Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations / YMMV

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyTrialsAndTribulations

This page is for subjective moments from the third game in the Phoenix Wright Trilogy.

Accidental Aesop: Case 3-5 can come off as an argument against the death penalty. While Dahlia Hawthorne is guilty of killing two people and driving a third to suicide, and arguably deserves to be hanged for her crimes, if Dahlia hadn't been executed, it wouldn't have been possible to channel her spirit, and Misty Fey wouldn't have been killed.
Accidental Innuendo:
- Due to a typo in Case 3-2, Mia says "Your Honor. When you were in a child, this is what was on your report card every year."
- In 3-5, you can get Gumshoe to admit he wants to stick his pen in Phoenix's face.
- Assuming it's not an intentional innuendo (unlikely due to it coming up during serious moments), everything about the "weenies" (as in sausages) in Case 3-3. Made worse by the fact that they're supposedly a symbol of Gumshoe's love for Maggey. The anime adaptation doubles the innuendo by calling them "Dick's weenies."
  Gumshoe: So? How did my weenies taste when they went down the hatch?
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- In an odd example, a couple gets this. The DeLites are either a Happily Married couple of a man who isn't above stealing for the happiness of his wife and a woman who likes strong emotions and authentically loves her husband for many factors besides money, or a Happily Married couple of a crook and a gold digger. Or bit of both. At least they are Happily Married in either interpretation.
- Godot: a mysterious, badass prosecutor with a cool design and sympathetic, tragic past, or an overhyped scumbag who's never brought to account for all his bad choices? Yes, he does end up arrested, but he also made Misty Fey die for them, got Iris charged for the murder and imprisoned for tampering with the crime scene (although Iris says she understood the risks) and nearly got Maya killed.
  - Did he know that Iris was once Phoenix's girlfriend? If so did it impact his decision to make her take the fall for Misty's murder? Did he do it because he knew Phoenix would defend her no matter what? Or because he wanted Phoenix to lose someone he loves just like he lost Mia?
  - Additionally, are his interactions regarding Franziska and Mia the natural results of circumstance or indicative of sexist beliefs? His sole interaction with Franziska in 3-5 ends with him making uncomfortably demeaning remarks about how she should "know her place and shut her trap." While several other characters in the series, even the protagonists, are no strangers to insulting Franziska directly to her face (and justifiably so), their remarks never get as flagrantly sexist as Godot's (it doesn't help that the scene in question was infamously exaggerated in the localization). Meanwhile, his entire character motivation is built around his love for Mia, who in the Whole Episode Flashback he's shown treating with a strong amount of respect in spite of her rookie status, yet that respect can also be viewed with an undercurrent of misogyny by how he patronizes her, and the fact that he holds Phoenix and ultimately himself responsible for not "protecting" Mia, despite the fact that by then she was far more experienced and capable than Phoenix and knew full well the risks involved with pursuing a man like Redd White, suggests that his resentment is stemming not just from the tragedy and guilt of losing someone he cared about, but also from an investment in gender roles, devaluing her agency in the process. While it's understandable to act irrationally and have complicated feelings of self-hatred and blame in a situation such as this, when combined with his treatment of Franziska it's understandable how Godot's views on women could rub some players the wrong way.
- Dahlia and Iris's father could be this. We're told that he coldly left his wife and badmouthed Kurain Village, but the person who says most of this is Dahlia, who is hardly one to speak well of anybody. His marriage and divorce of Morgan can also count. On one hand, he only married her to get the prestige that came with being a member of the Fey family. On the other hand, we see that a desire to gain power causes Morgan to try to commit murder twice, the second time using her own daughter as an Unwitting Pawn. With that second part in mind, one has to wonder if him taking his daughters with him when he divorced Morgan was as cruel as it's portrayed...
- Same could be argued for Morgan. Was she so ambitious and protective for Pearl purely because of her strong spiritual powers or was it from the heartbreak of being separated from her two other daughters via a divorce, discovering one grew into a sociopath, and not knowing what happened to the other?
- Due to the very ambiguous nature of the games story, Iris gets a lot of this. Is she an All-Loving Heroine who continued wanting to support the sister she loved even after she turned into a psychopath? An Extreme Doormat who passively allowed multiple people to die simply because she couldn't have brought herself to go against Dahlia? What does her intention to fully go against Dahlia after falling in love with Phoenix should she have put him danger exactly say about her? Was her not telling him the truth about their relationship in the aftermath of Dahlia's conviction understandable or an act of cowardice?
