The Great Ace Attorney / YMMV

This page is for the spinoff duology, The Great Ace Attorney.

Accidental Innuendo:
- In the first case of the first game, after Ryunosuke announces he’s going to represent himself, Kazuma expressed disappointment in his apparent lack of faith:
  Kazuma: You think I won't be able to get you off.
- And another moment later on, when discussing how to present evidence:
  Kazuma: Thrust it in the witness' face and make them choke on it!
- And yet another moment, this time in the 2nd game, where they discuss Ryunosuke's ability to kneel down seiza-style... or lack thereof.
  Kazuma: Don't exaggerate, Ryunosuke. ...We both know you can't even manage a minute.
Adorkable: Ryunosuke, at the beginning of his career. Susato, in a lawyer's disguise, is much the same.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Are Sholmes' deductions genuinely Insane Troll Logic or is he faking it to act as a Stealth Mentor to Ryunosuke? The final Dance of Deduction in 2-5 suggests the latter, as Sholmes doesn't bother coming up with the wrong deduction but instead helps leading Mikotoba to come up with the right one.
- At the end of the second game, Iris suddenly changes her mind and tells Gina that she doesn't need to worry about her promise to find Iris' father. Is this merely her being considerate to Gina, or does Iris know who her father really is?
Aluminum Christmas Trees:
- Many people who played this game, either through the fan translation or via Chronicles, were surprised to find out that Soseki Natsume is actually a real person.
- While the hologram aspect of the technology Herlock and Iris pull out at the end of the final trial is obviously wild science fiction, and the way it handwaves the necessary infrastructure pushes it further into sci-fi territory, the basic idea of transmitting video as a casual extension of transmitting sound is not as anachronistic as it might seem; the first machines capable of long-distance transmission of video over wire were made in the 1920s.
Arc Fatigue: Almost the entire first half of the investigation phase of "The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story" is made up purely of dialogue and exposition, which can become a slog to sit through at times. Prior to Windibank's murder, which is what really kicks off the episode's storyline, the only thing that breaks up the long sequences of dialogue is a short investigation in Windibank's shop, then a deductions segment where you try to figure out the motives of Eggert Benedict/Ashley Graydon.
Ass Pull:
- 2-3 seems to be building up to a logical conclusion, with the revelation that Enoch Drebber designed the fake teleportation machine to kill Odie Asman in revenge for Asman's ruining his life, only for it to suddenly reveal with no real foreshadowing that Asman somehow survived being dropped thirty feet to the ground totally unscathed, only to then immediately get killed by Courtney Sithe, who had her own reasons for wanting revenge on him. It's such an abrupt revelation that it fuelled fan speculation that Sithe was originally meant to have a larger role in the game, but was hastily turned into the case's killer so as to write her out more quickly.
- In the final trial, Herlock and Iris come to the defense's rescue, revealing that they had invented hologram and video camera technology and that they were livestreaming the events of the trial, and Stronghart's confession to being the Reaper, to Queen Victoria herself. Not only do the technological reveals fit poorly given the game's time period but none of it had been foreshadowed beforehand. While Sholmes and Iris had been presented as being brilliant, none of their prior inventions came close to the level of advancement of holograms and live sound-video recording, and nothing prior to their appearance in the final trial suggested that the courtroom had been outfitted with the cameras or projectors needed to pull it off.
Awesome Bosses: Magnus McGilded is quickly revealed to be a cunning manipulator who has the entire trial in the palm of his hand. What makes him unique is he's your client, which forces you to "unlearn" the normal logic of Ace Attorney and instead focus on providing reasonable doubt for his crimes and making sure his more blatant forgeries and Jury and Witness Tampering don't hurt your case.
Awesome Levels:
- Case 3 of the first game, no thanks to its highly memorable and depressing twist where your defendant turns out to be the Big Bad and actually manages to manipulate the player into winning the case for him.
- The second game's final case is well-regarded and is at the top of many case rankings. It's a highly intense and climactic case that brings a resolution to two games' worth of storylines, and has quite a few memorable moments, such as the final Dance of Deduction, in which Sholmes partners with Mikotoba to give a superb display of his deductive reasoning and the Big Bad of the duology having a spectacular Villainous Breakdown.
Base-Breaking Character:
- Herlock Sholmes himself. Takumi took certain liberties with his character and divided the fanbase into two camps: Those who think he's an Adorkable goofball and those who think he's a moronic Manchild who can never get anything correct. Most players end up warming up to him with time, likely thanks in part to how fun the Dance of Deduction mechanic is and inviting Ryunosuke and Susato to live with them in 221B at the end of Case 4, but the first impressions still tend to be strong either way. With the plethora of adaptations for the series, he may have been (fairly or not) compared to other adaptations of the character more than how he was in the source material, and some fans argue that it's actually easy to pick up the Doyle canon and read it imagining Takumi's Sherlock Holmes. It has been expressed in an interview how Takumi himself sees him.
  Takumi: (on his favorite Sherlock Holmes stories) I'm often asked that, but I find it hard to answer. But I think the easiest answer is the first 12 stories that make up the first short story collection. People think of Holmes as the great detective, but even he makes mistakes at times and feels bad because of them, and there's the friendship with Watson. He's a very human character. You'll understand that as you read more of his stories, so I recommend reading a lot of them.
- Iris Wilson can prove to be rather divisive. Detractors will state that her Child Prodigy traits don't fit within the more grounded setting, said traits make her appearances feel one-note, she has little direct relevance to the plot at large for how often she appears, and that her character design is gaudy and over-detailed. Others will cite how Ace Attorney has had unrealistic characters like her previously, don't mind that she's more of a side character, and find her design cute. With the full duology's context, it’s also worth noting that like with Sholmes' playing with source material as well as Yujin's under Broken Base, her presentation is a Red Herring that plays with audience expectations regarding both Holmes canon and Ace Attorney games, which is either an interesting spin on the Sherlock Holmes stories or a Canon Defilement.
