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Re: Case five discussion thread (tagged spoilers)Topic%20Title
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The video game boy; the one who wins

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For better or worse, this case has so much going on just in the investigation parts. I'm replaying it now and have been doing so really slowly, with fairly small chunks at a time, partly due to having a lot to do, but I really think the case benefits from it. The first time I played it I was so curious to go on to see what would happen and I wanted to finish the game, but it also left me a bit exhausted and impatient at times. Now that I know what will happen I enjoy it more being able to slow the experience down and focus more and try to read between the lines. In general I feel that some cases are better at a second or third playthrough and/or taken in at different paces. I felt the same way with 4-4.
(......Ack! I've run out of snide comments!)
Re: Case five discussion thread (tagged spoilers)Topic%20Title
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"I'm so sick of Khura'in!"

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You are probably right. I have yet to replay any of SoJ because in afraid that the more I think about things it will become less good like DD but i also have a feeling this won't.

I think 6-5 does arguably a bad job at playing with your expectations because it's just one new thread after another from day 1 to the end if day 2 and they really didn't allude well to stuff like Dhurke and Apollo's subplot of day 1 beforehand and the big bold move at the end of the game is also weird. A certain big bad character just dies and random stuff happens with Maya. It was really oddly layed out I thought and sometimes it kind of put a lud on the drama because you can feel a slight lack of cohesion in the cause and effect game. I felt as if I spent a lot of this case just going "what is this now??" When new turns occurred as opposed to a case like 3-5 where it felt more like "holy shit, did that just happen?"

And I think despite those oddities the case was still nice in its own way and I wonder if it's not better for it a second time that all expectations are replaced by the fact that you know exactly what happens and you just look at it for what it is. Then you can also easilier compensate for whenever the foreshadowing isn't properly done in your headcanon lol.

It feels like the set pieces they had, and the basic story was actually nice but the blueprint they used for the case plot wasn't tight enough.
This is the Dark Age of the Ace Attorney
Re: Case five discussion thread (tagged spoilers)Topic%20Title
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The video game boy; the one who wins

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That animation where Nayna quickly slides in and out of the screen fetching Rayfa's robe, I can't get over how much I wish Phoenix would have gotten a similar animation when he has to get the robe in Nayna's absence during the Khura'in trial.
(......Ack! I've run out of snide comments!)
Re: Case five discussion thread (tagged spoilers)Topic%20Title
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Enoshima Junko-chan!

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Spoiler: Civil Trial
Suddenly, everyone except for Apollo acts out of character.
2-4 has shown us that when Maya is kidnapped and held for ransom, Phoenix doesn’t shut himself away from other people. He confides in the people he can trust. In 6-5, Phoenix acts as though he has nobody to trust to tell them about the situation he’s in. Even when Athena finds out, he tells her to keep quiet.
Dhurke knows full well about what’s happening with Maya, but he keeps quiet and then washes his hands of the who thing when the trial was over. Just forget that he knew.
Athena finds out about the hostage situation, but she keeps quiet about it, even to Apollo. She only tells him once the game needs to go somewhere.

So what we have is a trial in which everyone acts like an idiot so Apollo can “beat” Phoenix.

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Re: Case five discussion thread (tagged spoilers)Topic%20Title
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Happy Maria

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MBr wrote:
Spoiler: Civil Trial
Suddenly, everyone except for Apollo acts out of character.
2-4 has shown us that when Maya is kidnapped and held for ransom, Phoenix doesn’t shut himself away from other people. He confides in the people he can trust. In 6-5, Phoenix acts as though he has nobody to trust to tell them about the situation he’s in. Even when Athena finds out, he tells her to keep quiet.
Dhurke knows full well about what’s happening with Maya, but he keeps quiet and then washes his hands of the who thing when the trial was over. Just forget that he knew.
Athena finds out about the hostage situation, but she keeps quiet about it, even to Apollo. She only tells him once the game needs to go somewhere.

So what we have is a trial in which everyone acts like an idiot so Apollo can “beat” Phoenix.


