Thoughts on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Having played Ghost Trick recently and greatly enjoyed it, I was really excited to play another Shu Takumi game, Ace attorney thread I guess, spoilers ahead.

>The "puzzles" are well-made and mostly logical, the mystery of how the murderer did it leaves you intrigued and makes you want to play the game to find out, unfortunately the game reveals some murderers at the beggining of the case, removing the element of 'who did it', Case 3 does it right by not revealing the killer, making you wondering if the guy you are defending might actually be the murderer. Case 4 might be the case where "revealing" the killer makes it more interesting however

>Music is good, and visuals albeit limited are great too. The music that plays when a sudden fact is revealed or when tables turn on your favor adds a lot of excitement to the game. The sharp cuts and sound effects are great too

>There are some great characters in this game, my favorite being Gumshoe, also every witness is for the most part likeable (e,g. Oldbag). Maya is the character I like the least, and can be a bit annoying sometimes, which is a big problem since she participates in every conversation you do

>The press mechanic at first was really fun, squeezing out some trivial information and using that information as evidence of contradiction was awesome. But later I found it to be time consuming and brainless, there isn't a penalty, and there isn't skill

>Making movement more convenient would be a godsend, especially when you need to find a certain item and you are unsure where it is, leading you to examine the background of every area. Case 3 is the chapter which suffers from this the most, if you are at the trailer and wants to go to the dressing room, you need to backtrack through 5 areas

>The examine action makes me conflicted. It feels great to examine something and later have the object you examined tie-in which the murder case, but it's boring to examine a whole area and have nothing useful

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Have you done case 5 yet ? It's nice but pretty long and also has some annoying backtracking. But if I remember correctly I think 1-3 is by far the worst offender in the series as far as obnoxious backtracking is concerned.
I always felt Press and Examine were mostly there for the potential funny dialog (and even worldbuilding sometimes) you can get out of it first and helpful tips second, but since 90% of Examine banter involves Maya, I understand why you wouldn't be too keen on the feature. The following games have a really nice mechanic for the investigation parts which makes them more enjoyable and helps with the tedium of Move->Talk->Examine.
Though I'm pretty sure if you play the whole trilogy Maya is bound to grow on you, even if just in an annoying little sister sort of way.
Also it's definitely impressive how much personality the characters in AA games have when they each have about 6 different sprites.

The series peaked with the first game. Later entries become more "whacky" and rely too hard on the meta of the series.

Wait till you play Great Ace Attorney

No, I haven't done case 5 yet.
>But if I remember correctly I think 1-3 is by far the worst offender in the series as far as obnoxious backtracking is concerned.
I think it wouldn't be so bad if they introduced this mechanic at the first trial. Case 4 was the case I enjoyed the most outside of the trials, having the metal detector tie-in with the murder case was a genius moment.

>The following games have a really nice mechanic for the investigation parts which makes them more enjoyable and helps with the tedium of Move->Talk->Examine.
I'm glad for that, it wasn't that much of a problem, but still an annoyance, good to know the games get better in this regard.

>Also it's definitely impressive how much personality the characters in AA games have when they each have about 6 different sprites.
Takumi has a knack for creating some great characters.

This is all that needs to be said.

How are the Edgeworth games?
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>unfortunately the game reveals some murderers at the beggining of the case, removing the element of 'who did it'
I think that was a nod at Columbo.

Really? One thing that bothered me at first was all the "whackyness" in case 2. Case 1 was fairly normal and grounded in reality, so when they started talking about spirits mediums and Mia actually being possesing maya's corpse, It was kind of an iffy moment, especially when the case was solved because Mia pulled a fucking note out of nowhere. After case 2 I accepted the whacky world, which made case 4 whackyness looks normal.

I'm working on case 5 now actually. It feels a bit quirkier than the previous ones so far, though I think that's mostly Marshall's doing.
Curious how the rest of it will go, but the new mechanics introduced here are a bit jarring. I know it was made after the original game, but still feels a bit out of place.
Maybe it's just me but it feels like it was wacky from the very start. Granted I haven't dived into the others outside of the bits I've seen in the past, but still.

>it's an user plays Ace Attorney thread
>it's an user has fun with Ace Attorney thread
>it's an user will inevitably become as jaded and broken as the rest of us when he sees how the series jumps the shark thread

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Not gonna lie. The 'pursuit' theme is just great (the one that plays when you turn the table)

They're pretty good and expand on Edgeworth while you're more on the offensive. You have to slog trough the first, to really enjoy the second (which has one of the most kino villains in the whole series). Also... rather than a persecutor, Edgeworth is more like a detective.

>jumps the shark
Without spoiling too much, what happens? Is it as said?

There is truth to that, yes. Personally, I think the first three games are fairly good, even if the second is kind of a step backwards due to being pushed out fairly quickly after the first.

Once you hit games 4 - 6, though, there is a noticeable decline in the quality. You still have good cases, but the writer changes after 4 and things get really over the top.

They fucked up my boy Phoenix

In 4 you get a time skip and you're introduced to a new protagonist (I.e. not spoiler, the game is literally called Apollo Justice), but he was pretty bad.
This ended up badly, so in 5 they go back to Phoenix and switch up with yet a new introduced lead. In 6 they just switch between those. Shit gets more crazy everytime with the plot

1-2 are definitely the more grounded ones.

