Ugh I just want someone to flail at about Dual Destinies, okay.
So I finished Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies on Wednesday night (or more accurately, Gyakuten Saiban 5, since my 3DS is Japanese and those things are region-coded) and I am still kind of processing, but I just have so many FEELINGS, ugh. Said feelings are kind of complicated, but overall I really enjoyed it. I think Trials and Tribulations and Gyakuten Kenji 2 (sadly to date not localised) are still my favourites, but it was way way wayyyyy better than Apollo Justice, so there's that.
Anyway, like I said, I am all overflowing with thoughts and feelings and I have no one to talk to about them, plus twitter is really only good for one-liners and tumblr and I have a mutual hate relationship (plus I don't know how to make a spoiler cut on the app) so naturally, I thought of LJ!
Of course, then I got most of the way through this post and the app crashed, taking everything with it without even leaving a draft. But whatever.
Keep in mind that I played the game in Japanese, so while I refer to older characters by their English names (Phoenix, Edgeworth, Apollo), the new characters I am referring to by their Japanese names because half the time I don't know the English name and even when I do I don't really associate it with the character. I'll try to be clear who I am talking about though - e.g. the convict prosecutor is Yuugami Jin, and Phoenix's new junior is Kizuki Kokone.
Beware ending spoilers!
In no particular order:
* One of the first things that struck me was the anime cutscenes, which I think were overall nice, but there were some things about them that jarred me. It was great to see and hear the characters in action, but sometimes the transition from gameplay to cutscene was a bit out of nowhere. Also, some of the voice-acting was a bit off - I am thinking of Edgeworth in particular, or rather Mitsurugi, since I played the game in Japanese. Bear in mind that this is purely restricted to the Japanese version, since I haven't seen the cutscenes in English and have no idea how good the English VA-ing is either generally or in comparison to the Japanese.
* I don't understand how Phoenix ever got his badge stripped for forging evidence. Everyone ELSE seems to get away with it, and he's the only one who's not even guilty. I mean, I thought this at the time I played AJ, but it struck me even more after playing GK2 and DD. XD
* Another thing I noticed pretty early on was that there was something of a lack of connectivity to Apollo Justice/Gyakuten Saiban 4. Not that I super loved AJ or anything, but it was a little bit weird. There wasn't even a mention of the jurist system, let alone it being in effect, despite the fact that the whole ending of AJ was about the new system being brought in. There was not even the slightest acknowledgement of Apollo and Trucy's sibling relationship, which wasn't QUITE as strange, but did still stick out at me. And finally, in reverse, I don't remember Apollo having any friends in AJ. Er. I didn't mean that the way it sounded, I swear. Just, Apollo suddenly has this best friend from middle school, Aoi, who he talks about all the time - and yet we never met or even heard about this guy at all in the whole of AJ, which was from Apollo's POV? RETCON! It'd be like if Edgeworth didn't appear until the second Phoenix Wright game. Only maybe worse, because Edgeworth and Phoenix weren't friends at the time so in theory if they hadn't met in court the whole Edgeworth thing could have been delayed.
* Speaking of Phoenix and Edgeworth, though, FSDJKLFJSDKLFJDSKLF SO MANY FEELINGS. It is a bit sad that as Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth doesn't really appear in court anymore, but I got so much joy about the fact that I at least got to face him in the first half of Case 5. Nostalgia! Even the judge felt nostalgic. And as a shipper, there was a lot to be happy about. The reference in Case 3 to Phoenix going to America at the request of a friend to investigate their legal system there during the period he was disbarred - it would make the most sense for that to be Edgeworth, especially considering the way they were working together behind the scenes on the Yuugami thing. And the extra nice thing about that is that it clears up the question of whether or not they were in touch during the 7 year time gap. Still stupid that almost none of the recurring characters appeared in AJ at all, even by way of mention, but.
* On that note, there were a LOT of things I loved about Case 5. I actually really liked the fact that Apollo's faith in Kokone was shaken - but that he wanted to believe in her, and he DID believe in Phoenix, so he accused her so that Phoenix would clear his doubts away. That was a great scene.
* Also great: untangling the murder that occurred 7 years ago, with the reveal of Kokone and Jin's past connection and them both trying desperately to protect the other even at their own expense.
* Speaking of, I really loved Kokone right from the start. Yuugami took a while for me to warm up to - and let's just put aside the whole convicted felon prosecuting crimes thing, with AA after a while you just have to let these things go - but he was starting to intrigue me, and then there was the whole backstory reveal in Case 5 and ugh, now I love him and Kokone forever. Here I was thinking AA had decided to deviate from the pattern of making their attorneys have a really strong connection with their prosecutor. GUESS I WAS WRONG. I can't help it, I super ship it, I don't even care about the age difference. Whatever, Kokone is 18 now and they haven't seen each other in 7 years. ;___;
Kind of tempted to replay to see if they foreshadowed that connection at all in the earlier cases. I lean to thinking there may have been tiny subtle reactions but nothing obvious, because I had no idea and I tend to look out for that kind of thing.
