like demon horns, it’s surprising to see Apollo take probably the most damning comment on his appearance so well. Has he been considering a career in wrestling long for him to be flattered by such a comment?

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It’s a good thing Jinxie doesn’t consider that an oxymoron.

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Even this walkthrough-er couldn’t resist making a crack about this, haha.

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Junie’s a tough egg.

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For someone who analyzes everything so deeply, how did you miss the fact that Phoenix is payed to gamble? He doesn't do it for fun, he's literally payed by the club to keep up a winning streak. It's stated very early on in the very first case that the club plays with chips, not actual cash. He states that his winning streak attracts people to the club, which makes it money, which is why the club pays him to play. He's not an irresponsible gambler, he's trying to put food on the table for Trucy.

Because I am a human being just like you, and as such, I am prone to making mistakes and overlooking details, some that may be more obvious than others. 

That said, I do understand that Phoenix doesn’t gamble for fun (I distinctly remember that when Zak talks down on him for using Trucy for gambling he immediately follows up with something along the lines of “Hey, whatever puts food on the table.”) That’s not the issue I take with–it’s the fact that he apparently makes so little that at the end of the day it’s his own daughter who has to take care of him and even then he still has to frequently move her to different schools, that he casually he uses her like an item without letting her know why (I think it would have been wise to have included a line of dialogue with Trucy saying “I told my dad about my ability and offered to help him out” because otherwise it sounds like Phoenix just found out about it and sneakily seized the opportunity to take advantage of her), that he gives her little love and affection and even mere attention in return to assure her that yes, she’s his daughter and not just a bargaining chip, that he never thinks twice about how he’s treating his daughter and what messages he might accidentally be sending her, that he never considers “oh shit we might get in deep trouble for this if we’re caught and something terrible could happen to my daughter if we’re going up against a shady criminal.”

It’s how coldly he goes about it that I take most issue with. He’s still terribly irresponsible in many other ways.

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crytyping

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This face cracks my shit up every time

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Help me, I might be shipping it...

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Biggest difference between Athena and Apollo, Phoenix, and Mia: she’s a lot more optimistic and a lot more in denial of her underlying nervousness. While the latter three acknowledge how they feel inwardly while still trying to put on a brave face, Athena actively tries to convince herself inwardly that she isn’t nervous when she really is. This ties in well with both her interest in psychology (she’s very likely learned of positive affirmations) and her own personal background in suppressing unpleasant memories and, by extension, feelings. 

It’s both a good and a bad thing for her--good because having a positive outlook does give you the necessary confidence, and bad because when you go right into denial it’ll eventually bubble over...as we see later on in this case.

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I love the Widget translates Athena’s thoughtfully put-together complaint into a 90s kid insult. Athena...is a true 90s kid at heart.

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You could light a fuse with the combined efforts of Athena and Apollo’s hotblooded passion.