The Ace Attorney Series

I think L'Belle being super obvious as a killer works to 5-2's advantage, because knowing L'Belle did it doesn't actually explain anything about the case, or how the murder stuff happened. 5-2 is a great locked room mystery, and the obvious killer helps that part out.

Edited by Joshbones on May 26th 2021 at 8:44:11 AM

It's not really a Captain Obvious Reveal because the opening cutscene outright shows him doing it.

For as much as Dual Destinies tries to pay lip-service to how dark and bleak it is, nothing beats out Apollo Justice as the Dark Age of the Law except for MAYBE Investigations II. Certainly not a game that spends all of its runtime trying to be the goofiest entry in the series.

The DLC case was good, though.

In a hypothetical Apollo Justice tweaking that doesn't fully rewrite the story, I'd suggest the following.

Case 1: New tutorial case that has Kristoph in the mentor seat. Basically The First Turnabout, but with Apollo and Kristoph.

Case 2: The Wocky case. This is where Apollo's bracelet could start acting up, leading to the beginning of a divide between him and Kristoph since he's using crazy eye powers over evidence. Not sure if I'd have Phoenix and Trucy still introduced here or kept off the board until Case 3, though.

Case 3: The case where Kristoph is revealed to be evil. If excluded from Case 2, maybe give Trucy a little more presence here to make up for her exclusion.

Case 4: The dumb case with Machi.

Case 5: The last case.

Edited by Azulmagia on May 26th 2021 at 10:13:02 AM

But then Wright isn't Apollo's mentor.

He doesn’t need to be in every case. In fact, Hobo Phoenix showing up at the halfway point sounds really cool.

Well somebody is going to have to clue Apollo in to trust The Force his kinetic vision. Fortunately, Kristoph and Phoenix started out the game as friends, so Phoenix could be in a position to council Apollo at the proper time.

The bigger problem with putting "Corner" prior to "Trump" is how Apollo got hired for the former. Specifically, the motive of the person who procured him: IIRC, Alita wanted Wocky to lose so that she didn't have to wait for him to die to get his inheritance. She happened upon the Wright Anything Agency because they were (re)opening their law branch, so they seemed like the perfect pawn in her scheme. I strongly doubt that she would pursue Kristoph due to his experience; even if she did so, Kristoph would likely see right through her and refuse the case.

Another issue with having "Trump" not be the first case is that it would require Klavier to be the prosecutor for it. This is not necessarily a bad thing: it may actually substantiate the Cain and Abel plot point between him and Kristoph, though at the potential cost of it climaxing early. This aspect of the change needs to be handled with due care. But the Cain and Abel aspect did seem slightly underdone in the actual game, allowing for conjecture regarding a certain contentious aspect of "Successor" especially in light of "For Tomorrow". Likewise, moving the Cain and Abel aspect up 2 cases could allow for Klavier to demonstrate doubts about the case that got Phoenix disbarred. It wouldn't really add anything to "Serenade", but it could make for good Foreshadowing.

The relationship between Klavier and Kristoph is barely explored at all in the game. It may not have been technically necessary but it feels like there was a lot of lost potential there. I can only see them interacting more in the game as a positive.

Edited by Draghinazzo on May 27th 2021 at 10:41:53 AM

But then Apollo doesn't have as close of a relationship with Wright and Trucy.

Edited by Cortez on May 28th 2021 at 4:00:11 AM

I don't mind Klavier not exploring his relation with kristoph because while it contribute to making the game not Apollo's, Klavier being so unashemedly "there are two lawyers in the courtroom and i'm one of them" is a surprisingly powerful contrast to every prosecutor in the series that gives him a very distinct personality. Kristoph being there to antagonize him would have taken away from that imo.

I will take literally anything to make Klavier interesting.

We only have 2 examples of interaction between the brothers: Klavier's first case and "Successor". In the former, Kristoph's original motive for forging vital evidence was to beat Klavier, with the likely base question of "who's the better brother?" That and his cool demeanor during "Trump" and the MASON sequence lend me to believe that Kristoph would be more Passive-Aggro towards Klavier than straight antagonistic. To mangle an old saying, it's like: "I don't care if he's 2nd or 92nd, so long as I'm better than him, preferably 1st".

Privately, during the 2nd case, Kristoph could try to set Apollo against Klavier much like he set Klavier against Phoenix; making Apollo the "Brash Junior" to Kristoph's "Reasonable Senior" from Klavier's perspective. And it would work on us because we'd be used to seeing unfair/harsh prosecutors from earlier games; making the dual realization that Klavier really is on the up-and-up and that Kristoph is a Manipulative Bastard that much more meaningful even if it is stretched through 2 non-consecutive cases.

The more I consider it, the more palatable having 2 cases with Kristoph prior to "Trump" sounds. I'm just not sure that the 2nd one can be "Corner", for reasons I explained in my prior post (albeit in spoilers).

I don't know. I felt like Kristoph getting exposed as a murderer in the very first case was an establishing moment for the game, coupled with Phoenix revealing the forged card right after, but I completely agree that Kristoph needed much more screentime, especially togheter with Apollo. I remember there was one fan case where Apollo defended Kristoph at his appeal... it was from the same author of Turnabout Tomorrow, I think. Although it was not completely in good faith there... It'd be quite an opportunity to show Apollo's trust for his mentor Kristoph over even his idol Phoenix.

Here's a really good interview with Janet Hsu about the unique challenges localizing The Great Ace Attorney entailed and how some of her own experiences as an immigrant informed some of her localization decisions.

So as expected the localization team is going "Yep Ryounosuke is Phoenix's great-grandfather still, but he immigrated from Japan to Japanifornia at some point"

...Where did we get "Japanifornia" from? Or, more specifically, the California part of it?

Edited by fredhot16 on Jun 6th 2021 at 9:14:32 AM

California has a large Japanese migrant population. Probably due to being the point of entry for people who'd come from Asia. So when a setting like Phoenix Wright combines Japanese and American culture, 'Japanifornia' is what you get.

Edited by Resileafs on Jun 6th 2021 at 12:16:36 PM

also IIRC one of the games, or maybe it was something else, just outright places it in Los Angeles?

Edited by Nouct on Jun 6th 2021 at 9:26:08 AM

I heard that but I never saw it in any of the localizations.

Well, there's the big-ass movie studio nearby.

Spirit of Justice mentions it, but I believe before then it was never directly alluded to and was basically just confirmed as the intention by the localization staff.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Jun 6th 2021 at 2:05:59 PM

Gumshoe has a throwaway line in 3-5 that implies he lives in Compton which is like, south LA.

Kristoph's envelope in 4-4 has a California address on it but the texture is too low-res to decipher beyond "CA".

... I'm imagining this is how the Wright family got their localized surname.

Immigration: So your last name is Naruhudo?

Ryounosuke: Right.

Immigration: Oh, I'm sorry. Wright it is.

Sadly, that is completely realistic.

Eh?

Edit: “Well, there's the big-ass movie studio nearby”

...Don’t other states have movie studios?

Edited by fredhot16 on Jun 6th 2021 at 4:45:18 AM

Many surnames you might find in America are the results of immigration officials back in the 1800s (I think) mangling the names of immigrants either due to mishearing or misspelling.