- The culprit of the final case of the first game divides the fanbase a bit, mainly due to how obvious they are by final case villain standards. Their introduction involves using an alias that is hilariously and blatantly fake to a native English speaker even in the Punny Name world of Ace Attorney, and questioning him ends with him pulling a gun on you. But they still have fans since being the killer is hardly the biggest reveal about them, and their backstory is quite deep. There's also the fact that McGilded is ultimately the true Big Bad of the game despite dying in Case 3, something that is much more well-hidden.
- The final boss of the whole duology, Mael Stronghart. Some like how threatening and intimidating he acts as the judge of the final case and think that he and Jigoku do a good job in fulfilling the "judge is the culprit" role. On the other hand, others find him to be a rather flat character who comes off as a poor man's Damon Gant, and the fact that it's very easy to see that he's a villain way before the final case soured him for a few players. About the only thing universally liked about him is his over-the-top and literally explosive breakdown.
Better on DVD: Upon the original release of Adventures, it attracted controversy for its large amount of unresolved mysteries, which made the two-year wait for a sequel frustrating and played a part in the duology's eventual Acclaimed Flop status. The localization packages both Adventures and Resolve into the same game, which allows them to be played back-to-back as one long, 10-case story. Many argue this greatly improves the experience, and had led to them re-evaluating Adventures in a more positive light.
Broken Base:
- Upon the release of the second game, a common complaint is that it feels far more like a Mission-Pack Sequel (or even One Game for the Price of Two) than any previous game, being the first game since Trials and Tribulations to not introduce any new gameplay elements along with reusing much of the first game's music (the Courtroom Lobby, Trial, Cross-Examination, Pursuit and Tell the Truth themes, among others, are all reused from Adventures). The reused music is a major point of contention, with some finding it adds to the interconnected feel of the games and others finding it lazy.
- "The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band", the second case of the first game, is perhaps the most divisive case in the duology, with many finding it their least favorite case but many others defending it. Much of the divide comes from the fact that it's the only case in the franchise without a trial portion or anything equivalent, as well as how the "murder" was an accident. How much you like it largely depends on whether you see the nontraditional aspects as strengths or shortcomings.
- The Reveal in the sequel that Yujin Mikotoba is the real "Wilson" from Holmes' stories divided the fanbase. Some love the twist and feel it gives an otherwise bland character a lot more depth and relevance, as well as adding more depth to Sholmes, while fans attached to the original Holmes stories find it off-putting or outright insulting that a character created for this game replaced a beloved canon one.
- How the games deal with van Zieks' racism toward the Japanese. While it is unambiguously treated as a character flaw, whether or not the game deals with it well alongside his character and background is a contentious subject for a number of fans. On the one hand, some like how van Zieks gradually grows out of his racism as he continues to deal with Ryunosuke in many cases and eventually agrees to have Ryunosuke as his defense attorney. On the other hand, others think that having his racism be explained as a product of the Professor incident to be at best a poor Freudian Excuse and thus may find his character development to be questionable.
- The other reveal of the identity of the Professor actually being Klint van Zieks. Some players love it for being one of the most shocking reveals in the entire franchise that utterly blindsides most players while others decry it for that exact same reason since there's little to no set-up for it, the game's explanation feeling generally weak because it never answers exactly why he used the killing method he did, and the fact that even resorting to that method right away takes a level of cruelty that even if the victim deserved it, feels either very out-of-character, or points to them having severe underlying mental problems that the game just completely ignores.
- How the last culprit is defeated is also divisive, which is through Sholmes' and Iris' use of hologram technology to let the queen watch the trial. It's either cool and funny (especially with Sholmes' dancing at one point) and important for such a critical character to participate in the final chapter's case, or it robs the player of the feeling of finally outsmarting Stronghart via Deus ex Machina and is an obviously shoehorned way to get Sholmes and Wilson into the case for how tonally at-odds it is with the Victorian England setting.
- The last case in general is considered this for the reasons listed above. Some players praise it for its fast-paced, and gut-wrenching reveals while others criticize it for feeling like one Ass Pull after another that creates more plotholes while not actually answering one of the biggest questions, and completely glossing over disturbing implications of said reveals.
Captain Obvious Reveal:
- Almost no one was surprised at the Big Bad of the second game being the chief justice Mael Stronghart, due to the character being Obviously Evil by Ace Attorney standards by being a Large Ham in a major position of power within the legal system, having an intimidating name, an intimidating appearance, and being met briefly a few times in the first game without ever having a major role. Somewhat balanced out by the writers throwing in an accomplice no-one saw coming: the Japanese judge.
- Fans predicted that Barok would be a defendant and that Kazuma would become a prosecutor due to them being a Decomposite Character for Miles Edgeworth, the main prosecutor of the main series.
- The identity of van Zieks' masked apprentice. Ryunosuke immediately notices that something seems familiar about the man, the individual is skilled with a sword and after the first trial day of 2-3 (the same case when the apprentice debuts), Susato tells Ryunosuke about how Kazuma's body vanished after his apparent murder. With all this information, it's rather easy to guess that Kazuma is the masked man.
Catharsis Factor: Half of the first game involves nontraditional cases that prove to be accidents or involve circumstances that allow the true villain to escape from legal consequences. Players are left with cases that don't quite offer the same thrill of chase or victory that most Ace Attorney games offer, while highlighting Ryunosuke's own anxieties over his role in the legal world. Comparatively, the final case involves a lengthy Marathon Boss who's challenging, satisfying and entertaining to dismantle over the course of the trial and emphasizes the culmination of Ryunosuke's ideals and prowess as an attorney.