- The ending of the game and hindsight also make Dahlia an example of this. Is she truly pure evil like Mia claims? Or could she have become good like Iris posits?
Americans Hate Tingle: Despite being a massive Base-Breaking Character in the Western fandom, Iris actually reached 5th place in the trilogy's official popularity poll, beating series mainstays like Pearl, Franziska, Gumshoe and even Mia.
Anti-Climax Boss:
- Sister Bikini's five Psyche-Locks all comes off at the same time with merely two presentations of evidence. Most other unlocking sequences require, on average, one or two pieces of evidence per lock. Justified as unlike many other witnesses who are all to eager to keep their secrets hidden until at breaking point, Sister Bikini is arguably one of the most cooperative witness of the series, and knows when to co-operate for the benefit of everyone involved, no matter how big the secret she tries to hide.
- Luke Atmey in 3-2 initially appears to be one of these, since he gives up with surprising ease on the first trial day and admits to being the true thief. Actually, a subversion, however, since he wanted to be found guilty of theft, so that he would have an alibi for the murder of Kane Bullard, which was in fact his doing.
  - While Luke isn't especially easy to pin down after being brought into court, the HD version of the game makes it trivial to identify him as the true culprit. This is because the cutscene illustrating Ron's testimony of what happened to him at the crime scene flashes a silhouette of the culprit. While the GBA, DS, and 3DS versions of the game make use of a filter to obscure the culprit, the game's remasters fail to apply the effect making it blatantly obvious who the culprit is.
Awesome Video Game Levels:
- "The Stolen Turnabout", the second case, is generally considered the best "filler" case in the trilogy, and one of the best cases in the franchise that isn't a first or final case. Not only does it have a unique structure — starting on a simple theft case and only revealing a murder is involved later — but its new characters are very well-developed and likable. The villain in particular is incredibly entertaining as well as surprisingly intelligent and dangerous, putting together a plot to have himself caught red-handed as a Phantom Thief for a relatively minor charge to establish a phony alibi and get away with the murder he committed. Furthermore, despite being technically plot-irrelevant, it both introduces Godot as a character and initiates further Character Development for Maya and Pearl as well as additional insight into the Fey Clan, providing a rare example in the franchise of a self-contained story which is still able to develop the story and characters. It helps that this is the first case in Trials and Tribulations where you control Phoenix Wright in the present time, as "Turnabout Memories" is a flashback prologue where the player controls Mia and Phoenix is the defendant, making the start of this case a transition into more familiar territory.
- "Bridge to the Turnabout," the final case in the main series, is considered the best in the game and one of the best (and in many circles the best) in the series, having a complex mystery that ties together most of the plot threads of the original trilogy and ends with Phoenix truly coming into his own as a lawyer.
Base-Breaking Character:
- Godot, despite being the only prosecutor to rival Edgeworth in terms of popularity, has his own detractors. Some fans enjoy him for his quirky personality, surprisingly tragic backstory, and motivations that don't quite fall into "win at all costs," like pre-Heel–Face Turn Edgeworth and Franziska did. Others despise him for his actions in 3-5, in which he kills Misty Fey as part of a complicated plan to save Maya's life, which could potentially have resulted in Pearl and/or Maya herself dying, as well as Iris or Maya being wrongly convicted for murder, simply because he didn't trust Phoenix. There's also the nature of his coffee-themed Ice Cream Koans; some find them amusing, others find them to be needlessly padding out the story's runtime (along with his overly long drinking animations).
- Furio Tigre, in no small part due to how divisive Case 3-3 itself is. His detractors typically view him as the worst villain in the original trilogy (with the possible exception of Redd White), due to him falling way short of the standards of the other villains seen in the game, how ridiculously implausible his plan is, and how he's constantly talked up as being some incredibly devious criminal mastermind despite the fact that he offers up some of the most rickety, hole-ridden testimonies in the entire franchise, with the only difficulty coming from the fact that you get penalized for pressing on the wrong statement (itself considered a Scrappy Mechanic by some). That being said, he does have some fans, due to being such an absurdly cartoonish and over-the-top villain, his plan falling under Refuge in Audacity for some, and is at least popular enough that his outfit appeared as a DLC outfit for Phoenix in Spirit of Justice.
