Allah of Alliteration
Gender: Male
Location: Indianer! YEEEHAW!!
Rank: Desk Jockey
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 2:24 pm
Posts: 109
I must say, upon reading many a teary-eyed testimony of my fellow members' frolics through this glorious game, I feel as though it is my time to speak of mine.
Alas, I shall not, for just last night, within the hour of midnight, I penned in the privacy of my room my own take on the ending, as well as the entire series as a whole... it was written for my blog, that of the demonic networking community we generally refer to as "MySpace".
But I suppose it's not completely away from my guidelines to repost it here.
-----------From the Blog-------------
Ahhh.... I just finished the third game in the Ace Attorney series. Closure feels nice.
So why in the bloody Hell would I write a blog about something like this, you ask? Fact is, like any other sort of story that someone gets into, I got really attatched to the characters, and the feeling of the game and story as a whole. As one would expect, I have both things I love and things I want to gripe about.
Not that anyone I know has played all the way through this series like I have, or likely will. The only person I know who touches their DS enough is Carly, and I'm fairly sure she's not interested in an overly dramatic/comedic game about lawyers. But then again, maybe someone I know would be, and now they're interested because of this blog. But I digress.
As far as the good sides go, I do like endings in which we get to see the good in potential badguys. In the end, Edgeworth, Franziska von Karma, and even Godot/Armando all ended up showing their good sides. Granted, we've already seen Edgeworth's kindness in the first game, and just a glimpse at a human-ish side of von Karma in the finale of "Justice For All", but you really get a sense of how good they were when they help Nick out in the last trial, although it does sort of come off as being for Maya's sake.
And Godot, while his methods are questionable and his judgement is quick... he did have pure intentions all along. He felt responsible for a lot of things and was willing to serve his necessary punishments. I was happy about that, especially considering he was one of my favorites all along... something about his laid-back nature, despite drinking exactly 17 cups of coffee per trial.
On that note, I found in laugh-out-loud hilarious to see Phoenix Wright drinking a cup of coffee out of nowhere near the end of the last trial when Godot asked, "Isn't this the best cup of coffee that's ever been had?" Where in the Hell did that mug come from? And what was the purpose of that entire scene? Maybe it was supposed to serve as comic relief in the middle of a stiffly serious trial. I know that's what it did for me.
I was oddly happy to see the less important characters come out well. Gumshoe and Maggey finding each other as fellow giant-screwup-cops and falling for one another was really cute to watch. I won't lie about it. And I was glad to see Larry actually find something he was good for for once. Hopefully later installments will show us his picture book about Franziska, but maybe that's just that weird side of me showing through that happens to find her incredibly... nevermind.
THANK YOU, Capcom, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, for NOT revisiting that Steel Samurai shit a third time. I was practically nauseus upon putting the game in with worry that I would have to go through another trial of all that crap with Will Powers and worst of all, that FUCKING Security Lady who I hate more than anyone else in the entire series. She showed up once, in the credits, talking about how nobody likes her and she feels left out, and there is no better way to see her.
Speaking of good and bad trials, I have an official new favorite trial in the whole series: The Stolen Turnabout. First off, it's very refreshing to deal with a theft instead of a murder for once, even though it does turn into a murder. Secondly, Mask DeMasque/Ron DeLite is a somewhat interesting character (moreso when he is in costume), and I just love the idea of this masked theif. Third, I liked their newer take on Adrian Andrews in this case. She was just sort of a bystander, a victim, and something about her felt very cool now.
My fourth and final reason for loving this case (and anyone who has played it would know what I mean already) is undoubtably my new favorite character from the series: the Freelance Detective, Luke Atmey. He is so completely insane with drama over his ruthless pursuit of Mask DeMasque that I laughed out loud countless times, and he makes it that much better by being just insane in general. When he falsely confesses to secretly being both Mask DeMasque AND the detective pursuing him, he just becomes so out of his head... it's beautiful. Notably, he was also my main inspiration for writing the stories I've been doing about Theodoric Wilson Turnabout, whose last name is blatantly taken from the series anyway.
OMG!! Did you hear that? O-M-G, as in, OH EMM GEE, as in OH MY GOD, as in HOLY FUCKING SHIT IN AN EDIBLE WAFFLE CONE. What's this all about, you say? For the first day of the final trial... you get to play as Edgeworth. And that, my friends, is just how much I love the shit out of Edgeworth as a character. Yes, I thought it was nifty, getting to play as Mia for two of the cases, but Edgeworth is just so undeniably cool... and going up against von Karma, no doubt? MORE points. And having Gumshoe as his Maya-esque sidekick? Well... I guess that was kinda cool, somehow. Either way, this was one of my favorite parts of the whole series, for sure. I'm such a fankid.
Now, for my gripes...
This Iris woman... yes, she's cute, and yes, we've now been informed that she was in a relationship with Phoenix a long time ago that still means a little something to both of them today. But seriously... she came the fuck out of nowhere. If you want to make a pairing like that, I just feel like it should be with someone who's been there the whole time. If you've played the games, it's impossible that you're not catching my drift... you know who I mean.
Yeah, so maybe Phoenix has a few years on Maya. They had chemistry... everything seemed like it would lead up to this, and it never happened. At the end of the game, he looks at Maya and says "Alright... here it goes...", and the music changes drastically... and then he loudly yells his trademark "OBJECTION!!" to the group's idea of him taking part in the training ritual. Yes, this makes for a funny ending, but... I kinda always wanted to see something happen with them. Makes me sort of feel like Pearls.
