Oh, Godot.

[snarp]

Originally published at SarahPin.com. You can comment here or there.

I still haven’t written the follow-up to my previous Big Huge Phoenix Wright post, but I’ve just finished Trials and Tribulations, and I’m going to post massively spoilery thoughts about that real fast:

Comments

[illsaideffxi]

To be honest, I was very disappointed with Godot. I had heard all the buzz that the third game was supposed to be the best game of the original three (and, being halfway through Apollo Justice, I don't think #4 is in danger of taking that spot), but it just didn't do it for me. The cases were too long, and Godot didn't do enough in court. Edgeworth laid traps for Phoenix to maneuver himself into, Franziska coached witnesses and tried to obfuscate testimony that hurt her case, and Papa von Karma did both while being straight up evil. In contrast, Godot just whittled on about coffee while the witnesses were larger obstacles than the previous games.

Godot wanted revenge, but Franziska already had that motivation. He seemed stale to me. He was hurt further by having a young Edgeworth and Franziska prosecuting in the game.

Godot was a nice character design, but the weakest of the prosecutors, including Apollo Justice's.

[snarp]

No, he didn't exactly approach his job with the gusto the other prosecutors did. And for someone allegedly motivated by revenge, he didn't seem to enjoy it much when he did get Phoenix at a disadvantage. Or, rather, he didn't enjoy it any more than he enjoys his coffee.

But this is actually part of the reason I like Godot. Edgeworth and the von Karmas had that kind of super-saijin progression thing going on, where each of them was set up as more monomaniacal and dangerous than the last. You can't keep going "he may be my most fearsome opponent yet!" forever - there's got to be a shift in register at some point. And Godot was that. He had interests outside his job, skipped out on court when he was bored, didn't take himself insanely seriously, and wasn't totally crushed/enraged when he lost.

My view of the problem is that, though the writers knew they needed this kind of character to break the cycle, they didn't really know what to do with him. They can handle a protagonist who's not hyper-motivated, but apparently not an antagonist