Board 8 > Ace Attorney Discussion Topic, Part 6 - This Reminds Me of a Crossover Edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

Now featuring Professor Layton, just to forewarn you...!

Spoiler warning: Spoilers for every game in the series that's in English in any form are fair game, and that includes AAI2 now. Mark spoilers if you want to talk about DGS (which I think only dowolf and I here have completed in any form), but other than that, go nuts!
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6-5 - 14:03:49
E2-5 - 9:36:06
3-5 - 9:35:46
2-4 - 9:05:21
1-5 - 8:46:43
E1-5 - 8:42:23
6-3 - 8:13:50
E2-3 - 8:09:06
E2-2 - 7:29:23
5-6 - 7:21:19
5-2 - 7:13:40
5-3 - 6:50:24
4-4 - 6:38:01
5-5 - 6:16:05
6-6 - 6:04:07
3-2 - 6:02:56
E2-4 - 6:01:14
6-2 - 5:58:46
4-3 - 5:58:33
3-3 - 5:48:31
2-3 - 5:06:33
1-4 - 4:59:52
4-2 - 4:58:35
E1-4 - 4:58:26
2-2 - 4:47:40
5-4 - 4:27:31
E1-3 - 4:02:16
1-3 - 3:49:35
E2-1 - 3:36:32
6-4 - 3:21:23
E1-2 - 3:15:49
6-1 - 2:59:52
1-2 - 2:40:40
5-1 - 2:19:33
4-1 - 2:11:44
3-4 - 1:54:15
E1-1 - 1:44:51
3-1 - 1:43:09
2-1 - 1:15:57
4-0 - 1:09:44
1-1 - 0:33:35

"Days" by total length:

1. 6-5 day 2: 9:02:37
2. 5-5 day 1: 6:16:05
3. 3-5 day 2: 6:02:27
4. 6-2 day 1: 5:58:46
5. 6-5 day 1: 5:01:12
6. 2-4 day 2: 4:46:23
7. 2-4 day 1: 4:18:58
8. 5-6 day 2: 4:11:59
9. 6-3 day 2: 4:07:37
10. 6-3 day 1: 4:06:13
11. 5-2 day 1: 3:47:08
12. 5-3 day 2: 3:44:23
13. 1-5 day 3: 3:37:24
14. 4-3 day 2: 3:35:41
15. 3-5 day 1: 3:33:19
16. 5-2 day 2: 3:26:32
17. 3-3 day 2: 3:19:52
18. 5-4 day 2: 3:17:29
19. 5-6 day 1: 3:09:20
20. 6-6 day 2: 3:09:15
21. 5-3 day 1: 3:06:01
22. 4-4 day 2: 3:03:37
23. 3-2 day 1: 3:01:35
24. 3-2 day 2: 3:01:21
25. 6-6 day 1: 2:54:52
26. 1-5 day 2: 2:44:33
27. 2-3 day 1: 2:41:06
28. 4-2 day 1: 2:37:01
29. 3-3 day 1: 2:28:39
30. 2-3 day 2: 2:25:27
31. 2-2 day 2: 2:25:06
32. 1-5 day 1: 2:24:46
33. 4-4 day 1: 2:24:40
34. 4-3 day 1: 2:22:52
35. 2-2 day 1: 2:22:34
36. 4-2 day 2: 2:21:34
37. 1-4 day 3: 1:46:53
38. 1-4 day 1: 1:39:08
39. 1-3 day 2: 1:35:43
40. 1-4 day 2: 1:33:51
41. 1-2 day 1: 1:23:48
42. 1-2 day 2: 1:16:52
43. 1-3 day 1: 1:13:33
44. 1-3 day 3: 1:00:19

Trial length in-game totals:

