Board 8 > I've been replaying Apollo Justice over the last few days...(SPOILERS)

(+) Yeah! (+)

From: Rad Link 5 | #050
2-2 is also bad

No.

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From: AlphaRayAllen | #051
No.

Yes.

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From: Rad Link 5 | #052
Yes.

YES!

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From: DanielBryan | #053
From: Rad Link 5 | #052
Yes.

YES!

YES!

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3-2 is amazing and I hope we all agree on that.

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2-2's solid. I don't really see the complaints about 2-2. Kind of weak on characters, maybe, but I thought the case and murder was done pretty well. I could see it as an average case, but bad?

Also, 2-1 is essentially the perfect tutorial case to me. Not the perfect intro case, just tutorial. It's not complex enough to be beyond tutorial, but it's not hand-holding like 1-1 is. It also has a good murderer (okay, that's just my own personal bias, but come on! The ending to 2-1 is so good), good contradictions, and some great lines. Sure, I don't care too much for the amnesia thing, but that's a really small thing to point out for 2-1.

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I recall some heathens out there who don't care for 3-2.

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My problem with 2-2 is that it never once grabs me, and there's a very annoying part where I've figured out the big twist that solves everything, and I have to wait a whole in-game day for Phoenix to wise up. It's frustrating to have to play dumb for that long.

I think my biggest problem with 2-1 is the localization. I seem to remember an unusual number of typos and grammatical errors in that one. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, because I don't care about the case enough to actually replay it. 1-1 holds your hand way more, but it also kept me more entertained. And obviously 3-1, 4-1, and AAI-1 are much more fully fleshed out cases than either of those two.

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Pretty much completely agree with Leon's initial post. Missed potential sums the game up perfectly - Klavier could've been an awesome character (and potentially an awesome prosecutor too) if they'd given him the remotest hint of focus or development. but instead he had all of Godot's bad qualities (a poor opponent, trying to be cool for the sake of it) with none of his good ones (motivation, backstory, progression). 4-4 could've been epic if they'd given Kristoph a better motivation, 4-0 hadn't sucked (from a story point of view), the moral hadn't rubbed me up the wrong way, the Mason system been poorly implemented, etc. 4-3 could've been good if they hadn't introduced the most ludicrous plothole in the world and refused to address it, then made you watch the video over and over (didn't actually bother me but I completely understand why it bothered others). And so on.

And I'm really glad someone else has brought up the uncooperative defendants. It's a massive pet peeve of mine. One of the biggest goals the designers should have is "make you want to play the game" - from a gameplay standpoint fair enough, but from a story standpoint I had negative motivation, pretty much. You need either a relatable defendant or a frickin' evil villain, preferably both. I'm gonna overanalyse this briefly to sum up the point:

1-1 - Too short to really matter too much, but for what it's worth Larry's sympathetic (at least at this point!)
1-2 - great defendant and villain
1-3 - incredibly sympathetic defendant (villain introduced pretty late on but, despite the murder being self-defence, she at least the grace to be a horrible person and make you want to take her down anyway)
1-4 - check on both counts
1-5 - defendant is uncooperative but for good reason; one of the big rewards of the case is helping her improve as a person. On top of that, one of the biggest villains in the entire series.
2-1 - check on both counts
2-2 - villain's all-over-the-place a bit, a bit more subjective, but Maya's a great defendant still
2-3 - has neither really (other than the brief moment when Max breaks down), and is widely disliked
2-4 - hasn't, but that's kinda the entire point of the case, so this is a special exception!
3-1 - defendant's kinda annoying, but you know he's innocent! Villain very good for a tutorial case
3-2 - defendant relatable until the end of the case, villain is great fun to take apart
3-3 - check on both counts
3-4 - tremendous villain; defendant is more controversial for me - I personally feel no sympathy, but I know I'm in the minority there
3-5 - check on both counts
A-1 - defendant is annoyingly uncooperative for no real reason
A-2 - defendant is incredibly annoying and confesses to the crime for street cred; villain (rightly) feared for her life and only killed in self-defense
A-3 - defendant seems really sympathetic until the twist partway through that he's a criminal posing as a blind child.
A-4 - defendant is uncooperative, albeit fairly sympathetic; villain is good but lacks motivation
(A-0 - defendant is world's worst human male)

It's such a big drop-off, and that's a massive disappointment to me.

Finally, since people have brought up cases and started comparing them, I'm just gonna post the final order from a case tierring I did a couple of years back (which I still more-or-less stand by):

Bad Tier
23) A-2
22) A-3

Forgettable/Meh Tier
21) 1-2
20) 1-1
19) A-4 (& A-0)
18) 2-1
17) E-1

Enjoyable Tier
16) 3-3
15) 3-4
14) E-2
13) 2-2
12) 3-2
11) E-3

Great Tier
10) 3-1
9) 2-3
8) A-1
7) 1-3
6) E-4

God Tier
5) 3-5
4) E-5
3) 1-4
2) 1-5
1) 2-4

Rambling thoughts on the series over!

