Phoenix Wright 6: Finished. Awhile ago, actually, but there were so many nitpicks for the cases I could never finish this post. Whatever, I'll just ship what I got.
I liked it! But a lot of this is Case 4 saving PW6's ass by being ludicrously awesome. Case 5 also helped too, but also hurt as well… it's like a combination of 2-4 and 3-5 in simultaneously having some really cool plot twists, some bizarre good guy actions, and some miserably terrible messages/morals.
I also basically agree with Eph on the witnesses. PW6 is weird in that it has some of the best witnesses in the series - they're animated with a ton of love & care, they have a lot of personality, and the game usually doesn't over-hint what you should do. But… there's just not quite *enough* of them. I get that dramatically, you don't want to waste time developing irrelevant characters, and budget-wise, more characters costs more money, but this is too far. I'm not demanding every case be Rise from the Ashes, but there just aren't really any red herring characters who didn't commit the crime but aren't obviously innocent in almost every PW6 case. Excluding case 1 and excluding Ema Skye who, as a returning character, is extremely unlikely to be evil …
Case 2 has, seemingly, two characters, one of whom has an ironclad alibi. There's a third character introduced, granted.
Case 3 Day 1 has, generously speaking, three characters to suspect at first, although two don't testify, and you never even see 1 of them. Day 2, you're down to literally one suspect, since the other two characters are sorta-cleared.
Case 4 has two characters & a returning cameo who is extraordinarily unlikely to be the culprit. So you've got two possibilities.
Case 5 Day 1 has two witnesses and one cameo character who doesn't even testify.
Case 5 Day 2 is more chaotic, but could still use a few more characters.
DLC case has a cameo who clearly didn't do it + two named characters, and one of the named characters being the killer would be a huge downer.
Granted, all of the above have "it was an accident/suicide/etc." as a possibility as well, but still.
The good news is that some of these witnesses are GREAT. Retinz, D3 "Maya", Uendo, Atishon, Sarge, & A***a are some A+ fantastic witnesses, and the seances are good too. Just… more, please!
I also think PW6 edged away a bit from classic-PW "serial perjurer who adjusts their story ever so slightly with each contradiction, which is then accepted by the judge until you point out how that doesn't work." They keep that a bit in the Seances, but that's it. While this is more "realistic" I guess, it is also less gameplay, so I think they could have edged the balance a little more towards having the witnesses be fighty & nitpicky rather than just conceding.
That said, unlike most of the people here, I thought Datz was fine? And I didn't mind Nahyuta either, so long as you pretend that the "hold" the plot has on him is as strong as it thinks it is, not as strong as it rationally should be. A proper PW antagonist should be somewhat frustratingly unconcerned with the actual truth, and his "Let it go and give up" attitude makes me want to tangle with him, which is good. He's not "awesome" like a Simon or an Edgeworth could be, but that's okay.
Case 4.
I loved it, myself! ...for all that holy hell it must have been interesting to localize, yes.
Uendo was one of the best PW witnesses ever, and the story was the right combination of weird but vaguely plausible. There were some totally great "wrong" presents in it as well - U3ND0 the robot complete with Widget joining in the blip bloop, Athena complaining that nobody could possibly be fooled by being asked the time and proceeding to screw up counting the people in the courtroom, and so on.
I dunno, not a lot to say. Also, this is how to do a cameo right. I think the AA series likes to put its established characters directly on trial a wee bit too much. Yes it's super dramatic, but it becomes less so if it happens literally all the time. Having a cameo witness, and one that would make a ton of sense as he's a total weeaboo, is way better.
Also, re someone who said this case felt like a random leftover from Dual Destinies…
Eh, not really? This case has Simon as a free man, which they couldn't do in DD. Dual Destinies fanservice, perhaps, I'll grant.
Case 5
Per Elf, this reminds me a lot of 3-5, with some 2-4 dashed in. Like 3-5, I overall like it and it hits some themes I really like, has some good witnesses, and has a solid twist. It also features allegedly sympathetic characters acting crazy and a terrible ideology that cuts against the game itself, but it's clearly not really "meant", so I dunno.
