Board 8 > I tiered all the Ace Attorney characters by design. *AA Series Spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

I love talking about character design and I love Ace Attorney. This was a natural conclusion, especially since the board has been doing an Ace Attorney retrospective leading up to Great Ace Attorney. I don't really have enough interesting comments to justify a ranking thread, so I just put together a tier list. The original idea for doing this is looking at how Ace Attorney's character design really changed from game to game and it made me think which game's cast I enjoyed the most in terms of design.

The results? Ace Attorney has really good character designs. For such a large cast, most of the characters are hits as opposed to misses. The bad character designs I think are pretty universally agreed upon, but I don't think we really appreciate the solid design work of most of the characters. I think my favorite is still PW1 because of how natural it looks. I'd say PW2 is also fairly natural, just with some unique settings giving us more unique designs (Kurain Village, Big Berry Circus). PW3 is really where the design begins to really...stand out and get more wacky with character designs. AAI kind of brings it back to normalcy for a short while but everything kinda gets out of hand until SOJ. It was just really interesting to do this project.

A few notes before going to the ranking.

1. Each character is ranked on a scale according to their placement (main character, one-time character, unimportant victim/background, important victim/background). A badly-designed main character is going to be tiered lowly compared to a well-designed main character. Likewise, a well-designed victim is going to be tiered highly compared to a badly-designed victim.
2. Some things I considered when ranking for character design: colors, clothes, overall concept, some sprites/animations, iconic (main character-only).
3. Some characters go through transformations. To make things less messy, I only included one "version" of each character (with the only exception being Phoenix vs. Hobonix since it's such a radical departure). I kept transformations and alt versions in mind when ranking the characters.
4. I can't remember PLvPW for the life of me, so I kept it to strictly characters that show up in the 4 court cases.

I'd be happy to explain my reasoning for any character!

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why isnt L'Belle SSSS tier

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Lower tier being a lot of AAI and AJ checks out.

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Also why so low for Apollo compared to the other main characters?

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some real questionable choices for S-tier: Acro, Alba, Zheng Fa, and all the SOJ characters don't deserve it

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Kind of sad to see Garan in E her prosecutor form is just so stupid and ridiculous I can't rank it that low

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L'belle (DD) - I get it. The joke is that he's horribly ugly despite claiming he's all about beauty. It doesn't justify his bad design. Somehow, I think the thing that bothers me the most is his really boxy suit.

Apollo - Most of the main characters are an S, but Apollo is a rare misfire. It's just a bunch of small things. I don't like his hair spikes and I'm not a fan of how his hair is basically normal except the spikes. His animations also are probably the first to try too hard. His thinking animation and his damage animation bothers me the most (though, his damage animation is so bad that it wraps around to being funny). I think his 5-4 alt design is completely fine and I'm glad that it somehow makes sense in-canon for him to dress like that. I'm not sure, Apollo just always feels a little too in the background. Thankfully, his actual character writing makes up for his design!

Acro (JFA) - I originally ranked all of these by game and then basically translated it into one big ranking. Acro definitely feels more like a "better A" than a "S", if you follow me. That said, I think it's pretty good. Acro feels like a breath of fresh air from 2-3 in so many ways and the design plays big into that. He has a much more subdued design than the rest of the circus performers. I generally give points to characters that buck general design trends (disability, overweight, etc.) in non-trope-y ways and I think Acro is a solid example of that.

Alba (AAI) - Alba's wonderful. Both E-5 ambassadors have strong symbols and ensignias that generally play into their design, but they also have a larger concept beyond that. Obviously, the "military general" design is what catapults Alba to S. It plays really, really well with Alba being this absolute brick wall to crack down. I like the idea of his breakdown, but wish it was better executed.

Huang (AAI2) - This is another example of a "better A", but Huang is a really simple concept done well. He has a really striking lion design and after a simple bout of Logic Chess, he gets completely deflated. It's a simple gag, but a really effective one. What really sells Huang is that knowing that he's a body double who always felt inferior to the actual Huang makes the pretty simple gag actually really meaningful.

Garan (SOJ) - I dunno, I'm not really feeling it. Her queen look feels a little too much for my taste. I feel like you need to be able to just see her and instantly think "yes, she's the all-powerful queen of khura'in" but I don't get that vibe of all. I can't stand her prosecutor form. It's just....yeah, no, it makes her feel more of a joke than anything else.

I can go on about SOJ designs, but I generally like the overall look of Khura'in, so a lot of them just naturally go to the top for me!

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does this include great ace attorney characters?
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SeabassDebeste posted...

does this include great ace attorney characters?

It does not

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machi tobaye and alita tiala overranked

jack shipley underranked

i can respect most of the rest of it

Apollo's design looks way better in DD I think. Something about the hair.

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I mostly agree with this but Norma in S is like 4+ tiers too high

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Machi (AJ) - I'm biased because he looks like Dave Strider. Light blue, yellow, and white is a winning color combination for me too. I guess he doesn't really look much of a foreigner, but I think he has the piano player look down.

Alita (AJ) - If you fix her smile and her exposed armpits, she's a pretty easy A. She doesn't really mesh well with the Kitakis, but then again, there's no real good design philosophy with the Kitakis in general anyways. I think she's a B on a good day, C on a bad day.

Shipley (DD) - He's a pirate victim. Kinda similar to Russell Berry, in that he's a circus victim. They're a victim, so the design is all they got and their design is...well...if you asked an artist to draw "pirate" or "ringmaster." Pretty much a C!

Norma (DD) - Norma has some kind of trope-y design, but it's one that's used pretty rarely. I'm not even sure what to call it, but I know it's based on some celebrity. I'm feeling some kind of mix of Amelia Earhart or Marilyn Monroe or Lady GaGa. In any case, it's a look I've always really liked. I always give extra points for unrepresented designs that buck the trend and Norma does a good job of that.

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Tag

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Yeah, Norma DePlume is meant to be an homage to Marilyn Monroe.

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Ema too low should be Snackoos tier

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Ema's good. I wouldn't mind her as S tier. I originally ranked her as A for her 1-5 appearance, but I think her design actually fits much better as her adult design. She's particularly interesting, because I think she and Gregory are the only characters I ranked higher using a chronological later appearance. 1-5 Ema just looks weird to me now!


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Yeah, 1-5 Ema looks like a kid trying to dress as an adult. Adult Ema is her best form.

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nah gramarye is an S

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Quercus Alba pulls off the stalwart general in sheep's clothing extremely well and definitely belongs in S Tier.

Ga'ran's change in SoJ was over the top and you already know what she really is anyway. With Alba, you don't just see the change, you feel the change. Both of his designs fit both of his personas perfectly.

He's the hardest person to break in the entire series, because of the sheer power that he initially wields, and it does a great job of displaying that power.

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my Ema :(

where's the parrot?

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