"What I saw then burned a permanent picture in my mind. I... I can still see it now..."
This page covers Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations have their own pages.Take other moments specific to Dual Destinies to that game's page, and other games and the 2016 anime here, please.
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked according to Spoilers Off policy. You have been warned.
- The end of the last investigation day in 1-3. Phoenix and Maya decide to confront Dee Vasquez alone in the Studio 2 trailer. They then present the photo of the horrific accident as proof of Vasquez blackmailing the victim, Jack Hammer. She demands they hand over the photo, and they refuse. Her response? "BOYS!" Cue 4 scary looking guys showing up and Vasquez not so subtly hinting that they're gonna make sure Phoenix and Maya never see the light of day again.Phoenix: Who are they?Vasquez: Professionals. They're good at erasing... various things. What do you think? Would you like to be erased?
- One of the men she summons has his hand in his coat. You can only imagine what he's holding...
- Phoenix is also warned previously to be careful when dealing with Vasquez, as she apparently has mafia ties that she previously used to "silence" the paparazzi that took the photo. You may think this is a joke at first, but this quickly teaches you that it isn't.
- If you take Missile the police dog to Gourd Lake, his snarling face can catch you off guard.
- Case 4: Manfred von Karma kills a man over what any sane person would consider a fairly trivial oversight, then raises the dead man's son and twists him to be everything his own father would hate. The psychological scars he left on Miles and Franziska will be there long after he's dead.
- The fact that Edgeworth practically begs Phoenix not to take his case because von Karma is the prosecutor is telling in its own right. He may not have known at the time that von Karma killed his father, but he might know from living with him what lengths von Karma is capable of when it comes to revenge.
- Think about it: von Karma is a prosecutor with a 40-year win streak who will do ANYTHING to get his guilty verdicts. Who knows how many poor, innocent defendants he's sent to death row because of his ruthless, selfish, win-at-all-costs tactics? If you're the defendant in a case von Karma is prosecuting and someone from the Wright & Co. Law Offices isn't defending you, you're screwed.
- von Karma's methods aren't just terrifying if the defendant is innocent. It's almost certain that he's also put many genuinely guilty people behind bars with his tactics, and every single guilty person he's ever dealt with can get a free ticket out of jail by claiming, quite possibly correctly, that he forged evidence to get a conviction. God only knows who is innocent and who is guilty, God only knows how many guilty people will go free, God only knows how many friends and families involved will now never have any sense of peace as to whether the crimes were truly and properly punished, and God only knows how much damage this one single man has done because of his sheer selfish ego.
- Let's not forget that if you're up against someone who is so intimidating that even the JUDGE is afraid of him, you know you're absolutely and completely screwed.
- You can peer into his methods during the flashback portions of case 3 of Gyakuten Kenji 2 (spoilers therein, obviously): There was never a body found during the Dover murder case. Didn't bother von Karma. He just fabricated a theoretical scenario and then had Detective Badd removed from the case so he could install a detective that would parrot his theory to the court. He forged an autopsy report based on his theory and then put Jeff Master under the interrogation light for an entire year until he broke the man and weaseled a fake confession out of him. Sure, Gregory Edgeworth managed to nick his perfect record with a blemish for his misdoings (that obviously ended poorly for him), but with methods like that, it's no wonder he held onto his win record for so long.
- How about poor Master's reaction to the interrogation? After seeing him cheerful and energetic in your first encounter, returning to the detention center to find his hair has turned white and the life has completely left his face is horrifying. He gets better with some chocolate, but you're left to wonder just what, exactly, von Karma has been doing to the poor man...
- It doesn't help that his "Objection!" voice clip
makes him sound like a demon. - Running into him at the police station, in the same case, is horrible in and of itself. First he catches you off-guard, and in a subtle form of this trope, he claims not to recognize Phoenix and Maya despite having battled them the last two days in the courtroom, since they're all just flies to him and not worth taking the time to learn theif faces; he kicks attorney ass on a regular basis and thinks nothing of it. Less subtly, he then TASES you and Maya and steals your evidence. Yes. He really will do anything.
