As I finished the final trial and watched Kristoph's epic breakdown, I was seized with a sense of "That's it?", as, I'm sure, many of you were.

The final trial lacked the length of any trial day previously. Even the finales to the "filler" cases are generally more satisfying than the process of taking down Kristoph Gavin. There was only one evidence presentation, and that evidence was ruled inadmissable. A big disappointment and a mistake on the part of the writers, right?

Maybe.

But the final trial was constructed for the sole purpose of delivering the message that Phoenix states before the second trial of case 3: the problem of a legal system that requires irrefutable evidence. Apollo has no evidence except the "reproduction" of a letter that is ruled inadmissible. But after the MASON system (which has its own set of problems), Kristoph's guilt is obvious, but the lack of evidence means that only the common sense of the jury can convict him. THAT is the point of the final trial.

Is it satisfying? Not as much as final cases usually are. But I hope we can understand why the writers decided to end the game this way.

(it still could have been longer, though)

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As every ending, it was glorious, epic, etc.. But as you said, it didn't seem long enough. I loved spotting the demon-like face on Kristoph's hand, but I expected more than just that to get you somewhere. I was satisfied with it, but only satisfied. It didn't make me have an odd spiritual orgasm on the inside like the others did.

I won't complain though. I have a feeling that it's only the beginning of something will somehow lead into a trilogy climax that beats even Trials and Tribulations.

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As every ending, it was glorious, epic, etc.. But as you said, it didn't seem long enough. I loved spotting the demon-like face on Kristoph's hand, but I expected more than just that to get you somewhere. I was satisfied with it, but only satisfied. It didn't make me have an odd spiritual orgasm on the inside like the others did.

I won't complain though. I have a feeling that it's only the beginning of something will somehow lead into a trilogy climax that beats even Trials and Tribulations.

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Yes.

But that's exactly the problem. It's a mistake in the game to bring up the flaws of the court system in the first place. What about the fact that although it's even stated that perjury is a "serious crime", people can lie about five times on the witness stand and never get in trouble? How about the fact that even though everything that De Killer says on the stand is in favor of defense, the defense is apparently the only group that an actually try to refute it? How about the fact that, in the words of TV Tropes, "a single line of false testimony from a barely credible witness can completely screw your client"? You can't try to point out the obvious flaws in the system without destroying the whole thing. No one bothers to figure out why Mario can switch directions while in the middle of a jump.

Added onto the fact that this examination of the problems of the legal system produced such a disappointing case, and I think that the message of this case is that it's a mistake to try to examine the "flaws" of the justice system (which are only there to make the games fun).

It makes sense. Maybe that's their way of using a good, smooth storyline that says to shut the fuck up. How fun would the game be if it worked the way it does in real life (at least in the U.S. court system); innocent until proven guilty? They've had it set up very well in the past. You client is guilty until proven innocent. You get to prosecute as well as defend in every case.

But now that the jurer system is set up and will most likely stay that way, it does have a lot of potential. It could make the game seem a little more reasonable. Instead of having to prove every little bit of your claims with evidence down to the core, you find ways to present evidence and persuade a jury. It definitely makes things more realistic. In real life, I doubt the judge is going to agree to the prosecution claiming something like "The witness was spotted slicing a bunch of people into pieces and even caught on camera, but there's a possibility that the witness has a secret twin who actually did it and happened to be wearing the same clothes and had the same kitana as the witness. Therefore the defense's claim isn't reasonable and the defendant is still the one who did it." In the Phoenix Wright trilogy, something like that could have happened because of how the court system worked.

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I didn't mind it at all. Case 4 was already ridiculously long, and the whole Mason system bit felt more like a complex "boss battle" version of an investigation sequence, so I wasn't expecting much from that last trial. Even if you couldn't pin it on Kristoph, the evidence had pretty much established Vera's innocence, so by that point, the trial was more of a formality...