Day 1:
* I loved the bit with Sarge going crazy and stealing all the shit, including the gavel & Widget.
* Unlike Elf, I was pretty okay with the adventure game prologue, but I thought it was weird that they kinda forgot to, you know, do an adventure game. I figured I'd have to present tools to use on objects to navigate the cave or some such like normal adventure games.
* So you present the email of PAW-711 asking Buff to examine the artifact to prove he didn't steal it. Fine. However, it makes the case for Atishon to have *loaned* the Orb to Buff really strong! Like, if it was Buff's, why does Atishon know about it and conversing with him? If I put my car in for repairs and the mechanic dies in the middle, the mechanic can't have written a will that gives my car to someone else! But everyone just ignores why exactly Atishon was asking and what he knew about it….
* I am glad that the Crystal of Ami Fey didn't turn out to be the same thing, or the REAL POWER behind the Orb, or some crap. Was worried it would hit the "Japan is secretly better !Buddhists than the !Buddhist theocracy!" even harder than it already was what with the Feys being better channelers.
* Per Elf, I'm surprised that Atishon actually killed Buff…? And randomly shoved Apollo into the cave and nobody cares about this attempted murder because ???. That said, fine, Atishon killed Buff because he was that adamant about getting the Founders' Orb back right the hell now in service of his master, but… why does he care about whether the secrets of the Orb can be unveiled? Having the Queen of Khur'ain do it seems very reasonable if he thinks he's working for her husband! Like, his devotion to figuring out the mystery is appreciated, but he already killed someone for rather weak reasons trying to help out, so I'm not sure I'm sold about his committment here, and Pearl Fey still seems a reasonable backup plan if we ignore the "but I kidnapped your cousin" part.
* I despise that Phoenix had to be "bribed" to work for the "wrong" side. This reminds me of my least favorite part of 2-4. The ideology that "bad" people don't deserve help is the ideology of the *antagonists* in Phoenix Wright. The asshole prosecutors (and sometimes the audience gallery?) are always "your client is obviously guilty, why are you defending bad people you scumbag." If Phoenix Wright refuses to work for seemingly guilty parties, that negates the whole point of a court system, because there are some innocent parties who appear to actually be guilty! Hell, including confessions & all!
I would rather have all of Phoenix's clients be "good" than have "bad" clients whom Phoenix feels all sorry and conflicted about. A legal system where only "good" clients get representation is basically Ku'rain's legal system where nobody gets a lawyer! Sigh.
Day 2:
* This is a real nit, but they had a perfect excuse they could have mentioned for Apollo to be the lead in the final trial - he presumably speaks Khurainese, unlike Phoenix!
* So.. who exactly was Dhurke talking to at the end of the first case, and who was the hostage being referred to? Considering they bothered to set up a plot point where Sarge was using a voice-masker 10 seconds ago, and we then get an unknown electronic message, I was fully expecting it to actually be someone else. I guess since they never bothered to talk about it again, it really was Inga? But then what was he actually offering, since both of them knew Maya wasn't a hostage anymore? If it was Ga'ran and it was supposed to be some threat involving Amara / Nahyuta / Rayfa, then how is that different from normal, where Dhurke was on the run anyway? Like, he hasn't been captured yet, if all it took to capture him was to repeat the same threat as always, then they coulda captured him ages ago. If it was Inga, then WTF was going on? If it was some complicated other deal, then the game never explains.
* This case treads perilously close on the banana republic vs. actual courtroom line. To have an exciting case, you need a court system unfair enough to require you to jump through ludicrous hoops to win, but fair enough to not just execute you on the spot and ignore evidence to the contrary.
* Inga seems to be in sort of a heel to not-quite-as-heel turn in case 5, but… it kinda fizzles out? So did he ACTUALLY write the note-to-self coup plan and this was actually legit? After he found Dhurke's body, why not triumphantly declare the evil rebel has been caught? Puts a weird spin on Day 1, too, since presumably Inga was waiting to get the Founders Orb for Rayfa before actually overthrowing Ga'ran. The plot doesn't really go into how Ga'ran knew and further how she was able to use the same inexplicably strong hold on Amara to get her help to *murder her husband / brother-in-law.* You'd think that asking that might be a little much.