- Despite only appearing in the final case, Iris is easily one of the most polarizing characters in the franchise. Her fans view her as a sweet, well-meaning young woman who genuinely loves Phoenix. They like her because of the contrast she provides with her sister and believe she is only hurt due to a lack of proper screentime. Her detractors by contrast see her as a boring and underwritten Satellite Love Interest at best, or as a willing enabler of Dahlia at worst. Ship-to-Ship Combat is also a factor; the one thing Phoenix/Maya and Phoenix/Miles fans can agree on is their distaste for the main character's sole confirmed love interest.
Best Boss Ever: Quite a few.
- Luke Atmey's second outing is much more difficult and entertaining than his first. Due to gleefully confessing to a lesser crime, the challenge revolves around dismissing his own confession and pinning him to a crime he's never accused of. Since he's a Card-Carrying Villain by this point, he gets to ham it up as much as possible, giving insight into a killer far earlier than most others in the series.
- Dahlia Hawthorne's first and last fights count as this. In her first outing, she's a serious Wake-Up Call Boss due to being a skilled manipulator and having gone through her alibi many times before the trial. When encountered the last time, she impersonates Iris, almost succeeding in derailing an entire day's worth of trial before unleashing all her hatred and cunning into her final testimony, making her a challenging, unpredictable, and incredibly memorable boss.
- Maya Fey is also this, even with only a few short testimonies. She uses everything she's seen Phoenix do against him in an attempt to protect Godot from being outed as the killer. It's not as challenging or satisfying as most examples, but it's so shocking and heartbreaking that it stands up there with the best confrontations.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Optional one. Presenting Bikini's profile to Larry at the beginning of 3-5 will result in him apparently revealing that Bikini is his mother. This has no impact on the plot whatsoever and the only other point in the case that addresses this is an equally optional piece of dialogue the next day implying he was being hyperbolic.
Breather Boss: In Case 3-3, Gumshoe's Psyche-Lock regarding the lottery. Most likely Played for Laughs, given that Gumshoe ends up telling Phoenix crucial information about his cases without meaning to do so.
Broken Base: While not universally reviled like "Turnabout Big Top" before and "Turnabout Serenade" after, "Recipe for Turnabout" is the most polarizing case in an otherwise consistent game with acclaimed cases. Some people like it for being the quirkiest and most humorous case in the game, yet it has high stakes too, with The Mafia of all things being involved. On the other hand, some fans dislike how ridiculous and bizarre the premise of the case is, and how the villain of the chapter ends up being not only blatantly obvious from the get-go, but also one of the dumbest witnesses to be cross-examined, resulting in a climax that ends up feeling almost as disappointingly anticlimactic as "Turnabout Sisters". Additionally, "Recipe for Turnabout" is criticized for having some of the most annoying witnesses in the series, some fans even comparing this to "Turnabout Big Top" in that regard, and the only beloved one-shot character in the case being a good example of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character. The fact that this case was a scrapped throwaway case that didn't make it to Justice For All doesn't help in the eyes of detractors.
Captain Obvious Reveal:
- Maya is the one channeling Dahlia in the final trial. While intended clearly as a shocking turnaround after the game tries to heavily lead players to believe Maya was either killed by Dahlia or committed suicide, the actual answer is incredibly obvious with basic rule of elimination. By her own admission, Dahlia assumes Pearl had been the one channeling her, but the player knows Pearl both has the wrong hair color and was just spoken to in the defendant lobby, so it's obvious from the get-go that it can't be her. And of the other members of the Fey Clan, Bikini is stated to be at the Inner Temple helping Franziska unlock the Sacred Cavern, and Iris is the one currently trapped inside the cavern courtesy of Dahlia, leaving Maya as the only logical candidate to be channeling Dahlia's spirit. This is if anything even more obvious in the original Japanese, as "Iris'" speaking style noticeably changes after the earthquake (most obviously in her using a completely different honorific for Phoenix), making it much more clear a Twin Switch occurred. Once Edgeworth reveals Dahlia is dead, a player can easily deduce one of the case's major twists hours in advance.
- Even before his theme plays at the end of Case 3-4, it is incredibly obvious just by looking at him that Godot used to be Diego Armando, given how identical the two look outside of Diego having different colors, on top of Diego constantly drinking coffee like Godot does.
Catharsis Factor: After all the suffering she had put the cast through, seeing Dahlia get called out by Mia and Phoenix for being a pathetic failure, before exorcising out of Maya and disappearing into flames, is immensely satisfying.
