Rate the Ace Attorney case: The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo (G2-5)

Rules:

1. Rate each case on a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Anything above 10 gets rounded down to a 10, and anything below a 1 gets rounded up to a 1.
2. Anything beyond one decimal point will be rounded accordingly: .04 and below will be rounded down, .05 and up will be rounded up.
3. You may grade on any criteria you like.
4. You can rate cases from previous topics if you miss a topic.

Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PiEuURt1qf19VoYzcFCU1EFa8uqs2teJiVcip7JmjDw/edit?usp=sharing

Previous Results:

Bridge to the Turnabout (3-5) - 9.8 (37 votes)
Farewell, My Turnabout (2-4) - 9.7 (30 votes)
Turnabout Revolution (6-5) - 9.6 (25 votes)
Turnabout Goodbyes (1-4) - 9.2 (32 votes)
The Return of the Great Departed Soul (G2-3) - 9.0 (19 votes)
Turnabout Reclaimed (5-6) - 8.8 (23 votes)
The Golden Court (L-3) - 8.6 (14 votes)
The Inherited Turnabout (E2-3) - 8.5 (16 votes)
Turnabout Beginnings (3-4) - 8.4 (26 votes)
The Rite of Turnabout (6-3) - 8.4 (22 votes)
Rise from the Ashes (1-5) - 8.2 (28 votes)
The Stolen Turnabout (3-2) - 8.2 (24 votes)
The Adventure of the Runaway Room (G1-3) - 8.2 (20 votes)
Turnabout For Tomorrow (5-5) - 7.9 (27 votes)
The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro (G2-2) - 7.6 (18 votes)
Turnabout Memories (3-1) - 7.4 (30 votes)
Turnabout Samurai (1-3) - 7.4 (29 votes)
Turnabout Academy (5-3) - 7.4 (27 votes)
Twisted Karma and His Last Bow (G2-4) - 7.4 (17 votes)
The Grand Turnabout (E2-5) - 7.3 (16 votes)
The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story (G1-5) - 7.2 (21 votes)
Turnabout Target (E2-1) - 7.1 (17 votes)
Turnabout Trump (4-1) - 6.9 (25 votes)
The Magical Turnabout (6-2) - 6.7 (22 votes)
Recipe for Turnabout (3-3) - 6.6 (27 votes)
The Fire Witch (L-2) - 6.6 (14 votes)
Reunion, and Turnabout (2-2) - 6.5 (25 votes)
The Monstrous Turnabout (5-2) - 6.5 (23 votes)
The Adventure of the Great Departure (G1-1) - 6.0 (20 votes)
Turnabout Ablaze (E1-5) - 6.0 (19 votes)
The Cosmic Turnabout (5-4) - 5.9 (24 votes)
The Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney (G2-1) - 5.8 (20 votes)
Turnabout Sisters (1-2) - 5.7 (25 votes)
Turnabout Reminiscence (E1-4) - 5.6 (22 votes)
Turnabout Storyteller (6-4) - 5.3 (21 votes)
The Imprisoned Turnabout (E2-2) - 5.3 (16 votes)
The Forgotten Turnabout (E2-4) - 5.2 (16 votes)
The Foreign Turnabout (6-1) - 5.0 (23 votes)
Turnabout Visitor (E1-1) - 5.0 (20 votes)
The Final Witch Trial (L-4) - 5.0 (13 votes)
The First Turnabout (1-1) - 4.9 (25 votes)
The Kidnapped Turnabout (E1-3) - 4.6 (22 votes)
English Turnabout (L-1) - 4.3 (14 votes)
Turnabout Airlines (E1-2) - 4.2 (22 votes)
Turnabout Countdown (5-1) - 4.1 (24 votes)
Turnabout Corner (4-2) - 4.0 (25 votes)
The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro (G1-4) - 3.9 (21 votes)
Turnabout Time Traveler (6-6) - 3.9 (19 votes)
Turnabout Big Top (2-3) - 3.7 (25 votes)
Turnabout Succession (4-4) - 3.5 (24 votes)
The Lost Turnabout (2-1) - 3.3 (27 votes)
The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band (G1-2) - 3.2 (18 votes)
Turnabout Serenade (4-3) - 2.7 (24 votes)