* Obviously the other major thing to come out of Case 5 was the reveal of Ban (Yuugami's cop partner) as the Ghost, the sociopath spy behind the murder of Kokone's mother 7 years ago and Apollo's friend Aoi now. This is one of those things I have mixed feelings about, because I found it to be a super effective plot twist, in that I didn't see it coming until all the pieces were slotting into place but it made sense once you had all the pieces, but it also made me a bit sad because I actually kind of liked Ban in the end. Also, the masks were a bit Scooby Doo and almost silly... but I did like the concept of the guy with no real identity, and I think it worked better because the mask was all we ever knew. As the player, "Ban" was only ever just a mask. We don't even find out who was beneath the mask in the end, because it wasn't really important - it wasn't someone we knew, except that he had always been the person we knew as Ban.
Like I said though, I REALLY didn't see it coming. I thought they were setting up Ban to be the new Gumshoe - enthusiastic, goofy, loyal to his prosecutor partner but kind of inept. And then it was ALL A LIE! Holy crap. I mean, how often does that happen in AA? We knew almost right from the start that Manfred von Karma, Dahlia Hawthorne, Damon Gant and Kristoph Gavin were bad news. Only Dahlia and Kristoph were woven through the entire game like Ban was, and they were both convicted in the first case, so it wasn't as shocking as it could have been when they turned out to be behind everything. So it was a great reveal. And the thing with his faked emotions and gestures not matching up and sending Monitor's emotional analysis haywire was pretty cool.
Of course, whenever you have that kind of plot twist, you are probably going to be a little sad, because a character you probably liked and trusted turns out to not be at all who you thought they were. Ban annoyed me a bit to start with and I was kind of missing Gumshoe and Ema (even if they messed Ema's character around in AJ), but he really grew on me over time. I think it was sometime in the middle of Case 3 where I realised I actually was rather fond of him and his silly habits - specifically, the bit where he is up in the art room and you're down at the stage area and he and Kokone yell "JUSTIIIIIIIIICE!" at each other and Klavier's like, is that some kind of greeting now or something? ~___~ I just laughed and laughed. It was hard not to yell JUSTIIIIICE! enthusiastically every time he said it after that.
* JUSTIIIIIICE! (No, but seriously, someone please, PLEASE tell me the English version has jokes about Ban's catch-cry and Apollo's last name. I had so much fun imagining how many jokes you could make throughout the game.)
* While I am on the topic of Case 3, that was where it really struck me that some characters look good with the 3D graphics, but others... less so. Kokone looked amazing. Klavier, on the other hand... poor baby, this just didn't really work out for you, did it. :< It was nice to see him again, though.
* In fact there were a lot of recurring characters in DD from previous Ace Attorney games this time, which is one of the things that made it so much better than AJ, but you know who I missed? Ichijyou Mikumo (I think Kay Faraday in English), Edgeworth's sidekick in the Ace Attorney Investigations games. Not that I ever expected to see her, but it would have been nice. It also would have been nice to see Franziska (again, didn't expect it and can see how it would be hard to fit her in, but), Gumshoe, Ema, and above all MAYA. I know they at least had references to her this time and a letter from her, but would it have killed them to at least put her in the ending? It's not like they necessarily had to hire a voice actor for her, jeez. As for Gumshoe and Ema, I get that they probably wanted the focus to be on Ban - I appreciated that a lot more after the Case 5 reveal - but a cameo would have been nice. It is like they decided that since so very few recurring characters appeared in AJ, the ones who did (other than Phoenix and the Judge) weren't allowed any stage time in DD.
Still, they did pretty well with the recurring characters this time, all things considered.
* Perhaps related to that, it did feel to me, in some ways, like the game could have been longer. Not so much from a plot perspective - I was satisfied by the climax and felt that the way all the cases and the character development played out fit together nicely. From a game mechanics perspective, though, there were three main characters, each with different skills (Phoenix's psyche-locks - which are actually pronounced PSYCHO LOCK in Japanese, I laughed so hard, EDGEWORTH HAS BEEN VINDICATED - Apollo's bracelet, Kokone's "counselling"), and it would have been nice if each of them was given more time to shine.
I really enjoyed each POV, both from a gameplay perspective and as characters! Just, BECAUSE I enjoyed them, it would have been nice to use them more. In fact, even Apollo's bracelet didn't irritate me the way it did in AJ, although it is probably still my least favourite of the tricks. Kokone's counselling was really fun - it was maybe a bit easy at first, because you don't get punished for picking on the wrong emotion, but when they started to introduce the missing emotions and that one bit where you have to choose between presenting evidence and examining the witness's emotions, it really hit its stride. It has a lot of potential and I'd like to see more of it. It was also really nice to see the magatama back again, although again it was a little easy in the sense that you didn't get punished for screwing up with it.