Character Perception Evolution: When Sherlock Holmes, or Herlock Sholmes in the localization, was first revealed, he was widely decried as a poor-taste In Name Only version of the original, being a goofy, idiotic Manchild rather than a no-nonsense genius. As time passed, a few factors did wonders for his reputation. The games got a belated localization and increased exposure, leading more to discover his Hidden Depths and late-game reveals heavily implying he played up his eccentricities to act as a Stealth Mentor to Ryunosuke. Secondly, Sherlock fell out of favor and stopped being the Audience-Coloring Adaptation it was in the 2010s. This led many to re-evaluate Sholmes as far more accurate to the source then they thought: an Affectionate Parody with a very heavy emphasis on "affectionate", as writer Shu Takumi always admitted to being a huge Holmes fan in interviews. Many also feel Sholmes captures the original's humanity in ways most modern adaptations forget, with some going so far as to call him the best modern adaptation of Sherlock.
The Chris Carter Effect: The mass review-bombing of Adventures by the Japanese fanbase and the Acclaimed Flop status of Resolve owes itself to this trope. Because there were so many details that were Left Hanging, such as Mael Stronghart's agenda, the purpose of Adron B. Metermann and William Shamspeare in Case G1-4, and the Morse cipher produced by Iris containing four key names during the ending, many fans found themselves feeling unfulfilled by how the game ended, and as a result, the wait for Resolve's release felt more like a chore than anticipation, resulting in it underperforming despite tying up most of the loose ends left by Adventures.
Complete Monster: "Jezaille Brett", real name Asa Shinn, is in truth a sadistically xenophobic assassin sent by the justice system of Britain, one of the most important members of the main conspiracy in the game, and the most despicable of them for lacking any of the good intentions of her co-conspirators. Already known as an assassin in the dark corners of London, Shinn was hired by Mael Stronghart to assassinate every person who escaped the guilty verdict from the cases of Barok van Zieks, with a total of 16 victims killed in numerous "accidents", effectively being the one who made van Zieks into "The Reaper of The Bailey". Later on, Shinn would be sent to Japan under a fake identity to be a student of John Wilson, only for her to assassinate him with an agonizing, undiscovered poison, and later shooting the corpse for Ryunosuke Naruhodo to take the fall. When Brett was pulled to the trial of the murder, she would make racist remarks against the Japanese throughout the trial, and at one point, break an important piece of evidence just to laugh about her untouchable superiority. Taking pleasure in the pain of others, especially of other races, it's her own hatred and narcissism that leads to her death, even when she was already about to remain scot-free from her crimes.
Crosses the Line Twice: Taketsuchi Auchi's "breakdown" upon losing in the sequel. The game seriously leads you to believe he's going to commit Seppuku right there, and he even composes a death poem. He winces, picks up the knife... and cuts off a strand of his hair instead. Which instantly wraps around to being hilarious, especially as the game still plays it as a Tear Jerker, including playing the sad variant of Kazuma Asogi's theme.
Diagnosed by the Audience: Many fans interpret Herlock Sholmes' eccentric behavior as being a result of ADHD, much like the original Sherlock Holmes. He switches from constantly changing topics to hyper focusing on specific things (i.e., reading the mountain of books in Soseki's apartment when he was investigating, or spending months working on an analytical machine before suddenly realizing it was useless to him), and forgets about things, even entire cases, as soon as they aren't important to him at that moment.^note Some of his comments about constantly being "assailed" with unwanted information also imply that he is easily over-stimulated by his surroundings, while his deductions run on a train of logic pulled from minimal information that is similar to that of someone with the disorder. Even in the last Dance of Deduction when he gets dangerous, the only change to that is that his deductions are genuinely accurate.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Kazuma Asogi, a Miles Edgeworth Expy turned out to be a case of Advertised Extra, but is extremely popular with fans due to his samurai theme, incredibly awesome theme tune and friendship with Ryunosuke. The writers confessed in interviews that he ended up much more popular than they expected. He's a case of Not-So-Small Role in the sequel.
- Satoru Hosonaga won many fans for being very useful in the instances he appears in and also his nice personality. Especially in the second case of the first game, where he literally goes through being beaten up by sailors to get Ryunosuke evidence. In the official poll held by Capcom, he placed 5th, beating Iris and Susato by a pretty good margin.
- Gina Lestrade has won first place of a character elimination poll hosted on Reddit. Despite only showing up in half of the cases, she a Lovable Rogue for her Sticky Fingers tendencies (not even fully quitting those when she ends up working for the police in the second game), and her backstory and motivations make her sympathetic and compelling to players.
- Juror No.3 from Case G1-3 is well remembered by fans thanks to his knife-happy tendencies and him hating the rich like McGilded. The fact that he ended up being correct in his initial statement does do him a good reputation.
- The Skulkin Brothers' hilarious and entertaining antics and interactions between each other and "Sulky", and their surprisingly deep relations with Graydon endear them to a lot of fans, despite the fact that they're only witnesses in one case.
- Rei Membami from the second game instantly became one of the series' more popular defendants when she physically stopped the culprit mid-breakdown by judo-throwing him with Susato's help. The fact that she's an Advertised Extra thanks to adored Ace Attorney artist Kazuya Nuri considering her one of his favorite characters, and has many perceived Les Yay moments with Susato by the fanbase, has also earned her many followers.
- William Shamspeare is incredibly well-liked, not only because he has many, many colorful animations and an over-the-top personality but also because he's one of the two culprits in the case and has a fun theatrical breakdown.
- Madame Tusspells is mostly limited to a side plot in the second game's third case, yet fan artists adore her thanks to her Hot Witch design and sultry French accent.
- Enoch Drebber only appears in one case, and the latter end of the case at that, but he's one of the second game's most popular characters due to his cool Steampunk design, Creepy Awesome robot-like movements, amazing theme music, the satisfying build-up to actually find him and having concocted an ingenious revenge plan on an Asshole Victim whom he had good reason to hate.