Common Knowledge:
- A good number of fans, primarily those applying Ron the Death Eater interpretations, tend to argue that Godot's plan was going to involve him or Misty outright killing Pearl, or that at the very least that was something the two were considering. In actuality, the game makes it very clear that the actual plan was for Misty to keep Pearl away from the training grounds entirely while Godot watched Maya. Misty channeling Dahlia was the back-up plan specifically done to ensure that, no matter what, Pearl would never get involved in the murder, and Godot confesses that him killing the channeled Dahlia instead of simply restraining her was because he briefly let his emotions get the better of him.
- Many fans have the belief that Iris is charged as an accomplice for Misty Fey's murder, explaining her absence in subsequent games. This is actually a misinterpretation of a line in the English script, where the Judge says Iris will have another trial for her role as accomplice in the case, with it in the original Japanese being just "other charges", and it is even outright said she had no role in the murder itself. Iris is actually only punished for tampering with evidence (not unlike Adrian Andrews in the previous game) in covering up the murder to protect Maya, and it is implied her prison sentence is relatively short, as Bikini in he credits talks about happily waiting for her to return. Others likewise believe that she is charged for her involvement in Dahlia's crimes, something never implied in the game itself, never mind it's never suggested she had a role in anything besides the diamond theft (which she never actually participated in) and the attempted retrival of Dahlia's necklace (which she did in an attempt to stop her sister from committing more crimes).
Complete Monster: Dahlia Hawthorne is a petty sociopath who hides her devilish personality underneath an elegant façade. Having previously manipulated her boyfriend Terry Fawles into assisting her in a robbery meant to spite her family, before killing her stepsister Valerie and framing him for the murder, Dahlia ensured Fawles's suicide to warrant her freedom. Poisoning defense attorney Diego Armando as revenge against Mia Fey for almost getting her convicted, Dahlia seduced Phoenix Wright to cover her tracks, killing his friend Doug Swallow for trying to warn him and framing Phoenix for it after her attempts to poison him failed. Despite being executed, Dahlia returns as a vengeful ghost, aiding her mother Morgan Fey in her plan to kill Maya Fey solely to spite Mia's spirit.
Designated Love Interest: Diego Armando can also be seen as this due to being a victim of Remember the New Guy?^note. The only time we meet him is before they get together and his relationship with Mia (while plot-important) is implied through dialogue but not explicitly stated.
Draco in Leather Pants:
- Godot. There's a pretty big difference between sympathetic murderer and absolving him of all his crimes and bad decisions. Then again, the writers could have arguably been doing the same thing, given that Maya, who lost her mother as a result of his actions, still defends him, even though he suggests he was not primarily motivated by wanting to protect her, and she might have ended up dead when he killed the person channeling Dahlia.
- Luke Atmey is this to a certain portion of the Japanese fandom, to the point where there are entire fansites dedicated to him. In all fairness, though, his Japanese name means something along the lines of "only wants to be loved," and in the Japanese version, it's suggested he killed Kane Bullard out of self defense, not just desperation.
- Even Dahlia Hawthorne qualifies. Many of her fans will comment that, although her actions were inexcusable, her life was miserable, and will state that she is treated as an "unpopular" and "unloved" character.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Ron and Desirée DeLite are very adored characters in the fandom due to their dynamic of being a Happily Married couple, resulting in the two of them constantly looking out for each other, as well as their extremely ravishing designs. Individually, Ron is seen as adorkable for how timid, yet determined he is, while Desirée is loved for being a Nice Girl who is one of the most reliable witnesses, coming through at some of the tensest moments in Case 3-2. And none of this is even mentioning Ron's alter-ego of Mask☆DeMasque. Their popularity resulted in Ron having a successor in DeMasque II from Investigations, and even netted both of them a cameo appearance in Investigations 2.
- Luke Atmey is an extremely popular character despite being a single case comic relief and ultimately culprit. Many fans love him for his extremely hammy, theatrical antics, his moments of genuine Hidden Depths, and being a surprisingly dangerous and brilliant villain, concocting an impressively elaborate and logical plan involving purposely framing himself for a lesser crime just to grant himself an alibi, and only losing by a very minor and understandable slip-up. Many consider him the best minor antagonist in the franchise.
- Viola is also a surprisingly popular character despite only appearing in a single investigation, ranking 16th on the official popularity poll ahead of several more prominent characters, owing to her Creepy Cute design and personality, and her genuinely interesting relationship with Tigre.
