Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 273: The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures

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Todays game is The Great Ace Attorney 1. How would you rate the story on a scale from 1-10?

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name><rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them. Games need at least four votes to count for the list.

Previous Results:
Planescape: Torment - 9.85 (13 votes)
Clannad - 9.75 (4 votes)
Omori - 9.67 (6 votes)
Outer Wilds - 9.61 (22 votes)
Silent Hill 2 - 9.5 (20 votes)
Higurashi When They Cry - 9.5 (9 votes)
Deus Ex - 9.32 (12 votes)
428: Shibuya Scramble - 9.27 (9 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - 9.2 (20 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 9.19 (35 votes)
Last Window: The Secret of Cape West - 9.15 (10 votes)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - 9.1 (14 votes)
The House in Fata Morgana - 9.06 (11 votes)
Yakuza 0 - 9.03 (13 votes)
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 9 (8 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - 8.95 (31 votes)
Steins;Gate - 8.94 (9 votes)
Mother 3 - 8.91 (15 votes)
Umineko When They Cry - 8.89 (14 votes)
Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward - 8.88 (21 votes)
Return of the Obra Dinn - 8.85 (10 votes)
Silent Hill 4: The Room - 8.83 (6 votes)
Suikoden II - 8.8 (11 votes)
Persona 3 - 8.76 (22 votes)
Nier - 8.75 (18 votes)
Grim Fandango - 8.75 (14 votes)
Xenogears - 8.73 (24 votes)
Tales of Berseria - 8.71 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics - 8.67 (27 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.67 (28 votes)
Pyre - 8.64 (7 votes)
Portal 2 - 8.64 (19 votes)
Bastion - 8.63 (12 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.63 (32 votes)
Dragon Quest V - 8.6 (15 votes)
AI: The Somnium Files - 8.59 (13 votes)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 8.58 (6 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask - 8.57 (28 votes)
Persona 4 - 8.56 (32 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.56 (17 votes)
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - 8.53 (18 votes)
SOMA - 8.5 (6 votes)
Fate/Stay Night - 8.48 (12 votes)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 8.47 (16 votes)
Undertale - 8.45 (42 votes)
Mass Effect 2 - 8.44 (29 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd - 8.43 (12 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice - 8.42 (17 votes)
What Remains of Edith Finch - 8.41 (19 votes)
Chrono Trigger - 8.4 (41 votes)
Shenmue II - 8.38 (4 votes)
Snatcher - 8.33 (6 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.31 (56 votes)
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door - 8.31 (17 votes)
Final Fantasy VII - 8.29 (38 votes)
South Park: The Stick of Truth - 8.25 (18 votes)
Dead Space - 8.25 (8 votes)
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus - 8.23 (6 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - 8.21 (19 votes)
Parasite Eve - 8.19 (9 votes)
Dragon Quest XI - 8.19 (17 votes)
Final Fantasy VI - 8.19 (43 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.19 (43 votes)
The Walking Dead Season 1 - 8.16 (22 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies - 8.15 (17 votes)
Wolfenstein: The New Order - 8.14 (7 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.13 (35 votes)
Fire Emblem: Three Houses - 8.12 (14 votes)
Conkers Bad Fur Day - 8.11 (9 votes)
Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals - 8.11 (9 votes)
The Wolf Among Us - 8.11 (15 votes)
Horizon: Zero Dawn - 8.06 (18 votes)
Silent Hill - 8.04 (14 votes)
Portal - 8 (26 votes)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - 8 (18 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles - 7.98 (28 votes)
Hades - 7.96 (22 votes)
Tsukihime - 7.94 (7 votes)
Persona 5 - 7.92 (27 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.92 (32 votes)
Spec Ops: The Line - 7.9 (17 votes)
Bloodborne - 7.88 (20 votes)
Kid Icarus: Uprising - 7.86 (13 votes)
Psychonauts - 7.79 (7 votes)
Deadly Premonition - 7.77 (11 votes)
Final Fantasy IX - 7.77 (26 votes)
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - 7.75 (14 votes)
Mario & Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story - 7.75 (10 votes)
Silent Hill 3 - 7.75 (8 votes)
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future - 7.75 (6 votes)
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - 7.75 (4 votes)
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - 7.73 (32 votes)
The Last of Us: Left Behind - 7.73 (11 votes)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor - 7.73 (11 votes)
The Sexy Brutale - 7.7 (5 votes)
Bioshock - 7.65 (24 votes)
Skies of Arcadia - 7.63 (15 votes)
Paper Mario: The Origami King - 7.63 (6 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.61 (28 votes)
Celeste - 7.56 (26 votes)
Half-Life 2 - 7.55 (10 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.51 (31 votes)
The Last Story - 7.47 (6 votes)
Mortal Kombat (2011) - 7.46 (13 votes)
Marvels Spider-Man - 7.43 (16 votes)
Tales of Symphonia - 7.42 (30 votes)
Dragon Age: Origins - 7.4 (10 votes)
Phantasy Star IV - 7.37 (6 votes)
Earthbound - 7.37 (20 votes)
Ghost of Tsushima - 7.36 (7 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.33 (29 votes)
Batman: Arkham Asylum - 7.33 (23 votes)
Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma - 7.27 (20 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.25 (29 votes)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 7.25 (12 votes)
Red Dead Redemption - 7.23 (11 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.21 (30 votes)
Devil May Cry 3: Dantes Awakening - 7.21 (12 votes)
Resident Evil 4 - 7.19 (25 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (25 votes)
Mass Effect 3 - 7.16 (21 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - 7.11 (23 votes)
The Stanley Parable - 7.11 (14 votes)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 7.1 (30 votes)
Broken Age - 7.1 (5 votes)
The Last of Us Part II - 7.09 (16 votes)
Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal - 7.08 (6 votes)
To the Moon - 7.07 (7 votes)
INSIDE - 7.06 (16 votes)
Warcraft III (overall) - 7.06 (8 votes)
Assassins Creed II - 7.04 (13 votes)
Final Fantasy VIII - 7.01 (31 votes)
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 7 (6 votes)

