#(((i haven't actually 100% finished playing soj i just know pretty much all the spoilers so)))

[letapollojusticesayfuck]

I’ve recently been thinking about what I would want out of a potential AA7, and have come up with some Ideas as to how to fix the myriad of dropped plot threads and other issues that plague the 3DS games (which are, actually, my least favorite ace attorney games—full disclosure). 

Basically, for AA7 to Work, I think it actually needs to be Two Games, taking place simultaneously: Athena Cykes: Ace Attorney, and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney 2. (probably with better names, but hey, that’s not My Job)

My main complaint with Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice is that they try to do too much—they’re balancing three protagonists and trying to do character development with all of them, while Also trying to have an overarching plot for the individual game. It’s too many things for one game to keep track of, and so you run into issues where Athena feels like a slightly-elevated investigation assistant, and Apollo gets out-of-nowhere backstories, while storylines introduced in earlier games (like almost everything from aa4) get overlooked entirely apart from some minor references (the entire Manov Mistree case in aa6 was practically painful to play, because it seemed like it could be the perfect opportunity to resolve the Gramarye Siblings issue, but no—it never happened). So, the ideal solution here is to revert back to the single-protagonist-per-game model (and the reason I’m only proposing two games and not three is because Phoenix has been the protagonist of So Many Games Already, and he deserves a break. In my hypothetical aa7, I’m sending him off on a trip with Edgeworth. Maybe they’re on their honeymoon, I don’t know. It’s my hypothetical scenario and I make the rules)

Anyway. So, two games—one following Athena, one following Apollo. The Athena game would ideally introduce a lot of new recurring characters unique to her—as well as cameos from characters like Juniper Woods and Aura Blackquill. Maybe there’s a new prosecutor for her to face, or maybe she just faces Simon Blackquill the whole time—the important thing here is that she’s the one behind the defense bench, with maybe Trucy as her co-counsel. She gets to interpret the Mood Matrix herself, without having other people pointing out the contradictions (which was one of the things that annoyed me the most in Dual Destinies—literally, every time she uses it, it’s either Phoenix or Apollo who has to do the interpretation for her). Anyway, the point is that she gets an entire game to herself. 

The Apollo game would follow him defending cases in Khura’in, because it’d present more of a problem to just bring him back to the WAA between games. I’ve got much more of an Actual Concrete Plot Idea for this one, mainly because I want it to resolve a lot of what’s been left open-ended so far. The main thing would be that characters from his past keep popping up while Apollo’s trying to do his job—like, he’s defending a person, and it turns out that two witnesses to the crime were Machi Tobaye and Lamiroir, there to do a concert, or he has to defend Valant Gramarye, who was in the country to study some traditional magic tricks or something. And somewhere along the way, he gets a letter from Trucy about how she’s being interviewed for a documentary about the Gramaryes (and there’s a conspiracy about how Thalassa had two children, not one). There’s so many Apollo-centric plot threads to tie up that you’d need a whole game with him as the only protagonist to do so. Everything would culminate in the final case in this game, which would come about when Apollo gets a phone call from Trucy and Athena, to inform him that Klavier Gavin was arrested for the murder of Kristoph Gavin, who was found dead in his cell in solitary confinement. Athena can’t take the case because she’s already got a trial on (which is one that you play in the Athena game), and nobody else will take the case, so Apollo gets on the next flight from Khura’in and comes back to defend Klavier, because he Knows there’s something up. And basically this serves as a way to give us the Gavin Bros Backstory we’ve always wanted, as well as a dramatic climax for the story and parallels with Trials and Tribulations, and also somewhere along the line in this case Trucy doing the documentary leads to her finding out that Apollo was Thalassa Gramarye’s son. And so we’d get closure on the whole Super Interesting sibling relationship parallels thing that AJ:AA set up and then never got to follow through on.

That’s basically it—two games that either resolve long-abandoned mysteries, or set up more story arcs to continue on with. Is it likely? Not at all! But it’s what I would do. (also I would return to the 2D animation style but that’s a whole different discussion. and I’d make it canonically gay because in this hypothetical scenario where capcom has handed ME the reins, I’d be able to do whatever I want)