- Sister Bikini not only has an adorable design, but is regarded as a friendly and helpful character who helps keep the final chapter from being too bleak while not taking away from the Darker and Edgier tone. It also helps that her testimony is a Breather Level compared to the far more solid and contradictory testimonies of Dahlia/Iris and Maya Fey.
Even Better Sequel: At the very least it's considered a big improvement over Justice For All (even though many agree none of the cases quite match up to "Farewell, My Turnabout", with the exception of "Bridge to the Turnabout", which is also considered one of the best cases in the series), with many fans regarding it as the best game in the entire Ace Attorney franchise.
Fandom-Specific Plot: Common topics for fanmade videos going directly off of this game include:
- Alternate scenarios of the fourth case where Dahlia is successfully proven to be the culprit, and the defendant doesn't poison himself. Also common in these What If? videos is for the characters to point out that while Terry Fawles is innocent of murder, he still has to face charges for his involvement with then-underage Dahlia.
- Alternate scenarios of the finale where Godot either swallows his pride and warns Phoenix about Morgan's plan, or otherwise comes up with a solution that doesn't get anyone killed.
Fanon: Fanworks frequently refer to Iris as "Iris Hawthorne or Fey", in spite of her having no official surname. The latter is often preferred because even her adoptive mother is also technically part of that family.
Franchise Original Sin:
- While there were isolated instances in the first two games where you could get punished for pressing on the wrong statement, this is the first game in the series to really turn it into a gameplay mechanic, most notably with Furio Tigre's testimonies. It's not too obnoxious here since Tigre is such a Bad Liar that it's usually pretty obvious which statement you're supposed to press on, but in the two Investigations games this can happen with far less obvious statements, leading to annoying instances of Trial-and-Error Gameplay.
- Likewise, while Justice for All made some mild use of Anachronic Order, this game really made use of it to insert the cases where you play as Mia. Here it worked because it helped flesh out Mia's backstory, but subsequent games started playing it up to the point where the overall storyline could become difficult to follow — the first Investigations and Dual Destinies being particular offenders — leading to Spirit of Justice and the two Great Ace Attorney entries reverting to almost entirely linear narratives.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- Phoenix's behavior in Case 3-1 gains a whole new dimension when it turns out that the woman he dated for six months and the one that tried to kill him are not the same, and that his insistence on her innocence wasn't a result of him grabbing the Idiot Ball. Perhaps it also counts as a bit of foreshadowing...
- Mia's random comedic assaults on Grossberg in Case 3-1 every time Phoenix says something adoring about Dahlia become much less funny when you realize that it's not just low tolerance for sappy, saccharine gushing — it's because she's bottling up a lot of hate for Dahlia and with very good reason. There's also the possibility that it's related to the fact that she knows Grossberg is responsible for leaking the information on her mother, and her mother's resulting disappearance.
- Not to mention the fact that Phoenix's gushing sounds disturbingly like Terry talking about his "Teen Angel". Small wonder she gets so angry, seeing another guy being played like a fiddle by Dahlia!
- Minor one, but in 3-3, Phoenix makes a comment on how Maya should quit her job as a spirit medium for a job as a waitress, and she considers the idea. Come 3-5, while she doesn't take up a waitress job, she is thinking more seriously about quitting her job as a spirit medium when she takes the witness stand.
- In 3-5, Edgeworth hears about the phony Phoenix from Case 3-3 and wonders if the judicial system has gone to hell lately. By Dual Destinies, the justice system goes through a corruption-ridden "Dark Age of the Law".
- Phoenix's comment in 3-3 that the only way to win a phony case is with phony evidence becomes a lot harsher after the events of Apollo Justice, where he loses his badge due to evidence forgery.
  - Even more so when he actually does forge evidence afterward to catch the one responsible (and implicitly for Revenge as well, given his new Knight in Sour Armor attitude after losing said badge).
- If you present your badge to Maya during the investigation during day 2 of 3-2, you get this little exchange:
  Maya: So you've still got that badge, I see.
  Phoenix: Huh? I'm a lawyer, aren't I?
  Maya: Yeah, but I guess I just didn't think you'd keep on being one for this long.
- And then one remembers that in Apollo Justice, it's revealed that Phoenix was disbarred not long after the events of Trials and Tribulations. A mere six months after this exchange, to be exact.