1-5: 16 hours, 30 minutes
2-4: 14 hours, 38 minutes
1-4: 14 hours, 15 minutes
3-5: 11 hours, 34 minutes
1-3: 11 hours, 3 minutes
2-3: 11 hours
4-2: 10 hours, 35 minutes
E2-2: >10 hours, 34 minutes
E1-5: >10 hours, 33 minutes
4-3: 10 hours, 24 minutes
3-2: 9 hours, 59 minutes
6-3: 9 hours, 23 minutes
3-3: 9 hours, 2 minutes
1-2: 8 hours, 48 minutes
2-2: 8 hours, 45 minutes
4-4: >7 hours, 50 minutes
5-2: 7 hours, 47 minutes
E2-4: >7 hours, 43 minutes
E2-5: >7 hours, 28 minutes
6-6: 7 hours, 24 minutes
E1-2: 7 hours, 6 minutes
E2-3: 6 hours, 51 minutes
4-1: 6 hours, 28 minutes
E1-3: >6 hours, 16 minutes
5-5: 6 hours, 1 minute
5-6: >5 hours, 43 minutes
3-1: 5 hours, 16 minutes
5-1: 4 hours, 51 minutes
1-1: 4 hours, 32 minutes
2-1: 4 hours, 16 minutes
3-4: >3 hours, 49 minutes
E1-1: 3 hours, 42 minutes
E1-4: 3 hours, 40 minutes
6-1: 3 hours, 36 minutes
4-0: >1 hour, 37 minutes
E2-1: 2 hours, 26 minutes
6-4: 2 hours, 5 minutes
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Investigation days by length:

1. 6-5 day 2: 3:39:52
2. 6-2 day 1: 2:49:13
3. 3-5 day 2: 2:40:27
4. 6-5 day 1: 2:38:39
5. 6-3 day 1: 2:24:31
6. 2-4 day 2: 2:22:16
7. 2-4 day 1: 2:17:55
8. 4-4 day 2: 2:04:21
9. 5-5 day 1: 2:02:41
10. 3-2 day 1: 2:02:38
11. 3-5 day 1: 1:58:45
12. 5-2 day 1: 1:57:07
13. 6-6 day 1: 1:54:55
14. 5-4 day 1/day 2: 1:50:15
15. 5-6 day 2: 1:48:40
16. 6-3 day 2: 1:47:03
17. 5-6 day 1: 1:45:15
18. 3-3 day 2: 1:42:38
19. 3-2 day 2: 1:39:44
20. 5-2 day 2: 1:39:37
21. 5-3 day 1: 1:38:56
22. 5-3 day 2: 1:37:02
23. 2-3 day 1: 1:35:11
24. 4-3 day 2: 1:31:28
25. 4-2 day 1: 1:31:13
26. 3-3 day 1: 1:27:52
27. 2-2 day 1: 1:26:42
28. 1-5 day 2: 1:26:02
29. 1-5 day 3: 1:21:23
30. 4-3 day 1: 1:18:37
31. 2-3 day 2: 1:18:17
32. 4-2 day 2: 1:18:05
33. 2-2 day 2: 1:16:38
34. 4-4 day 1: 1:12:52
35. 6-6 day 2: 1:11:53
36. 1-5 day 1: 1:03:57
37. 1-4 day 2: 0:58:35
38. 1-3 day 2: 0:57:26
39. 1-4 day 1: 0:56:42
40. 1-2 day 1: 0:41:53
41. 1-4 day 3: 0:41:22
42. 1-3 day 1: 0:39:27
43. 1-2 day 2: 0:35:58
44. 1-3 day 3: 0:27:01

Trial days by length:

