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

(+) Yeah! (+)

First cross examination of the game:

AA1: Frank Sahwit
AA2: Dick Gumshoe
AA3: Phoenix Wright
AA4: Phoenix Wright
AA5: Ted Tonate
AA6: Ahlbi Ur'gaid

weird list

You can throw in Jacques Portsman and Shelly de Killer for the AAI games, too.
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LeonhartFour posted...

Also 5-6 takes place almost exactly ten years after 2-2 so I guess that's how long the Magatama's power can last before it needs to be recharged.

That probably depends on how often it sat dormant for those seven years Phoenix was inactive as a lawyer. If he had been active as an attorney/investigator longer and thus got more use, it might have lost its "battery" sooner.
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Well, I don't know if it has a set timeframe or if it actually "drains" based on usage.
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5-6 Trial Day 1 complete. I love the callback to 3-2 at the end when Blackquill reveals his plan all along was to get probable cause to arrest Sasha. It's such a great moment.
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Oh hey, here's an interesting thing I've noticed replaying this case before. At one point when you're talking to Fulbright, Athena will say that his heart is filled with confusion, but as we know, it's all one big act and he doesn't feel much of anything. Of course, he can fake the sensation of the emotions, too, but why would he need to in this case? It's also kind of weird that Athena didn't pick up on his relative lack of emotions before 5-5, but I guess she doesn't pick up every single emotion a person throws out there, at least not subconsciously. I guess the "easiest" explanation is that sometimes Fulbright fakes the sensations and sometimes he doesn't.
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I love Crab's introduction where he forces Athena to go back outside and knock before she comes in.

He's also a great misdirection because you naturally suspect the person who doesn't show up at all on the first day of the case, and the game gives you plenty of reasons to suspect him.

Dr. Crab the real best 5-6 character
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dr crab is awesome

i also like his name-pun
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I was basically convinced Crab was the culprit until the last scene of investigation day 2 totally reframes him.

Re Fulbright I don't think his confusion is entirely faked; it's just not for the reasons the players necessarily assume. Wearing multiple identities has messed him up on a deep level.
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Pearl turning "forensics" into a verb is super cute
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Note to self: I should do combined line stats for the OT, the AAI games, and the NT once all this is over.

well I guess I could go ahead and do them for the OT and the AAI games but it was an idea I just had and I wanted to make a note of it
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you can tell Phoenix has matured as a lawyer because he stops Athena from showing the sleeping pill to Dr. Crab because he suspects he'd try to confiscate it from them
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You know, with all this talk about how Orla can't speak but Athena insists she can hear the "voice" of her heart, I was convinced we were eventually going to have a Mood Matrix with Orla. I'm still kinda disappointed that never happened. Seems like a missed opportunity to me!
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LeonhartFour posted...

You know, with all this talk about how Orla can't speak but Athena insists she can hear the "voice" of her heart, I was convinced we were eventually going to have a Mood Matrix with Orla. I'm still kinda disappointed that never happened. Seems like a missed opportunity to me!

Yeah, this was the most shocking thing about 5-6 to me - I thought FOR CERTAIN that they were setting up to do a mood matrix on Orla. I have no idea how it didn't happen.

LeonhartFour posted...

Note to self: I should do combined line stats for the OT, the AAI games, and the NT once all this is over.

well I guess I could go ahead and do them for the OT and the AAI games but it was an idea I just had and I wanted to make a note of it

I can see why you'd group the NT together, kind of a process of elimination thing (you can also call it the "Apollo trilogy" but Dual Destinies makes me squint at that), but it's kinda weird seeing as there's a big release date gap and a writer switch in the middle of it.
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NeoElfboy posted...

(you can also call it the "Apollo trilogy" but Dual Destinies makes me squint at that)

well who are the "Dual" Destinies the title refers to

I always assumed it was Phoenix and Apollo. Like, the dude doesn't have a ton of screen time compared to Athena, but he's pretty important to the last two cases.
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I always assumed the dual destinies referred to Athena and Blackquill actually

I could also see it referring to Phoenix and Blackquill since they represent two sides of the Dark Age of the Law.

I don't know if anyone at Capcom ever said who the "Dual" is supposed to be. I just thought it was Phoenix and Apollo because they're the two main characters of the main series playing that role in the same game.
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It's clearly Bobby Fulbright and The Phantom.
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Orla and Ora.
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I like Sasha better when she drops the facade and shows you her vulnerabilities rather than when she's going over the top with the pirate act and bad puns.
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5-6 Investigation Day 2 complete

I love the throwback reference to S.P.A.R.D.A. toward the end here, and I found a neat little conversation I'd never seen before. After you get the charm from Crab, if you go back to the Agency and present it to Trucy, Phoenix will say that he has a good luck charm of his own. Athena says that it must be his locket with Trucy's picture in it, but he asks her not to tell his daughter because it's kind of embarrassing. Isn't that sweet?
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I forgot that Trucy even appears in 5-6

She does that a lot in AA5/AA6

She doesn't show up at all on day 1 since Apollo is your stand-in at the Agency. She's at the office on day 2 though since Phoenix sends Apollo out to investigate the capsule they find in Orla's stomach.

Also, Athena is now ahead of the logjam of characters below Mia. She won't catch Mia before 5-6 is over, but 5-3's next, so Athena will easily be in the top ten by then.

Pearl has also passed Lang and Klavier. She has more lines in 5-6 than I thought, so I think she'll end up ahead of Klavier when this is all said and done since she still has two more cases to go. Unsurprisingly, it'll be Pearl and Larry atop the list of characters just below the heaviest hitters in the series.
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The main question is probably where Blackquill ends up - he had 250 lines in 5-2 and that seems about par for the course for the other cases he's in, and he also has a reasonably substantial role in 6-4. He'll be somwhere between Lang and Mia I think.