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James - Board 8's Resident Warm And Safe, Slipper-Wearing User
& The Cream of Porcupine Tree Fanboyism

From: Rad Link 5 | #058
My problem with 2-2 is that it never once grabs me, and there's a very annoying part where I've figured out the big twist that solves everything, and I have to wait a whole in-game day for Phoenix to wise up. It's frustrating to have to play dumb for that long.

3-2 is bad about this when it comes to what happened to the Sacred Urn. It's blatantly obvious what happened to it the moment you see it, but the game doesn't let you "figure it out" until the end of the second investigation day.

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I'm not ready for this topic to die yet.

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You know, another thing that bothers me about Apollo Justice is the lack of dialogue options for presenting evidence, especially when you talk to Trucy. Maya didn't have something to say about everything, but Trucy only has something to say about a couple things. The rest of the game, you get that, "oh you'd like me to make that disappear huh" dialogue.

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so how did you guys like perceive

I like perceive and I thought it had neat ideas. But I feel like they ran out of ideas to perceive. And they kind of hand-held too much on where exactly to perceive.

also brushel perceive, so awful

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when thinking of Krystal, does GMUN's pants get overcrowded? ~ GMUN

From a gameplay perspective it was okay but they made it too easy. From a story perspective it was awful.

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James - Board 8's Resident Warm And Safe, Slipper-Wearing User
& The Cream of Porcupine Tree Fanboyism

The Brushel perceive was pretty bad, yeah

LOL sweating in only one armpit

I don't mind Perceive at all, the idea of looking for signs in a character's body language is pretty neat. I don't think they implemented it all that well though.

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"I couldn't stand a day without a past or future. I need to live each moment to keep fighting here and now."

You know, the fact that Lamiroir is apparently willing to let Machi get convicted for murder just so she can protect the "integrity" of a magic trick is really stupid.

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"I couldn't stand a day without a past or future. I need to live each moment to keep fighting here and now."

In defense of Apollo Justice (typing those words just now made me shudder), I find a couple of the biggest complaints leveled at it to be overblown.

The first is the lack of old characters besides Phoenix and Ema (and Gumshoe and the Judge, I suppose). Yes, Maya and Edgeworth probably had things to say about Phoenix's disbarment, but that wasn't part of the story the writers were trying to tell.

The other is Phoenix using falsified evidence during 4-1. Incriminating the culprit in such a way that the only defense would result in self-incrimination is basically what he did during 3-3. I thought it was pretty believable that he'd become a little more brutal in his methods given what happened to him.

All four cases in the game demonstrated the limitation of the Ace Attorney universe's legal system as a way of building up to the big overhaul at the end. A lot of fans say they would have liked the game better if Phoenix had been dropped entirely, but if someone were to single-handedly overhaul the court system in Ace Attorney, I wouldn't want it to be anyone but Phoenix.

Having said that, Phoenix being irritating and unhelpful for no good reason during the second and third cases was eye-rolling, and the way he handled the jurist system in the last case (putting himself at the head and assigning the defense attorney's mother to the jury) was first degree character murder.

Apollo was a waste as well. He himself even pointed out at the end of the last case that he hadn't really grown or changed as a person over the game. It seemed like the writers were setting up for a sequel where they give Apollo a chance to actually develop, and yet they wrote this game in such a way that making a sequel to it is nearly impossible (I'm really curious as to how they plan to make AA5 work). And even then, it would have been nice to have Apollo be a fully-realized character at the end of his game, like Phoenix was at the end of AA1, rather than just a cog in Phoenix's machine.

One more small thing that I noticed: Apollo always seemed to care more about catching the murder than defending his client (I suppose it didn't help that he was stuck dealing with probably the four most uncooperative clients in the series). Why did he become a defense attorney and not a prosecutor?

Why indeed

The world may never know!

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"I couldn't stand a day without a past or future. I need to live each moment to keep fighting here and now."

Also I do agree that the bloody Ace was brilliant because the only person who could claim it was forged at a glance (which a blood test would reveal, I'm sure, unless Phoenix used Zak's blood, I guess) was the actual murderer.

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"I couldn't stand a day without a past or future. I need to live each moment to keep fighting here and now."

So I was playing through the first trial day of 4-3 just now...

I spent most of it raging at the game for being so stupid.

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"Why must we always choose between certain death and probable death?"
"I'm in an epic battle to the death, FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF!"

Sadly 4-3 is pretty much the only case where Apollo had Klavier on the ropes a few times. I can't remember a single instance of that in 4-2 or 4-4.

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The part in 4-3 that probably had me raging the most is the part where Apollo says "Well, the shooter didn't necessarily miss the first time because he was blind. Remember, this was a .45-caliber and Machi is a small guy. It's not surprising to think that the kickback from not being used to handling the gun would cause him to miss if he shot."