G2-4 proved difficult to rank, as the case ends midway through the case. That said, the investigation portion proved to have some good moments, particularly Gregson's death, the Dance of Deduction, Yujin Mikatoba's actual role, and Kazuma's new theme. Some liked the character development and the Trial 1 witnesses. Most did not like that this is an incomplete case and other complaints include the Trial 1 witnesses and some of the development not really making sense.

Summary:

For ten years, the Reaper of the Old Bailey has claimed the life of anyone who escaped prosecutor van Zieks' trials. Now, Ryunosuke, Sholmes, and all their partners come together to find the truth behind these deaths and shine light on the darkness enveloping London's courts once and for all.

Main Characters : Ryunosuke Naruhodo, Susato Mikotoba, Yujin Mikotoba, Seishiro Jigoku, Mael Stronghart, Herlock Sholmes, Iris Wilson, Barok van Zieks, Gina Lestrade, Tobias Gregson, The Judge of the Old Bailey, Kazuma Asogi
Other Characters: Tchikin Strogenov, Daley Vigil, Barry Caiden, Klint van Zieks, Genshin Asogi

My rating: 6.5/10. We're at the finish line! I enjoyed this finale. I know many have their issues with Stronghart, but I generally liked him a lot. Gant but stretched out to be a full game antagonist rather than a single case antagonist worked quite well. It's the E1-5 culprit but it actually makes sense why we can't get him since everyone is compromised. Kazuma is.....fine, but I feel like he's just too much on the periphery here. I generally liked the trial all the way up to the end. I'm sure many have their issues with the ending starting with hologram Sholmes. I agree with it, but....eh, I'm not entirely sure if Takumi is the person to come up with a good and adequate answer to how do you fix a corrupt government.

8/10

I dunno. Why don't I like it more? Why doesn't it land better for me? It's a good case, but it just fails to reach the upper echelons for me. I find most of this case to be strangely forgettable - I couldn't really recount many details about the murder, even though I remember finding the gameplay in this case quite difficult. Yeah, obviously the Dance of Deduction here is great, obviously taking down Jigoku is fun, all of the story reveals are entertaining... I don't know. I wish I could explain why GAA2 all falls flat for me. It feels too rushed, it feels like it has no chance to breathe. And yeah, the ending deus ex machina of "we'll just tattle on the Queen" feels like a copout, lol. I dunno. I do really like that this case got some new music at least, that was a fun twist, but it was also a letdown that it was just a continuation of the previous case. Like everything in GAA2 I liked it but I didn't quite like it as much as I wish I did.

Eh, I think I was a bit harsh on it. I'll raise it to an 8/10.

10/10

Again, I'm giving this and the prior case tens because taken together I truly think it's the third best case in the series after 2-4 and 3-5

6

the many strange trial days made it feel disjointed in a way almost no other AA cases feel

7/10 sounds about right.

This just kinda feels like going through all the motions G2-4 set up. All the cool stuff was revealed in the first half, but by the break, you pretty much know that Jigoku is the murderer and Stronghart is the big bad; it's just a matter of how you take them both down.

The Dance of Deduction here is by far the coolest part. Sholmes busting an incorporeal move in court made me bust out laughing and just stare at my screen for a solid 3 minutes when it first happened, but then it was followed up by the realization that he's just gonna win the case for me outright, and by invoking the royal family to boot. Yuck.

5/10

It has its moments, but a lot of it feels unsatisfying, and theme aside I'm really not a fan of Kazuma as a prosecutor.

8/10

The case entitled "The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo" is solved by Sholmes wiretapping Stronghart and letting the queen listen in, all right then. The ending is pretty dumb despite the Sholmes antics.

