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+ The writing, while it doesn't stand up to the originals, still has its moments. It's still better writing than I've come to expect from most video games.
+ There are a couple of good characters - the Gavin brothers are the two strongest characters in the game, in my opinion. The witnesses aren't as interesting as in the original games, but there are a handful of standouts.
+ The forensic examination sections are quite fun, and make a nice diversion from the simple "point out the contradiction" gameplay the few times they come up.
~ The interaction between Apollo and Trucy feels like a weaker facsimile of that between Phoenix and Maya. This isn't a bad thing as such, since I like Phoenix and Maya, but more could have been done to make the two pairs of characters more distinct from each other, rather than just magic vs. spirit channelling.
~ The general plot regarding Phoenix's disbarment works - but it completely consumes any chance Apollo might have had of having his own story, distinct from Phoenix's, develop.
~ I like the idea of perception, but I just feel like it should be more strict about penalising trying to perceive the wrong statement/body part. As it is, you can perceive whatever you want, whenever you want, with no risk. It's fairer than penalising getting a Psyche-Lock question wrong, but still imbalanced.
- Phoenix. His personality just feels wrong. "But he's been disbarred for 7 years" - no. You don't just become aloof and head-in-the-clouds like that for no reason, and it isn't adequately explained why he is the way he is.
- The soundtrack is the weakest overall in the series. It has a few standout tracks, like Apollo and Klavier's themes, but otherwise it's quite poor. I can't even begin to describe how much I dislike the cross-examination themes.
- The real culprits in the second and third cases are immediately predictable as soon as they're introduced, to the point that you're basically figuring out how to confirm your suspicions, instead of finding who did it. Even the first case - the real killer may seem like a big plot twist at first, but when you think about it, it's pretty obvious.
- The defendant of the second case is unlikeable; at no point did I actually feel like I wanted to save him, which in a game about saving people from false accusations is a pretty glaring weakness.
- Phoenix doesn't feel like Phoenix, in the one part of the game in which he's supposed to be "classic" Phoenix (the "7 Years Ago" trial). He's always had his moments of cockiness here and there, but he comes across as downright arrogant here: "there's no substitute for experience" or however he puts it. I can picture Winston Payne saying that, but not Phoenix.
- Maya's total absence in the past sections, which is a plot hole - she doesn't even get mentioned, despite the ending of AA3 stating that she wasn't going anywhere, and I doubt she was going to miss a trial as significant as Zak Gramarye's, or abandon Phoenix in his hour of need.
- No Edgeworth
The main problem, in my opinion, is that the game in general just feels like "Shu Takumi's Contractual Obligation Game", whereas with the original trilogy, it really felt like he was doing them because he wanted to, and not just because of the money/his higher-ups told him to; in particular, the simple fact that Phoenix appears in the game at all. I honestly think the game would have been all the better without him, since it would have given the space needed for Apollo to have his own story, and to have some character development of his own.
6.9/10 because, as much as I struggled to think up positive points, the game still had something that kept me from outright disliking it - I can't quite put my finger on it, but the overall experience feels more positive than negative - just. I mean, something is clearly wrong when your personal highlights of the entire game are two pieces of background furniture in the second case (which is otherwise my least favourite case in the entire series), but I still can't say I actually dislike the game.
AJ is by far my least favourite in the series. It's not entirely terrible, but there was still a lot about it I didn't like.
I've always felt that AJ would have been much better if Takumi had been left to his own devices, instead of being forced to shoehorn Phoenix into the story. The disbarment thing just about works, but it leaves no room for Apollo to develop as his own, unique character - he and Trucy just felt like weak copies of Phoenix and Maya. I appreciate that they wanted to introduce a new set of characters into the series, but in my opinion, it needed to be a clean break from the old, rather than dragging along Phoenix just because he's Phoenix.
I'd personally rate at least two of AJ's cases (the two middle ones) as being worse than JfA's infamous third case. Second case has Wocky, who was just hateful - I honestly didn't care about saving him at all - and the third case just felt so dragged out, what with having to watch that music video about 593 times, and the fact that you basically know who the real killer is, and a large part of how he did it, as soon as he's introduced, but have to spend ages running around the concert venue looking for clues anyway.
I didn't like how they handled Phoenix at all. I know Naruhobo has his fans, but I just didn't get it. It felt too much like it came out of nowhere, with no real explanation as to why he's acting like an arse other than "he got disbarred seven years ago". Even the one part of the game that's supposed to have "normal" Phoenix got him wrong - why is he being so arrogant towards Klavier? "There's no substitute for experience"? Really???
The soundtrack (outside of Apollo and Klavier's themes) was awful, in my opinion. The games always have such good soundtracks, that AJ's was such a massive letdown. I'd honestly struggle to name a third song I liked from the game. And don't even get me started on the cross-examination themes - those are usually a highlight, but here... ugh.
Should probably mention a few positives about the game... I liked the forensics sections, the few times they came up, and the writing, while it didn't stand up to the original trilogy for me, was still decent. The Gavin brothers were strong characters too, as they needed to be. Perception was an interesting idea too, but I felt like they needed to be a bit harsher about penalising incorrect perceptions, instead of just letting you throw it out as much as you liked.
...that went on a bit longer than intended, but anyway.
Some of my favourite moments in the Ace Attorney series will definitely be when you need to guess who the fourth person is in the first case in Apollo Justice and when Gumshoe yells "hold it!" (iirc) in T&T.
Also during the 4th and 5th cases of AAI2. Gumshoe seemed like such a badass XD
Alright, you ready for my new novel called "Rebuttel against Moydow?" BTW, I'm not even gonna try to defend the flaws that I agree with. Some spoilers.
It shouldn't have been called Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney as much as it should have been called Phoenix Wright: Apollo Justice. Heck, an even better title would be THE DOWNFALL AND REBIRTH OF PHOENIX WRIGHT Featuring Apollo Justice I actually really liked the soundtrack. Really set the mood when it needed to.
I liked Polly and Trucy as much as Nick and Maya, personally. Apollos personality is different enough from Phoenix(enough for me to make him my favorite character), but Trucy (and every other assisstant(unless Franziska counts)) is way too similar to Maya. It was
implied that she still visited so I guess they could use the "she rubbed off on her" card, but still.
I actually liked Phoenix.
This applies to flashback Nick as well. Klavier was being a major jerk to him, and I don't think he ever took that lightly, but I do think that the way it happened was a little cheap. Granted, I haven't played the trilogy in a while, so I may be misremembering.
Hobo!Phoenix's personality change was put on to trick the big bad. When playing as him, his inner monologue let you know that he's still the same guy we played as before.
I'm a little upset about Maya and Edgeworth's but mostly Franziska's absence but didn't DD say where they were, at least for Edgeworth?[spoiler/]
And that's my take on Apollo Justice. Maybe I'll do this for DD later today.
IT's called F-Zero The Legacy of Captain Falcon or Falcon Denestu while over here it's called F-Zero GP legend. We only got like 11-13 episodes dubbed in the U.S before it got canceled by 4 kids at that time so you watch it in Japanese which you should especially for the music.