I Was planning to only play the original trilogy for the moment, good to know the quality is fairly consistent between those. I Have seen the quantity of these game and was worried the quality would drop, sad to be the case in later games.

Yeah case 5 is very much a product of its time with its touchscreen/microphone gimmicks. And yeah, Marshall and later Meekins are pretty wacky but they do provide some levity which lends more impact to the serious moments of the case. I guess that's one of the weakness of the Yamazaki games, they never really drop the humorous aspect while trying to play up the gravity of cases even further which hurts the games as a whole.
Takumi wanted to do only 3 games around Phoenix Wright. So when he was asked to do AA4 he went for something different. The game was poorly received for trying to change too much, though most people find that AA4 has one of the best Soundtrack in the series.
As a result AA5 and AA6 went to far the other way, trying to do everything like the trilogy but bigger. Wacky character are wackier and the stakes are higher, to a ridiculous degree. Also they were not done by Takumi if that's what you are after.

They're good. 2 more so than 1.
There's no reason not to play the whole franchise, you're just never going to get a package as good as the first again. 2 was super rushed and the last case is the only really strong one. 3 is pretty good but relies heavily on long term investment and retcons. 4 is split between two great and awful cases. 5 and 6 feel a bit tired. The Investigations games lean REALLY hard into you already knowing the way stuff plays out in the series.

It's all good enough and worth playing. You might even enjoy a sequel more than the first. But none of the sequels are as strong as standalone games.

Great Ace Attorney 1 and 2 have the inverse, where 1 is a much weaker game. AA vs Layton is way more Layton than AA.

Investigations 2 is a pretty solid title as well, though you have to play Investigations to get to it, which felt more average/mediocre.

4 - 6 are okay, but they're really unfocused to the point where it's clear the game writers were just trying to sell more Ace Attorney rather than tell a story they had in mind.

It continues to ramp up each game.

My problem with the PW games was the spirit maiden bullshit and T&T is swimming in it.

>Nearly a dozen games.
>The best track in the series is from the first title.
youtu.be/OwpnmTXBidw

If it isn't worse than Kingdom Hearts I can handle it.
Takumi is definitely a big factor as to why I started playing, but I'm going to try to play all the games.

>as us
Nah you better kill yourself, the only mediocre game in the series is 5

That and it really starts wearing out jokes and flattening characters into gags. The original game ended decisively (Gumshoe risks his job and likely gets fired to help you on the case, which is exactly what his archetype tends to do in these kinds of stories, Phoenix's personal arc is finished with Mia leaving him on his own, Maya finds closure for her family's murders, etc). The second game just rolls things back and makes them even more absurd, and this pattern never ceases. Edgeworth goes from merely being a fan of a kid's tv show to being a fanatic, Gumshoe's salary getting cut got so old they just dropped him entirely for 4-6, prosecutors get increasingly gimmicky with 5 and 6 only barely course correcting, etc.

In terms of absurdity it gets a bit annoyingly "shonen anime" in the final games, but it never goes far enough to ruin the story. In terms of quality it never really drops below "okay." And, again, Investigations and Great Ace Attorney were nice shakeups that got better in their second installments. It's worth playing them all, just pace yourself.

4 wanted to be a story about a new protagonist and wound up ultimately making the guy irrelevant in the end so that the story could focus on Phoenix again.

Half of 6's cases were meandering and served no purpose. That whole game would've been better served being about Apollo instead of forcing in Maya again for no reason.

Started playing this series as a junior in high school. Had a job at Gamestop part time and they would let me check out used games. I see this game and am like wtf why not just go for it? Instantly fall in love. The third game is one of my favorite games of all time. The circus case in the second game is the absolute worst. Apollo Justice gets more shit than it deserves its not its fault that it was piss easy. Ghost Trick is also one of my favorite games holy shit I want to play it again now.

Big Top > Spirit Channeling case
The culprit was actually fun in Big Top.

I put 4 up there for the most part. The case wrap-together was excellent and his special mechanic makes 'pressing' interesting. I prefer it to what Phoenix gets and it feels like less of a leap. A few small problems aside, I'd argue it as a great entry and what could have been a great conclusion/era end if Takumi's replacement didn't handwave it off in the next game.

I'd definitely recommend it as a follow up. It works as its own thing but is a real treat (depending on who you ask and not in the way you might think) for fans of Phoenix.

Don't look up info. It's most enjoyed if you get through the initial three and have fun with them first.

>Without spoiling too much, what happens?
the trilogy is good with the first game being the peak, after apollo it all went to shit. That's it.

>4 wanted to be a story about a new protagonist and wound up ultimately making the guy irrelevant in the end
4 had broader intentions than Apollo. He also wasn't made irrelevant: he was central to the progression considering Phoenix' circumstances and even stays on as a player character with his own development moving forward.

The supernatural element pissed me off. I wish it was more grounded in reality, I would find that more fun than psychics and ghosts and shit.

>with his own development moving forward.
Does having THREE fucking dead fathers count as development?

I don't know how far they go in 5->, but at the least, they didn't go past the initial rules they set for it. The case or two involving that family are relatively grounded, so I'm also pleased with that. Not my preference, though.