Board 8 > Rate the Ace Attorney case: Turnabout Samurai (1-3)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Rules:

1. Rate each case on a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Anything above 10 gets rounded down to a 10, and anything below a 1 gets rounded up to a 1.
2. Anything beyond one decimal point will be rounded accordingly: .04 and below will be rounded down, .05 and up will be rounded up.
3. You may grade on any criteria you like.
4. You can rate cases from previous topics if you miss a topic.

Previous Results:

Turnabout Sisters (1-2) - 5.5 (17 votes)
The First Turnabout (1-1) - 4.8 (22 votes)

1-2 does slightly better than 1-1, which makes sense because they're pretty similar. Hard to compare to the rest of the series, but hard to overlook their overall impact for the rest of the series, both as someone playing for the first time and when looking back over everything.

Summary:

When a popular action show villain is murdered at the production studio, the show's star Will Powers becomes the prime suspect. With Maya's help Phoenix uncovers a long history of cover-ups and extortion.

Main Characters: Phoenix Wright, Maya Fey, Mia Fey, Dick Gumshoe, Miles Edgeworth, The Judge
Other Characters: Will Powers, Jack Hammer, Wendy Oldbag, Penny Nichols, Cody Hackins, Sal Manella, Dee Vasquez

My rating: 9/10. The case that made me love AA. Maya grows into her role as Phoenix's more comedic assistant. Edgeworth and Gumshoe feels less like obstacles and more like fully realized characters. Witnesses are memorable, but not necessarily caricatures. The murder has a whole arc to it, with each trial feeling like a big swerve.

Bitto posted...

My rating: 9/10. The case that made me love AA. Maya grows into her role as Phoenix's more comedic assistant. Edgeworth and Gumshoe feels less like obstacles and more like fully realized characters. Witnesses are memorable, but not necessarily caricatures. The murder has a whole arc to it, with each trial feeling like a big swerve.

This is honestly pretty close to my exact feelings.

I wanna give it an 8.5 to leave more space for the better cases though.

8.5/10

9/10

I get that it isn't the "best" in the series, but it is also the case that made me fall in love with AA. It sort of all clicks here, and I was like "oh wait they can actually tell really cool unique stories in these cases, huh?"

I'll give Samurai an 7.5. It's a good case, but there are much better later.

9/10

The revelation at the end of day 2 (that the scene of the crime was Studio Two, not Studio One) was the first mind-blowing moment in the game for me, and that's what hooked me on the series.

Edgeworth's face turn at the end is still a top ten hype moment, too.

8/10

It's pretty slow to get started, but it has the first great plot twist in the series (though there are two of them in this case) and the first great witness in the series (Dee Vasquez). Funny dialogue involving Dee, too.

Phoenix: And when exactly was that?
Vasquez: I've forgotten.
Phoenix: ...
Vasquez: ...
Phoenix: Maybe you could try remembering?
Vasquez: No.

Phoenix: Ms. Vasquez! You did it! [killed Jack Hammer]
Vasquez: ...
Vasquez: That wasn't a question.
Phoenix: ...
Phoenix: Um, did you do it?
Vasquez: No.

8.5/10

Don't "..." me!

I love Dee Vasquez such an amazing witness.

I am convinced put it back to 9/10 from 8.5

8/10

There are better chases, but this is a pretty darn good one.

7

7/10

Turnabout Sisters 6/10

9/10

in addition to the already well deserved praise for dee, wendy oldbag is also a top tier character and will powers is a great defendant.

It's Oldbag's best appearance in the series because they actually give her a brief moment when she isn't actively antagonizing the protagonist

8/10

The pacing is weird - the investigations feel like they involve too much back-and-forth between annoying locations while the trial segments go a little bit too quickly. But other than that this is like - one of the most quintessential AA cases. It's one of the rare times that we ACTUALLY have Phoenix, Edgeworth, and Maya all together, it's the first case to have a really compelling murder mystery, the villain and the side characters are all great (Oldbag is awesome), and there's just so much classic, iconic AA stuff going on here. This was the case that made me fall in love with this game fully.

