Board 8 > Ace Attorney Topic Part 5: The Pursuit (Spoilers for AA1-6, AAI1-2)

(+) Yeah! (+)

yeah, hard to say, Judge has quite a few lines in 5-1/2/3/4/5/6 and 6-2/4/5/6. he might not be halfway to his line count with how those games babble on.
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also, Maya gets kinda shortchanged by her Mia transformations. she probably loses out on 800 lines or so.
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Apollo will probably finish 3rd, I think. I predicted top 5 for the Judge though before we started, so I'm feeling pretty good about that!

I don't know that Gumshoe would beat Maya by total textbox count either. I don't think the disparity would be that big to let him catch her. I don't think his line count in AAI2 is going to be very high, and his role in AJ is pretty small. Then he'll be completely done and Maya will still have a few cases left.
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Gumshoe's got enough in AAI2 to keep him relevant, let's not act like he's absent from that game. I think he will actually catch up to Maya by the time he is done, although it'll be very very close. And then Maya will blow past him obviously, although her line count isn't THAT overwhelming in AA6.

I mean his line count will be decent just because AAI2 is such a big game, but I think it'll actually be lower than AAI1 despite being a longer game. He doesn't have a big role in any case, and he's only the assistant for like the first ten minutes of E2-1, which will hurt him a lot.
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transience posted...

also, Maya gets kinda shortchanged by her Mia transformations. she probably loses out on 800 lines or so.

Well, to clarify, 1-1, 3-1, and 3-4 Mia combined has 883 lines. That means she has about 535 lines (not sure how many lines she has in 1-2 before she dies, but it's not many regardless) where she's being channeled, although it's not always Maya.
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trying to play AAI2 on an emulator while keeping track of line counts will not be fun
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also I think the biggest thing that will hurt Gumshoe in terms of his line total in AAI2 is that he spends a large chunk of E2-4 and E2-5 in the background after Edgeworth forfeits his badge

I think maybe Capcom realized Gumshoe wasn't going to be that important here because while Edgeworth clearly has a nifty redone sprite, Gumshoe's is the same one he had in the first game

speaking of sprites I kinda hate the Gumshoe one in AAI where he recoils and stands on one leg like he's terrified

it's just so uncool

I mean I know Gumshoe isn't exactly "cool" but come on it makes him look like a pansy
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You know, I've never really been able to figure out if I actually like Logic Chess or not. I like the motif, but it's basically a glorified Psyche-Lock that's a bit more roundabout due to needing to ask questions in a certain order at times. I feel like the time limit is kinda unneeded, too.
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yeah, it's not great. the best one is probably Blaise? that or Sebastian. the others feel honestly useless.
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the fact that they even have this debate about the "red mole" on the president's forehead in Kay's picture is probably the only really dumb part of E2-1 because you've already found the gun with the laser attached to it so it's pretty obvious what it is

like I know that characters in intro cases are dumber than usual but come on
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I honestly don't like logic chess at all. I don't know if that's an unpopular opinion but I don't think they're particularly clever and a lot of the time they don't make a ton of sense. I think that's partly owing to a slightly below standard translation but I think it's also just not very interesting to work them out. The only thing I like about them is the funny "wrong" choices you can give, although they never have "wrong answer dialog" which is disappointing.

Also, it bugs the hell out of me that you never do logic chess against Knightley OR Simon, AND you never do logic chess against someone who has a king piece. I mean, what the hell.

I do like the presentation and the music, and it still adds something to the game by breaking up the action a bit, but yeah, I don't think it was executed very well.

Paratroopa1 posted...

The only thing I like about them is the funny "wrong" choices you can give

the Sebastian one that makes you auto-lose the entire Logic Chess is the best
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Paratroopa1 posted...

AND you never do logic chess against someone who has a king piece. I mean, what the hell.

I mean, why the hell would you? The goal of chess is to capture the opponent's king while defending your own. The people themselves are the kings.
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kevwaffles posted...

Paratroopa1 posted...

AND you never do logic chess against someone who has a king piece. I mean, what the hell.

I mean, why the hell would you? The goal of chess is to capture the opponent's king while defending your own. The people themselves are the kings.

Oh I didn't think of it that way, I guess that makes sense.

LeonhartFour posted...

Paratroopa1 posted...

The only thing I like about them is the funny "wrong" choices you can give

the Sebastian one that makes you auto-lose the entire Logic Chess is the best

What would have been the best is if they had custom dialogue for choosing a certain choice in the Sahwit chess match.
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man Nicole Swift is a blabbermouth just like Lotta

I'm already surprised by how high her line count is
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I like that E2-1 Beginning has nearly as many lines as all of E1-1

it's a fitting commentary on how much bigger this game is
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makes sense, the dialogue in E1-1 is hilariously trite, kinda like 1-1
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In fairness E2-1 in particular is exceptionally big for what it is (a first case). But... yes, still a fitting commentary.