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Um, excuse me? Case 4 was shorter then Cases 2&3! It skipped an investigation, it was REALLY EASY, and it had hardly any forensic investigation.If you think of a boss battle as being a trippy time warp deus ex machina, then sure, I suppose... No final day of trial in PW should be thought of as a "formality". It must be epic. And it wasnt.

Plus Vera still looked rather guilty, simply in absence of any other suspects.

Ugh, I hope it never comes back.

The FUN in the AA games is that final "HA!" as you provide the final evidence.

That >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Jurist System

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Last edited by CantFaketheFunk on Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Agreed.

I wonder how the game would work if the Jurist System stays... Do you choose who is guilty or not guilty?
Is it by how well you perform in court? Is picking up all the evidence no longer necessary to continue, but continuing as such will cause serious repercussions?

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Agreed, however, I think that, if they did some "reforms" before the actual implementation of the Jurist system *coughnothinglikeitwasinGS4cough*, the idea of having a jury could be used as a way to add complexity of to the trial, as in, you can’t just prove it and point the finger at the bad guy (which you should have to do, even if the Jurist system was put in place to prevent that need), but also make sure the jury is on your side, being sneaky and underhanded might get the case won faster, but you could still not get your verdict that you want because the jury sees you as just trying to slander someone else and not prove anything about your client. It could add in a verity of endings to cases, from non-standard game overs, mediocre endings, and of course the “cannon”/good ending where everything turns out okay.
It would totally add on to re-playability which, for a series linear of games, this series (in general, let’s not debate about Justice itself here) has in spades.

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Personally, I can see the Juror System as a feature with high potential, because as mentioned before, you'd have to not only point your finger to the bad guy with evidence, but also make sure the Jury is on YOUR side by playing things fair. You could have the option of doing some underhanded stuff, but that would strike against the opinion the Jury has of you, which could make it harder to get a Not Guilty for your client, and that sort of stuff.

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I was actually OK with 4-4. Sure it wasn't long, and there was only one piece of testimony, but I liked it. The thing that pissed me off was the "lesson".

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I've never found the most satisfying part of the game the breakdown anyway. I find the lead up to it far more exciting and 4-4 had plenty of crazy build up (if a little badly paced).

And I was thinking for the Jurist System, if it were to be implemented again, I don't think the choice at the end should be there. I think for it to work in a game, it could go along the lines of having a bar and as you say stuff that convinces the jury, the bar goes up, but if you make mistakes, the bar goes down. Sort of like a more complicated version of the penalty bar.

But you know, they could just put the jurist system in and it might not change gameplay at all. You still present evidence, find contradictions etc. and then in the end, it's the jury that declare a verdict, not the judge.

NOTE: SUPER SUPER SPOILERS. PRETTY MUCH SPOILS THE WHOLE PLOT OF 4-4 and 4-1!! PLUS ITS FULL OF LOTS OF TL;DR!! 8D

The way I feel about this trial is this- big pictures, not small. Everything leading up to 4-4 and Kristoph's breakdown is much more complex. Even if the last trial day was short if you start from the beginning it's much more satisfying.

It started with Kristoph being taken off as Zak's lawyer, over a card game. Kristoph's pride was damaged, not only because he lost his chance to make himself incredibly famous via this trial, but also because he was replaced by someone he found to be incredibly second-rate over poker.

Then he takes his forged evidence (which he made before Zak took him off as his lawyer) and makes sure Phoenix gets it, via Trucy. The day before the trial he told Klavier that Nick would use a forged journal page and that he should call in a special witness. Drew knew of the forgery but never even met the client. He had no idea that Kristoph asked for the page and not Phoenix.

Of course then the worse happens. Zak vanishes. Kristoph's revenge is only half-completed because of this. He wanted Phoenix stripped of his badge and Zak to rot in jail. Only the first half did it. Then he became paranoid. If the truth was ever revealed then he would lose his own badge, his credibility. But the worse part was that he would ultimately lose to someone second-rate. Losing to Phoenix- one of the worse damages to his pride.

