Looked around and didn't find a thread for this. Which case do you think is the worst? Wether it's because of the characters, plot, contradiction that don't make sense or evidence, list it here. Maybe you even had an alternate theory?

Worst case in the PW games for me was definitely 3-5. I already listed in the Cough Up Thread why that instructive letter shouldn't exist in the form that it does/did when it became important. And I was willing to give the whole case still a chance, until that stupid Twins Twist appeared and made Dahlia and Iris the older kids of Morgan. Wtf, feels like they randomly pulled that out of nowhere.
Did I have an alternate theory?
Well, yes, I originally thought Iris was Dahlia, escaped from prison. And later, once the bridge was repaired, I got the theory that the "Iris" prior to the bridge-repair was the "real Iris" and the one seen afterwards was merely Maya channeling Iris ...... I was kinda right about that one.

And while it was definitely the most important case in the PW games and had the best message to it, I didn't like 2-4. Granted, I think it was the first really long case I played (having pretty much skipped GS 1 except for case 4) and it just felt like it was dragging on. And I just wanted to beat Phoenix up so badly...

Otherwise, 1-3.
Just.... what a stupid case. I mean, first of all this photo. How the hell did this photo ever count as anything that could somehow resemble evidence? If this game had even an ounce of logic, Will Powers would never have gotten tried for murder.
And then that whole "Plot Twist" that was supposed to be a shock, saying "There were more than just 5 people there on that day!" Kinda ruined by the stills we saw during the case and for another, WTF that makes no sense. Granted, I can understand Oldbag and maybe Nichols staying quiet about Vasquez' and Manella's presence. But what about Will Powers? What good would the money be if he was going to be convicted for murder and finally executed? If anybody was gonna mention their presence, it would be Powers.
And, of course, that whole "Statue Blocking The Path" thing. Nobody seems to think that people can walk on surfaces that are not made of concrete. They sure must take the "Keep off the Grass" signs seriously.

C-A

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This is a good idea to bring this topic up.

So, now for my worst cases:








Aside from that, I liked all cases.

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I love all cases, except for this two:

Case 2-1 was a disaster.
Granted, it's an introductory case that isn't supposed to be very long or makes you think much. But they don't have to make it that easy. Actually, that case should never have happened - at least not with Maggey as the defendant. Falling and breaking your neck either A) kills you instantly or B) you're paralyzed from the neck downwards. No way somebody can write a name then. At least not legibly enough to count.

C-A

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Worst cases in my opinion

The First Turnabout
The Lost Turnabout
Turnabout Big Top
The Stolen Turnabout
Recipe for Turnabout
Turnabout Corner
Turnabout Serenade
The Kidnapped Turnabout

It's also quite ironic than first, introductory case of Apollo Justice was the best one...

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Last edited by Sligneris on Wed Aug 29, 2012 10:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

4:3 Turnabout Serenade is easily my least favourite - overly long and a bit boring.
How many times did we have to sit through that concert video?!

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The thing I hated about Turnabout Sisters was that we knew the killer from the very beginning. We shouldn't ever see this damn White in the introduction.

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I think the only case from the original trilogy I didn't like was The Lost Turnabout, mostly due to the police over-looking too much and Richard Wellington, who I consider one of me least favorite characters, but despite that I still enjoyed several things, like the subtle symbolism of Phoenix trying to figure out who he was, to build up to the final case.

Turnabout Serenade however was a god-awful case with little-to-nothing that I liked about it. The police were absolute dingbats to think Machi of all people was the killer, thinking he fired a powerful .45 caliber revolver twice without injuring himself, then moving a 6ft+ body up a ladder, all because of he was following the lyrics of a song.
The motivations of various characters made no sense either, like why was Machi and Daryan so desperate for money that they'd participate in a smuggling operation when they're members of a world-famous rock band? And the victim was equally dumb, having multiple chances to identify the killer with his dying messages, but instead leaving vague obscure clues for no reason other then to give us some mysteries to solve.
Klavier was also bad in this case, he had multiple chances to show a different side to his character, like finding out his best friend was a murderer. He could had acted appropriately and felt hurt and betrayed, but instead only gets mad because he missed a note on the song.
One of the most truly bad moments in the case was when the judge made Apollo explain a magic trick for him, and would still penalize him if he got anything wrong, and no one wanted to just explain the trick because "a magician never gives away their secrets", despite a person's life being on the line.