* No motive for Amara when Apollo is claiming she's the killer? She's got a huge motive! Inga killed her husband! Sheesh.
* While obviously nothing about Amara makes sense, one thing in particular not only doesn't make sense but was also poorly explained. Are we supposed to take seriously that Amara thinks Dhurke tried to kill her? That might make sense at first, but not after living with him for 8 years and him not trying to murder her again, during which you'd think some opportunity would have arisen! That's the best possible proof!
* And while we're on the Amara note, I'm willing to believe that after 8 years in exile, Ga'ran changed her mind and decided that Amara was more useful alive than dead. I'm *not* willing to believe that she was intentionally not trying to kill her the original arson attempt, which someone seemed to claim at some point! Fire is not a reliable way to, uh, not kill the target! And if she wasn't gonna kill her, then what was the plan for deposing her?! Ugh.
* WTF at Garan and Japan for the cross examination where Garan accuses Rayfa of not being, uh, "full figured" enough as the Plumed Punisher, and Rayfa vowing to double her milk consumption (what with the Japanese belief that drinking milk = huge boobs).
* Rayfa parentage plot: Okay, I've done this whine before, but pls people, especially Japan. If you want to do some kind of alternate maternal-line monarchy, great, sure (for all that it's a little suspicious how few people are alive in the line…), but the rules change a little for weird parentage plot twists, even though I was able to see this one coming as soon as Amara's picture was introduced. I'd liked at least some vague nod somewhere that, say, Ga'ran's daughter was "sick" or the like, and that she swapped her stillborn or died-young daughter with Rayfa. Since they never mention that, I guess she just straight-up stole Rayfa, but legitimate royal babies are a big deal, and Ga'ran can maybe fake a pregnancy, but you better have a young baby ready to go RIGHT away, because you can definitely tell the difference between a 6-month old and an infant!)
(Side comment: Since I mentioned it in WGAYP a bit ago, The Royal Trap basically does this right, not a spoiler - early on in it, they bother to set up that some royal siblings fell sick with the plague, and oh look how convenient the only inheriting daughter survived, but we had to keep her REAL SECLUDED, even from her family. And the mystery meant that peasants with a grudge against the local nobility assumed there was something shady and maybe there was some kind of baby swap here. Not gonna say what actually happened of course.)
* I hate the final twist, concerning Ga'ran's powers. Way to single-handedly make little sense, diminish the threat of the villain, and feed into convenient "oh people with special powers are automatically good clearly." It also makes the fact that Amara made no effort to overthrow Ga'ran even odder.
Not to mention, it starts a bunch of chain plot holes of things that are easy to normally overlook as a little odd if you think too hard about it, but now suddenly get worse. For example, Rayfa is just 14. What was happening in courts before in murder trials? My presumption had I been asked would have been "Ga'ran was doing the seances, and Rayfa recently came of age to help out, and this is a ludicrously small country as to why they didn't spend all their time doing this." But that can't be! For that matter, who was training Rayfa in the seances? Again, I'd have guessed Garan before, but now it'd be ??? . (Nayna, sure, but she can only be so explicit without blowing her cover…)
Also, nearly all the drama about getting the Founder's Orb had to do with using it to give someone spiritual powers. That Inga was perhaps using it to amp up Rayfa's powers so that she could take the throne rather than Ga'ran. Why undo it by having Apollo hand it over and just hope that it doesn't?! WTF. Sure, it worked out, but he shouldn't have known that. I was fully expecting that he'd hand it to RAYFA and ask her to use it to gain Real Ultimate Power so she could have a showdown with her aunt or something, which would also be lame, but at least in keeping with what we know about the Founders' Orb.