E2-1 exists in this fun space where it wouldn't work at all as an introduction to the series, but in a sequel to a spinoff where they just assume it's nobody's first game, they get away with it, and it's a lot of fun. To some extent I feel this way about AAI2 in general - it's an Ace Attorney game for veterans. It's totally unsurprising to me that my more casual AA friends (the ones I was able to convince to pick up the emulator anyway) didn't get into it but more hardcore ones really dug it.

I liked logic chess well enough. Nothing amazing but reasonably solid, and I liked the tension of the time limit, fake though it may be. The one with Sebastian is the highlight.
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I dunno that I agree with that

E1-1's just as long as 3-1. AAI1 in general goes more for PW1's level of simplicity and brevity (at least until E1-5 anyway). AAI2 tries to make every case bigger than every case of its type before it.
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I'm not talking case length so much of the brevity of the cross examinations. some of those responses are one line long and the cross examinations have 7-8 lines each.. kinda like 1-1.

it doesn't stay that way, not THAT brief anyway.
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here's a take - logic chess is the forefather of the mood matrix
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transience posted...

here's a take - logic chess is the forefather of the mood matrix

it's also a bad take since the Mood Matrix isn't that convoluted and tends to have simple solutions

like I said before, it's more of a successor to the Psyche-Lock

Logic Chess is probably more similar to Perceive than Mood Matrix either way

the real take is that AAI2 tried to make a bunch of new gameplay changes and most of them were kinda bad

the changes to Little Thief were also kinda bad and that stupid thing you had to do with zooming in on videos to find hidden details was also pretty bad
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transience posted...

I'm not talking case length so much of the brevity of the cross examinations. some of those responses are one line long and the cross examinations have 7-8 lines each.. kinda like 1-1.

Nah, nearly all of Portsman's cross-examinations are pretty short. He has 29 lines spread across 6 testimonies, so you're talking about an average of 4 or 5 lines apiece. It does have some short "Press" dialogue responses though, that's true.

In general, long testimonies went out the door once Takumi stepped away. Alba has 5 testimonies in AAI1 with only 21 lines total. Most testimonies in DD and SoJ tend to be 4 or 5 lines max, too. You also get a lot more 3 line testimonies. You rarely got anything less than 4 lines in a Takumi game. You also don't really have that many complicated testimonies where you've got to press this statement to get new information and then go back to press an entirely different statement to get a new statement based on the information you learned when you pressed the first one. It's a much more straightforward process.
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man I love the president's over the top bombast in everything he says and does
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Knightley and the body double are perfect for each other

what massive inferiority complexes they both have
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I also like how Knightley is too despicable even for the body double

I like the misdirection of the ballistic markings not matching Knightley's gun and then the final contradiction of figuring out that he managed to swap everything around during that brief period of time when he had all the evidence

it's a pretty clever final twist
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Total lines by character:

1. Phoenix Wright - 15074
2. Miles Edgeworth - 9310
3. Maya Fey - 4441
4. The Judge - 3846
5. Dick Gumshoe - 3542
6. Franziska von Karma - 2086
7. Kay Faraday - 1426
8. Mia Fey - 1418
9. Ema Skye - 1180
10. Pearl Fey - 1035
11. Godot - 902
12. Larry Butz - 879
13. Shi-Long Lang - 693
14. Dahlia Hawthorne - 578
15. Wendy Oldbag - 553
16. Calisto Yew/Shih-na - 489
17. Adrian Andrews - 459
18. Lotta Hart - 437
19. The Judge's Brother - 421
20. Bikini - 351
21. Shelly de Killer - 351
22. Will Powers - 329
23. Maggey Byrde - 323
24. Lawrence "Moe" Curls - 320
25. Manfred von Karma - 317
26. Tyrell Badd - 313
27. Winston Payne - 309
28. Quercus Alba - 303
29. Luke Atmey - 292
30. Damon Gant - 285
31. Ini Miney - 275
32. Angel Starr - 272
33. Ron DeLite - 269
34. Rhoda Teneiro - 268
35. Jake Marshall - 257
36. Jean Armstrong - 251
37. Lana Skye - 249
38. Victor Kudo - 247
39. Marvin Grossberg - 234
40. Jacques Portsman - 231
41. Horace Knightley - 204
42. Maximillion Galactica - 203
43. Ben & Trilo Quist - 200
44. Mike Meekins - 183
45. Ken "Acro" Dingling - 182
46. Iris - 181
47. Furio Tigre - 176
48. Nicole Swift - 175
49. Matt Engarde - 171
50. Cammy Meele - 168
51. Morgan Fey - 165
52. Redd White - 162
53. Regina Berry - 151
54. Colias Palaeno - 150
55. Dee Vasquez - 148
56. Zinc Lablanc - 146
57. Trilo Quist - 140
58. Desiree DeLite - 139
59. Cody Hackins - 135
60. Lauren Paups - 130
61. Di-Jun Huang - 109
62. Richard Wellington - 107
63. April May - 104
64. Yanni Yogi - 98
65. Lance Amano - 92
66. Penny Nichols - 86
67. Viola Cadaverini - 80
68. Terry Fawles - 74
69. The Bellboy - 72
70. Director Hotti - 71
71. Ernest Amano - 68
72. Benjamin Woodman - 60
73. Sal Manella - 59
74. Frank Sahwit - 58
75. Chief of Detectives - 55
76. Lisa Basil - 46
77. Turner Grey - 39
78. Elise Deauxnim - 30
79. Polly - 20
80. Gregory Edgeworth - 5