Esoteric Happy Ending:
- The duology ends with the arrest of Mael Stronghart, the mastermind behind the main conflict, and Ryunosuke and the other main characters live happily ever after... except that the games don't show the fallout of Stronghart's arrest and the revelation of his crimes. Though the Queen ensured that Stronghart would receive his just deserts despite his claims he has nothing to be indicted for, it doesn't address the fact that the entire judiciary supported Stronghart's methods and actions once it was revealed to them for the sake of lowering the crime rate, meaning that the widespread corruption in the British legal system is unlikely to go away just because a single man fell from grace.
- Assuming that the game's history goes down a similar path as in real life then the relationship between Japan and Great Britain will steadily decline and the treaty between the two countries will eventually be discontinued.
Even Better Sequel: The second game of the duology is considered a vast improvement on the first. The reason why is that unlike the previous Ace Attorney games which are mostly self-contained stories, the The Great Ace Attorney games are very closely related to one another. The first game very heavily sets up elements that come to fruition in the second game, meaning many of the best plot twists and strongest writing moments don't happen until the midway point of the duology. As a result, it's often recommended to simply play them back-to-back as one extremely long Ace Attorney game. Even Capcom seems to think so, since the long-awaited English port released the two of them as a single game, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles.
Fan-Disliked Explanation: Many fans felt the sudden reveal in the closing moments of the second game that Iris is Klint van Zieks' daughter, and thereby Barok's niece to be too abrupt and undeveloped to have any meaningful impact, and much preferred the earlier implication that she was actually Yujin Mikotoba's daughter.
Fandom-Specific Plot: A number of What If? fics have been written on the premise of the events of S.S. Burya going differently, most popular being the idea that Ryunosuke, instead of Kazuma, is the one knocked out and given memory loss by Nikolina, to later return as a prosecutor while Kazuma stands for the defense.
Fan Nickname:
- Fans often call Barok van Zieks "Vampire Prosecutor" or "Vampire!Edgeworth". Also, "Prosecutor von Leg", after his memetic leg-slam animation.
- Thanks to SaveDataTeam's Ace Attorney with an Actual Lawyer!, Ryunosuke's name is often colloquially shortened to "Ryan".
Fanon:
- It's pretty widely accepted by fans of the game that Mael Stronghart is Damon Gant's ancestor, due to their similar designs, mannerisms, and methods for using and abusing others as a high-ranking government official. This is despite there being not much to prove or disprove this theory.
- Ryunosuke being Apollo's ancestor as well as Phoenix's is a popular reading, albeit one with no particular evidence for or against in the text itself, unless you count the fact that Ryunosuke looks a lot like Phoenix but really acts a lot more like Apollo. A secondary reason for this theory gaining popularity might be that it would potentially make Phoenix a biological relative of his adopted daughter Trucy, since Apollo and Trucy are half-siblings.
Genius Bonus:
- Jezaille Brett's meltdown after being exposed as the real killer in Case G1-1 features multiple swan chicks falling from her hat, including a single black one. In other words, a literal black swan event.
- During Case G2-1, Raiten Menimemo attempts to frame his attempted murder and actual murder as a patriotic and idealistic willingness to get his own hands dirty in the name of justice where the system failed in his testimony. This directly evokes (and indirectly critiques, given his messy actual motivations and willingness to finger others for his crimes to get away with them) the idea of "gekokujo" or "patriotic insubordination" in both pre-war Japan and pre-war Germany, where sympathetic judges would let right-wing assassins off with a slap on the wrist, or even an outright acquittal, if they framed their crimes as consistent with attempting to assert national pride and ideals against foreigners or traitors, leading to increased political violence and eventually to the rise of fascism and the erosion of the rule of law.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The first game infamously curried a disastrously bad reputation in Japan when it first released due to its relatively unresolved nature (to the point Amazon entries were flooded with 1-star reviews calling it an "incomplete game"), exacerbating its already poor sales. Capcom managed to Win Back the Crowd with the reveal trailer for 2 going out of its way to promise that it would actually conclude the story, and the first game eventually became Vindicated by History when the second properly delivered on resolving its loose ends. To avoid the same thing happening again, the localization was released purely as a Compilation Re-release, meaning that most fans outside Japan never had to deal with the problem since it was now seen as, at worst, a double-length game with some awkward pacing.
Harsher in Hindsight: In the first game's final case, Gregson is tasked with protecting the British government's secret document from being leaked into public at any costs, and in the second game, said document's details revealed to include the assassination exchange, with Gregson being one of the targets.
Hilarious in Hindsight: van Zieks's quip from 1-4 about Ryunosuke training to be a circus clown (which was present in the 2015 release) could easily be mistaken for a reference to the "You are not a clown, you are the entire circus" meme.
Hype Backlash: The first game built up a considerable mystique during the years when it was unavailable in English, thanks to its setting being something new for the series, as well as many fans taking an Only the Creator Does It Right view of Shu Takumi's work compared to the other directors on the series. When the English fan translation was eventually completed, however, some fans were disappointed by what they saw as a game that was relatively light on content (only the last two cases have both an investigation and courtroom phase, and even then, only one each), had a narrative that was relatively slow-paced and incredibly heavy on exposition at points, and lacked several of the more-appreciated gameplay improvements that Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice had benefited from. Opinions towards the first game have improved thanks to the Compilation Re-release, though it's still widely seen as the weaker entry compared to its sequel.
I Knew It!:
- Quite a few people called Mael Stronghart as the Big Bad of the duology.
- Many people predicted that the Masked Apprentice's identity would be Asogi, revealed to be alive.
- A couple people predicted that the culprit in case 2 of the second game would be Olive Green.
- In terms of the localization, people correctly guessed Sherlock and Iris would have their names modified.