Spoiler:
About the Dhurke thing, didn't he only find out that it was Maya Paul was blackmailing Phoenix with in the post trial? Like beforehand he wasn't in the loop at all about what was going on. I remember that being pretty important, at least. Not like it would've been exactly logical for him to assume it was Maya the whole thing was about, at least in his position. Of course, once he learns about it in the post trial he reacts rationally and taunts Inga with it while not giving away too much either.

I agree with you about Phoenix and Athena though.


Anyway, thoughts on this case. It's been like nearly a year since I last replayed it but whatever. Got a lot to say this time.

Spoiler:
So this case. Straight off the bat I'm going to say that I loved this case and it's my favourite SoJ case, though 6-4 is pretty close behind. I always liked it and never had any major problems with it. A replay didn't really change my thoughts that much, really, but I still liked a lot of it. Thinking about it recently though was sort of an eye opener. I sort of realised that I really do love this case. Like, it may very well be my favourite Yamazaki case and finale, over I2-5 at this point. It's pretty much perfect to me and hits a lot of story beats very well, but it also has to do with how little it actually conflicted with what I was expecting. So I guess I'll do this piece by piece.

The first investigation is honestly great. I really do love a lot of it in how it's paced. The Apollo/Trucy/Dhurke combo is great and they manage to get several good lines in there. It's very enjoyable and I'm happy Trucy got more screentime here at least. The locations are fun too, getting to re-explore Kurain Village was pretty fun and even grounding in some respects, sort of like a nice retrospective and seeing how it fit with Khura'in.

And then there's some other character interactions. I love talking with Dhurke solo as it is but he meshes nicely with Sarge and Ema in terms of comedy. And of course there's Paul who's basically a legend. I know a previous user said he didn't fit at all into the case and while he may have fit better in a different setting, I sort of appreciated his role here. Just sort of a funny small time politician who thinks he's in the big leagues even though he's nowhere near that standard.

And then there's the cave exploration scene, which is a huge highlight of the case. It feels just like a nice bundle of fun and an interestingly unorthodox scenario for an AA case and it leads to some really nice interactions. I like the scene where Apollo just briefly reminisces over his last cases, it feels really nice and simple as a callback to AJ. And the cave scenes themselves are good. The puzzles are pretty fun to solve and I like the part where Apollo nearly drowns but get saved by Dhurke.

Then comes the Civil Trial itself. I'll be honest, I don't hate this either. I could see people considering this the low point of the case but it's genuinely pretty enjoyable. It has some really good pacing as per SoJ standards and it's mostly pretty entertaining. I really like the scenes where it really just operates as a normal civil trial because it feels nice and unique and just sort of different. The scenes where Apollo and Phoenix square off on really minor technicalities on what the artifact could be are really amusing.

Paul is even better here. I love his testimonies, they feel so well made for him. The fact that he keeps going on and on about sometthing unrelated to his testimony when pressed and only blabbering about his own agenda? Brilliant. The part where he pretends to listen but slowly starts snoozing off? Great gag. The part where he just leaves the stand anticlimactically without uttering a word? Amazingly hilarious. It feels just so well made in terms of comedy and I find myself really getting into it. There's other stuff as well, like Ema getting mad about Apollo getting into a fight with his mentor, or Phoenix using Apollo's argument about how a witness could be mistaken due to his old age in his favour in front of the judge, or how everyone just keeps calling Paul by his full surname once it's revealed. The point is, it's bloody hilarious.

I sort of feel that the case turning out to be about a murder instead is a shame but to be expected. It gets slightly more standard from there but it's still good. Armie's part is like Sebastian's arc in AAI2. Not really, but it is pretty well written and comes out through multiple testimonies. My only real complaint is that it started to drag at some point or another around the time she started to come out of her shell, but I guess it was necessary to happen and I didn't mind too much anyway. I like the scene where Apollo uses the lighter to reveal the Holy Mother present there, that was cool.

But yeah, then comes sort of the part I somewhat dislike. The part where they just blatantly reuse the 2-4 subplot of Maya being kidnapped. I'm fine with a lot of other subplots which are just sort of retreads from previous games but that's because they do it in a way that distinguishes it from said subplot while still managing to be unique and organic. I don't like the Maya kidnapped subplot because it feels extremely inorganic and shows the writers didn't really understand the point of 2-4. The person above me covered it pretty well, but that annoyed me a lot, just seeing Phoenix blatantly regress like that.