- When Godot reveals that he drinks much more coffee than any healthy person ought to, the judge conscientiously rebukes him saying, "You’re going to ruin your health, my friend." Well, as you figure out his backstory towards the end... his health has long been ruined, and coffee might be the only thing keeping him alive.
- In some ways, case three of the third game became a little bit harsher, or maybe just weird to play through, for those who live in Chicago. The case features a sudden "out of nowhere" lottery winner dying from cyanide poisoning. A real life case occurred in early 2013 when a Chicagoan died in the exact same circumstances.
- Mia's first case, where his defendant is manipulated by the culprit into poisoning himself and dying in court, allowing said culprit to get away with everything right before Mia would have solved the case, leaves her with so much trauma that she doesn't take another case for a year. Dual Destinies does one worse, where Athena's childhood trauma gives her flashbacks that cause her to shut down in court on two occasions, and it's eventually revealed that the trauma is due to Athena having found her mother dead, and Simon Blackquill taking the fall despite being innocent so she wouldn't be indicted; Athena testified that "his heart is screaming that he didn't kill her", but no one understood her because no one knew of her hearing abilities.
- Terry's suicide also has some disturbing similarities to a real life case in 2013, in which Steve Parsons swallowed cyanide in court after being convicted of improper sexual relations with a 14-year old girl.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- 3-5 has one when you examine the incinerator. "A fight between a lawyer and an overgrown boiler? Who'd want to see that?"
- Marvin Grossberg: "It feels like my hemorrhoids are doing the Harlem Shake!". In a similar vein, whenever Grossberg gets nervous, his hemorrhoids start acting up. Now imagine what could have happened if he were a witness in one of Apollo Justice's cases.
- In Case 3-3, it's mentioned that each employee at Blue Screens, Inc. wears a head-mounted display over their eye. Nine years later (in 2013), we get Google Glass.
- In the finale, Edgeworth calls Psyche-Locks "psycholocks". Then comes the finale of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, where Drew Misham does the exact same thing when questioned by Phoenix, albeit as two words ("psycho locks") instead of one.
- At the very end of the game, Godot sees Mia's spirit appear next to Phoenix, and they point fingers together, a moment fans have nicknamed the Super Objection. This gets replicated in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, where the title characters point their fingers together at the end of each witch trial. With some helping from Luke and Espella, they even manage to do this while Layton is turned to gold.
Incest Yay Shipping: There are a small number of fans who ship Iris/Dahlia.
It Was His Sled:
- Godot is actually Mia's boyfriend Diego Armando, a character who is explicitly stated in the first case to be dead. Despite this fact not even being explicitly confirmed until near the very end of the game, most official art shows him together with Mia in some fashion, including some of him before he was poisoned at all, making this fact largely common knowledge among people who get into the franchise.
- It's now something largely forgotten, but Iris' entire existence qualifies as such, as she wasn't shown in any of the games promotional material prior to release, and her role in the story makes her a massive Walking Spoiler. The game also is delberately vague for about half the case as to her exact relationship with Dahlia, but pretty much everyone in the fandom is aware of them being Always Identical Twins, and the 15th anniversary art-piece shows the two directly as seperate characters.
- 3-4, the Whole Episode Flashback to Mia's first case, ends in Mia's client committing suicide in the middle of the courtroom right before he can be acquitted.
- Edgeworth filling in as defense attorney while Phoenix recovers in the finale is widely known nowadays, in part thanks to a lot of fanmade trial videos using the corresponding assets.
Jerkass Woobie: Godot could be considered as one, but only to Phoenix, whom he refused to acknowledge for the greater part of the game. He seems to be significantly less of a jerk to everyone else.
Love to Hate: Dahlia Hawthorne is an absolute bitch of a human being even in death, and she'll definitely make the fans remember that. Watching her spirit get exorcised from Maya's body somehow manages to be both satisfying and horrifying at the same time.
Narm:
- The revelation of Iris and Dahlia's Twin Switch at the end of "Bridge to the Turnabout" is one of the worst cases of the games suffering from Going Through the Motions, because Phoenix's usual trial penalty reaction just can't do justice to "Wait, the sweet girl I was dating and the psychopath who tried to kill me really weren't the same person?"
- Somewhat similarly, the close-up of Mia when she does a Say My Name after Terry Fawles commits suicide at the end of 3-4. The close-up works much better when delivering a rebuttal to the prosecution than it does for Mia's anguish over her client's tragic death.