So he keeps tabs on everyone. He watched Brushel (who has connections to Zak still), Drew (the father of the forger), Vera (the forger, who for some reason did not die from the poisoned stamp) and even his own brother, Klavier (who was the prosecutor of the case). Then when the board reviewed Phoenix he secured a friendship with Nick by standing up for him (of course it ultimately made Phoenix suspicious).

Then when he saw Shadi (aka: Zak) as he left the Borscht Club he knew that Zak was alive, and perhaps told Phoenix about what occurred. Kristoph decided to kill Shadi and frame either Phoenix or Olga for it (he wanted Phoenix probably more, but either of the two would have meant he would be innocent). But in the end his own pupil, first time lawyer Apollo Justice, shut his coffin and sent him to jail for the murder. Of course he blames Phoenix for it, as he knew a greenhorn like Apollo could have never solved a case like this himself.

Of course that was just the start. He was in jail but that didn't matter to him all too much. After all- Shadi was dead and no one knew he was Zak Gramarye (besides Phoenix and Brushel of course. But Brushel was always to preoccupied with his own stuff and Phoenix had become super cryptic about everything). All was good.

Finally the bomb goes off. Drew used the poisoned stamp (which should have lost it's potency after seven years but amazingly didn't?) and he died. And even better- Vera was blamed for it because the atroquinine took effect after he sipped the cup of coffee. Then because she had to leave the house she took the poisoned nail polish Kristoph gave her and used it. Due to nervousness in court she ended up ingesting the poison from the nail polish and fell into a coma. He probably heard of all this- except for the fact that the trial was using the jurist system.

He expected to be called in as a special witness, since Phoenix visited his cell the day before. Then the events unraveled. He was taken down by the evidence, but because the letter was a reproduction they probably didn't know it was the real thing. They could have checked through the precinct (since they read all the mail before they go to the prisoners) but they needed to finish the trial today because there was a chance that Vera wouldn't even live through the day due to the poison. But because of the jurist system the judge and evidence didn't decided anything--the jurors did.

When Kristoph found out Phoenix introduced this system it wasn't just the system that got to him. It was the fact that this case was the test for the system. Phoenix knew that Kristoph was guilty and he knew that Kristoph put the poison in that stamp. But due to lack of evidence nothing could be done. This jurist system was the only way. He then picked people that had a good head on them but weren't directly related to the development of the trial itself (hence why Lamiroir was the 6th jurist.)

Kristoph's breakdown happened because this time he did lose. Phoenix not only got back at Kristoph for the forgery but even put his life in the hands of normal people--people that Kristoph did not find worthy of judging him and all the work he had to do for the past seven years. If Kristoph wasn't going to be executed for Shadi's murder (which could be counted in the world of law as second-degree murder, since no real motive was ever established) then he would be executed for Drew's murder, which had some form of motive behind it.

Phoenix, someone that Kristoph considered to be second-rate compared to himself, had ultimately beaten him down. For what occurred both seven years ago and only six months ago. He lost to someone that was nothing in his eyes and thus-

THE EPIC BREAKDOWN.

You need to look at the big picture with breakdowns like Kristoph's. Consider Dahlia's breakdown. She too broke down like that because everything that she had done since she was little (from the fake kidnapping to trying to kill Maya) had been ultimately failed. All because of Mia Fey. She wasn't pissed because Maya was alive, but because she had failed in killing Maya and everything else that occurred, only because of one person who she considered to be second-rate.

Hooray for TL;DR 8D

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I didn't have a problem with 4-4...

I thought it was fresh, fun, and Kristoph's breakdown was epic.

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QFT; AJ haters take note. :D

There's no real need to expand on that post except to say that the MASON System is still only a prototype and will be revised before it's used again. That's great, because the MASON gameplay isn't exactly perfect.

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