But... at the same time, it's not really as bad as I remembered it to be? Like, the usage of the plot device is honestly still abhorrent, but I feel like it's ultimately not really that big a deal to me because of how little focus it's actually given in-game. Like, it does take up a bit of time but in the grand scheme of things, not that much? It's given some focus for sure, but then like it quickly tries to sort of break away from that, and the rest of the confrontation actually proceeds super smoothly. I appreciate how even after Phoenix quits defending him and how Paul has lost his leverage, he still puts up a fight on how he couldn't have committed the murder, and the part which ties into the fingerprints on the wheelchair felt pretty nice to me. Overall, it suffered a little bit in that segment but quickly got back up from it and ended on a good note.

So overall? The Civil Trial was really good! I'm a pretty big fan of it. In terms of other complaints, though, Datz being the prime suspect for the murder felt weird to me? It never really fit in and he didn't have any presence at all in the first half. It felt super forced and then Datz himself just randomly disappears after the trial ends and the next time we see him he's pulling some weird prank in Khura'in, pretending that the first half of the case never even happened! It's utterly bizarre and not at all cohesive.

Anyway, now we have the second investigation, taking place in Khura'in. Admittedly I find this the weakest segment in the case but even then I have zero qualms with it. It fulfills its role well enough. I like the exciting beginning with everyone surrounding Amara's tomb and storming there to find Inga's body. Admittedly he was a bit of a surprise for a victim but I guess I didn't mind too much. I'll admit I would have been more interested had the roles of the royal family had been swapped a bit with maybe Amara being a killer instead, but ultimately it doesn't hinder things much for me. I really appreciate all the foreshadowing here though and seeing how things add up with the Dhurke twist. I also like how Dhurke is suspected of killing the guy who murdered him like a week back, absolute genius.

The investigations themselves are mostly straightforward. I don't have much against the crime scene investigation but it's not that great. I like the joke about the fermented grape juice though, that was genuinely hilarious. Glad they made a quip about that. I'm also happy they divided this section into three parts, it's sort of an interesting breakup but totally makes sense and is well paced. I like switching from Apollo to Phoenix, whose investigation was also good. Disappointed by the lack of Psyche Locks though, that meant they were just stuck in 6-3/6-DLC. The parts with Rayfa were genuinely good though and it was sad seeing her reaction to her dad/actually uncle's death. The investigation of Inga's room was fun though, and Edgeworth was a great companion. I liked the letter as a red herring to Inga's motive though it was sadly never elaborated on properly in-game. The final segment with Apollo was good too. It was pretty interesting, though the Amara twist revealed itself surprisingly early but I guess it was pretty apparent anyway. The part where Apollo got stripped was pretty funny too, as was the part where Edgeworth randomly ranted about the Plumed Punisher. I guess one minor nitpick is that the flashbacks were super redundant here, 4-3 style. Like the part from 6-3 where Maya was giving Rayfa some advice, that was super overused at points.

I guess I might as well talk about Apollo's backstory while I'm here. Folks seem to have a lot of apprehension to how his entire past was randomly retconned like that. At first glance it's pretty easy to understand that as well. It honestly does come out of nowhere and while it technically doesn't contradict any previous games it still feels very crazy and out there. It's ridiculous, yes, and blown out of proportion. Does this mean it's bad? Your mileage may vary on this, but I'm compelled to say yes. Just kidding, I think it's fine as is. I guess to explain myself here, I'll sort of choose 5-4 as an example. There, a guy called Clay Terran dies. He's been Apollo's best friend since childhood and they were both buddies who loved everything about outer space. Now, Clay isn't nearly as out there as the Khura'in backstory in SoJ, but he is heavily heavily lacking, just in terms of presence. We get to hear Apollo talk about him a few times posthumously, but it just doesn't do the trick. Clay is a mere nobody to us and we never really feel much for the guy himself. We never even get to see him before this case, apart from Apollo vaguely referencing him a couple times in previous cases. He just feels there more as a plot device for Apollo to act all emo and stuff.