Never Live It Down:
- Iris helping Dahlia with recovering the necklace from Phoenix. According to some of her haters this one incident makes her an Extreme Doormat who could never stand up to her sister, never mind that she did it primarily to make sure she won't kill him, never mind that she spends the majority of her time trying to stop her from committing other crimes.
Player Punch:
- The end of 3-4.
- Pretty much the entirety on the Grand Finale, from Phoenix falling into a freezing river to figuring out the victim's true identity.
Questionable Casting: Mia's voice in both English and Japanese has been heavily criticized for not matching up with her sultry appearance and overall stoic demeanor, making her sound more like a Moe. The fact that her English voice is also prone to voice cracking doesn't help matters. Granted, it should be noted the version of Mia said voice is heard from is a rather frantic rookie attorney (with far less reliable co-counsels to guide her than Phoenix had — in the form of her older self — at the start of his own career), and she hasn't quite adapted the cool and unflappable demeanor her older self is known for yet, which is communicated in her design. Albeit, her high-pitched voice is still used when she raises an objection in her older state during Case 3-2, which is more jarring than it being used during her years as a rookie attorney.
Rewatch Bonus: Playing case one again after the game is extremely noteworthy given The Reveals at Cases 4 and 5.
Ron the Death Eater:
- Godot. A large number of fans hold him up purely as the guy who murdered Maya's mother, completely ignoring the fact that Misty was under essentially Demonic Possession at the time, and had he not acted, Maya would've been murdered, as well as the fact that both Maya and Phoenix forgive him for what he did, with Maya even trying to protect him after he calls her with the intention to have himself outed as the killer.
- Iris gets a similar amount from those dislike her, with many framing her as an active accomplice in Dahlia's crime spree, or to the murder of Maya's mother. In reality, neither of these things are true. She fairly explicitly never played a part in Dahlia's crimes outside of the diamond theft, which she ultimately backed out of participating in, and the game only suggests she was aware of what Dahlia had done. She likewise played zero part in the actual death of Misty Fey, having been in her room at the time well away from the scene of the murder, and only agreed to help move the body afterwards to ensure Maya wouldn't become a suspect.
The Scrappy: Jean Armstrong is considered one of the worst characters in the game due to his hideous design and obnoxious and cartoonish personality. He also tends to make things far more difficult for little reason, and is far less amusing than Viola and Tigre. It also doesn't help that he seems like an outdated stereotype of both French and queer people, making him leave an even worse taste in fan's mouths than his food did to Phoenix and co.
Sequel Difficulty Spike: The first case's culprit is the first in the series that is hard to crack down, unlike the likes of Frank Sahwit and Richard Wellington. She's also the first culprit of the first case to not be seen doing anything even remotely villainous during the case introduction — in fact, she does not appear and is not even mentioned by name.
Ships That Pass in the Night: There exists quite a bit of fan art for Adrian Andrews x Luke Atmey, mainly due to the two having a mutual respect for each other that nobody else reciprocates towards Atmey. The anime adaptation also gave the shippers more material to work with, due to the two having more face-to-face interactions with each other. Despite the strong following behind it, it's a rather obscure ship to the greater Ace Attorney fandom.
Squick:
- STOP TALKING ABOUT HEMORRHOIDS! Even worse in this case because 3-1's culprit is the first one in the series that poses a challenge to the player right in the first case so there's a huge chance of hearing Grossberg talking about it again and again after said culprit's cross-examination.
- There's only one reason! One as obvious as Jean Armstrong in a thong on the Riviera!
Take That, Scrappy!:
- For those that still disliked her, Franziska getting chewed out by both Pearl and Godot in Bridge to the Turnabout is incredibly satisfying.
- Armstrong is the one character that is not a culprit missing from the ending sequence. Also, the judge very much assures him that he will punished due to his involvement in Elg's murder.
That One Boss: Furio Tigre has the extremely annoying (and dangerous) gimmick of getting you penalized should you press any of his statements, except the right one. And the guy has four testimonies. At least in the first you can chose to not press on but in all the others, you get penalized regardless unless it's the statement you have to press. And during the last part you literally have to lie by presenting Elg's medicine bottle and say it contained poison to trick Tigre, something that you never did and you might not even considering doing.
