Board 8 > Rate the Ace Attorney case: The Kidnapped Turnabout (E1-3)

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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 Goodbyes (1-4) - 9.2 (32 votes)
Turnabout Beginnings (3-4) - 8.4 (26 votes)
Rise from the Ashes (1-5) - 8.2 (28 votes)
The Stolen Turnabout (3-2) - 8.2 (24 votes)
Turnabout Samurai (1-3) - 7.4 (29 votes)
Turnabout Memories (3-1) - 7.4 (30 votes)
Turnabout Trump (4-1) - 6.9 (25 votes)
Recipe for Turnabout (3-3) - 6.6 (27 votes)
Reunion, and Turnabout (2-2) - 6.5 (25 votes)
Turnabout Sisters (1-2) - 5.7 (25 votes)
Turnabout Visitor (E1-1) - 5.0 (18 votes)
The First Turnabout (1-1) - 4.9 (25 votes)
Turnabout Airlines (E1-2) - 4.3 (20 votes)
Turnabout Corner (4-2) - 4.0 (25 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)
Turnabout Serenade (4-3) - 2.7 (24 votes)

Turnabout Airlines goes low, but gets just enough high votes to have it be above 4-2. People praised the setting, the characters (except Lablanc who I don't think anyone liked), and generally felt that this case should be higher than the lows of the series. Also, everyone liked the Lablanc fall, which...yeah, that was a really great moment. Announce the Truth 2009 goes hard.

Summary:

When Edgeworth learns that his friend's son has been kidnapped, he goes to the theme park Gatewater Land to deliver the ransom and almost becomes a victim himself. He's rescued by Kay Faraday, self-proclaimed thief, and together they battle Interpol for the rights to chase down the criminals responsible.

Main Characters: Miles Edgeworth, Dick Gumshoe, Kay Faraday, Shi-Long Lang, Shih-na
Other Characters: Ernest Amano, Oliver Deacon, Mike Meekins, Wendy Oldbag, Lauren Paups, Colin Devorae, Lance Amano

My Rating: 5.5/10. Mixed feelings again. I like the premise a lot. The setting is...fine, but it sings at the haunted mansion. Lang, while not exactly a great opponent for Edgeworth, is a fun character and has a lot of presence, considering this is one of two cases he's in. The real problem is the cast. It's a real small cast and the surprise of the kidnapped Lance being the culprit is immediately ruined by the fact that...well, Lauren's way too sympathetic, so...who else could it be? Meekins and Oldbag (and Bellboy!) being here is a shame. Aside from being mediocre cameos, it would be an easy way to get more suspects into the case in a case desperately in need of them. I don't even want them to play big roles. This cast just feels really small.

Also, a small thing, but...Gatewater Land? Really? That's like if Hilton Hotels had a theme park. It makes the universe seem way too small and self-referential.

4

Zzzzzzz

Probably not actually worse than the last case, but by now the game is already starting to drag, and not even seeing von Karma with new artwork can save it

6.5

This is the case that I remember very little of, despite playing it at least twice.

KamikazePotato posted...

4

Zzzzzzz

Probably not actually worse than the last case, but by now the game is already starting to drag, and not even seeing von Karma with new artwork can save it

von Karma's not in this case. Maybe you're thinking of E1-4, the flashback case?

Oh wow this is the first time I forgot a case existed

Keeping this at 4 for that alone

4.5

Agree that it seems like it shouldve been cool based on the setting but I really dont remember much.

2.5/10

Creepy ass mascot costume.

7/10

Hot take time: This is the second best case in the game by a clear margin. I really love the amusement park setting, especially the haunted house.

Lance is lame, of course, but Ernest has an understated smugness to him that I like. Him buying the haunted house to prevent Edgeworth from investigating it was a low key jerk move. I like Lauren, too.

It's a solid debut for Lang. His M.O. of just arresting the first person he sees is dumb (albeit maybe a little too realistic...?), but his "shoot from the hip" style provides a good foil to Edgeworth.

5, really like this one. hard to call it top half of AA cases overall but it's far above the first two e1 cases

4

2/10

It's rough. It's boring and there's not really anything good about it except Lang.

5.5/10

I remember enjoying this one too actually if just a bit. Think maybe liking the introduction of Kay (she's best here because I feel like she wears out her welcome as the game goes on-- I think I agree the game would be better overall without her, probably to the shock of some people) and finding Lang enjoyable carried this one for me. I can't beam about it because this one is only slightly more memorable than the airplane one and it's still long but it hit some good notes.

5.

I have no strong opinions on this. It is mostly fine but thoroughly unremarkable.

I said in the last topic Edgeworth didn't need a teenage girl sidekick...!

5/10.

It's fine?

Leonhart4 posted...

I said in the last topic Edgeworth didn't need a teenage girl sidekick...!

You did!

I just figured you'd think I'd actually like her cause of Yuffie vibes. And I mean I kinda do like her in this case but then she sticks around.

I don't hate her but she's not really got good Edgeworth energy imo. I'd rather boss around Gumshoe the whole time.

If Edgeworth must have a teenage girl sidekick Ema Skye is the clear choice imo.

Yeah, I think people were hoping AAI would be an Edgeworth/Gumshoe buddy cop story, but it was not meant to be.

They will never make a game without a teenage girl sidekick. They'll only make individual cases without a teenage girl sidekicks, and even then, you either need to be a teenage girl lawyer like Athena and young Mia, or you need to have a teenage boy like Edgeworth's dad.

Leonhart4 posted...

Hot take time: This is the second best case in the game by a clear margin.

I'll go one further. This is the best case in the game. Not by a wide margin, but I like it the most.