6

Its still AA, but the game is pretty awful on it's own by AA standards, maybe the worst one. It's absolutely critical to play the second one though, so you can't skip it.

6.7

Two good cases (3 and 5), three not so good cases. At least it's better than the second tho.

4

4

7/10

It's a little odd by AA standards in that it really can't stand on its own and most of its mysteries aren't solved until the second game, but I do enjoy the setting and the cast is fantastic as always. G1-3 is a great case, too, and I do enjoy the finale, even if it takes way too long to really get started.

Up.

7

So what's worse?

Apollo Justice or GAA1?

5

8

plasmabeam posted...

So what's worse?

Apollo Justice or GAA1?

AJ by a mile

Damn, crazy to see DA:I end up without enough votes for a ranking.

Planescape: Torment - 5/10

There are parts of this game's story that are really good - most of the Nameless One's storyline and the history of his past incarnations are interesting and sometimes emotional, the Ravel encounter is cool, and the better part of the companion dialog is solid. I grew to like all the party members. I think people forget how many weak parts there are though. It takes hours of shockingly mundane questing before this game becomes remotely interesting. The Planescape setting is fun, but most of this game's depiction of the "City of Portals" is just people from other planes showing up to lecture you about what their planes are like in incredibly over-long and dull monologues. Conceptually interesting characters like Many-As-One are generic RPG faction leaders or quest-givers in practice. The major other plane that you see, Curst, is just another dreary dungeon town full of busywork sidequests, and the hell plane Baator has no sense of threat. The side-plot about the deva is honestly kind of shallow.