1. 6-5 day 2: 5:22:45
2. 5-5 day 1: 4:13:24
3. 3-5 day 2: 3:22:00
4. 6-4: 3:21:23
5. 6-2 day 1: 3:09:33
6. 6-1: 2:59:52
7. 2-4 day 2: 2:24:07
8. 5-6 day 2: 2:23:19
9. 6-5 day 1 2:22:33
10. 6-3 day 2: 2:20:34
11. 1-5 day 3: 2:16:01
12. 4-1: 2:11:44
13. 5-3 day 2: 2:07:21
14. 4-3 day 2: 2:04:13
15. 2-4 day 1: 2:01:03
16. 6-6 day 2: 1:57:22
17. 3-4: 1:54:15
18. 5-2 day 1: 1:50:01
19. 5-2 day 2: 1:46:55
20. 3-1: 1:43:09
21. 6-3 day 1: 1:41:42
22. 3-3 day 2: 1:37:14
23. 3-5 day 1: 1:34:24
24. 5-4 day 2: 1:27:14
25. 5-3 day 1: 1:27:05
26. 5-6 day 1: 1:24:05
27. 3-2 day 2: 1:21:37
28. 1-5 day 1: 1:20:49
29. 1-5 day 2: 1:18:31
30. 5-1 day 2: 1:18:03
31. 2-1: 1:15:57
32. 4-4 day 1: 1:11:48
33. 5-4 day 1: 1:10:02
34. 4-0: 1:09:44
35. 2-2 day 2: 1:08:28
36. 2-3 day 2: 1:07:10
37. 2-3 day 1: 1:05:55
38. 4-2 day 1: 1:05:48
39. 1-4 day 3: 1:04:31
40. 4-3 day 1: 1:04:15
41. 4-2 day 2: 1:03:29
42. 5-1 day 1: 1:01:30
43. 3-3 day 1: 1:00:47
44. 6-6 day 1: 0:59:57
45. 4-4 day 2: 0:59:16
46. 3-2 day 1: 0:58:57
47. 2-2 day 1: 0:55:52
48. 1-4 day 1: 0:42:26
49. 1-2 day 1: 0:41:55
50. 1-2 day 2: 0:40:54
51. 1-3 day 2: 0:38:17
52. 1-4 day 2: 0:35:16
53. 1-3 day 1: 0:34:06
54. 1-1: 0:33:35
55. 1-3 day 3: 0:33:18

Ace Attorney Investigations segments by length:

1. E2-5 Beginning: 4:27:42
2. E1-5 Middle: 4:08:44
3. E2-2 End: 4:06:28
4. E2-3 End: 3:27:58
5. E2-5 Middle: 3:10:34
6. E1-5 End: 3:10:20
7. E2-3 Middle: 2:42:34
8. E2-4 End: 2:37:56
9. E2-2 Middle: 2:17:37
10. E2-3 Beginning: 1:58:34
11. E2-5 End: 1:57:50
12. E2-4 Middle: 1:51:47
13. E2-1 Beginning: 1:50:21
14. E2-1 End: 1:46:11
15. E1-4 Beginning: 1:40:09
16. E1-4 End: 1:39:44
17. E1-4 Middle: 1:38:33
18. E1-3 End: 1:32:58
19. E2-4 Beginning: 1:31:31
20. E1-3 Beginning: 1:23:35
21. E1-5 Beginning: 1:23:19
22. E1-2 Beginning: 1:21:00
23. E1-2 End: 1:07:01
24. E1-3 Middle: 1:06:43
25. E2-2 Beginning: 1:05:18
26. E1-1 Beginning: 0:53:00
27. E1-1 End: 0:51:51
28. E1-2 Middle: 0:47:48
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and yet it still would have been by far the longest non-epic case of those!

uh it beat 3-2 by 1 minute and 11 seconds dude
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yeah, the words 'by far' weren't supposed to be there
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but the trend feels against substance and toward length

the consolidation of investigation has a lot to do with it - far more detail in each investigation area and extremely long segments there, but fewer of them overall. that's before getting into the increased talkiness during trial, too.

Yeah, I can't agree with you here. I don't feel like the cases getting longer detracts from their substance, nor does the fact that the characters just talk more. Aren't you the guy who argues AAI2 might be the best game in the series? It's probably got the highest average time per case of any game! E2-3 is a TON of the characters just standing around and talking, too!

Also, investigations have gotten simpler, not more detailed, in the 3DS games. Even in SoJ with free investigations, the OT had WAY more optional content to find if you're into that. I think you tried to argue that the OT had more locations, too, but I don't really think that's true either. It just felt like it did because you couldn't quick jump.
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Hmm...Jeff Zero is returning soon. I probably won't be quite done with Layton/AA by then, but close!
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Pretty sure I guessed 40 hours for AA6! I definitely guessed that it would be the longest game in any case.
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Pretty good guess!