And APPARENTLY this supports the prosecution's claim that Machi was the shooter. Did ANYONE bother to see if Machi had any sort of injuries resulting from improper use of the gun? Because you would assume he would have some, unless we're okay with assuming a 14-year-old boy can handle a revolver without injuring himself. Also, we're apparently okay with thinking someone as small as Machi could carry a body as huge as LeTouse's from the dressing room to the stage all by himself.

Also I was LOLing when they were trying to figure out how in the world LeTouse would know an Interpol agent's ID number and apparently the most likely solution was that Machi was an Interpol agent. Like, the most obvious solution (that the number is LeTouse's) is never even mentioned until Daryan confirms it.

At this point, I just have to assume that the world of Apollo Justice has some sort of unspoken knowledge that Machi is some superhuman specimen of a man, and that's why they have no problem claiming all this stuff about him.

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Also, it kinda bothers me that the most emotion Klavier shows in the entire game is him reacting to his guitar getting burned up.

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Although I gotta admit the end of the first trial day where Lamiroir names Daryan as the killer is really cool. That's probably the point where 4-3 goes from "ugh" to "bearable."

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"Stay with me until the end. Please."
"Not until the end. Always."

Really? That part annoyed me, it took a lot of tension out of the case for me.

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James - Board 8's Resident Warm And Safe, Slipper-Wearing User
& The Cream of Porcupine Tree Fanboyism

I spent most of it raging at the game for being so stupid.

XD

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Perceive is fine as a gameplay mechanic, but it's kind of unbearable to think about it in practical purposes. "Objection! You touched your glasses when you testified! You're hiding something!" is just sort of ridiculous. It works as long as you can suspend your disbelief.

BerkeIium posted...
Apollo always seemed to care more about catching the murderer
Can't believe I did that. I hate myself.

The missed potential of 4-0 gives me a headache whenever I think about it. Like 3-4, you know from the beginning that you can't possibly win, which gives the case a sense of apprehension and dread.

The part where Phoenix is forced to present the forged diary page could have been one of the best moments of the series, since you know that Phoenix has been set up and is about to jeopardize his entire career, and you have no choice but to make him do it yourself. But it just comes across as stupid because Phoenix could easily just present the diary itself and point out that there's a page missing. Oh, but Klavier tells you not to bother presenting the diary. What? Why the hell not? And it just gets dumber when you find out that Zak had the real diary page the whole goddamn time.

Then there's Drew Misham coming in and saying, "LOL, that page is one of my forgeries. It bears my signature. What's my signature, you ask? I can't tell you! But you should unquestionably trust my word over that of the lawyer who would never defend a guilty client and willingly threw the case the one time he did! What's that? The defense attorney should, by the laws of this universe, be allowed to cross-examine me since I was called in as a witness? Don't be absurd!"

And what, exactly, was Zak's motivation again?

jerkiness

From: BerkeIium | #078
And what, exactly, was Zak's motivation again?

To make everyone around him as miserable as possible.

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From: BerkeIium | #078
The defense attorney should, by the laws of this universe, be allowed to cross-examine me since I was called in as a witness?

To be fair, he wasn't giving testimony about the the trial itself. The stupider part was that it wouldn't at least result in a separate investigation. Not to mention completely ignoring the fact that the client had changed defense attorneys, or the explanation of no record of who the previous lawyer was (Klavier knew damn well he was supposed to be facing his brother).

It's even more idiotic to think that a lawyer's misconduct wouldn't result in a mistrial. That'd be the equivalent of 3-3 saying, "Oh, you unknowingly hired a fake lawyer? You must be guilty anyways if you would hire a fake lawyer."

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Another really stupid thing is that Manfred von Karma was literally caught using forged evidence by Gregory Edgeworth, only received a penalty for it, and still won the trial.

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4-0 is so bad. Ace Attorney is my favorite series and I genuinely like every case in the series except for 4-0. Yes, even 4-3. You guys pretty much nailed it, Phoenix looks like a complete idiot presenting the diary and the reaction to the diary is absolutely ridiculous. Just everything about it felt really contrived and was basically around "Well, we have to make Phoenix lose his badge somehow!" And of course, Zak. ...Just...just Zak. He literally makes no sense unless he's a complete a****** that only cares about himself. And that could have went well, except the game tries to portray him as a hero and it just feels "....What".

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Rank 9, Dr. Peace? Pffft, nothing compared to Rank 1, Dr_Football!
when thinking of Krystal, does GMUN's pants get overcrowded? ~ GMUN

I don't know if the writers of Apollo Justice were just huge fans of magic growing up or something, but they make it seem like it's the most important thing in the world. We're willing to let innocent people get convicted for the sake of protecting magic. We're willing to withhold the one piece of evidence that would automatically get the defendant acquitted so we can perform an awesome disappearing trick in court. Zak tries to ruin Phoenix's poker career (and only means of supporting the daughter he abandoned, I might add) because he was mad at him for not using Trucy's magic "properly."

what is this Apollo Justice or Umineko

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