I always enjoy replaying 1-3 because this is the first case Phoenix and Maya are working together, and they're not totally comfortable and used to each other yet, so you get some interactions between them that can only happen here.

7.5/10

This case feels a little too slow to start, but it picks up the pace and delivers a lot of great stuff. Cody Hackins is an underrated witness to me; pretty touching for a brat kid character, and I think he's the first witness who lies not because of misinterpreting what they saw or because they're involved in the murder?

Wish we had seen more of Dee Vasquez since she's indeed pretty great, just unfortunately kinda gone in a flash. Even Sal Manella feels endearing (to me) with the extremely dated leetspeak thing. I replayed the case not too long ago and reading the word SUXXORZhonestly made me nostalgic.

6/10

I will never get over ending the second trial day proving that Powers can't be the culprit. I actually like the anime for fixing this.

6/10

Solid 8

7.5/10

Man, here I felt like I was really gonna be going to bat for this case today, but most people are going even higher. I was way lower on the other two; I guess I'm just taking to heart the "5 is an average AA case" metric more than you guys?

1-3 legitimately edges out 1-4 as my second-favorite case in AA1. The lows are quite low, but the highs are absolutely incredible.

• Cody breaking down on the stand and blowing the case wide open right after with the picture of Studio 2
• Gumshoe busting in and saving the day
• The Edgeworth face turn, leaving Vasquez bewildered

I haven't done an actual list or anything, but my gut feeling tells me all three of these are top 40 moments in the series for me, with the latter two easily being top 20, and that's a LOT of weight being pulled by a case 3 in Ace Attorney.

6.5/10

I felt it was kinda fillerish but had some good moments.

I think 1-3 is a top 10 level case, so a 9 felt pretty appropriate to me!

I hated this case. I would have rated the first two higher than the average, but this one annoyed the crap out of me, trying to figure out the magic sequence of things I needed to do to advance the plot. I guess you could say it was my introduction into "real" Ace Attorney gameplay, but damn if I wasn't stuck for a long-ass time running back and forth clicking on everything.

And speaking of first exposure, I wasn't fond of the story or plot, either. Maybe now that I'm more familiar with the camp in the series' writing, I'd be more charitable, but the truth is I simply wasn't into this one and almost bailed on the game because of it.

2.5/10

Bitto posted...

You can rate cases from previous topics if you miss a topic.

Oh, okay then.

I said I'd rate them higher than the average, but come to think of it, only barely.

1.1) 5/10
1.2) 6/10

1.1 gets some leniency for being the "intro" case, but it's otherwise pretty dumb. 1.2 I wasn't fond of how they immediately killed off Mia, even if it was necessary for story reasons, but it started to hint at -- without overstaying its welcome -- the depth that future cases might hold. I did them both very quickly with a friend sitting in the room with me, and there isn't much that's very memorable about either, tbh.

i just tried ranking all 54 (!) of these cases and it's becoming really hard to do so, especially for the least memorable ones like the layton guys. but it's also hard to measure scope vs execution vs ambition in these. 1-3 has less overall content than a lot of later cases but i'd argue it soars with what it has. 1-1 does that too but it's a little too stripped of content, but 1-3 has tons of good stuff (even while admittedly the investigation's sequencing can get you stuck for no reason)

9/10

Objection! ...I was hoping to come up with a question while I was objecting, Your Honor...I didn't.

This girl is out there!

7/10

Gets a full point increase for "I was hoping to come up with a question while objecting" and "Verily, I say... Ergo!" and loses a full point for Vasquez doing everything she could to avoid a self-defense acquittal for no reason

8/10

An important case, though not altogether satisfying. The first real case that gives players a sense of the series as a whole (partner investigations, big twists, etc.) Dee Vasquez isn't great imo and the last day of investigation feels weird.

8.5 I love Dee's style.

7.5/10
This is where AA really starts to hit its stride, and the general pattern for how cases work is established. The previous two cases were setup, this is the first "normal" case, and it's pretty fun (and better than most of the series' filler)

Hey! You can't just go around saying "pal" all the time! That's MY endearing character trait!

6 for both this case and 1-2.