I'm still not sure how to approach timing Layton/AA because of PUZZLES. I might just have to eat it or I can stop the timer during puzzles or something.
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Actually, I think I'm going to take the night off before delving into Layton/AA. I haven't had a lot of time for Andromeda lately, so I want to dedicate a good bit to it tonight.
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Replayed 6-2, and there's a thing I find really odd:

You find Trucy's journal in with Mr. Reus's stuff. You learn that it is locked, and inside the Gramarye creed about how an entertainer always keeps a smile on their face is written.

First of all, we don't ever really resolve why it was with Mr. Reus's stuff. Presumably he was trying to steal it, either for himself or as part of Retinz's plan, but the motives for this are totally unclear.

The weirder part of this, though, is that it's never used, except at the very end as a "present this person something to cheer them up at the end" thing. There is a moment in the lobby, before going into the last part of the trial, where Retinz comes in and drops a comment about the Gramarye creed - something that he should not have known, unless he was a Gramarye. Interesting - if you pick up on it there, you could have realized something was up. But they never leverage this fact in the trial - I was totally expecting them to have Retinz slip up and show that he knows what the Gramarye creed is, at which point you present the notebook and show that it's locked and nobody could have read it. So how do you, Mr. Retinz, know the creed? It's because you're the real Mr. Reus! ...But they never do this, and I don't really understand why.

Also, I still say that the fact that you catch Betty with - she "couldn't have known" that Trucy moved the lifts unless she saw it herself - is incredibly weak. First of all, although I do believe Trucy when she says that she told no-one, and it's easy enough for us to take this fact at face value, you never really have any solid evidence to disprove Nahyuta's claim that Trucy simply told Bonny/Betty and forgot. What's more though is that they miss the really obvious explanation here - it would have been possible for Bonny to simply infer what happened, because there is literally no other explanation.

Bonny knew she made a mistake, and made a "signal" to Trucy about it - they completely handwave this, we have no idea how Bonny made a signal or managed to correctly communicate the nature of the mistake with it, we never see her do it or anything, even though there is a VERY specific window of time where she would need to do this - but we know that Bonny knew she made a mistake, and that she managed to let Trucy know. Trucy does pop up on the side of the stage that she needed to be on (how did she do this so quickly btw? again, the window of time for this is VERY small based on when Bonny made Mr Hat stand in the wrong place), so Bonny should be able to figure it out - there is nobody in the understage (well, she knows Betty is there, but nevermind) except Trucy, and she used a lift to get up to the stage, and since Bonny has access to the understage, she should have known the state of the lifts beforehand, as well as being able to see them afterwards, though she doesn't even need to to deduce that the only way that Trucy COULD have appeared on-stage was to move a lift. Ta-da, contradiction gone. I could be a prosecutor in AA world.

6-2 really bothers me!

Paratroopa1 posted...

First of all, we don't ever really resolve why it was with Mr. Reus's stuff. Presumably he was trying to steal it, either for himself or as part of Retinz's plan, but the motives for this are totally unclear.

I'm pretty sure it was mentioned at one point that the plan was to publicly disclose Troupe Gramarye's repertoire to further ruin Trucy.

Although it's clear that Retinz used Reus and didn't give him the full details of his plot, and stealing the notebook was probably just part of a decoy plan by Retinz to provide a "motive" for Trucy to want to kill him, like that fake note that suggested Trucy knew about the prank beforehand.

Didn't catch the whole "Retinz shouldn't know the creed" thing before though. That's pretty neat.
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Yeah, Retinz makes an off-hand comment to the effect of "hey, shouldn't you be smiling right now? Isn't that what your Gramarye creed tells you?" which is a really interesting comment, but it's so bizarre that the game never leverages this. I guess this is a point in favor of subtlety, but it feels like something got cut from the trial for them to not use this. (6-2 has another "actually too subtle" moment where the intro cutscene shows when Betty put her fingerprints on the top of the coffin that we never go back to, so it's a "blink and you'll miss it" piece of evidence)

I guess the part about him stealing the book as part of a "fake" motive makes some sense, but it doesn't feel like they really make a point of it. And again they could have leveraged something like "but Trucy knew that he couldn't open the journal so that isn't really a motive", so it's still weird.