Overall total lines - 59687

Total lines by segment:

E2-1 Beginning - 1009
E2-1 End - 914

Total lines by case:

2-4 - 5946
1-5 - 5913
3-5 - 5815
E1-5 - 4831
3-2 - 4151
3-3 - 4063
2-3 - 3884
1-4 - 3466
2-2 - 3119
E1-4 - 2935
1-3 - 2741
E1-3 - 2412
E1-2 - 1995
E2-1 - 1923
1-2 - 1773
3-4 - 1225
3-1 - 1167
E1-1 - 1039
2-2 - 899
1-1 - 389

Total lines by character per case:

Turnabout Target (E2-1)

1. Miles Edgeworth - 830 (43.16%)
2. Dick Gumshoe - 234 (12.17%)
3. Kay Faraday - 208 (10.82%)
4. Horace Knightley - 204 (10.61%)
5. Nicole Swift - 175 (9.10%)
6. Shelly de Killer - 132 (6.86%)
7. Di-Jun Huang - 109 (5.67%)
8. Other - 23
9. Winston Payne - 8
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it looks like the top line count so far from a single case character is Bikini? I would not have guessed that. would have guessed Atmey

edit: well, Ema's 1-5 appearance so far trumps everyone but that won't last
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I actually finally began my series replay a bit ago (thus is like my 5th time or so but going to add AAI2 and Layton vs Wright to this for the first time!)

I can claim I now really think 1-3 is a real drag and 1-2 is actually pretty enjoyable. Like the contradictions and stuff are boring but the investigations are interesting necause the story is well presented in that case. 1-4 still one of my favs and 1-5 is still great.

2-1 has some really humorous moments that get overlooked like when phoenix forgets Maya (And Payne) at the end but when you present his biz card I don't think o ever picked the joke answer of "Look at the name" instead of the phone #. And Nick is like "this name is very important. It told me who I am!"

Judge: didn't you know that?

Nick (in objection pose): NOPE

2-2 is more convoluted than I remember and leaves loose ends. Like its never made clear if Gray actually drugged Mimi or not right? And did he just want her dead for the reputation of the hospital cuz that seems kind of weak? Why didn't he just fire her? What purpose does her dead serve him? The whole contradiction with the licence made no sense too. So did Inireally not have a licence? Then why did hotti say she did? Mimi took ini's licence from the burning car body? How did Maya not get shot with the bullet hole in the box? Etc etc. Too many weird questions left unanswered here....

I'm on 2-3 now god rest my soul.
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transcience posted...

it looks like the top line count so far from a single case character is Bikini? I would not have guessed that. would have guessed Atmey

edit: well, Ema's 1-5 appearance so far trumps everyone but that won't last

Well, Bikini's part of a massive case

the more "impressive" thing is the fact that Moe is 2nd

WiggumFan267 posted...

Like its never made clear if Gray actually drugged Mimi or not right?

It's never outright stated, but it's pretty clearly implied he didn't.

WiggumFan267 posted...

So did Inireally not have a licence? Then why did hotti say she did? Mimi took ini's licence from the burning car body?

She did, or at least she had a permit. Mimi didn't take the license. Mimi had a picture of Ini with her.

WiggumFan267 posted...

How did Maya not get shot with the bullet hole in the box?

