I finished SoJ, and while I have the DLC to beat, I'm still feeling the urge to play more AA. I'm making myself wait at least another year before I replay one of the other games again (looking back because of the releases of DD, VS, and SoJ I've pretty much played most of the AA games every year for the last 6 years and I want to take a couple years to "forget" some of them so next time I play it it will be more enjoyable).

However, thinking about ways to "mix it up" a bit, I wondered about playing all the cases in "chronological" order. Has anyone done this before? Does it offer anything new or interesting in the sense of a different experience? Do you lose the cohesiveness of playing the cases in the order intended? I'm interested to hear if anyone has done this or their opinion.

If I'm not mistaken, the order would be:
AAI-4, 3-4, 3-1, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 2-2, 2-1, 2-3, 2-4, 3-2, 3-3, 3-5, AAI-2, AAI-3, AAI-1, AAI-5, GK2-1, GK2-2, GK2-3, GK2-4, GK2-5, 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, 5-2, 5-S, 5-3, 5-4/5-1, 5-5, 6-1, 6-2 ,6-3, 6-4, 6-5, 6-S.

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I've never done it myself, but I wouldn't think it would be worth it. The order each game puts its cases is to best advance the plot, whether that's chronologically or not. For instance, putting 5-1 at the start of the game instead of in the middle of 5-4 sets up the whole game in a way that 5-2 could not possibly do. Same goes for Phoenix's last trial being in the middle of 4-4 rather at the start of the game. Kicking it off with the reason why Phoenix lost his badge makes case 4-1 almost meaningless. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it as I'm sure it would be a very different experience, but having foreshadowing for events you've already seen and starting whole games in medias res would almost certainly ruin the natural flow of the story. At least, that's my opinion.

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I would think cases such as 4-4 and GK2-3 make it virtually impossible to play through chronologically.

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If I would attempt it I wouldn't go that far; I'd make a rule to play cases with flashbacks during their "present" time. If AJ and AAI-2 had the "scene select" feature that DD and SoJ it would be easier.



This is definitely true. However, considering I've played all the games multiple times I feel like I could excuse it and potentially be fine since I know what happens. In some ways going from the flashback of 4-4 right into AJ would set the tone up in a different and interesting way compared to going from T&T to AJ. It makes me think it might be kind of like watching Star Wars in release order (4,5,6,1,2,3) and then watching it in chronological order. It might feel different.

On the other hand, I kind of want to experience the story the way the creators intended so I'll probably just play them normally again whenever I replay them.

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Yes, I've played them through chronological order.
It doesn't affect the gameplay in any way, obviously, but it leaves quite an impact on the story, and as the later games reference past experiences, you'll be able to recognize them and whatnot.