When playing as a defense attorney, one is bound to see their fair share of witnesses and criminals, but among these are characters who fans find to be a bit too unearning of their sympathy despite the efforts to make them empathetic.
Mainline entries
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: The real killer in "Turnabout Samurai", Dee Vasquez. We're meant to sympathize with them because it was a Crime of Self-Defense, and she'd lost her heavily implied Love Interest to the victim. However, Jack Hammer only tried to kill her because she'd been ruining his life via blackmail for years, said interest's death was heavily-implicitly an accident, and she's still a ruthless Mafia Princess known to "silence" innocent peoplenote . As a result, the intended Asshole Victim even comes across as Unintentionally Sympathetic to some players. Yes, Hammer was a Jerkass for trying to frame an innocent man for his attempted crime, but given his aforementioned history and motivation compared to the murderer's, one can't help but wish that he'd actually succeeded at what would've practically been a public service.
- Justice for All:
- Some fans didn't like how much Ken "Acro" Dingling was played as a Sympathetic Murderer, especially in light of the admission by Word of God that no one in the case, not even the murderer, was meant to be seen as a bad person. For example, Video Games Awesome! and their commenters noted that while he didn't mean to kill the Ringmaster, he did intend to kill the sixteen-year-old Regina, and in vengeance for something that she didn't even realize she'd had any part in. He went this route instead of trying to talk with the Ringmaster about her insensitivity and without even considering how his benefactor and Parental Substitute might react to the murder of his only daughter. The fact that Regina is so distraught and repentant after learning the truth in court just highlights how much easier things could have been for everyone if he'd spoken up.
- To another character from the same case, Maximillion Galatica. He's supposed to be sympathetic as any other defendant due to being accused of a crime he didn't commit, as well as being hated by his coworkers for his arrogance despite being well-meaning in his attempts to get them to improve their acts. However, this sympathy tends to be thrown out the window when fans realize the age gap between him and Regina, despite Max wanting to marry her. It doesn't help that he's an experienced celebrity while she's an immature, naive Cloudcuckoolander. Even disregarding the Values Dissonance, he already committed a crime in assaulting Ben over Regina, yet he gets away with it.
- The victim in this case, Russell Berry, also qualifies to an extent. While he seemed to have loved his daughter and treated his employees well, and everyone in the case speaks highly of him, his neglectful and harmful parenting methods undercut this. The most obvious issue is the fact that he had no problem with Max marrying Regina, despite her being a minor. But even if that can be brushed off as Values Dissonance, his sheltering of Regina and telling her that people who die just become stars in the sky is what caused her to disregard her own role in accidentally putting Bat in a coma, resulting in her attempted murder by Acro. Even Moe admits that Regina wasn't raised correctly, but still admires the Ringmaster.
- Trials and Tribulations: For some people, the culprit of the final case, Prosecutor Godot. The person in question does end up with a murder conviction in the end, and is implied to be dead by the game's conclusion, but their good intentions end up largely being negated by how the entire case could have been prevented if Godot had been willing to trust Phoenix (who, Godot's bitterness aside, had never given Godot any reason not to trust him). It doesn't help that Maya is willing to lie and potentially incriminate herself to cover up for the man who killed her mother and nearly got her killed.
- Dual Destinies: Apollo Justice's behavior in the last case is a point of contention for a lot of people, specifically when he asks to postpone Athena Cykes' "not guilty" verdict in order to indict her for the murder of Clay Terran. While his reasoning is that he's trusting in Phoenix to prove his suspicions wrong, players still dislike how he pushes to continue the trial for something that could easily be talked through with Phoenix or covered at a separate trial for Clay's murder. He also seems uncharacteristically uncaring about Trucy given their history together. In their debut game, Apollo threatened to take known gangsters to court when he thought they'd stalled a verdict by threatening Trucy, and even broke down in tears because he thought he'd lost her. Here in Dual Destinies, he asks Aura to stall the verdict even though she's also holding Trucy hostage to get her way, implying Apollo values seeking justice for Clay or his trust in Athena more than Trucy's well-being. Even when he apologizes for causing so much turmoil during the recess, he only shows remorse for being suspicious about Athena; not for putting Trucy in more danger than necessary.
- Spirit of Justice:
- Nahyuta Sahdmadhi became this for two key reasons after the reveal that he was forced to align with the Ga'ran regime because if he hadn't, Ga'ran would have revealed that Rayfa is Dhurke's daughter, causing Rayfa to be stripped of her royal title and become an outcast as the child of a criminal. While this was meant to justify his abrasive behavior before the reveal, it also implies that Nahyuta chose to be complicit in the murder-by-court of dozens if not hundreds of innocent people he knew to be innocent, both at home and abroad, for no other reason than to protect his sister from a fate that both he and his father showed themselves to be perfectly capable of surviving in the name of doing what's right. As far as we can see, he makes no attempt whatsoever to escape his predicament, despite having a father who would have be both willing and capable of helping him if he knew what was going on, and supposedly being raised as a Determinator by said father. As a result, he comes across more as an idiot and an Extreme Doormat rather than a blackmail victim, something that comes off as an even worse betrayal of his father and his ideals.