On that note, Pearls is now left with half of her family dead and two in prison, one of whom, her mother, will probably never get out. Yes, she still has Maya, and Phoenix is practically family, but... it's a little depressing. I'm not saying there's another way they could have done this, but, come on, one can't help but gripe about feeling depressed.
Everybody's revenge plots became quite a bit hazy. I think Morgan Fey wanted revenge on Misty Fey, and Godot wanted revenge on both Dahlia Hawthorne and Phoenix Wright, somehow, but didn't need that revenge because Mr. White got revenge on Mia in the first game, which is why Mia doesn't want revenge on any of these people, although Dahlia wanted to kill Maya as revenge on Mia, and throw on top of that that Ms. von Karma wants revenge on... was it Edgeworth or Phoenix? I don't remember, I think it was a bit of both. Too much damned revenge for one game. Maybe that's just me not being able to keep track of stuff. Perhaps it's my fault. Now I feel like the Judge.
I recall on several occasions various people (namely myself and Steph) talking about how ridiculous it is that in the entire Star Wars movieverse, everyone is connected by about two families all the time. By the time you finish the Phoenix Wright trilogy, you realize that this is also true of Phoenix Wright.
I mean, seriously... half the cast is revealed to be part of the Fey clan. I was wondering how long it would be before they revealed that Edgeworth or Gumshoe or someone would be... although it would have made the whole game for me if Detective Atmey popped up and screamed about how he was the true Master of Kurain while simultaneously wearing half of a Mask DeMasque outfit.
So, important characters within the extended Fey family: Mia Fey, Maya Fey, Pearl Fey, Morgan Fey, Dahlia Hawthorne (Blindsided the fuck outta me), Elise Deauxnim/Misty Fey, Iris of Hazakura. That's a bit of an overload. Important characters NOT within said family: Phoenix, Godot, Edgeworth, von Karma, Gumshoe, and the Judge. That's about all. Not that that clears up any ridiculous relations being overdone, since they revealed that the series' only two judges were actually brothers.
Every Ace Attorney game has that one case that you hate with a flaming passion. Mine, in this game, was "Recipe for a Turnabout", a.k.a., the coffee poisoning case. This case was so incredibly long, boring, and repetitive that I was playing the game for 20 or so minutes at a time because I just hated it that much. Every other case in the entire game either fits somehow into this large plot centered on Dahlia Hawthorne, or is the Mask DeMasque case, thus making it cool by default. But this coffee poisoning one... it's nothing but pointless. I don't give a rat's ass about Glen Elg, or how dead he is, or how gay the restaurant manager is, because I would boldly call him the gayest video game character I've ever seen.
The best thing that came out of the entire case was Victor Kudo being revealed to have a strap fetish, and Maya summoning Mia while wearing the waitress uniform to get information out of him. A very funny scene in the middle of an otherwise ridiculously boring trial.
On the note of that trial, there was that subplot with the mafia... I was very pissed that they didn't expand that at all. Violetta was an awesome character, no matter how lame Furio Tigre was opposite her. She was very creepy, goth-kid-like. I loved it. But I'd never trust her with making me a cup of coffee, and neither would Godot.
But overall, I loved the series. It's been phenomenally addictive and the characters are brilliant, no matter how cheesy some of their names are. Everything happens at exactly the right moments, and when something hits you and you realize just what you need to say or do, it's an awesome feeling. I also love how they don't have voice acting (other than lawyers objecting), which gives you a chance to put some imagination into the characters a bit more.
Overall Awards:
Best Characters:
1. Luke Atmey
2. Miles Edgeworth
3. Prosecutor Godot/Diego Armando
4. Franziska von Karma
5. Maya Fey
Worst Characters:
1. Wendy Oldbag
2. Furio Tigre
3. Victor Kudo
4. Will Powers
5. Morgan Fey
Best Cases:
1. "The Stolen Turnabout" aka The Mask DeMasque case
2. "Farewell, My Turnabout" aka The Hotel Murder/Finale of "Justice for All"
3. "Turnabout Big Top" aka The Circus case
4. "Turnabout Goodbyes" aka vs. von Karma Sr., the trial of Miles Edgeworth
5. "Bridge to a Turnabout" aka The Murder of Misty Fey/Trilogy Grand Finale
Worst Cases:
1. "Turnabout Samurai" aka The Steel Samurai SHITHEAP
2. "Recipe for a Turnabout" aka That Stupid Thing at the French Restaurant
Those are the only ones I particularly hated, I guess...
So, I think that's a pretty good wrap-up. All that can be said now is, it's time for me to play this new installment, "Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney". Phoenix is retired, and while they say there are lots of cameos, the fact is that this is going to be a wholly new series altogether, in that it will play a lot like that bonus case from PW1, what with having forensic evidence to examine and all. On the good side, Ema Skye is back, from what I've heard, and she was pretty cool. I'm excited about it, but it had better be damned good to live up to its predecessor.
If you read this, you're either bored enough to read crazy shit about games you've never played, or you have somehow also played the Ace Attorney series like me, and we're just weird together that way. But seriously... if you're in the first group, I would greatly suggest changing that. This is a phenomenal series, and without a doubt one of my very favorites.
------------End Blog----------
There we are... however, I find it profusely difficult to believe that a one of you will read that in its entirety.
Someday I shall create a signature... in due time.