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Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice Discussion (Nintendo 3DS) [game]
 
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice on the 3DS
8.65/10 from 6 user ratings

Welcome to the official discussion thread for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice on the 3DS!

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Discuss the sixth Ace Attorney here. But be sure to mark your spoilers--these are mystery games, after all!

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09/09/16, 05:28    Edited: 09/24/16, 22:40
 
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FINISHED! Case 5 is a doozy, probably the longest case in the series. It also hit mostly all the right notes for me, with a few things I predicted (like any good mystery), and a couple shocking twists (like any good mystery).

Case rankings! 5 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 1. Like my favorite AA game, T&T, all the cases were at least good.

In fact, SOJ exceeded my expectations and is actually now one of my favorite games in the series. Here's my list:

8. Ace Attorney Investigations (ehh, pretty dull. I didn't finish the last story)
7. Layton vs Phoenix (that endinnnnng)
6. Apollo Justice (fun but a bit lacking)
5. Justice for All (two iffy cases, two great ones)
4. Dual Destinies (a solid return to form, great DLC story)
3. Ace Attorney (the classic original, does a lot of things correctly out of the gate)
2. Spirit of Justice (a bunch of strong cases and a lonnnng story with high stakes)
1. Trials & Tribulations (still the king! Amazing finale and build-up)

All in all, SOJ is currently my GOTY. Let's see if DQ7 can top it!
09/24/16, 22:50   
finished Investigation Day 1 of case 5. All I can say is wow. That was one of the most compelling starts to a case in the series.
09/26/16, 16:13   
After finishing this game, I have no idea why anyone could say that "cultural differences" are a compelling reason to not localize Great Ace Attorney. This game feels like the most overtly Japanese of all of them and it's not like some of the older games were all that subtle in that regard.
09/26/16, 21:34   
@Kal-El814
Specifically the fourth case, and it worked perfectly fine.
09/26/16, 22:17   
I like how in case 5 they made sure to mention that Kurain Village looks so traditionally Japanese because Ami Fey and/or her descendants moved from Khura'in to Japan before coming to "The States" or something like that.
09/26/16, 22:45   
Case 5 complete! Wow, that was great. One of the best in the series, for sure. The same can be said about Spirit of Justice as a whole, I think.

Too many thoughts flying around in my head to sum it all up, but a few things that bubble up...

-- How long has it been since Gumshoe was acknowledged? I'd almost completely forgotten about him until I presented evidence to Phoenix's "assistant" in case 5, and there was at least a tease...

-- If Phoenix Wright / Justice for All / Trials & Tribulations was the Phoenix Wright Trilogy, could Apollo Justice / Dual Destinies / Spirit of Justice be acknowledged as the Apollo Justice Trilogy? The middle one's a stretch, but the first and third are very heavy on that character, in a way we never really saw of any character in the first three games.

-- With that in mind, what is the future for Justice Law Office and the kingdom of Khura'in in general? Spinoff series? Slip in a case there every so often, maybe once a game? I really like how the Divination Seance turned out, more so than any other gimmick in the series, so I'm hoping we haven't seen the last of it...

-- Nahyuta is still the worst prosecutor. Sorry, Yuty. It's true.
10/02/16, 02:58   
@nate38

Agreed with all that. Nahyuta at least started to win me over near the end, but by then it was too late. I think he's the worst prosecutor too, except for maybe Payne, but even then, not the highest bar. And Payne is fine for what he is.

I'm curious about the future of the series from here too. I think (CASE 5) dropping in on Khurai'in once or twice a game would be welcome. Rayfa, Ahlbi and Apollo are strong characters and we might even see more of Maya and Amara.

I'm excited to try the DLC case, but for personal reasons, I think I'll wait until Thanksgiving to jump into that! We played 5-6 over the course of Thanksgiving break and it made it extra memorable to me, so time to do that again.
10/02/16, 04:00   
I've been thinking a little bit about the social commentary in this game.

There's a bunch of lines in there that make it pretty clear that the game is critical of anti-immigration policies. It's been a while since I've played the older games, but I don't recall them having much in the way of social commentary other than a fairly neutral, "a bad legal system is bad" stance.

Also, it's a little weird that a game that leans REALLY HEAVILY on the notion that it's bad when people don't have competent legal defense ends with a joke about:

How Apollo is so overworked that he cannot possibly defend all of the people in Khura'in who need his services. I understand that he's just getting started. But given the state of public defense in the USA and how obvious the localization team's commentary was, it struck me as a weird joke for the game to end on.