- The culprits of Case 3, Beh'leeb and Tahrust Inmee. While they were forced into a desperate situation, they resorted to a plan that could likely have cost Phoenix and Maya (the latter of whom knew them for two years and was practically part of their family) their lives under the Defense Culpability Act, and end up being Easily Forgiven for it.
- The culprit of "Turnabout Storyteller", Geiru Toneido, is intended as a Tragic Villain who ended up horrifically remorseful over the murder they committed, and whom even Simon shows sympathy for after their arrest. Many fans don't agree, as she ended up murdering her master and framing Uendo for reasons that seem incredibly petty to many people, given that even she admits she didn't have nearly enough talent to inherit her late father's title, yet still went through with a murder plan out of bitterness towards Uendo being given it over her. This is made worse by how her plan specifically framed Owen, who was mentally a five-year-old child, yet never once is she called out on this in any way.
- Alternatively, the victim, Taifu Toneido, may qualify (although the two aren't mutually exclusive). Even if you accept the explanation that he wanted the victim to feel free to follow her own path, he did so in perhaps the most insensitive way possible, and would have been better off having them sit down for a talk before giving the title to Uendo. There's also the fact that he stole Bucky Whet's deed to the soba shop, allegedly as a Secret Test of Character. He's meant to be seen as a wise old man who's misunderstood, but he's one of a relative minority of murder victims who wronged both the defendant and the real killer enough to give them a plausible motive for murder.
- The true culprit of the DLC case, Pierce Nichody. Their whole reason for wanting revenge against Sorin largely came about due to their own idiocy, which they don't acknowledge, and they flat-out ignore the fact that Sorin has his own painful experiences to deal with from the same incident. And yet when they're exposed in court, they're treated as a Tragic Villain rather than a murderous hypocrite out to ruin Sorin's life even further because of a misplaced sense of vengeance. To explain; after his fiancée and Sorin were both caught in a car crash, Nichody agreed to perform lifesaving surgery on Sorin first, at the request of his even more badly injured fiancée. Sorin meanwhile lost his sister (Nichody's fiancée) in that same crash, and is literally unable to remember anything that happens after said crash.
Spin-offs
- Gyakuten Kenji 2: Justine Courtney is supposed to come off as merciless to lawbreakers and stuck in a very compromising situation involving Blaise coercing her and her nephew/adoptive son being kidnapped. However, before the reveal that she was working to take down Blaise, she spent two cases hindering Edgeworth's investigation, used forged evidence to try and convict an innocent girl for a crime she knew Blaise was responsible for, and was generally just being a giant bitch.
- The Great Ace Attorney:
- Barok van Zieks qualifies to a small, yet notable extent. Yes, the fact that he lost his brother to a friend he trusted is tragic, but the fact that he immediately resorts to hating all Japanese people and being an open bigot towards Ryunosuke is nothing short of irrational and unwarranted. While he does acknowledge this, Ryunosuke is the one who says that it's understandable how he would hate the entire Japanese race after a personal betrayal. The game treats it as a fact that Barok became a racist solely because of this alleged betrayal, rather than as a result of culture and upbringing like every other racist character in the duology, with Genshin Asogi only amplifying his already existing prejudices. This excuse is a poor justification at best and downright unrealistic at worst.
- From Case 4, Roly Beate. He is portrayed as sympathetic thanks to Roly's job as a Scotland Yard patrolman leaving him overworked and exhausted, hoping to spend the evening of his wedding anniversary at home with his wife only to stumble across the scene of a stabbing, and tampering with the crime scene to put it in another officer's beat in a Moment of Weakness, in part because he figured it was a cut-and-dry case anyway. Unfortunately, this all comes out in the trial, where he repeatedly lies about the events to conceal what happened as it becomes increasingly clear the case was, in typical Ace Attorney fashion, anything but cut-and-dry, directly threatening an innocent man with grave consequences. To make matters worse, after the truth of the incident is exposed, van Zieks suggests that he will use his influence to ensure that Roly will not lose his job for his perjury or tampering with a crime scene, in what the game attempts to use as a heartwarming moment and the first major hint of humanity meant to show that the aggressively racist and mean-spirited van Zieks "isn't so bad after all", since he's helping a cop get away with police misconduct.
- From the same Case, Joan Garrideb. While she feels remorse for accidentally stabbing someone, she takes no accountability for being a domestic abuser who still tried to frame an innocent man even when she realised she was in the wrong. It's made even worse by the fact she is Easily Forgiven by her husband, meaning she'll likely face little consequences for her actions beyond a short stay in prison.