Turnabout Succession... I just... wow.... I simply could not think of a way to describe this case. It was just a complete mess, and horribly done way to wrap up the story. There was so many things wrong with this case, so many insane plot holes that the whole thing felt forced together.
Any hope to see the characters evolve past what they were introduced as was ignored. Apollo came out of the game just as he was entered, having no personal reactions or feelings about what happened. Any hope of seeing a new side to Trucy was ignored and she just remained her bubbly cute self, even when Shadi Smith's true indenity was revealed, no breakdown or anything. Speaking of breakdowns, Klavier didn't even react negatively to finding out he had inadvertently hurt so many innocent people, and only seemed to care that it wasn't fair to HIM that his brother was going to cheat. Kristoph's ultimate motivation for his crimes was easily the most petty and laughable I've seen from a major villain in this series. Zak's character was a mess, coming off as a negligent asshole who cared more about poker games then his daughter's wellbeing.
The two cases the chapter tries to clumsily put together are filled to the brim with plot holes, one of the worst being why Zak needed a defense attorney for his trial in the first place when he was planning to flee no matter what verdict was to be given. The MASON system was a ridiculously lazy and confusing way to try and put everything together, not to mention the questionable idea of how Phoenix was able to assemble the whole thing despite the fact his reputation was shot down.
Speaking of Phoenix, do I even need to go into how much I hated what they did to him in this game? You can go on about how much "cooler and mature" he is now, but the deconstruction of his character made me angry. He loses his badge because he was being a ridiculously out-of-character egotist and making a mistake that he would had never made otherwise. Even worse, it happened a mere two months after 3-5, where Mia said he had become a lawyer on par with her. It makes it seem like she was wrong about him.
Oh, and let's not forget the final trial day, which is easily the most anti-climatic part of the game. Apollo does virtually nothing but parrot what Phoenix found out in the investigation, present two pieces of evidence, does one perceive that has nothing to do with the trial (something even Kristoph calls him out on), and you end up with the final choice you made be literally "Do you want to win the game: Yes or No?", all done so the writers could shove in the "superior jurist system" propaganda that they were mandated to put into the game. Unfortunately, the jurist system in this game was shown to be easily led by force-feeding them a controversial video simulation, one of said jurists being the widow of a man that was killed by the witness, and said witness insulting the jurists. Yeah, I'm sure that wouldn't affect their decision or anything.

Whew, that was a long rant. I know there's probably a few things I forgot to mention. Maybe I'll bring them up when people eventually reply to this post trying to defend this case.

So in the end, I guess as bad as Serenade was, I think Successor was easily the worst in the series, not just for the crime itself, but rather the entire execution of the chapter and the use of the characters involved.

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Last edited by サンドラ on Fri Sep 04, 2020 6:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

The Kidnapped Turnabout really was... granted, the whole kidnapping was wrong. I instantly suspected it to be a fake one, too. And I just kept screaming at Edgeworth at the "crime scene" with Oldbag (partly out of sympathy that she was there, otherwise out of anger) and his explanation how it all went down. I just wanted to tell him, "Come on, Edgey, wrestle me, baby! Wrestle me and I show you how the butler got shot!"

Seriously, I instantly knew that the angle of the shot, aside from being from the bottom, was severely high. Why? Pure Logic, my good Edgeworth. The exit wound was, after all, along the neckline of the shoulder and not the shoulderblade.

And I agree about Kay.... why do they keep shoving these annoying female sidekicks? I enjoyed Case 2 and 4, where the assistant was either Gumshoe or Franziska.

C-A

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I always liked the Steel Samarai case. Maybe it was because I had played Apollo Justice first and after the fairly dark Turnabout Succession and the fairly-dark-compared-to-1-3 The First Turnabout and Turnabout Sisters I was ready for a light hearted case.

