The game is doing a really nice job developing themes, notably fatherhood, but also the idea of mental/logic chess. It actually is quite reminiscent of the first series of Cumberbatch Sherlock, where the audience is invested in not only solving the mystery but trying to understand the minds of super-smart weirdos. This is lacking in AAI, but present here, where Edgeworth has much more of an... edge... to him in much of his dialogue.
There's been two cases now where actually catching the murderer has felt significantly less exciting than figuring out the case. It was a big problem in E2-2, because this happened early and the case doesn't give you much to do. At least in this one, the case has lots for you to figure out.
This case hits the sweet spot (no pun intended) in terms of complexity. It could have been much more complicated: we could have visited the other rooms, we could have had more defiant witnesses, there could have been a Little Thief section. Not having any of this is actually a good decision, as AAI already suffers from too much padding/pace issues.
In terms of Edgeworth 2 original characters, the ranking currently sits at:
Ray > Gregory > Courtney > Sebastian > Knightley > Kate > Master > Dogen > (the rest) > Simon