A few years back, I posted some thoughts on the Fan Translation of Ace Attorney Investigations 2 (tl;dr was: it’s very good and much better than the original AAI and you should play it). One thing I wrote at the end, is that they’re running out of fresh possibilities for the killer of the final case. Here’s a list, with marked spoilers, of all the different things they’ve done with the final case killers, along with their names.
AA1: Guest Prosecutor - Manfred Von Karma
AA2: Defendant - Matt Engarde
AA3: Main Prosecutor - Godot
AA4: Mentor Character - Kristoph Gavin
AA5: The Detective - Bobby Fulbright
AAI: Random NPC from the same case - Quercus Alba
AAI2: Random NPC from an earlier case - Simon Keyes
This leaves only a few possibilities if they don’t retread old ground: The judge, a random character from a previous game, the sidekick, or Phoenix/Apollo/Athena themselves.
They could also go with a weird outcome. In the DLC case of Ace Attorney 5, the ending of the case revealed that the death was accidental and that there was no murdered whatsoever. They could try doing something where it turns out the defendant is the killer, but you have to prove it was justifiable self-defense, which is a concept they’ve touched on very briefly in an earlier game.
All this being said, I have no idea who the “final case killer” was in Dai Gyakuten Saiban. I’m holding out for a far-off, someday Fan Translation. What predictions do you guys have!?!? Let’s get hyyyype!!!
Maybe it’ll be you defending a straight up murderer. No actual real defense but enough holes to create a possible defense. So then you successfully defend only for it to turn out the guy actually did it.
Of course, that swerve probably wouldn’t work since Ace Attorney is based on a highly stylized and streamlined version of the Japanese court system, which means that the prosecution would be able to appeal a conviction.
Alright, so I just finished it. Here are some thoughts.
What’s new in AA6?
…Virtually nothing. Some cases take advantage of something unique called a “Divination Seance”. In these seances, we see the final moments of a victim’s life, along with words that describe what they are hearing or smelling. The princess who performs the seances gives her insights as to what happened based on what she saw, and you need to demonstrate contradictions in the insights based on what you see. It’s pretty cool, although sometimes, what you need to point out is a little convoluted. Then again, I only ever got stuck once…they were just extremely stressful to me, for some reason! lol. Not a bad new mechanic, although it wasn’t in every case, so that’s kind of weird.
This isn’t new, but spraying for luminol and dusting for fingerprints is back. It’s still as tedious and inane as it was before.
This isn’t a new thing, so much as an improvement, but there are waaaaaaaaaay less typographical errors this time. AA5 was chock full of them; I only caught one in AA6.
What I liked?
…Answering this is a bit weird, because a lot of what was good about this game was double-edged. For example…
Playing from the perspective of many attorneys is extremely fun, but There was waaaaaay too little of Athena this time around (and after introducing her and making a big deal of her in AA5? It seemed like a huge waste to me).
This game goes a lot into the backstory of Apollo Justice, but given that fact, there was waaaaaaay too much playtime as Phoenix. Case 1 was Phoenix, case 3 (and mind you, one of the only full-lengthed cases in the entire game) was Phoenix. Apollo did case 2 (which was short), Athena did case 4 (which was EXTREMELY short), and Apollo did case 5…only there was still an investigation phase a Phoenix, and Phoenix was the sidebar for this case, as well, rather than Athena. And, to top it all off, the DLC case, whenever we are slated to get it, is ALSO Phoenix. It’s very weird that this was, effectively, an “Apollo” game, but with so much Phoenix. It wasn’t as bad as AA4’s “Phoenix solves all the cases for you” problem, but man, Phoenix’s story is done. I understand wanting to see him in action, because I do, too; but, that kind of stuff is exactly what DLC cases are good for.
As an offshoot of that, it was cool to see Apollo get some seriously shining moments, such as winning a case against Phoenix Wright, and winning a hugely epic case with an amazing turnabout, something afforded to Phoenix since the first FUCKING game!!! but on the other hand, I do feel like this final part of his story came out of left field a little bit, and I think one of the biggest failings of both AA6 and AA5 are that they weren’t written by Shu Takumi. The last two games have been fun, but they are not only just not as funny, but they are seriously, seriously lacking in direction compared to the original trilogy. Whatever happened to the fucking jurist system from Case 4-4? I was kind of excited to see how a jury might make the game play out differently…but, it was never mentioned again.
I like that the ending of AA6 sort of allows for a few different ways to take the series. It can continue to follow Apollo’s story (although personally I think this would be boring), or it could start paying attention to Athena. Naturally, I’d like it if they did this. I think that Athena and Simon are really fun and interesting characters.
Oh yeah, and I’m fucking furious that there’s no Klavier Gavin!!! I really loved Apollo and Klavier’s dynamic. The lack of Klavier pisses me off so much!!!1111
…Finally, for the first time since AA2, I actually liked the final case.
Overall, I do think the game was pretty good, but I admit, I’m tired of Phoenix stealing the show, and the series hasn’t been especially funny in the last two games. The humour, going forward, could really use a touch-up.