For me, The first Phoenix Wright was pretty perfect, with the exception of the sprites which look a little weird compared to the later games. In terms of story, it's my favorite AA game. That's because every other one has a case which I'm not a fan of.

3rd place for "My Least Favorite Case" - Turnabout Corner, Apollo Justice 4-2. The plot and twists in court of this case are actually pretty good. The problems with it are the length (this might be the shortest case ever), the relatively boring investigation phases, and that awful running joke about the panties. Probably the worst joke in the entire series. I'm all for innuendo as long as its clever (I loved the show Fraiser) but this wasn't clever. It was awkward, unfunny, and a little creepy considering Trucy's age. Not to mention the "doctor" from Justice for All is back, who I hate and who is a terrible, creepy character.

2nd place for "My Least Favorite Case" - Recipe for Turnabout, Trials & Tribulations 3-3. The case is lame and predictable, and the for 5 minutes before it drives you nuts. Also Jean Armstrong was a bad, stereotypical character.

1st place and winner for "My Least Favorite Case" - Turnabout Big Top, Justice for All 2-3. Nothing really bothers me about the characters here. This was just a bad case. In fact, this is the only case where I stopped playing for about a month in the middle of it. Considering I obsessively played every other Ace Attorney game in a week or less, that really says something. I just really hate this case.

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Short?
God I kept clicking the text away and objection and blowing stuff with the hairdryer, I felt like it wasn't ending at all...



"Hey look, a ladder!"
"No, that's a stepladder."
"What's the difference?"
"Durrrr...."
I find that joke to be worst. Yes, we get it, people don't know the difference between a goddamn ladder (singular, requires stable surface to keep up) and a stepladder (can stand on its own, when opened). We get it, Capcom! Stop it already!
Not that the Panties irritated me cause Trucy is 15 - totally obligatory fine age for panty shots - but that A) they were so f"=%ing ugly and B) they just wouldn't shut up about them. Only time I liked the mention of her panties was when Phoenix asked WTF Apollo was doing, luggin' his sis' magical undies around...

C-A

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Okay, first I'll get the hors-concours out of the way:






Now that we've put the initial cases aside...









And regarding Turnabout Samurai... I don't consider it a case. It's more like a Fanfic that got stuck along with Phoenix's case files.

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Oooh, then I bet it was written by Maya.
Edgeworth may be a Samurai Fan, but he would definitely come up with way better story ideas.

C-A

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I actually thought about this, and I think Pearl wrote it. It's more likely, since she's a kid and the plot does justice to the mind of a 9-year-old.

Even if the Maya/Nick innuendos are missing.

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I like the stepladder banter. usually.I played Apollo Justice first so when apollo and trucy had it I thought it was humerous and showed that Trucy was kind of crazy. When I later played PW:AA and Maya and Nick had the same conversation, it was really funny because it showed where Trucy got a lot of her weirdness from and it was a cool way of connecting. (this is my perception of it, obviously it was released first) but it did get annoying in Investigations because it stopped being a wright family quirk and became just a running joke. Its a lot less funny that way.

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In terms of the villains being boring, I'd say AAI case 3.

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Ugh Richard Wellington. Didn't like the motives for his crime, it was a bit OTT

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The first case of Apollo Justice drove me crazy, I just wanted to get it over it. But other than that, that was the only case I had a gripe with.

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I actually liked most cases despite some of their quirks, like Turnabout Serenade. I actually liked replaying the video over and over again because it was fun seeing Capcom try a Sims-like animation for the AA games. The song was relaxing too.

The only cases I didn't enjoy much are Turnabout Big Top and Recipe for Turnabout simply because of the characters there. I would've appreciated Moe's jokes if it weren't so... corny. Regina's kind of an underdeveloped character for me since there's so many aspects of her that could've been polished by Capcom. Ben and Trilo's case is quite self-explanatory. And Acro just drove me nuts with all his intrusions in the court proceedings. And don't get me started with Max. As much as I am envious of his hair color, he was a coward and a jerk. Nothing more, nothing less.