Maya wasn't in the box at the time.
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Bikini, Moe, and Luke all have the trait of characters who talk a lot (both during trial and investigation), though I too was slightly more surprised at seeing Bikini up there than the other two. Her case is longer though, which obviously helps.
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what makes the ballistic twist in E2-1 so clever is that you don't expect it at this time, from this person

it's the type of move you expect from a 2nd or 3rd case, but in case 1, the villain is usually just straight-up lying (it's an out-of-court maneuver, so in a case with no investigation, I guess it's nearly impossible to pull off anyway - the nearest analogue might be acro hiding the bust in his chair)

and that's combined with knightley having all the negative traits we've already seen - jealous, physically inferior, and a case 1 villain - we just assume he's a pushover dolt. but he's not.
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I don't think it's necessarily that Bikini never stops talking. It's just that she's a big part of nearly every segment of a massive case, which is rare. Most one-off characters are either trial only/investigation only, or first half only/second half only, but Bikini's there throughout the whole thing.

SeabassDebeste posted...

and that's combined with knightley having all the negative traits we've already seen - jealous, physically inferior, and a case 1 villain - we just assume he's a pushover dolt. but he's not.

It's kind of weird that we give Knightley this much credit solely because he's the intro villain and he actually did one clever thing...that was quickly unraveled and unequivocally painted him as the killer once it was unraveled. I think Knightley's overrated and what he did isn't as "brilliant" as people seem to give him credit for. I thought Portsman's move in E1-1 (Recognizing that there was a second visitor before Edgeworth did and using it to craft an alibi) was more clever and gave him more leeway than what Knightley did here. Don't get me wrong. It's a cool twist that catches you off guard because you're not ready for it in an intro case (you expect the ballistic markings to match Knightley's gun and that's how the case ends; they also did the super smart move of playing Presto on the testimony before this, so you're doubly expecting it), but come on, it's super easy to figure out what he did. The whole point of Knightley is that he's not nearly as clever as he thinks he is, and Edgeworth proves that.
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It's going to be amazing how badly Dhurke destroys every other single-case character

Paratroopa1 posted...

It's going to be amazing how badly Dhurke destroys every other single-case character

Yeah, he probably will. Being Apollo's partner for most of investigation day 1 will give him a pretty massive line count.
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Does Dhurke actually count as single-case? He has a line in 6-1...
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bwburke94 posted...

Does Dhurke actually count as single-case? He has a line in 6-1...

Well, he's technically not a single-case character just due to the fact that he has a line at the very end of 6-1 and you see him in person at the very end of 6-3 (although I don't think he speaks, but maybe he does), but they're pretty brief. I know it's not quite the same thing, but is Sal Manella a single-case character or not considering he has a brief cameo in E1-2?
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what's Adrian's line count in 2-4? she feels way more present than Bikini and is in a similarly sized case but might have less lines.
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transcience posted...

what's Adrian's line count in 2-4? she feels way more present than Bikini and is in a similarly sized case but might have less lines.

332, so a little less than Bikini but pretty close. Adrian's a big part of day 1, but not as big of a part of day 2. She only has the Psyche-Lock on investigation day 2, and only one testimony on trial day 2.
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E2-2 time

I'm not looking forward to this

although the intro to this case is pretty solid and I love the prison as a setting
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e2-2 is good until you get to end and it trying to explain the murder

hey e2-2 is a clone of e1-5
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except a lot worse since it isn't actually that good in the middle either

like E2-2 is worth the price of admission for the Sahwit cameo and the setup for E2-5 with Keyes but other than that it's kinda meh
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I liked it. I think the Sahwit stuff and the Elbird escape is in middle. I liked all that.
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The Sahwit stuff is closer to the beginning, I think. The Elbird testimony at the end of Middle is good, too. Like E2-2 has some pretty good individual moments but as a whole, it's a mess and not very cohesive. The fact that End drags on interminably is just symptomatic of the shaky and inconsistent nature of the case as a whole.
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Reduce E2-2's length by 40% and/or its self-seriousness by 80%, and it becomes a really nice mid-game case. I enjoy the whole cast except Dogen and the jail is a great setting.

The opaque pacing of it is one of my big issues with E2-2. In contrast, E2-3 and E2-5 are actually longer but don't pretend that they're ending before they're ready to end.
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Yeah, I think the reason E2-2 feels so long is that you don't know what the endgame is or when it is coming, and it comes pretty late. I think the AAI series suffers from this in general, since the trial format keeps things flowing REALLY smoothly, whereas the AAI games can feel like they're plodding along without you knowing if you're in the middle or the end of the case.

Well, I also think part of it is that they tease you that you've hit the end with Elbird's testimony (they even use the Presto theme for it!) and seemingly honing in on Dogen as the killer...and then the case goes on for another four hours.

I wish that were an exaggeration. In that sense, it is absolutely like E1-5 in that they tease that you've hit the climax, but you're only at the halfway point. Well, in E1-5's case, it's more like the 65% mark, but close enough.
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Ray's theme is so good
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