And while we're at it… fine, Ga'ran doesn't have powers. There are two possibilities here: either rulers show off their powers with some regularity, or a ruler demonstrating their power is a rare and special thing. If they do it with some regularity, then it makes 0 sense that nobody could have noticed this fact during the ~8 years where Amara was on the run and couldn't possibly be filling in for Ga'ran for whatever reason. And hell, it doesn't make tons of sense when Amara was around either, there'd be too many awkward "uh not right now gimme a sec" switches, but it'd at least be possible. If it's a rare and special thing… uh, then she has a perfect excuse to not demonstrate it, especially since Apollo makes clear in case 2 that he's not a follower of Khurain'ism. This is like an infidel demanding the Pope perform a miracle on the spot. No. And hell, even IF we grant that she'd be deposed for lacking spiritual power, nothing stops her from saying that she was just cursed by Dhurke and her powers are temporarily sealed, but they'll be back next week, and until then we're gonna execute you.
This is way too much ranting, but yeah, I hate this plot point!
* As a side note, and I get that this is more a politics nerd nitpick, but guys, the idea that Ga'ran being deposed would undo *everything* that happened in her reign is… uh… guys, you don't want that. Trust me. If nothing else, that means that absolutely anyone who benefited at all in the last 20 years will now hate you because they'll assume they're getting fired and replaced. But even ignoring that, undoing 20 years of law & changes is a bumpy ride.
I will say I think I'll be happy if PW7 steers clear of politics.
Re being Apollo Justice 2: Eh, not quite. I actually kinda liked what PW6 did here. For whatever reason, Apollo Justice the character just wasn't a big hit in the fanbase and Phoenix himself remained iconic, but they wrote AJ & pals so deeply into the storyline in the fourth game they couldn't just vanish him without doing injury to the setting, and it's not like Apollo himself was Jar-Jar hated. PW6 is, as best I can tell, a way to usher Apollo out of future games honorably (and Ema too, I guess?). They give Apollo a bunch of backstory revelations and he gets to defeat both Phoenix himself and a ruling head of state, and then train a new generation of defense attorneys. He's still available for any cameos they want by having him fly in, but they no longer have to concoct some nonsense excuse to write him out of any plotline (e.g. Dual Destinies' APOLLO ANGST).
DLC case:
I liked it, but not one of the greats. I think this was what passes for a "classic characters" fanservice episode, complete with ribbing for Phoenix-Edgeworth shippers. As far as the evil "press a bunch" testimonies go (BOO HISS DON'T DO THIS), this case does 'em right with "Nick is a Meanie" and "Right to Remain Silent" at least. So yeah, solid cameos & I mostly liked the characters, but doesn't exactly hold together too closely, but I'll let it slide.
More spoilery thoughts:
* Yeah, Elf is right that if anything, the "villain transformation" is *less* dangerous than the original. I guess they wanted to give the player the karmic satisfaction of seeing one of those confident, competent villain types crumble, but… that's dangerous. This is also YET ANOTHER case where our villain murders his accomplice rather than the intended target because ???. It also makes his later actions more nonsensical - why was he doing the cover-up if he wanted revenge on Sorin (in a world where such cover-ups might actually work rather than instantly fall apart)? They could have sold it as an *intentionally failed* cover-up, but don't really. Anyway, Gloomsbury doesn't make tons of sense either - the injury against him was just Not That Bad, and if it WAS that bad, he had an easy out in just coming forward to deny the allegation. It might have been different if they *framed* him against his will, and maybe that's what they were going for with how UNSTOPPABLE Sprocket Aviation is or something, but still!
* So PW6 now gets to use two exotic mental disorders! I have to say, depressing as it is, I have a hard time seeing Sorin as inventing anything useful with a disorder like that, or running a company effectively. (Also, the idea that the court would accept the diary as the accurate rendition of Sorin's memories is laughable. He can only remember a day! Nefarious people could literally swap him an entirely different diary overnight that claims he spent the last years on the beach and has fallen madly in love with Franziska and he wouldn't know the difference. Sorry bro, your handwriting has changed over the years.)
* And yeah, Gloomsbury also makes no sense.
4 > 5 >> 2 = DLC > 1 > 3, probably.