Improved Second Attempt: Back in the final case of Justice for All, many players felt that the concept of defending a client that turns out to be the guilty party was heavily undermined by the fact Phoenix gets blackmailed into defending Engarde very early into the case, plus a "miracle" happening by the end of the case that lets Phoenix get the best possible outcome. Adventures features Magnus McGilded, the client from Case 3. You initially defend in a typical fashion, trying to pinpoint flaws in the witnesses' cross-examinations and finding new clues in existing evidence... but then one starts finding clues in places where there were none before, which begins to build a feeling that something is very wrong in the case, that McGilded is not who he seems to be, and that you are starting to consider he might actually be guilty, only for the Judge to give him a Not Guilty verdict due to the lack of proof, which would only come up two cases later to confirm that he was indeed the killer (which also leads to Ryunosuke temporarily losing his job). It gives Magnus McGilded a much better standing among fans because the fact your client is the culprit can't be seen coming, whereas players are effectively told to doubt Matt Engarde before you even meet him.
Jerkass Woobie:
- This game's "Payne", Taketsuchi Auchi, while he still heartlessly condemns the defendants and rudely insults everyone who's a nuisance to him, he's still a Butt-Monkey and Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain and is also an Extreme Doormat to practically everyone in the courtroom. In the second game, he's primarily motivated by avenging his past failure, and when he loses again he cuts off his newly-grown strand of hair (which he'd earlier seen as a symbol of hope for a comeback) in shame, in a manner resembling Seppuku. It's hard not to feel sorry for him in the end.
- Enoch Drebber has a lot of crap thrown at him, despite his high hopes of becoming a scientist, thanks to his low funding that led him to become a graverobber, which led him to accidentally discover The Professor rising from his grave, and when he tried to tell the truth, he got exposed as a graverobber and expelled from university, destroying his future in a blink of an eye. He then became an infamous fraudster who tried to murder the man who ruined his life, only to be beaten to the punch by his accomplice (who also wanted the victim dead).
Love to Hate: Magnus McGilded in Case 3 of Adventures is extremely popular with the fanbase, both before and after the game's official localization, for being a character the game is very good at making the player despise. With his Miscarriage of Justice often netting the same anger out-of-universe as it does in-universe. The case's popularity owes a great deal to them, for them leading the whole trial and playing both sides for fools, tampering with evidence and witnesses in a manner that's both shameless and impossible for either side to prove before the trial ends, thus averting Stupid Evil like many series culprits.
Magnificent Bastard: The culprit of case 5. Ashley Graydon is a former telegraph operator turned very talented criminal who successfully carries out his crimes with little difficulty. Following a deal made with Magnus McGilded, Graydon steals and conceals government secrets on custom music box disks created by his father to disguise the Morse code as just music. After a deal gone wrong with McGilded that results in his father's death, Graydon seeks vengeance for his father's death and successfully has McGilded murdered, with no evidence tracing him to the crime. After avenging his father's death, Graydon moves on to the next part of his plan to retrieve both disks, repeatedly coming up with backup schemes whenever his previous ones go wrong. Planning everything with razor-sharp efficiency, Graydon proves that he is no one's pawn in their game of chess.
Moral Event Horizon:
- An unusual example is the culprit of the first case of the second game, as what makes him a bad guy is the framing of the innocent Rei, and not the murder itself.
- The Big Bad of the second game crosses it by blackmailing Klint van Zieks into committing murders for him, including killing the previous Lord Chief Justice so Stronghart can get a promotion, and just keeps on going from there.
Most Wonderful Sound: People love Rina Takasaki's performance as Susato, especially "Haiiya!".
Narm:
- Some of the names the Japanese version uses for London characters can sound silly to native English speakers, like Hart Vortex, Adam Ladyfirst, and Egg Benedict, whose names were localized as Mael Stronghart, Lay D. Furst, and Eggert Benedict, respectively. The last is an alias, but in some ways that makes it even more silly.
- At one point in "The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro", how Ryunosuke and Susato react to hearing Soseki speaking Japanese. A problem arises in that regardless of player language, nothing about the dialogue indicates that the character's speech is any different from the others around them, as it will all be written out in Japanese or English.
Narm Charm:
- Barok van Zieks is WAY too over-dramatic to be a prosecutor in a courtroom, especially for the time period he's in. For example, his method of intimidating the defense is to slam his leg onto the bench, which is rather silly-looking to say the least, and spawned memes the moment it was seen in one of the promotional trailers. His bottle-throwing animation can also be hilarious sometimes, since the first time it happens you're likely not expecting him to casually throw a full bottle of wine over his shoulder and right into the audience's booths. Most people aren't too annoyed by these oddities because this is Ace Attorney after all, the game series of Courtroom Antics.
- The way the final villain is taken down, by use of a hologram system Sholmes and Iris made in 1900. Completely ridiculous and downright impossible? Yes. Absolutely amazing and cathartic to watch regardless? Also yes.
Older Than They Think:
- As silly as the Dub Name Change of "Herlock Sholmes" may sound, it's not the first time the name has been used; when Sherlock Holmes appeared in the Arsène Lupin short story "Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late", his name had to be changed to Herlock Sholmes after legal objections from Arthur Conan Doyle. He would show up again under that name in "Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes".
- The Monty Python references in the London backgrounds weren't added in the localization, they were present in the Japanese version too. (Courtesy of long-time series localizer Janet Hsu helping writing the English text for the London parts.)
- A few fans mistakenly believe everyone including minor characters having voice clips, as well as the player cross-examining multiple witnesses at once, were things that originated in this subseries, when they in fact had already appeared in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
Play-Along Meme: Many fans have taken to treating Sholmes' more outlandish deductions as true, such as anti-gravity bombs existing or Iris being related to the king of Germany.
Porting Disaster: The PC version, to a certain extent. While the port is fairly stable, there are a number of issues that have been identified. As of the game version at the time of this edit, mods can be implemented to (attempt to) fix the majority.
- The resolution selected and the actual resolution that you get do not match, which can result in pixelated graphics.
- CPU usage can become too high on certain threads. This is particularly noticeable when it leads to slowdown on certain particle effects, leading to (momentary) framedrops and desync on animations such as the jurors' flames and van Zieks crushing his chalices.
- Music is poorly compressed, leading to quality loss up to certain instruments being near-inaudible compared to the 3DS version and official soundtrack releases.
- Pitting jury members against each other may lead to crashes.