LeonhartFour posted...

I like Sasha better when she drops the facade and shows you her vulnerabilities rather than when she's going over the top with the pirate act and bad puns.

works better because of the peppy front, though

she's not deep or anything but having two layers is better than one, like ellen
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The front would work better if it were less annoying. I think Sasha and Ellen are both on the same tier. They're easily two of Phoenix's weakest defendants.
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aw man, I think Sasha is great! she kind of reminds me of Will Powers, just a really likeable defendant who's easy to root for, and I think she's great in the role of the person who you accidentally get accused at the end of the first trial day

Well, Phoenix definitely gets all the luck with defendants. He doesn't have any that are truly bad (yes I'm one of those people who likes Max). Sasha and Ellen just happen to be at the bottom.
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LeonhartFour posted...

Well, Phoenix definitely gets all the luck with defendants. He doesn't have any that are truly bad (yes I'm one of those people who likes Max). Sasha and Ellen just happen to be at the bottom.

I suppose that's the trade off for representing actual bad defendants like Matt Engarde and Paul Atishon.
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well it always works out in the end for him so I guess he'll take that trade-off
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Sasha: I do admit...they were friends...But would Azura send Dr. Crab videos, I wonder...?

presented without context
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"Witness, I will not allow birds to be belittled in my presence! Limit your disparaging comments to the defense alone!"

Blackquill so good
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I like how the game tries to bait you into picking the option to cross-examine Orla early on trial day 2 because it knows you really want to even though it's not the right answer yet.
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OH BOY
I finally finished SoJ thanks to a borrowed 3DS.
It was great as usual.
I wonder how they'll tackle AA7, especially regarding Apollo.

The sprites in this game were awesome. Shout out to the Uendo foursome (Kisegawa is mai waifu) and Queen Amara's hypnotic hands.
I wish we'd get more of 'Nayna'. :(

The Divination Seance was a pretty fun mechanic. I wouldn't mind having it back. Better than the Emotion Matrix and Perceive.
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I think they'll go back to Khura'in at some point. I don't think it'll be the central focus of a game though. It wouldn't surprise me if AA7's epic case was set there.
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I still insist that Apollo starting up his lawyer business in Khura'in is a way better plot hook than anything that could happen with Phoenix/Athena in Japanifornia but whatever

yeah but that would probably mean more Nahyuta so it'd be give-and-take

but if it meant he got to have Rayfa as his partner I'd be all for it
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Nahyuta does have potential to be better now that he isn't under Ga'ran.
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I suppose, but I don't know that I trust him to be better. He probably (hopefully) wouldn't be the main rival anyway, so who knows what kind of screen time he'd actually get.

I still want a full case of Phoenix with Trucy as his partner though.
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I definitely think we need a break from Khu'rain, if we do indeed ever go back. But I generally am not a big fan of that setting regardless, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

Athena's definitely the lawyer with the most growing to do so I hope the next game follows her (and/or someone new?).
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I'm not sure they can ever make me take Athena seriously

that would be quite a feat

If they're going to have a new lawyer I'm just looking forward to what kinda bombastic and punny name they'll have.

Thinking back at it, Nahyuta might be the least enjoyable main prosecutor yet. He was really serious all the time (understandable) but not too intimidating.

Ga'ran was pretty fun though. She's like a knockoff FF villain, and the part when she rewrites the law in court was the kind of ludicrous fun I love from AA.

I wouldn't mind revisiting the new Khu'rain and see Apollo's cases, I agree that it excites me more so far, since we've seen a wide range of what can happen in Japanifornia and it'll be challenging for them to up the ante again without jumping the shark. Maybe more cases set at other countries? But we'll see.

Also...Pearl really should get an older-looking sprite. She must be a really late bloomer.
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Well, Maya was 19 in AA3 and she still looked 15, so maybe it runs in the family?
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Well, even OT Maya looked older than Pearl does now.
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I love when Dr. Crab starts kicking the witness stand because Phoenix suggests he tried to kill the orca with the sleeping pills. In that instant, if you had any lingering doubts about the guy, you know he's not the killer. 5-6 uses the witness stand as a prop twice, in fact.
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One of my favorite parts of 5-6 trial day 2 is that the culprit and the prosecutor aren't on the same side, and the culprit is actually trying to get the defendant acquitted. Or at least Sasha anyway. He tries to frame the other defendant, but still, it makes for a unique dynamic you don't really see anywhere else in the series. 5-3 is probably the closest you get because Means actually does try to get Juniper acquitted right up until you accuse him of being the killer.
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Pearl's DD design (and personality, honestly) borders on being cowardly, like they didn't want to offend the people who liked her as an 8-year old so they hardly changed her at all despite 8 -> 17 (or whatever) being a ridiculous transition. I thought they did a much better job aging Maya convincingly (and this is coming from someone who likes Pearl more than Maya and DD more than SoJ).

Was Means trying to frame Hugh as framing Juniper? 5-3 is a case I'm weirdly hazy on specifics for. Definitely a bit of a weak spot in an otherwise stellar game for case construction.
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NeoElfboy posted...

Was Means trying to frame Hugh as framing Juniper? 5-3 is a case I'm weirdly hazy on specifics for. Definitely a bit of a weak spot in an otherwise stellar game for case construction.

In regards to the tape recorder, Means seemed to have planted the "YOU'RE A GONER" tape with the primary goal to frame Juniper, but had Hugh be the one who turned it into the police, knowing suspicion would fall to Hugh if they found out it was actually the recording from the mock trial.
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Mewtwo59 posted...

Well, Maya was 19 in AA3 and she still looked 15, so maybe it runs in the family?

Ah, the joy of recycled sprites.
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