Now, in contrast, let's look at Apollo's Krazy Khura'in Kingdom Adventures. It's far fetched, sure. But the way Apollo reacts to it feels perfect. He tries to isolate himself from it, pretend like it doesn't even exist. It's like even he knows how ridiculous it is and doesn't want to believe it happened. The whole first act of 6-5 is him just coming to grips with it all, and Dhurke. He reacts realistically to it, but moreover we also get to see how it affected him instead of just being told about it. Dhurke gets so much screentime for his character and gets so many good moments in this case that it's amazing. Even better when you consider he's technically only getting all this development posthumously.

And as the case goes on, Apollo slowly starts to accept everything and even forgive Dhurke. It's sort of beautiful and very well written. He even accepts his chance to defend the man without skipping a beat. He never once loses his faith in him. And then comes the twist that he was dead all along, and he feels utterly defeated and in despair. And thanks to Dhurke actually getting some good screentime beforehand, the player can sympathise with Apollo and even feel in despair along with him. It's really well written despite it being so crazy in theory that I can't help but love it anyway. It's a prime example on how I feel AA can get away with doing stuff that's really put there as long as it sticks to its core themology, because the parts in 6-5 involving Dhurke are really really well written. And that's why, in the end, I don't really care how far fetched his backstory is as long as it gives him a chance to actually gets fleshed out.

Anyway, now that we have that out of the way, let's get to the final trial. Surprisingly, I don't really have much to say about this. It's just really good in a lot of ways and mostly well written. I think the first half is pretty unique and fun with how it switches between the witnesses and the like, and Inga's seance is honestly pretty good. Rayfa gets a lot of nice development which was good to see, even if she's treated like garbage by her own mother figure. It was really nice overall but I do wish Phoenix would have been involved with her side a bit more? I guess I was ultimately fine with Apollo doing it but thematically it made more sense for it to have been Phoenix since he's been with her since like the start of the game.

I guess at this point I might as well address Ga'ran. She's fine, I guess. Kind of shallow and whatever for a final case villain, but I don't really mind. She's actually pretty entertaining as a prosecutor and acts all arrogant and powerful, which is a pretty funny changeup. Definitely more interesting as a prosecutor than Nahyuta, and thankfully she dominates over him for the majority of the trial. I'll agree she was actually really really obvious as a villain already and her prosecutor outfit was needlessly unsubtle. Strangely I don't really mind how obvious it was made though. Overall, she was still pretty enjoyable for a killer and put up a great fight, which is what matters more to me.

The Amara part is fine too. She was sort of interesting and I liked how many animals she summoned. Her testimonies were really intense but good, and I thought it was interesting how even after Dhurke was confirmed as dead she insisted on his guilt. I liked her brief confession even if it was a fakeout. The final part was decent too. I liked showing that Rayfa was Dhurke's kid even if it was obvious, and the final seance was a pretty fun way to end things. A bit tragic too but it works. The final takedown worked well to me, especially the thought route. I know people found the whole thing a bit too over the top and crazy but once again, I didn't really mind that much. It still felt suitably written and never took me out of the experience. The end was great, too. Not much more to add. I liked how Apollo stayed back in Khura'in, it was a fitting end to his arc and was pretty well told.

That about wraps it up, really. I know this was sort of a long read but to me, this case is like ice cream. I really truly love it. Thinking about it now I'd say this case is honestly in my top 5 by now because it is actually really solid to me and I have very very little complaints with it. My favourite Yamazaki case, Yamazaki finale and also favourite non trilogy case. Great case, and I think I sort of went into it not really expecting too much but I was really blown away by the quality here. Solid stuff, would replay again.

I'll also add that I've gradually been growing even more love for SoJ at this point. It's just a super duper solid game in all respects and I adore it a lot, maybe more than T&T, AAI2 and PLvsAA- games which I considered to be the best in the series when I first finished them. It truly is a great game and I think I love every single one of the mainline cases. The only other game where I can say that is AJ, really.

tl;dr literally better than bridge to the turnabout

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