I really like the Professor stuff and the truth about Klint and Kazuma's father, but I'm with Para. There's just something about it that didn't have the emotional impact a good Ace Attorney finale usually evokes. I can't really explain it either. I need to replay these games and cement my feelings on them. So yeah, it's good, but I can't call it great.

8

8

The ending deus ex machina is really stupid and sours the case. But the rest of the case is still strong.

7

G2-4: 7
G2-5: 7

I hated the hologram thing.

9

Mostly great! Good sense of mystery and stuff. It had a great plot twist or two, but the ending was a bit disappointing and I thought the villains were kind of lame. It was kind cool to go up against "him" as a prosecutor, but he lacks the charisma of Van Zieks and most other prosecutors in the series, which drops the score a bit.

7/10

Oh phew, I'm glad I'm not the only one with reservations about this one. It's again very difficult to rank. The first half is strong, up to nailing Jigoku I have no real issues. But once the case pivots to Stronghart things start to crumble. Actually if they had to cut this trial in two I think it would've made more sense to do it at that change, despite the length issues that'd be a more reasonable stopping point plotwise.

Stronghart's plan is stupid and for a guy with two games worth of buildup he's unsatisfying to take down, but my main issues here are thematic. For all the corruption and fundamental flaws with this justice system that we've witnessed and been told of throughout these games, at the end of the day we don't meaningfully address any of it. We take down one corrupt guy who was a symptom of the problem, and make absolutely no attempt to change anything fundamentally. Worse, the way we take the Reaper down is by invoking the authority of an even more corrupt institution higher up the chain. The game takes the easy way out by making the Reaper a purely evil selfish character.

I know the gang couldn't single handedly save the world here, but why invoke all these issues if you're not gonna address them at the end? We show the ways of the Reaper are wrong, but offer no alternative. When the next McGilded bribes a jury or fabricates evidence, what will stop them? Barok and Kazuma? We don't even have a defence attorney left in the country >_>

And despite the case's title, Ryunosuke does surprisingly little here. He has much less personal investment than Barok and Kazuma, and Herlock gets the big finish in a very silly way that doesn't feel earned or satisfying. The epilogue is nice, though.

The more I sit on it, the more disappointed I am in the game's conclusion. There was so much potential here! I'm only rating it this high because of everything with the first half of the case, and I think the Genshin and Klint stuff is strong.

andylt posted...

7/10

Oh phew, I'm glad I'm not the only one with reservations about this one. It's again very difficult to rank. The first half is strong, up to nailing Jigoku I have no real issues. But once the case pivots to Stronghart things start to crumble. Actually if they had to cut this trial in two I think it would've made more sense to do it at that change, despite the length issues that'd be a more reasonable stopping point plotwise.

Stronghart's plan is stupid and for a guy with two games worth of buildup he's unsatisfying to take down, but my main issues here are thematic. For all the corruption and fundamental flaws with this justice system that we've witnessed and been told of throughout these games, at the end of the day we don't meaningfully address any of it. We take down one corrupt guy who was a symptom of the problem, and make absolutely no attempt to change anything fundamentally. Worse, the way we take the Reaper down is by invoking the authority of an even more corrupt institution higher up the chain. The game takes the easy way out by making the Reaper a purely evil selfish character.

I know the gang couldn't single handedly save the world here, but why invoke all these issues if you're not gonna address them at the end? We show the ways of the Reaper are wrong, but offer no alternative. When the next McGilded bribes a jury or fabricates evidence, what will stop them? Barok and Kazuma? We don't even have a defence attorney left in the country >_>

And despite the case's title, Ryunosuke does surprisingly little here. He has much less personal investment than Barok and Kazuma, and Herlock gets the big finish in a very silly way that doesn't feel earned or satisfying. The epilogue is nice, though.

The more I sit on it, the more disappointed I am in the game's conclusion. There was so much potential here! I'm only rating it this high because of everything with the first half of the case, and I think the Genshin and Klint stuff is strong.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with all of this. There's a lot of strengths in this case but I can't help but feel... I dunno. It's just lacking in some way that I can't describe.