Paratroopa1 posted...

First of all, although I do believe Trucy when she says that she told no-one, and it's easy enough for us to take this fact at face value, you never really have any solid evidence to disprove Nahyuta's claim that Trucy simply told Bonny/Betty and forgot.

Eh, this is a pet peeve of the series in general for me, where the prosecution asks you to disprove something that you can't possibly disprove. A Devil's Proof isn't a valid argument in a court of law. Like, it bugs me in 6-5 when Nahyuta takes the stand to confess that he killed Inga, and he's just like, "Well, you can't prove that I DIDN'T do it, can you?" Apollo shouldn't have to prove you didn't kill him! I know AA doesn't really believe in "innocent until proven guilty," but it still irks me at times.

and yeah you could be an AA prosecutor because all they have to do is provide possibilities while the defense attorneys have to provide hard evidence
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And yeah, 6-2 feels like it could have benefited from a second day to flesh out its details a bit better. Like, the whole "there was blood in one of the coffin's holes" is mentioned in passing and then it turns out to be the case-making contradiction later on.
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Nahyuta's right though, just saying that "you don't know for sure that Bonny couldn't have known" is good enough to weaken your argument - and I'm just sort of a fan in AA games of tying up loose ends and coming up with really decisive proof, like even some of the flimsiest bluffs arrive at you connecting some really solid dots by the prosecutor simply pushing you to provide more evidence. It never happens here, it just kind of stops in a wishy-washy place, and the only reason it works is that it's good enough to break Betty and get her to basically give away her livelihood (although they imply that they kind of hated having to pretend to be one person, so I guess that makes sense).

Speaking of which wow 6-2's mood matrix sucks. All I can say about that!

Yeah, in Nahyuta's case, it might be good enough to weaken the argument, although you could also argue that she knows too many details to be just a guess. Ultimately, Betty's the one who breaks, not Nahyuta, so I guess that matters in this case.
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I just really would have liked if 6-2 had just leaned into its big twists a little more. Bonny and Betty being twins is cool but they just don't use it, their only contradiction is Betty knowing about the lifts, which is both boring and not at all a smoking gun.

It's a case I really want to like, because the characters are super fun, the location is cool, the murder method is really novel, and once Retinz is on the stand the trial goes to some fun places. But I really do get hung up on these things.

Yeah, 6-2 doesn't make the most of its potential. I agree with you on that. I do wonder if that's a side effect of having it be a really long one day case, although just about every case in SoJ is technically a one-day case (although they maintain continuity between the days in 6-3 and 6-5).
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Yeah, I don't know. I think the one-day format is interesting and it makes some degree of sense to use it, but on replay I really do feel like it would benefit from the two-day format. Most cases that use the two-day format make really good use out of using the trial to reveal some facts, and then using the the second investigation day to elaborate on them, corroborate them, or disprove them. I feel like the flow of information in 6-2 on the other hand is very weird in retrospect, and by the time you're at the end of the trial day, the early part of the investigation was a very long time ago.

the case that needed two days was 6-5 part 2, IMO.
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Theoretically, sure, just based on the massive length of the case, but I don't feel like that one being a single day really hindered it at all.
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I think they could have just split 6-5 into two separate cases

Okay, now that I've started Layton/Ace Attorney, I think I've figured out how to do this. Since the game is divided up into chapters, I'll give the game its own category like I did for AAI and time the game by chapter. I'll probably only include the trial segments themselves into the overall listings for cases. There's not a clear delineation between investigations and trials here because of the chapter format, so that might be best. We'll see how the times look and play it by ear. Since the game actually logs play time, I decided to look at my two previous save files. I trimmed 6 hours off of my second playthrough, but who knows what that means. I might have just fallen asleep less! It's a pretty long game though based on those file times!