Not a big deal at all, just... odd.
10/03/16, 20:16   
@Kal-El814

I guess I didn't consider that there was much social commentary in SOJ (at least, no moreso than the usual AA game where you need to "believe in your client" and "find the truth"). CASE 5 SPOILERS:

When you get down to it, the game's about what so many story-driven Japanese games (RPG or otherwise) are: overthrowing an evil empire. Heck, this extends to a lot of US storytelling with the popularity of stuff like Star Wars, etc. The underdog taking on the big bad is a classic David-and-Goliath structure that makes it easy to root for the little guy (and root against the one in charge) and an easy way to make veteran Phoenix in a position of weakness in the court again is to have him be in a fictitious place where the odds are heavily stacked against him. But I guess I didn't really think about the overarching themes all that much beyond the micro stuff going on with the cases and the characters. What story beats felt critical of anti-immigration policies?
10/03/16, 20:58   
@TriforceBun I was set to disagree with you after case 2, Nahyuta seemed like an interesting new take on a prosecutor, but yeah a bit into case 3 and it's kind of getting annoying now. All he does is is just blindly insist his opposition are bad and wrong without really backing it up much, which maybe made sense in case 2 since he might have had an undefeated record or something and not have felt the need to try very hard, but shouldn't he have learned some humility after getting smacked down? He's even sort of agreeing with defense by the end of case 2, which makes you think maybe he really is just interested in the truth, but then he comes into case 3 not even willing to give defense a chance and he still thinks lawyers are all scum or whatever. Bah.
10/07/16, 01:03   
Edited: 10/07/16, 05:21
@Zero
But he IS the prosecution.
10/07/16, 03:25   
Whatever are you talking about?
10/07/16, 05:21   
OBJECTION!

*presents evidence: "Edited by Zero on: 22:21:39"*
10/07/16, 05:33   
@TriforceBun *shakes head* Oh, you putrid lawyer. In your next life, you shall be an insignificant creature indeed. That the witness edited his post at that time has no bearing on this case. Confess your sins before the Holy Mother and you may not be diminished lower than, say, a tadpole...
10/07/16, 06:09   
@TriforceBun @nate38 I was going to point out how that proves nothing but I think nate's response is more in line with how things work in the latest game.
10/07/16, 06:12   
Finished case 3. I... dunno. Kind of confirmed one of my fears about the game. When it dives too much into the spiritual side it loses me. Not just because of the theme, but because it brings up all of these scenarios that seem to work against PWs strengths. Like, the case literally comes down to summoning one of the dead to have them testify and if that is a thing that is possible, how is it not ALWAYS GOING TO BE THE THING A LEGAL SYSTEM DOES FIRST? Wouldn't the very existence of that kind of throw the entire court system into question? Except for some reason summoning is a thing only a few people can do, but then also somehow Maya is being trained to do it or something? Also, why would you summon the one you think is guilty and try to weed through their lies? Why not just summon the victim and ask them what happened?! It just felt like there were few clever twists in this case, like almost every time they were stuck it just went into some weird, sometimes spiritual solution instead of a true flipping the case on its head thing, and there was no big back and forth turnabout at the end really, just a dead man admitting some stuff without too much pressure.

I'd definitely say case 2 has been my favorite so far. Just not enjoying the time in Khura'in as much.
10/17/16, 15:48   
Edited: 10/17/16, 15:50
@Zero

I don't mind the spiritual elements because they follow established rules in the game universe. It's not like PLvsAA where they'd just pull new magic spells out of thin air. They clearly describe what's necessary for channeling and how it works, and they don't "cheat" it by making stuff up on the spot that the player had no way of knowing about.

To answer your other questions, why they don't channel more in court is answered in the original Phoenix Wright game. A big part of that game's backstory was Maya's mother being (falsely) discredited in the DL-6 incident, so spirit channeling became akin to a big joke. Plus, only a handful of people can even do it (Maya, Pearl) and they aren't lawyers. And they didn't summon the victim because Rayfa's visions pretty much told the story themselves; Zeh'lot (before we knew the truth, at least) was for all accounts just looking at the "ground" when he got stabbed--he'd have no idea what happened. And once it's revealed that he's a culprit, you'd still have to weed through his lies again.
10/17/16, 16:14   
@TriforceBun But summoning would help you DISCOVER the truth instead of relying on all of this other stuff. Plus it's just sort of weird and illogical that only a few people can do it.

Either way it just wasn't a very satisfying ending for me.
10/17/16, 16:21   
Finally got around to starting the DLC case! Off to a really great start. The bride's animations are amazing.
10/18/16, 17:59   
So wait is it five cases + a DLC case? For some reason I thought it was four + a DLC case and got confused when it just went straight into the 5th one.

Though I guess that makes a lot more sense since the fourth one didn't really seem to have much of anything to do with the arcing storyline so it would have been an odd one to end on.
10/21/16, 20:49   
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