Salvaged Story: After the Jurist System in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney was set up to be a game-changing implementation, it was quietly abandoned by the time of Dual Destinies, leaving many fans to imagine how it could've been implemented into the game and story going forward. The Great Ace Attorney addresses this by having nearly the entire game hinge on a Jurist System, fully showing off what could've been for the main series both gameplay and story-wise.
Saved by the Fans: According to Takumi, Kazuma Asogi was supposed to have died in the first game. Kazuma coming back as the Masked Apprentice in the sequel was due to his immense popularity with the fans.
The Scrappy: Joan the maid, otherwise known as Joan Garrideb, John's wife, is not well-liked among fans, mainly because she physically abuses John Garrideb her husband (an older, disabled veteran) out of crazed, unreasoning jealousy and desire to manipulate him into covering up what she suspects to be a bad accident on her part several times, and the game generally treats the abuse as a source of comedy and concludes their story with an attempt to reaffirm their feelings for one another that falls flat in light of much of the above. She's also one of the least-liked culprits in the series, as her crime turns out to be an accident resulting from Disaster Dominoes, taking a long time to prove for such an anticlimactic payoff, and lying about her own culpability to serve as a juror on a case she was heavily involved with, a huge breach of legal ethics in the real world.
Scrappy Mechanic: The game sometimes forces you to investigate pieces of evidence in 3D in order to obtain additional information, which results in the evidence description being updated. This occasionally causes you to get penalized if you present a piece of evidence without the additional information added to the description, even if you know the significance of the evidence.
Sequel Difficulty Spike: The first game is much nearer in difficulty to the original Ace Attorney trilogy than the previously-released entry in the series, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, as it lacks that game's "consult" feature, doesn't have a memo system telling you what to do next during investigations (though Susato and Iris will at least give you a hint as to whether you're done investigating in your current area), and getting a "guilty" verdict will kick you back to either your most recent save or the start of the current trial chapter (the Chronicles Updated Re Release remedied this somewhat by allowing you to restart from the scene where you got the guilty verdict, a la Dual Destinies). On top of that, the game throws in a sneaky additional bit of difficulty in that you're expected to take the time to do a three-dimensional examination of every bit of evidence, and will get penalized even for presenting an obviously-correct piece of evidence if you haven't fully examined it beforehand, or if you pick options that were normally just harmless (outside of being called out) or for comic relief such as not presenting evidence when you should or just waiting for something to happen. It's not the hardest Ace Attorney game by any means, as the five-strike health system means it lacks the enormous penalties that Justice for All and, to a lesser extent, Trials and Tribulations were fond of throwing at you, but it's up there.
Ships That Pass in the Night: Despite most of their interactions happening off-screen and on a strictly formal basis, there's a rather large amount of ship art for Enoch Drebber x Madame Tusspells.
Shocking Moments:
- When the player starts to realize that Magnus McGilded actually did kill the victim of his trial and is now going to get acquitted. Also could apply to the fact that he dies before he can leave the courthouse.
- At the the start of the second game's final case, all is quiet in the Old Bailey, and the judge is conspicuously missing. Fifteen seconds later, and who's there to take his place other than Lord Mael Stronghart? Even players who rightfully predicted that Stronghart was a bad guy didn't see this twist coming.
- The final villain's breakdown in the second game is downright jaw-dropping and widely agreed to be one of the best in the series.
- Due to being a Spin-Off based during the Meiji Restoration period in a franchise notorious for its localization making its setting Japanifornia, many fans figured that the games would never release outside of Japan, especially since they were only available on the Nintendo 3DS at the time when that handheld was reaching the end of its lifespan. Then one day in 2021, Capcom decided to give the out-of-the-blue announcement that not only would the Duology be re-released on consoles, but said console version would come overseas as well, complete with an English Dub to boot! It even received a physical release, something the series hasn't seen overseas since Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth.
Slow-Paced Beginning: "The Adventure of the Great Departure" is the longest first case in the series, and the trial takes a while to really get going, between needing to introduce the new setting and cast, the obligatory tutorials, and the Japanese authorities trying to cover up Brett's existence. But most of all, the case is slow-burn Character Development for Ryunosuke, who isn't even a lawyer to begin with and starts the trial as a meek Yes-Man (literally), a huge contrast to the typical Large Ham Bunny-Ears Lawyer protagonists of the rest of the series. Many fans feel that seeing Ryunosuke's gradual progress from nervous schoolboy to a badass attorney is the real appeal of the case, especially the final takedown of the culprit, where "Pursuit" plays for the first time. It is then followed by a second case that is solely an investigation with no courtroom element, and a third that is only a court case with no investigation that deliberately ends anticlimactically.
Spiritual Successor: Ironically, the duology can be seen as one to Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, a game it's also literally a prequel to! A few factors make it feel like one: despite being Phoenix's Identical Grandfather, Ryunosuke is actually more similar to Apollo (especially in his first appearance) in terms of temperament and anxiety over his inexperience, and the Jurist System, which is infamously introduced in Apollo Justice as a major game-changer only to be quietly ignored in the next two main series games, sees its full realisation here. The fact that The Great Ace Attorney was helmed by Shu Takumi, who departed work on the main series following Apollo Justice, helps a lot, as well; since, technically, The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures was his first non-crossover Ace Attorney game since working on Apollo Justice, it's possible to read the three games consecutively as a thematic trilogy.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: "The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro" wasn't a particularly well-liked case for a number of reasons, such as Joan Garrideb and Roly Beate being Unintentionally Unsympathetic and the whole plot being a series of Contrived Coincidences. Its Sequel Episode in the second game, "The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro", has received very positive reception, due to hiding one of its bigger twists from the marketing (namely the victim actually survived his poisoning) and for having essentially two villains, both of whom were well-received. Some have called it the best second case in the series.
Suspiciously Similar Song: "One Journo's Menimemoism", Menimemo's theme song, is said to sound like a jauntier version of the theme song from The X-Files.