Anyway, I just played the Prologue for today. I think it's an interesting setup with a bunch of animated cutscenes of witches chasing after Espella and Carmine and supposedly using magic, which is something they shouldn't be able to do outside of Labyrinthia. I'm assuming the "head witch" here is Darklaw, but they never really come back and explain what happened here once you enter Labyrinthia proper. The Special Episodes make some tongue-in-cheek jokes about it and basically give it the MST3K mantra of "don't think about it too hard and you'll be fine." If you've never seen the game's Special Episodes, I highly recommend them. They're funny and self-deprecating. It's a shame Carmine disappears from the narrative right away, too, because he seemed pretty cool.

Thankfully, I didn't get tripped up on any puzzles, but this is just the prologue, so they shouldn't be too hard. Hmmm...Maybe I should get back to playing the Layton games once I wrap up with this game. I dunno if this would be a good place to keep track of that though, but I should give the series another try. I like the fact that the game has more voiced scenes, especially during the trial sequences. It's pretty weird having fully voiced scenes in an Ace Attorney setting, but I could get used to it!

The prologue is basically a back-and-forth between Layton and Darklaw for Espella. Not much else happens here other than investigating the weird car accident, but again, this basically gets forgotten immediately afterward. Layton tricks Darklaw by dressing up Luke as Espella while letting her escape onto a freighter, although I'm not sure how she actually managed to get onto that ship! Layton's just that good, I guess! Very Sherlock Holmes-esque. However, at the end, they see themselves inside the Story and get sucked into the book or something.

Phoenix and Maya briefly appear in one of the opening cutscenes, but other than that, this was all Layton. This Legal League of Attorneys thing has a superhero kind of sound to it, but I doubt it's as grand as that. It's just an excuse to get Phoenix to England via some exchange program, but the later games seem to suggest he did do some studying abroad while he was disbarred (and Edgeworth studies abroad for most of JFA and T&T), so I guess it works. Next up is the trial, I think, so we'll tackle that tomorrow!
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Has Part 5 already been archived?
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I haven't heard, but Zyzyx is usually on top of it. You can ping her about it to be on the safe side.
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All right, I finished L-1! Four testimonies overall: Two by Johnny Smiles and two by Olivia Aldente. The final piece of evidence was the newspaper about the jewel theft to give Olivia a motive for wanting to hide the plush Espella actually had. The intro cutscene in this case is neat because it's actually what really happened, because you see Olivia trying to hit Espella with the pipe and her grabbing it, only for Olivia to collapse a moment later.

I think L-1 has an interesting premise, but like everything in this prologue, it immediately gets forgotten as soon as the scene shifts to Labyrinthia. The first time through, it's super confusing to see Espella dressed as some school girl with blank, lifeless eyes, being escorted around by some woman you've never seen before. Darklaw is telling you that they've already reached a plea deal and there's no need for Phoenix to do anything. I wonder why she was willing to let Espella be declared guilty for a crime she know she didn't commit (because I'm assuming the person who actually hit Olivia was Darklaw, but again, this never gets revisited). Perhaps she just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible and it didn't matter because she was just going to whisk Espella away back to Labyrinthia once the case was settled.

As far as things I like about Layton/AA in general with its trial segments, I like the fully orchestrated soundtrack. It's neat hearing orchestral versions of classic PW1 tunes in L-1, and the Labyrinthian versions are really good, too. I like how there's a fully voiced intro to the case and each witness gets a voiced intro, too. The breakdowns are also voiced. The animation work is solid, too. The whole thing with the steel pipe is important, so I think it's really cool that they actually have the characters hold the pipe to demonstrate how Espella supposedly held it versus how she really held it. The camera work is good, too. There's a key moment right before the end where Phoenix is thinking things through, and the camera does a full circle around him and Maya from the back to the front. The presentation is excellent on that part.

There are a couple of minor quibbles that irk me a little. I don't particularly like Phoenix's or Maya's character models. They just feel...off. They don't look right. Phoenix's face looks so emotionless when he does his finger point, which is the one animation that bugs me the most because of that. I think it's exclusive to them, really, because I don't have that feeling with anyone else. Their VAs aren't very good either. I think the voices fit the characters pretty well, but the acting itself isn't so good, especially Maya's. I do like Phoenix's HANG ON voice clip though.