Same thing with 3-3. ARMSTRONG DROVE ME TO INSANITY IN THAT CASE. Everything about him annoyed me by the second and his lame attempt at French did nothing to lighten up my mood in playing that case. The only character I know who could've matched up in annoying me there would have to Kudo and Tigre. I always felt like the old guy was just messing with you at first, but as the game progressed, the banter just droned on and on and on. And Tigre's trick on Phoenix? Lame. I liked Viola though, and Maggey, too, especially the ending but the way the case was done, character-wise and plot-wise, just made it an unenjoyable one for me.

I guess that's all.

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Turnabout Samurai actually made me not play Phoenix Wright for about a year. I put it down and didn't feel like picking it up again until my brother made me. I hated Sal Manella, I hated Oldbag, I didn't like Penny, Will, or Cody. And it really bothered me that I was slowly walking all over the place to do things like get a trading card, or find Dee Vasquez's script. I replayed it recently and it's not as bad as I remember, but yeah, it really annoyed me.

The Kidnapped Turnabout almost made me do the same for Investigations. I didn't care about the Amanos, Lauren, whoever the victim was, or Kay. I wanted to like Shi-Long Lang, but he just kept popping up whenever we were almost done investigating, and making me drag through a boring testimony. And of course Oldbag and Meekins show up to make things even more irritating. I liked the badger stuff, but I wish it was more downplayed. And of course there's that infuriating "Now......now.....now......" thing Amano kept doing.

I hated Turnabout Trump. Looking back, I don't know if it was necessarily a bad case, but I was miserable playing through it. I disliked every character, except the Judge, and I was sorta neutral about Kristoph. I did not care one bit about Apollo in this case, I saw him as just a weird knock off of Phoenix. All the parallels between their first cases doesn't help either. I hated Phoenix. It looked to me like the creators of the game had no idea what Phoenix was like, and didn't care about making him seem like the old Phoenix at all. As I went through the game there was more referencing how he didn't change much, but nothing in Trump. I hated stupid Olga Orly, both as the dumb Russian waitress and as the card dealer. And they really pounded in the already obvious pun in her name.

Again, I know now that my initial assumptions were untrue, and Phoenix's character was intentional, but it was just all introduced in a way that completely did not work with me. It didn't help that my save corrupted and I had to drudge through it twice.

I was also fairly miserable during Turnabout Corner. I still disliked Phoenix, didn't really care about Trucy or Apollo, didn't like Alita, Eldoon, or Plum (surprisingly I didn't hate Wocky, though I thought he was going to be the worst). The case starts out boring: looking for panties and a noodle stand. Of course the hit-and-run doesn't show up until later, which was the only vaguely interesting mystery. And then there's Wesley Stickler. He was just an awful character for me - disgusting to look at, bland as all get out, insanely pretentious, and of course he rips off Oldbag's rambling tendency, and he speaks slowly. Worst cross-examination ever.
After that, things went well enough until the last day in court.


Though I was actually kinda surprised when I first heard people hated 2-1 and 4-3, I liked them both okay. I liked the Gavinners, I liked the video, I liked the mixing board stuff, I liked the lyrics stuff. The villain was boring and I never cared for Machi, but I liked it much more than the first 2 cases. And 2-1 was fine for me, I liked Maggey, and I thought the amnesia thing was fairly entertaining and kind of a creative way to make a tutorial for new players. And of course there's the large bananas.

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I think this might have a situation where playing Apollo Justice first helped me. Since I didn't have any background on any of the characters, Turnabout Trump played out exactly how it did to Apollo - I didn't know if Phoenix killed the guy, forged the evidence, etc. It was a fun way to get to know the character.

I seem to be the only person on this forum that likes Turnabout Samarai haha. I don't know why it doesn't bother me. It's certainly not my favorite case or anything, but i think it's much better and truer to the characters than 2-3 and 3-3. I totally agree about Turnabout Corner, though. That's an awful case. I also liked 4-3 and am not sure why that gets all the negative attention it does. It brought a lot of new gameplay mechanics to the table, had the first real cutscene and was unpredictable because of how different it was from other cases.

After I went back and replayed AAI again, I found it's a lot harder to replay than the originals, probably because of all the walking around. I probably need to wait longer before playing it again. So I didn't really enjoy any of the AAI cases again so I can't tell if I dislike The Kidnapped Turnabout less than any of the others. I do remember when I first played AAI I thought it was the most enjoyable one since the original GS1 so it must have not bothered me that much at that point.

