LogFAQs > #915362810

Match 79: Phoenix Wright vs. Ike

Phoenix 15320
Ike 14913

This was our first match to be flipped by the registered user bonus. The raw votes are even closer, with Ike winning by just 28 votes, but Phoenix is Board 8's favorite character, so it came as no surprise that he'd be the first character to outright steal a win because of the registered bonus. It's entirely in character, too. Phoenix always does his best work when the odds are stacked against him, and occasionally he's unable to pull out victory on his own power, but someone else comes along to bail him out at the last minute. 1-2 is obviously the most prominent example, but there are other times, too, like 1-4 when Larry Butz comes busting in and Phoenix finally gets a chance to cross-examine a witness that Manfred von Karma hasn't tampered with in advance.

I still need to play Spirit of Justice. I hear Phoenix is back to being the main protagonist in that one after being demoted to side character in the fourth game and being part of an ensemble in the fifth. Still, those games did give us other Ace Attorney leads. If they're any good in Spirit of Justice as well, maybe we should consider them for future experiments with other characters. The Godot thing didn't work out too well, and Edgey's been struggling for years now without a win. Couldn't be any worse than that, right? Well, okay, maybe it could because Apollo's debut game was roundly panned (I kind of liked it). He'll suffer for that. Athena might do okay just because females are doing better.

Actually, forget those two. I also heard that Ema Skye is reprising her role from AJ:AA as the main detective, and she's had other appearances in the series before that. If we want to see if two X chromosomes really is an asset in these contests, we'll make her the next AA character to get a shot.

But even without the registered voter bonus doing him in, Ike would have barely squeaked past Phoenix. Given the way Ike regularly dominates the Voting Gauntlets in Fire Emblem Heroes, that really doesn't speak very well for the strength of Fire Emblem as a whole. Or rather...it doesn't speak well for the characters' strength. It's been fairly rare in recent entries for there to truly be a lone main character. Ike kind of was in Path of Radiance, but even there he was the first lead to not be royalty in a game that still had plenty of royalty. Beyond that, you really have to go all the way back to Roy. It's quite possible that Fire Emblem will forever suffer from ensemble cast syndrome. The series has done okay for itself in Games contests, though not spectacularly.
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Also known as Cyberchao X.