* On the note of things being too easy, I found there was a lot of hand-holding and babying in the investigation segments, especially in Case 2. They got better through the later cases, but there was still a lot of people leaving when you had all the information you needed from them, not being there until you need to talk to them, hints being given about needing to present a particular item to a particular person, and only being able to search scenes when the game wants you to. Which is made especially easy with the circle and tick indicators showing where there is something to investigate and whether you have already investigated.
I mean, it's not that I particularly want to return to the frustration of searching every inch of every place I can go to and presenting every item to every person in sheer desperation - do you know how many times I tried to search the Detention Centre in Ace Attorneys past, despite the fact that there was never anything there to investigate? - but it'd be nice if there was more of a balance between that and being led around on a leash. In what is essentially a puzzle game, I would like to have just a little more scope to screw up and then be satisfied when I get it right.
* More on the plot side, part of the truth that was unravelled in the murder from 7 years ago didn't really gel for me. It's actually a relatively minor issue, but it was bugging me. The thing is, it is kind of an Ace Attorney thing that while the cases more or less hang together, there will be some elements of the incredulous. I'm not talking about things like the magatama, or spirit channelling - that fits into the rules of the AA world and only requires a suspension of disbelief, which I have in spades being a fan of fantasy. No, I am talking about the kinds of things where you are like "Well, it sort of makes sense... but at the same time, I am pretty sure physics doesn't work like that..."
The point of which being, I don't care how strong Yuugami is, game, it is not possible to carry an unresponsive 11 year old in one arm so she can't be seen at all from behind. It just isn't. A toddler, sure. MAYBE a 5 year old. But I just can't see how Jin could carry Kokone so that the only sign in the photo that he WAS carrying her was one arm curled so it was hidden by his body. And on that note, what kind of crappy security system only takes one photo from behind? And how did Jin know that Kokone wouldn't be visible in the security footage, anyway? Hmmm.
* The only other plot thing that stuck out at me was the dark ages of the law concept. Don't get me wrong, it was an interesting concept and given the Ace Attorney universe someone needed to point out the endemic, systemic things that are wrong in that world, but... actually, that's kind of the point. Edgeworth kept insisting that it started 7 years because people lost trust in the justice system after Phoenix first lost his badge for forging evidence and then Yuugami got convicted of murder. Uh, no. I could see Phoenix losing his badge being the straw that broke the camel's back, because he was involved in so many instrumental high-profile cases, some of which involved crooked police/prosecutors. But that is exactly the problem here. Jin is the fourth prosecutor in as many years to be convicted for murder, and he is the only one who didn't actually do it. Godot deserves a bit of a break given the circumstances, but it still wouldn't look good to the public. And two of those prosecutors, von Karma and Yuuki (from Gyakuten Kenji 1), were also forging evidence.
Then you add the fact that the Chief of Police, Damon Gant, was convicted of murder and evidence forgery - that the Chief Prosecutor at that time had been in his control and forging evidence - the fact that the head of the Prosecutor's Investigation Board and former Chief Prosecutor from the time Gregory Edgeworth was alive was also convicted of murder and forging evidence (in GK2) - and there was also a Defence attorney in GK1 who murdered her client and the prosecutor and was secretly a member of an international crime syndicate.
I'm just saying, you have WAY more problems than Phoenix and Yuugami, guys. Not to mention the fact that even when their innocence was proven it turned out the true culprits were another attorney (who was also a murderer) and a police officer, respectively. I don't really see how that helps your cause in the end... but good luck to you guys in your campaign to clean up the legal system!
* Back to really shallow impressions, I really liked the primary colours theme for the three lawyers. Their colours all complement really well.
* While I am talking about things that I appreciated on a totally shallow level, I quite liked the pun on the name of Shizuya Rei, the supposed "genius" defence attorney student in Case 3 who turns out to be 25 and an idiot. His first name, Rei, is usually used in katakana and, kanji aside, it's a totally normal name. It's only when you find out he's an idiot who gets 0/100 that you gain an appreciation for the fact that his name is the character for "zero".
* PS, at this point I think Trucy and Apollo are STILL the only main characters who haven't been accused of murder at least once during the course of the games. (Including people being accused but not put on trial, which happens a lot in Gyakuten Kenji.)
* In conclusion, I am not entirely sure what they would do in a sequel, but I want one anyway! And Gyakuten Kenji 3, please. :/
Also, because I was bored and because FEELINGS, I drew Yuugami and Kokone. LJ app won't let me upload pictures from the ipad, so have a link to tumblr: http://tammaiya.tumblr.com/post/67614405449/oekaki-for-ace-attorney-dual-destinies-i-was. (Kokone's ponytail is on the wrong side but it was too much of a pain to fix. It is a MIRROR IMAGE, okay.)