That One Achievement:
- Pillow Perfectionist, the special Accolade of the first game's second case, is a bit counter-intuitive. The game tells you to examine the bed, but neither the bed in Kazuma's cabin or in Pavlova's cabin next door can be examined during the investigation. Instead, you have to wait until the last playable portion of the case, in which you revisit what Kazuma was looking at before Pavlova pushed him, and select the bed instead of the wardrobe.
- Sulky's Story, the secret Accolade associated with the first game's final case, requires you to pursue both the Skulkin brothers when they aren't reacting to anything. Not only is this something that is not required to advance the game, but being a secret Accolade, it's highly unlikely you'll think to do it unless you consult a guide.
That One Level: The first game's fourth case is up there with Turnabout Big Top and Turnabout Serenade as one of the most disliked cases in the series to some fans, with a very short investigation segment that doesn't result in much evidence, a plot full of Contrived Coincidences, a lot of unlikeable characters, and the whole "crime" turning out to be a completely accidental case of Disaster Dominoes. It amounts to not much more than an extended prequel to the second game's second case, which was much better received. The only thing liked about the case is Soseki Natsume.
That One Puzzle: Case 3 of Adventures has multiple contradictions that require a very thorough 3D examination of the Omnibus before the game will accept it as a Present, the blood on the skylight in particular is one that stumps many players. It doesn't help that you have to open the skylight from outside the omnibus and then go inside the omnibus in order to find the bloodstain, rather than examining the skylight.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- To some fans, Magnus McGilded comes off as this. The fact that he manages to get off scot-free for his murder of Mason Milverton makes him an interesting antagonist, since it's quite rare in this series for the defendant to have orchestrated the victim's death, whether directly or indirectly, and McGilded proves himself to be quite cunning and intriguing in his trial performance, so it seems like he'll make quite a formidable foe. Instead, right after the verdict, he's killed off, and though the extend of his misdeeds is exposed in a later case, ultimately, his motivation for buying government secrets is never explained. Hence, some fans wish that McGilded had instead acted as a recurring villain for Ryunosuke to take down later.
- Many fans wish "Ryutaro Naruhodo" from the sequel were playable in more than one case, as she has new "Objection" and "Prelude" themes in contrast to the reused music in the rest of the trials, has a fun design and manages to be both hilarious and awesome.
- Rei Membami is a close friend of Susato's (even described as her "best friend" in the English localisation) and a student of Yujin Mikotoba and John Wilson with an amusingly quirky personality. One would think that she'd be an important part of Susato's life, especially since her and Susato's relationship has parallels to Ryunosuke and Kazuma's, but she only appears in the first case and the end credits of the second game.
- Courtney Sithe in the second game. Pre-release materials build her up as a major figure in the plot, "The head coroner of Scotland Yard, who works at the forefront of the legal system's march towards forensic science." This could have led to some interesting themes to explore. Instead, she's the killer of the first case she appears in, and is promptly arrested and is only mentioned in passing afterward. It's especially aggravating considering Stronghart describes her as his right-hand woman, which could have tied this case more strongly to the Reaper conspiracy if she had been ordered to take out Odie Asman to continue this legend instead of simply being a desperate move to get out of a blackmail situation.
- Many of the jurors have fun designs and quirky personalities, meaning they could easily stand as proper characters of their own, however, most of them don't even get names (besides the ones who appear as witnesses like John Garrideb and Bruce Fairplay) and their participation is often restricted to the Summation Examination and final verdict. The worst example by far is Vilen Borshevik, a Russian revolutionary who is built up as an important figure all the way back in Case 2, but eventually, he does nothing more than being Juror 6 in Case 5. The only ones who seem to avert this are Quinby Altamont and Evie Vigil from the second game.
- Many of the one-off witnesses, such as Gotts and Balthazar Lune, have interesting designs and quirks, but they disappear as soon as the game is done with them in court, so a lot of potentially interesting character interactions with them are never explored.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- For a game set at the turn on the century, very little is done with the setting of Meiji Japan. It only has two cases set in it, the first being at a Western style restaurant and the second at a beach hut, places that can be found anywhere. Compare that to Victorian London, which has seven cases set in it and as such can feature more distinctive and exclusive settings for its cases.
- The third case of Resolve reveals that Gregson took Gina under his wing so that she might also become an inspector. It would have been interesting to see how their relationship develops over time, had it not been for the fact Gregson dies in the immediate next case.
- Iris turns out to be Klint Van Zieks's daughter, and therefore Barok's niece, yet this fact is only revealed after the final trial is over. There could have been some neat emotional drama if either found out the truth while Barok was in the defendant's chair. As a result, a possible character interaction has never been explored the way it could have been.
- The final culprit presents a dilemma that the story fails to fully capitalize on. Stronghart is a criminal who utilized murder and blackmail to climb his way to the top of the legal system, but his actions have had an undeniably positive effect on the country and his ultimate end goal is to become Attorney General so that he can make forensic science a cornerstone of the justice system. Likewise, he points out that several of his associates were also figures involved in the British government and aristocracy, whose involvement in his crimes are substantial and could undermine public trust in the government. This could have led to a genuine test of Ryunosuke's resolve to see the truth always uncovered, with him having to choose between keeping true to his morals and risking the British Justice System collapsing or letting Stronghart get away and keeping the system stable. Ultimately, Queen Victoria herself intervenes to hold Stronghart accountable for all of the corruption involved, meaning the characters aren't pressed to address the lawless scenario he'd otherwise painted.