When taken as a whole, I don't think I can honestly call this a good story, and especially not a good game story. The "video game" part of Planescape mostly gets in the way of its strengths. CRUCIAL lore is locked behind stat requirements that make most builds an objectively worse experience, a lot of the conversations are extremely stilted because you have to sift through a shitty dialog system to see all the lines, and the pacing gets eviscerated by absurd amounts of redundant text and the need to sort through dull NPCs and weak sidequests to find the important parts. Even though the companion dialog was one of my favorite parts of the game, there is a party member that I didn't bother recruiting because it requires going through several obscure sidequests followed by a combat-heavy area and Planescape has the worst battle system I have ever seen in an RPG. That might not sound like it should come up in a story-based discussion, but the game mechanics are part of the way the story is delivered to you, so them being so unbearable that I chose not to engage with a significant portion of the story is an example of the game failing as a means of conveying that story.

Evillordexdeath posted...

That might not sound like it should come up in a story-based discussion, but the game mechanics are part of the way the story is delivered to you, so them being so unbearable that I chose not to engage with a significant portion of the story is an example of the game failing as a means of conveying that story.

uh, no, that's you rating the gameplay instead of rating the story

plasmabeam posted...

So what's worse?

Apollo Justice or GAA1?

This is tough because you can't look at GAA1 by itself, even if they weren't being sold together. I think GAA1, by itself, is worse than AA4.

However, GAA1 and 2 are honestly like 1 huge game, and GAA2 is one of the best games in the series hands down. Meanwhile, AA4 is basically not even a great introduction to it's MAIN CHARACTER at this point, much less a critical pin in the sorry of Apollo. Hell, they've practically tried to retcon it in all but an official capacity.

So while I absolutely hate most of GAA1 and think it's worse than AA4, if you asked me which one you should play between it an AA4, it's going to be the former.

GAA1: 7/10

not as bad as people make it out to be, though definitely arduous at points

Mac Arrowny posted...

uh, no, that's you rating the gameplay instead of rating the story

You must be a real joy in life.

He's explained his reasons clearly enough to give whatever reasoning for his score which honestly is a lot more than what you have contributed so I really do recommend you pull that stick outta your ass.

Dragon Age Inquisition - 4/10. Unfinished, full of wasted potential, they take the most boring narrative route at every turn. There's good stuff scattered around in there though.

DA:I seems to have gone the Bioshock Infinite route of a whole lot of critics and players praising it a ton when it came out, but now everyone has settled on it being mediocre.

6.5

Not very good cases, but the characters are written so well here that it doesn't completely kill the game like it does for AAI1 or AJ.

Tentative 7.5. Really good use of the setting and tone, and case 3 is an all time banger.

6/10

Mac Arrowny posted...

uh, no, that's you rating the gameplay instead of rating the story

The two things are inextricably linked in almost every game. Let me give you a straightforward example that is relevant to Planescape: if a game is about an adventure and you are heading into a dangerous area, its up to the gameplay to convey the sense of hardship that stretch of your journey entails, which is part of the story. The first Mother interacts with this very intentionally in its final area, the Holy Moly Mountain. The first time you scale it you have a powerhouse named Teddy in your party, who then gets heavily injured in a boss fight after which you have to climb the mountain again without him. The combat in that game succeeds at making it feel grueling enough to climb the mountain even *with* Teddy that the prospect of the second trip is intimidating, and because the game succeeds at making Teddy feel very strong but still ultimately unable to help you, that serves the game's theme about how brute strength isn't enough to save the world. That part of the message wouldn't come across without the gameplay to support it.

In Planescape, part of the reason Baator is so underwhelming is that the game's main way of conveying how hellish the place is to travel through is by throwing lots of combat encounters against demons at you, which are actually incredibly easy to avoid, so instead of an arduous trek through Hell itself it feels like a slightly comical game of tag. In the final area, the game spawns more shadows based on how many times you've died, which is a cool idea and is meant to bring across the idea of regret for The Nameless One's decision to become immortal, but in practice the combat fails at bringing that feeling across because it just translates as a slightly more difficult game of tag if you died more times.