That One Puzzle:
- Luke Atmey's final testimony is 11 statements long, with nothing in the Court Record proving a contradiction, and pressing any statement but the right one will instantly net you a game over. It also features a nasty Interface Screw – usually in these games, the music will stop once you've done something right in a testimony, while making a mistake does not stop the music. Not so with this one. What's more, right or wrong, the first few lines of dialogue after the press are always the same, throwing off players and outright PUNISHING Save Scumming. Note, however, the clue that if you see Phoenix shaking his head no and stopping Godot after he scolds Phoenix, you know you've pressed the correct statement.
- The exact same thing happens at the very end of "Bridge to the Turnabout", only here, you have to figure out that presenting Godot's profile is how you're meant to pinpoint behind his mask as the place where he was wounded.
- The final case has a critical omission in the Spanish version. In one part of Dahlia's testimony, you have to point out the contradiction that the victim was not stabbed from the front, by using the autopsy report... except, in the Spanish translation, the report does not mention that the victim was stabbed in the back, leaving the player with no way except guides or pure chance to realize how to object that statement. And to confirm it is indeed a typo, when Phoenix explains the contradiction, he says the autopsy report states that the victim was stabbed in the back, when it actually doesn't.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Iris from the last case is introduced as Phoenix's Love Interest as well as Pearl's half-sister and Maya's cousin. Instead of becoming a more regular character she's completely forgotten after her debut in this game.
- Viola and Bruto Cadaverini. Bruto is a mafia boss who has avoided prosecution through his connections. Despite the series' recurring motif of rooting out corruption in the justice system, he is The Unfought. Likewise, his daughter Viola, despite being a key figure in the case, is never cross-examined and has relatively little screen time. Viola does return in Ace Attorney Investigations, though as The Ghost.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: "Recipe for Turnabout" technically involves an appeal rather than an actual trial, so you might expect this would make for an interesting switch-up to the normal courtroom proceedings, especially when the judge warns that he won't accept just another presentation of the evidence that came up in the first trial. And yet everything after that is handled exactly the same as in a normal Ace Attorney trial, with everyone (the judge included) discussing the case as though they were hearing the details for the first time, and the previous trial only being relevant in that it was where Furio Tigre impersonated Phoenix.
Unexpected Character: While it's no surprise that Edgeworth returns given his major role in the first two games, the fact that he is playable for a portion of the game is surprising, given that he's a prosecutor, not a defense attorney.
Unintentional Period Piece: At one point in 3-3, Dick Gumshoe jokes that if Jean Armstrong's loan were in pound sterling rather than US dollars, he'd really be in trouble, referencing the fact that the British pound was worth around twice as much as the US dollar when Trials & Tribulations was localized. Following the 2008 financial crisis and then the UK's vote for Brexit, by the start of the 2020s the British pound was left only slightly more valuable than the US dollar, meaning the joke doesn't quite work as well.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: 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 his 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.
Values Dissonance:
- 3-4's backstory gives us a 20-year-old man in a relationship with a 14-year-old girl (quite a heated one too). However, while the reactions of Mia and Diego are played for laughs (mostly due to the fact Japanese people don't have the same implications towards romances between an adult and a minor as Westerns do), the relationship itself is portrayed as unhealthy, although less because of the age than because Dahlia was very obviously using the likely mentally disabled Terry in order to set him up for the only fall while she could get off scot-free for her own part in their crimes.
- Misty Fey abandoning her daughters after the fallout from DL-6 resulted in her bringing shame to the family comes off as more understandable to Japanese players, since, at least in the past, it wasn't unheard of for a father to leave a family in shame after a significant failure.
- Ron's motive for turning to theft is more understandable in Japan. Being fired from your job is considered immensely shameful in a country built on social structure and order. This makes his fear that Desirée would leave him should she have found out much more believable, especially given that he was fired on a genuine charge of selling company secrets.
- Dahlia Hawthorne being executed by hanging five years after her criminal conviction. In Japan, all executions must be done by hanging and death row inmates typically only have five to seven years to appeal their sentences, although many death row inmates can be held for even longer without knowing when their sentence will be carried out until the day of their execution. In America, a person on death row can appeal for decades and hanging has been widely replaced by lethal injection since the 1980s.
- Jean Armstrong occassionally refers to himself as a woman, making Phoenix correcting Maya when she calls Armstrong a woman come across as unintentionally transphobic. His Camp Gay mannerisms coupled with his utter lack of sympathetic qualities and his role in the murder feel kind of iffy in The New '20s as well.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Ron DeLite. Some people mistake him for a woman thanks to his feminine appearance and passive personality.

YMMV / Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations

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