5.2/10

Still doesn't mean I'm giving it a good score, though. AAI suuuuuuuuucks.

Honestly I said "the first case might be my favorite in the game" and yeah now that I'm digging into my memory of these cases it is. (Because this is the second best case)

Case 1 is my second-favorite. I gave it a 4.1.

5/10

At least I mostly remembered this one on my own.

E1-1: 5/10
E1-2: 5/10
E1-3: 5.5/10

I only remember the ending tbqh. E1-4 is the best case of the game. E1-5 could've taken it had it, you know, ended an hour sooner than it did.

I've only played E2-1 of the second game unfortunately. I think part of it was that AAI1 was just okay. The other part was that it feels weird playing on a computer.

Man, people actually thinking this case is better than the others is extremely unexpected. I remember this being one of the poster children of 3rd case syndrome alongside 4-3 and 2-3 and being the main reason for E1's low reputation after case 5's dragging.

2/10. One of the worst cases in the series and seeing people score it better than the previous is wild.

Leon's right about it being the second best case in the game, but it's still not particularly fun

5.5

3

Even thinking about this case makes me feel bored.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/51139dd1.jpg

5.5

resident aai fan considering this the worst case in the series

i said that i had one significant problem with this game outside pacing and it is how damn boring the one off characters in this case are.

while the whole mystery is decent, the set up is weird. like why did lance think ernest wouldn't give him the money when later on, ernest literally impedes the investigation? game should have made their relationship more strained and make lance an unwitting conspirator to the smuggling ring or something. lauren is the best but there's so little weight to her being the victim's daughter i kind of wonder why.

this is a shame because as i said the mystery itself is fine outside of lance's motivations! lang and kay and shih-na have good introductions! most of the reoccurring characters also land because i am actually a psycho who loves oldbag and meekins!! the only one who was disappointing was ema. like she's not offensively bad because she shows up for just one scene, but its just weird that she ..... just exists? could have easily replaced her with a no name policeman.

the setting itself is kind of mixed. i applaud ask for doing something different and taking advantage of walk-arounds and 3D(ish) backgrounds to give us more outlandish locations, but the decision to make a blue badger theme park instead of like a steel samurai one is certainly a choice. i guess they had to save the samurai for aai1-5?

5

Doesn't Lauren, the "defendant", actively fight for the culprit's side with a couple testimonies that you have to prove wrong too? I guess there's a domestic abuse allegory there but it still felt annoying and awkward.

I dunno if Lauren has some sort of Stockholm Syndrome for Lance, but she's definitely smitten with him and believes he loves her, too. I don't think it's abuse. I think she just believes Lance because she loves him, so if he said she did it, then in her mind, she must have done it.

yeah i guess the point was that she's madly in love with lance?? but it doesn't hit the same level of delusion/manipulation as, oh say, young phoenix to dahlia for instance.

Leonhart4 posted...

I dunno if Lauren has some sort of Stockholm Syndrome for Lance, but she's definitely smitten with him and believes he loves her, too. I don't think it's abuse. I think she just believes Lance because she loves him, so if he said she did it, then in her mind, she must have done it.

I guess Stockholm is sort of connected to domestic abuse. Her damage animation is basically her getting slapped in the face and massaging her cheek so there's definitely some thematic element there.

Lauren is also someone who is easily smitten by any guy who's nice to her. She has to constantly stop herself from falling for Edgeworth.

tbf women falling for Edgeworth is a running gag lol. I don't remember if she does similar to Gumshoe and Lang.

3

This case alongside the previous case straight up killed my investment in the game and I stopped playing very early into the fourth case as a result.

Yeah I'm shocked at the high ratings for this one (yes I consider 5 to be high in this scenario), because like I said, case 1 was still neat, case 2 still felt novel enough at first, and this case was about when I started thinking "huh y'know i'm really not digging this game". looking at the character list, it's all very , especially the suppporting characters but kay too.

My tolerance for AA is pretty high!

But just wait until the next case.

yeah i dunno, i think i may be retroactively judging this game to be worse than it actually was. like, it was unremarkable, but i'm not sure i was bored. they may actually be 5/10s. then again, this was 14 years ago so i may have been easier to impress at the time. wtf has it really been 14 years? if anything, my memory of these cases is surprisingly decent for being 14 years ago.

I would rate a boring case a 1/10 or a 2/10. It's not actively bad, but it's unmemorable and uninteresting, which is pretty bad for a case that only gets 5 cases a game.

I don't think E1-3 fits that...at least for me. I remember that this case was somewhat divisive when AAI came out...though, not as much as E1-5. I don't remember a single person talking about E1-2.

I am reminded that this case has one of my favorite gags of all time, where if you show Lauren the dead body, she lets out a horrifying scream, but then she gets hot for Edgeworth because he's such a 'bad boy' for showing her a bloody corpse. legit made me laugh out loud

Bitto posted...

I would rate a boring case a 1/10 or a 2/10. It's not actively bad, but it's unmemorable and uninteresting, which is pretty bad for a case that only gets 5 cases a game.

I don't think E1-3 fits that...at least for me. I remember that this case was somewhat divisive when AAI came out...though, not as much as E1-5. I don't remember a single person talking about E1-2.

This case is one of the very few that's actively bad to me. E1-2 doesn't have many memorable moments but I do remember enjoying what I did play. The two memorable moments of E1-2 is the turbulence which triggered Edgeworth's PTSD (which is the only time it happens after 3-5), and it being the first time Crisis of Fate (which I love) plays. I don't even remember if that track plays in 1-3. I don't think it does? Changing Rhonda's mind and Cammy's shenanigans were pretty funny too.