I like Flynch as a tribute to Winston Payne. He's the appropriate mix of smug and incompetent, and he has a hilariously cringe-worthy OBJECTION sound clip, to boot. He has a bit of Gaspen's dirty side, too. Phoenix suspects early on that there's some foul play going on behind the scenes with the way everything was playing out, and it essentially gets confirmed for him when he starts pointing out a bunch of contradictions and Flynch says, "This wasn't how it was supposed to go!" Just another neat premise that never really gets touched on after the early part of the trial.
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It's actually pretty surprising how much effort they put into L-1 when you really think about it. It's short but not half-assed.

It does really bug me that LvW's story just seems to forget things as it goes though.

Another one of L-1's cool ideas was to have it be a case of theft and assault, not murder, and thus the victim is one of the witnesses. It's interesting that no one actually dies during the course of the game. Belduke dies before the start of the game, as well as all the ones who died in the Great Fire, but none of the victims end up dead. Also, a weird little aside, I don't think Layton/Ace Attorney ever mentions the fact that Maya is a spirit medium. When Phoenix introduces her, he says, "I should probably explain why she's dressed that way...but there's not much time and it's not a big deal." For the purposes of this game, he's right because her ability to channel spirits doesn't matter here!

I like Smiles and Olivia as witnesses. They're quirky with some fun (albeit overused) animations. How many times does Smiles have to take a single bite out of a chocolate bar? Also, Olivia gyrates way too much! It's very distracting! Smiles kinda feels like T&T security guard Larry Butz if he had delusions of grandeur because he talks about how much of an expert he is despite not being very good at his job. His nervous animations are fantastic, too. He's a good starter witness for an intro case. As a character, Olivia is kinda whatever as a character, but her animations are great, especially the juggling one. I like that there's an imprint left on her face after the fish slaps her in her breakdown. Very cool little touch.

After the case, Darklaw says she's very impressed with Phoenix's skills, and if she had known how good he was, she would've had him press for full acquittal from the start. I wonder if seeing his performance in court is what convinced Darklaw to bring Phoenix to Labyrinthia because at the end, she tells him that he was not a part of her original plan to overthrow the Storyteller. Only Layton was. I guess she recognized that having someone with his skills would be valuable for the witch trials, and so she brings him along.

All right, I'm going to post the times, and you guys can help me figure out which one to use in the overall list. I'll include just the trial time and then the total time for the whole Prologue (since L-1 is listed as Prologue part 2 in the game).

Prologue (Layton) playtime: 1:05:24
Prologue (Phoenix) playtime: 1:39:12
Prologue total playtime: 2:44:36

L-1 investigation playtime: 1:05:24
L-1 trial playtime: 1:39:12
L-1 total playtime: 2:44:36

Should we use just the trial time or the combined time? The "investigation" is kind of connected to the case, so I dunno.
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The trial feels pretty separate from the investigation to me

6-5 - 14:03:49
E2-5 - 9:36:06
3-5 - 9:35:46
2-4 - 9:05:21
1-5 - 8:46:43
E1-5 - 8:42:23
6-3 - 8:13:50
E2-3 - 8:09:06
E2-2 - 7:29:23
5-6 - 7:21:19
5-2 - 7:13:40
5-3 - 6:50:24
4-4 - 6:38:01
5-5 - 6:16:05
6-6 - 6:04:07
3-2 - 6:02:56
E2-4 - 6:01:14
6-2 - 5:58:46
4-3 - 5:58:33
3-3 - 5:48:31
2-3 - 5:06:33
1-4 - 4:59:52
4-2 - 4:58:35
E1-4 - 4:58:26
2-2 - 4:47:40
5-4 - 4:27:31
E1-3 - 4:02:16
1-3 - 3:49:35
E2-1 - 3:36:32
6-4 - 3:21:23
E1-2 - 3:15:49
6-1 - 2:59:52
1-2 - 2:40:40
5-1 - 2:19:33
4-1 - 2:11:44
3-4 - 1:54:15
E1-1 - 1:44:51
3-1 - 1:43:09
L-1 - 1:39:12
2-1 - 1:15:57
4-0 - 1:09:44
1-1 - 0:33:35