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I like Turnabout Samaurai, that case kept me on the edge of my seat.

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For me, the only case I disliked was 2-3, thanks to , and of course, Regina "Tastes Like Diabetes" Berry.

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I think 2-3 is pretty universally hated.

I disliked 4-2 as well, but it was mainly about the panties jokes and the sidecharacters, rather than ema or phoenix. This is why if someone wanted to get into the series I would almost tell them to play GS4 first, then go back and play GS1, GS2, GS3, AAI, and GS4 again. It seems people who don't know the characters as they are in the originals often are much more at ease with where the characters went in GS4. That's actually how I played them (minus AAI which wasn't out yet), kind of rationalizing it as apollo reading through Phoenix's old files or something. It was really cool and changed the way the jokes went down for me (for instance the step ladder stuff, which a lot of people don't like, worked for me because I saw Trucy do it in GS4 and then later saw Phoenix do it in GS1 and it made the connection. I think that connection would have been a little less pleasing if I had heard it in GS1 first, then just saw it reappear once again in GS4).

Actually, seeing Phoenix and Maya mirror Trucy and Apollo might be the reason I like Turnabout Samarai so much. It's a great "flashback to how we were" case if you were looking at it that way.

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....wait, how can it keep you on your toes?
I mean, just looking at the photo created by the security camera should tell you that the entire conceptual idea of "This is totally Will Powers, because he plays the Steel Samurai and nobody else can wear this costume, although we cannot see his face or any other defining feature at all, dummdidumm, hey look a squirrel!" is completely stupid.

I complain about how people are idiots in this game, but that was really a very, very bad case of it. I'm replaying 2-3 right now and at least they seemed to have learned their lesson from 1-3. They say "Yeah, this guy had the silk hat, cloak and white roses" at first but pretty soon go the line of "Are you sure this was Max? Did you see his face?"
Although they kinda get dumb again with the Nickel Samurai in 2-4...

Plus, looking at the still of the dead Jack Hammer, you realize pretty fast, "Hey, I haven't met this character yet. There is certainly still more to come." I mean, it's not a surprise to learn that there were more people at the studio on that day, if we see one of them from the very beginning.

About Alita being a Dahlia knock-off...
Well, I'm always suspicious of girls that act that cute.
9 times out of 10, they really are not to be trusted...

C-A

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True, but it's not the fact that it was another bitch in sheep's clothing that got me. Wocky also doted on the girlfriend just like Feenie. Both Dahlia and Alita were going to kill their boyfriend. Alita and Dahlia acted like they were defending the boyfriend, while trying to incriminate them. Both Wocky and Feenie were originally extremely defensive of the girl, but in the end sadly accepted the truth. There may be more I can't remember right now.

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I noticed the photo stuff and how stupid they were being with it as well, but it never bothered me. Really the only characters who shouldn't be that stupid about things like that are Phoenix and Edgeworthl. I guess you could say Phoenix is too distracted by his first investigation with Maya and her antics and Edgeworth is so focused on getting Powers guilty and beating Wright he might not have mentioned it. They often make pretty big generalizations in the games, probably to try to get to fool you into going with it (I mean, if a character said "Is that really Will Powers" then those who don't think about the costume thing too deeply might start to think about it. With the characters all in agreement it makes it more likely someone will just believe everything at face value). not making an excuse for it, but considering it was their first game they probably didn't worry too much about that kind of generalization.

If we're talking about knowing more about the case than the characters, the thing that bugs me a lot more is the first day or two in Rise from the Ashes when nobody notices that the MURDER WEAPON IS A COUPLE OF CENTIMETERS TOO LONG TO BE THE ACTUAL MURDER WEAPON. It's one thing for the characters to make generalizations but it's another thing to have all of them FILE TWO COMPLETELY CONTRADICTORY PIECES OF EVIDENCE in the court record for two days without anyone of them noticing. Especially since it's Edgeworth's knife! If anything he would have spotted it immediately so he would no longer be as big of a suspect as he was. As much as I like Rise from the Ashes, that drove me much more crazy than the samurai photo did.