- The situation leading up to the DL-6 Incident was pretty frightening. A nine-year-old Miles Edgeworth, his father Gregory Edgeworth, and Yanni Yogi got into an elevator, only for an earthquake to leave them stuck and in the dark (literally) for five hours. As the oxygen inside began to run out, they became increasingly panicked and disoriented. Yogi freaked out and started attacking Gregory in front of Miles. In dazed desperation, Miles did what he could to help his dad: by throwing the bailiff's loaded gun at them. His last memory was hearing the gun fire, followed by a man's scream. Gregory Edgeworth was found in the elevator, dead from a single shot to the heart, and his son spent the next fifteen years wondering if he killed his own father.
- And then comes The Reveal, which is arguably scarier: When everyone had fallen unconscious from the lack of air, von Karma opened the elevator door, saw his rival helpless and a gun at his feet, and decided in that instant that destiny had delivered Gregory Edgeworth into his hand.
- And one final bit of Fridge Horror, this time from Gregory Edgeworth's perspective: summoned back from the dead as a last-ditch effort by a police force who couldn't find any decisive clues to his murder, he is asked who killed him. But he didn't see it: he was already unconscious by then. All that he knows is that only two other people were in that elevator, and one of them was his own young son. If he admits to not knowing, his death and the specter of guilt will hang over his son's head for the rest of his life. So his very last act in this world was to lie, to accuse a man who turned out in the end to be innocent, because he had no other choice if he wanted to protect his son.
- And last, but hoo boy, most certainly not least, come the revelations from Investigations 2, where another bit of detail is added to DL-6. That evidence von Karma is supposed to have forged? For once, not his. The Chief Prosecutor who gave him his penalty? There you have the culprit. Why did von Karma have the forged evidence? It was slipped to him so said Chief Prosecutor could have a scapegoat. In other words, if it weren't for Chief Prosecutor Blaise Debeste, DL-6 wouldn't have happened.
- During 1-5, security camera footage of Officer Meekins' run-in with Jake Marshall (disguised as Goodman) in the evidence room is played. While it's already quite uncomfortable to view in the context of the case, especially given that this is the only usage of 3D full motion video in the game, the fact that Gumshoe's Blue Badger is the focal point of the footage while "I Want To Defend!" plays on repeat makes it that more unnerving. Even worse; you have to re-watch the footage a good few times to point out contradictions for Meekins' sake, with some viewings of the footage having no sound at all.
- Damon Gant. The whole character is terrifying once he finally drops the mask of being an oddball gentleman. It's the real-life fear of the Corrupt Cop that's using his authority to imprison innocent people, who will be believed over you by anyone in a position of authority even if he has to blackmail them into going along with it, who has no moral problem with abusing the full extent of his power to further his own goals, and against whom there is very little recourse—what are you going to do, call the cops?
- His infamous stare, which can make many players uneasy. Not to mention that his stare isn't nearly as creepy the first time you see it, since he still seems like a goofy man that's incidentally the chief of police. The problem is, every time he does it, the stare goes on for even longer than the last time, and there's no music playing while he does it. By the time you sneak into his office and he catches you, he stares at you for so long in utter silence that it feels like he's looking directly at you, if not for his blinking.
- The blinking makes it even more terrifying, although his subtle menace while in his jolly persona can be a lot more eerie than his stare.
- Even when he breaks down he's scary. Everyone has a Wild Take. Not everyone has a Wild Take that involves them GOING SUPER-SAIYAN.
- When he finally takes the witness' stand for the final time in 1-5, he doesn't do so by simply being called up by Phoenix or Edgeworth; no, he decides to make his presence known by objecting to Lana's cross-examination out of nowhere, before you can even press her opening statement. It should be noted that no other witness in the entire series has interrupted someone's cross-examination, proving just how much power he has against Lana.
- Not to mention how, whenever he enters a room, the temperature literally rises. Seriously, between that and his silent stare... what the hell's up with this guy?
- This sprite of Gant in particular is creepy - not just because of the chilling face he pulls, but because he only gets that expression at the end of some of his dialogue, so your first glimpse of it will usually be just out of the corner of your eye as you move on to the next character's dialogue...
- His final breakdown, which is just pages upon pages upon pages of insane laughter as he claps at higher and higher speeds. Bonus points if you're prone to seizures, because unless you're playing the HD version or on an emulator, the game will flash multiple times during the entire breakdown.
- If you are careless with a certain, very decisive piece of evidence, you can get Ema convicted by accident, and a single line of narration states that the case became Unwinnable from that point on since the defense's entire case just imploded due to the letter of the law. Then the "Guilty" text appears on a black screen. Followed by the sudden, signature closing of the courtroom doors.