Iris turning out to be Klint's daughter was a nice twist, although if she had still turned out to be the daughter of John Wilson even after the reveal about Mikotoba, that would've been kinda hilarious

8.5

Oddly enough, I didn't see Jigoku as the killer, but I did clock Strongheart as the ringleader immediately. Honestly, I love him as an antagonist. He's got the Damon Gant vibes in the "this guy seems reasonable, but don't get on his bad side" way. I like Gant better though, he's more charisma.

I liked Gorey, but she really does feel like a last minute main character shoe in. Which is a shame because I liked what we got. Like Sithe, we should have seen more of her earlier on.

The ending is kind of dumb, I don't mind the idea of the royal family stepping in, but the way they handled it was AWFUL. Giving Herlock a fucking radio would fix like half my problems. Admittedly my other problems aren't so easy to fix though. Something something corruption.

G2-4: 8/10
G2-5: 8/10

Ranking these together - don't really remember the individual parts of both of them.

8.7

1/10

Absolutely awful case. The twists are mostly obvious, Kazuma as prosecutor is terrible, and his dad turning out not to be the main culprit sucked. The hologram sequence was one of the worst things in an AA game. Really ruined GAA2 for me.

6

I absolutely hate the Star Trek holograms, but the rest is okay. Not great, but okay.

8

To follow-up from last topic: Gina's great for sure. She's easily my favorite character in DGS. I don't recall much shady Gregson from 2-3, but again, that's something the localization might have chosen to focus on. And it's to the game's benefit if they did!

As for this case... Hoh boy. Stronghart / Vortex is not a good villain. His choices to let the trial be prolonged don't make sense. Again, it's been 7 years and memories are vague, but I recall it really being a vibe of "Yes my master plan means that I've already won, but I suppose I can humor you and let the trial continue anyways." But more than that, this is the second time in the series where we, as the Ace Attorney, are miracle'd out of what should be a losing position. The first time was in 4-4, where the jury system just says "screw the evidence we have feelings." And now here, it's "screw the rules I'M THE MOTHERLOVING QUEEN OF ENGLAND." Did anyone find that satisfying? Like I'm not saying you can't have a last-second event that turns the board around, that you can't have Gumshoe come flying in with the evidence that you asked him to get hours ago and only barely remember. I'm saying that I want to feel like I'm not a puppet in Holmes' mad offscreen triumph, a pawn on Hobo Wright's 5D chess board, that the main character was integral in the end to the victory.

andyit raises really good points about how we don't bother to fix any institutional issues, which maybe Ace Attorney doesn't need to do. But what it does need to do is provide hope that those fixes are possible and worth fighting for. That's where we started -- we were fighting for the little guy in a court where guilt was assumed and to argue to the contrary was considered insulting. "Royal Monarch Fixes Everything" spits in the face of that.

I'm sure there's details that those of you who played it more recently will remember that might help mitigate those complaints. We certainly got Vortex to admit to the crimes in what turned out to be the Queen's earshot. But what has stuck with me over the years were those two impressions: "Why didn't this trial end five hours ago?" and "...that's it?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJgVAZ8DUf0

9.5/10.

I think this case is fantastic, it is a really great payoff of everything the duology was leading up to. There is what has to be the best investigation in the franchise and the best dance of deduction between the two games, and this features another fantastic piece of music. I dont even mind the hologram, it fits with what had been established previously. I really liked the way it tied the actual history in as well. Plus at the end you get to take down a corrupt old Tory! Which is part of the game Mr Fandom dont arrest me for politics.

One thing I didn't want to forget to mention is that I love Daley Vigil in this case. He's a good witness. He's maybe the most normal witness in the history of Ace Attorney! I mean, putting aside the Gossip stuff, but that was all G2-4. In this case, he's just a guy who did nothing wrong and has nothing to hide, who witnessed something, and he's haunted by it, and it just makes for a good character.