Regarding Alita, once again I played Apollo first. Add that to another reason why Apollo is a better introduction to the series than GS1 is.

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Well looking back turnabout samurai did have it's flub ups, I should've guessed that the murder weapon wasn't the spear, Oldbag was dim-witted accusing Will Powers in the first place, (however that's part of her character and there was evidence that could've got Powers guilty), and that steal samaurai costume was too big for Hammer. (Kind of weird since Powers and Hammer have the same body type.)

I was having too much fun with Turnabout Samaurai the first time, it gave me lots of laughs, and I still have fun with that case today. You guys seem to take the Ace Attorney games a bit seriously when they're supposed to pure fun. Kind of like some people who take anime too seriously.

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That's something I don't understand why everyone's complaining. I'm typing this next part straight from the game:




You win the internet forever.

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Last edited by tiger_festival on Sat Feb 02, 2013 2:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thank you. ^-^
Seriously, why can't we all just have fun with videogames? I find court records very decent even though I try to avoid videogame communities on the internet nowadays. It's more about clash of the egos and less about fun.

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Might have Definitely has something to do with this.

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*sigh*
Except, I don't exactly believe in cyberbullying.

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I'll just hope I'm not being insulted with those last few posts >_>
I have tons of fun with video games. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here. I love the Phoenix Wright games to death, and I could completely gush about them if prompted to. I can say tons of good things about every other case I've played, and even some good things about the ones that are my least favorite. This just isn't the thread for that. I think there's a thread for favorite cases? Maybe I'll write something for there, except in my experience people don't like necro-ing really old threads.
Anyway, the thread prompts negative feelings and opinions, it doesn't mean people who post in it don't enjoy the games. I dislike some parts of the games, that's all. I hope we can all respect each other's opinions cheesy as it sounds

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I didn't find a thread for favorite cases ._.

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viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17654&hilit=favorite+case
The last post was in '09 though. I think there are a couple others, but they're even older.

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And a case can be bad, and still be fun...just saying.

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I have to admit, being the perverted Yaoi Fangirl that I am with my extremely dirty mind, I found that conversation hilarious. Then again, this game sometimes doesn't hide it's innuendos, considering how I finished Case 2-3 yesterday and got the Judge to say, "Umm, you've done a good job at fingering a criminal, Mr Wright..." and I almost fell out of my chair after reading it twice.



Oh, I enjoy playing videogames a lot.
Even with games that the majority of people seem to nag and complain about (FFXIII, FFXIII-2, Skyward Sword, etc) I find the flaws and some of my own in the game, but I generally don't let them bother me so much that I can't play the game anymore without having some general fun.
Same with GS.
I know it's a satyrical game and supposed to be light and funny and comedic, but I just wish they had kept at least a certain amount of "real life" law in this game. For example, Chain of Custody. Nobody brings that ever up, nobody seems to know about it - the introduction of Evidence Law in 1-5 was kind of weak, but I tell myself that it's only in that cause the victim and murderer had to do with the Authority branch, so doing things "by the book" was understandable.
But did they really have to make GS people this stupid, just because they want to target an audience that doesn't know law very well? Especially for Phoenix - the way he acts, I wonder if he even went to law school at all or just got high during college and somehow still got a diploma. I mean, even people who don't know any big detail about the law, they know a few things - like how you shouldn't touch anything at a crime scene and just take it with you when you leave.

C-A

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It's not like anything actually bothers me in the AA games (apart from offensive or stereotypical characters) but since we're on an AA forum I usually nitpick at things because it's something to talk about here. Since the topic is "worst case", inconsistencies are often going to come up.
So while I may talk about the weapon length bothering me, it doesn't bother me the way that something in the real world would. It's just we're on an AA fansite so I'm going to bring up things that otherwise wouldn't really be an issue ;)

As for the actual issue, it's not the investigation part that bothers me but rather there is a whole day in court where both the defense and the prosecution have access to both Edgeworth's knife and the autopsy report and nobody notices the inconsistency. It probably wouldn't have bothered me if I hadn't noticed it but it made that day a little frustrating.

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