The full prologue is slightly longer than 1-2. I'm curious to see how the other cases rank. I don't really have a feel for them.
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I think each trial will be roughly about 45 minutes longer than the one before it

I may be forgetting some stuff, but Layton games typically don't have a lot of murder in them. LvW is really a Layton game at its core, so it makes sense that there aren't any here.
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Layton games seem to have deaths that aren't exactly what they appear, at least from what I could tell from Curious Village and the little I played from Diabolical Box.

Layton/AA should've had Flora in it.
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I was satisfied with L-1. Everything about it seemed better than I was expecting. Flynch, Johnny, and Olivia are all pretty good and fun to watch. The non-murder premise works for me. And I was expecting Johnny to be the culprit, but it being Olivia was good enough for me. The animations on Phoenix in particular are pretty bad, especially knowing that DD/SoJ exists. That said, all the other characters seem fine, so maybe it's just a Phoenix thing? I dunno.
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To be fair, LvW was the first 3D AA game!

Phoenix does look really bad though, even at the time he looked bad

Yeah, it's just Phoenix and Maya that bother me in terms of their character models.
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Good work by fellow Ace Attorney fan LotM on the newest episode of The Show! I figured I ought to be fair and shamelessly plug him, too!

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/75315211
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Thanks for the plug!
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okay, caught up! the contest and other things have kept me busy.

I think the 6-2 conversation just shows how awkward that case is. I generally feel that most issues come from the one day setup. it doesn't have a chance to reveal anything in investigation because there's no intermission.

I hadn't considered breaking 6-5 into a third day - maybe after the Amara shooting? that would be an interesting thought exercise.

you definitely did the right thing in timing Layton. the numbers just look right. I'd guess L-2 3:15, L-3 3:45 and L-4 4:30? I dunno.
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Been busy the last couple of days (including the return of Jeff Zero), so I haven't been able to finish Chapter 1 yet, but I'm still working on it! Dunno if I'll finish tonight, so I'll just bump this for now.
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3-2 day 1 beated

I had forgotten how minimal Godot's presence was
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Weird trivia:

In AA5, in 5 of the 6 cases, there are no testimonies from a character who has another testimony in a different AA game

In the entire rest of the series, there are only 3 such cases

This is excluding LvW which has no AA characters with testimonies, which is what inspired me to look this up

LordoftheMorons posted...

3-2 day 1 beated

I had forgotten how minimal Godot's presence was

Until the very end when he makes his presence known in a big way!
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Day 1 has the "17 cups of coffee" and "darker than the blackest night" lines doesn't it?
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And the "I've never lost a case" line, too.
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Hey, I have a quick Ace Attorney question that I hope no one minds me asking here

I'm planning to play DD and SoJ soon-ish, but it's been a really long time since I played the first four games. Would I benefit from finding a synopsis somewhere to refresh my memory or are the newer games not too interconnected with the older ones? Obviously I assume I'll be alright either way, I'm just wondering if it might be worth it for callbacks or returning characters and whatnot. Like, when I played AAI2 last year I nearly forgot Frank Sahwit was a character I'd met before, and I imagine the mainline games will have more of that than the spinoff titles did.
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Robazoid posted...

Hey, I have a quick Ace Attorney question that I hope no one minds me asking here

I'm planning to play DD and SoJ soon-ish, but it's been a really long time since I played the first four games. Would I benefit from finding a synopsis somewhere to refresh my memory or are the newer games not too interconnected with the older ones? Obviously I assume I'll be alright either way, I'm just wondering if it might be worth it for callbacks or returning characters and whatnot. Like, when I played AAI2 last year I nearly forgot Frank Sahwit was a character I'd met before, and I imagine the mainline games will have more of that than the spinoff titles did.

You won't need it.