- At several points during the game, several characters lampshade the suspicious nature of the jury selection. Despite the fact that juries are supposed to be comprised of six individuals chosen at random from London's population of six million, bizarre coincidences continually pop up, including Ryunosuke running into the same jurors in multiple cases, witnesses to the case being selected as jurors, the jurors having pertinent experience related to the particulars of the case, so on and so forth. The coincidences are so abnormal, it seems to suggest — particularly with the characters' constant references to it — that there must be some sort of intent behind it, either a malign attempt to rig the outcome of the trial, or someone working at cross-purposes to the prosecution to ensure the defence always has the tools they need to come out on top. One could easily imagine characters like Stronghart or Sholmes using this method to put their thumb on the scales of justice. Yet this plot point is all but dropped in the second game and never really explored, meaning that, canonically, those coincidences are just that: sheer random happenstance so statistically unlikely it beggars belief.
Underused Game Mechanic: The jury. In Adventures, it appears in three cases, and there are a total of five Summation Examinations. However, in Resolve, it appears in only two cases (with one of them almost re-using the same set of jurors from one of the previous game's cases), with a total of three Summation Examinations, and the jury mechanic goes away for good in Case 4, which (alongside Case 5) follows the standard trial format from the mainline games.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- 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 chapter, 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.
- 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.
Unexpected Character: Who would have guessed that Sherlock Holmes would appear in an Ace Attorney spin-off? Or for that matter, for the localization to rename him as Herlock Sholmes, after the Captain Ersatz version of him that was a rival to Arsène Lupin?
Waggle: The characters spending a ton of time talking about stereoscopes in the final case of the first game, in addition to using one becoming relevant to solving the case, which is quite obviously just trying to shoehorn in the Nintendo 3DS' 3D capabilities into a case. This is especially so in the Compilation Re-release, which lacks the 3D screen, so the dialogue about stereoscopes looks even more out of place.
The Woobie:
- Nikolina Pavlova is a young girl severely overworked in her home country with her only friend being a cat. Hoping to escape, she accidentally gets into a confrontation with Kazuma Asogi, pushing him over and accidentally killing him. Scared out of her mind and unable to comprehend her situation, she turns to a sailor for help, which ends up with him being imprisoned for trying to cover up the crime for her. Fortunately for her, the second game reveals that Kazuma actually survived the incident and he forgives her, and she is granted refuge in another country, giving her tragic tale a happy end.
- Olive Green's fiancé, Duncan Ross, was killed by gas fumes in his home one night, which she blames herself for even now. His death sent her into a deep, inescapable depression, as her lifeless sprites suggest. Then she realized it might have been a murder, rather than an accident. In order to be sure, she conceived a plot that would reveal to her, once and for all, if the death of Duncan was just an accident. She was then stabbed in the back in a freak accident. Had Sholmes not intervened, she would have killed herself with the poison she bought on the black market.
- Satoru Hosonaga. Everyone he tries to protect dies, and he berates himself for this every time. Combine it with the fact that he's constantly coughing up blood from a buckwheat allergy he's not even aware of, and you have a person that gives off some serious "comfort me" vibes.
- Soseki Natsume gets accused of attempted murder twice in the span of three days, Shamspeare tries to kill him by poisoning him with his gas and he's left terrified that he'll be killed by the Reaper unless he flees the country. Even apart from this, he has a rather miserable time in Great Britain, being forced to eke out a living on his student stipend, thus forcing him to take up residence in the Garridebs' boarding house and thus causing the entire mess.
- Gina Lestrade is an orphaned teenager pickpocketing people on London's streets just to survive. While hiding in an omnibus, she witnesses a murder and is forced to help cover it up under the threat of being kicked out of her only home by Magnus McGilded. After barely avoiding going to jail for a framed murder — instead going to jail for other crimes — things finally turn up for her as she's taken as Gregson's apprentice... and then Gregson gets killed, turning her into a grieving mess.
- Daley Vigil gets scapegoated for Genshin Asogi's escape and fired for something he didn't do, resulting in him attempting suicide out of shock and despair. He survives, but he's so traumatized by the revelation that he blocks out the memory and, out of a job, is forced to be a gossipmonger. He gets recruited by Gregson to play the part of Gregson's stand-in, but as a result of that, he nearly gets framed for Gregson's murder in van Zieks' stead. After his identity and true secret are exposed, he's constantly on the verge of having a mental breakdown. Even Barry Caidin, who made him the scapegoat in the first place and fired him, couldn't even put into words how sorry he was when he was standing alongside Daley, prompting a harsh, dejected response on how there's nothing he could ever say. Barry also talking about how it was necessary and that he was just following orders doesn't really help either.
Woolseyism:
- The localization retains the Meiji Era setting and the main Japanese characters keep their original names, but most of everyone else's names retain the wordplay-based conventions the previous entries have set for the series.
  - Interestingly this also includes Japanese characters getting renamed to create Japanese-sounding names that still carry the Punny Names to an English speaker when read aloud (for instance Heita Mamemomi is renamed to "Raiten Menimemo"^note"Writing many memos" in the localization, despite already being Japanese).
- Hart Vortex becomes Mael Stronghart, which is not only a legitimate name, and a meaningful one at that, it also references the original due to sounding like "Maelstrom".
- Nikomina Borsevich was changed to Nikolina Pavlova, which not only is an actually Slavic given name, but references actual legendary Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova while at the same time retaining the Edible Theme Naming. This has the added benefit of freeing the name "Borshevik" to be used by the actual Russian revolutionary in the case. Additionally, the case involves Nikolina reflexively acting when she thinks Kazuma is about to ring a bell, much like Pavlov's Behavioral Conditioning.
- As recounted on this blog post by localization director Janet Hsu, Juror No. 5 in Harebrayne's trial originally just repeats "guilty, not guilty" when munching on corn. The English localization changes it to "Nibble nobble guilty bobble, nibble not guilty out," based on the English schoolyard counting song "Ibble Obble".

YMMV / The Great Ace Attorney

Alternative Title(s): Dai Gyakuten Saiban, Dai Gyakuten Saiban Naruhodou Ryuunosuke No Bouken

YMMV / The Great Ace Attorney

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Alternative Title(s): Dai Gyakuten Saiban, Dai Gyakuten Saiban Naruhodou Ryuunosuke No Bouken