#more ace attorney games pls

[probablygayattorneys]

I was going to make a comment about how that’s another in the books but then I realized… it’s not a just another in the books. It’s the final chapter. I read the last page. I’ve now played every single canon Layton game including his children’s spin-off, watched the movie, watched Kat’s anime… the book is over.

Her and I both need to find something new.

[idlyingabout]

I feel like Professor Layton is gonna have the glorious return that the Ace Attorney franchise could only ever dream of

[descolez]

omg so i got a pc finally and i can play games not on console….. what do u guys recommend

[muffypollo]

oughhghh i miss my games

[journalsouppe]

Ever since I accidentally picked up and played DGS, I knew I needed to play PLVSPW. I decided to alternate playing ace attorney games with professor layton games until I finished the main trilogies for both and could finally play plvspw, and it was so worth the wait. I love this game so much it is everything I could have hoped and more, so so so much more. Highly recommend to honestly anyone!!!

All of the Professor Layton stickers are from jordydrawsmerch which can be found here and here. All of the Phoenix stickers are by Peachcott!! Every other sticker is from Daiso!

Writing typed below!

Rating: 9.7 Played: Fa 2023 Port: 3DS Favorite? Y Replayable? Y Recommend? Y

Comments

AA stickers by Peachcott, PL stickers by Jordydraws

THE MUSIC???

WITHCES??? TALOS???

HIS NAME IS NOT FUCKING CAR ACCIDENT

I like the UI esp with how the stylus interacts with the screen

Omg the yiga

Omg traveling is easier AND they give you coin and puzzle hints

OH IM JUST NOW IN CORT AFTER THAT INSANE SEQ

WHAT IS GOING ON

LOVE maya’s model

THE REUSED ASPECTS IN DGS OMG

THE CUNTY POSE AAAA

THE PIPE WHACK LMAO

WHITE PAYNE

Love the design of labyrinthia

Im curious if nick and maya will be bombarded with puzzles

I LOVE how the 3D and tech of the 3DS are used to make more dynamic puzzles

A LIVE EXECUTION?

Lmao B&W LSOH moment (Kira ate flowers which is smth that happened in the original non-musical little shop of horrors movie)

SOME GUY

WHAT DO YOU MEAN MAYA AND NICK HAVE BEEN HERE FOR 5 YEARS

Cinderellia lol

Omg the book roof

Labyrinthia at night music is sooo pretty

Kira is the killer… right?

I am so stressed about Luke and maya

Hershel to see the storyteller??

THE PRINCESS TUTU AND DROSSELMEYER VIBSE ARE OFF THE CHARTS

Luke is too small for the defense table T_T

THE STORYTELLERS DAUGHTER??

THE BELL TOWER??

Curse…

LUKE NOOO

WHAT IS GOING ON?? T-T

LMAO NOT ANOTHER PARROT WITNESS

BARNHAM NOO

Top of town so pretty

Major shrek 2 vibes

Is that a bust of cabanela

Layton said lets go somewhere more private LMFAO

I love the nick and Luke dynamic… but at what cost T_T

LAYTON’S ??? AND HIS THEME AHHH

HERSHEL NOOOO

Obsessed with rouge’s design and tattoo

THE WAY I SCREAMED WHEN I SAW HERSHEL AHHH

Love the assistant/mentor switch

MAYA EATING RAMEN AND HERSHEL DRINKING TEA IN THEIR PIXEL ART

^ Maya copies other idles! luke writes in his journal and nick reads his paper!

LOVE darklaws claws!

the vigilante witnesses....

is it really a layton game if there's no tower

GOD DAMN HERSHEL love his sword fighting

omg who is bezella

will layton act as the prosecutor??

the battle against the professor is so nerve wracking

just learned why its called pl VS pw

GO OFF KIRA

ESPELLA AND DARKLAW AS KIDS AWW T^T <333

ooo darklaw's laws have the eyes on them

the "magic" is so complicated

i feel like eve the cat is v important but overlooked

WHERE IS LUKE I MISS HIM T^T

love the belfry search

ooo this is like princess tutu x tunic

this took a sharp turn omg

THESE LADIES T~T

FORK LIFT CERTIFIED LUKE LMAO

BARNHAM!

love eve's black outfit

YURI LETS GO

PROF??

EDGEWORTH??

Summary

This game is everything I hoped it would be. yes it's a Professor Layton crossover, but it also has the charm of DGS x Princess tutu x tunic. The ending was very layton-esque, along with all the reveals. I truly had such an amazing time playing this game. I was initially introduced to this because I heard that DGS was inspired by it, so it was my mission to play both aa and pl's original trilogies before playing. And I am so glad I did bc the wait was so worth it. You can absolutely see the influence this game and professor layton had on Shu Takumi. There's so much passion and creativity between plvspw an dgs that makes playing them all the more enjoyable. I loved how all the main characters interacted with each other, I especially loved how hershel and phoenix swapped assistants. The new characters were also so fun. Espella, Barnham, Darklaw, the story-teller, they were all so unique and enjoyable to interact with. The animation was stellar. This 3D style really works for both PL and AA and im so glad both series took inspiration from it. The music and art was phenomenal, this game honestly should win awards if it hasn't already done so. I also love how any character pulled into an aa game will have their gay moments: phoenix x hershel and espella x eve especially. I can't wait to make art or even write for this game, I will definitely add scenes from this to my ballet au ^^! What a phenomenal game, what a fun premise with the most convoluted layton-esque ending. It was so perfectly I highly recommend!!

[funishment-time]

what i would personally want from another DR game

(note: not all at once, since some of these are Mutually Exclusive in fact ha)

realistically:

preferably not a Killing Game. this sounds like Blasphemy but DR was never "about" Killing Games. i'll accept it if it happens, but i'll be Very Skeptical. there's plenty to say about that universe and its themes without throwing another new 16 into the mix. leave that to the Fangans, as i think only Fans can produce something that feels fully "new" w/r/t Killing Games now

preferably uses mostly characters we already know with some great additions. a la UDG

could be serious or a spinoff. racing game, RPG, rhythm game, fighting game, game where we use the Kumas like Pokemon...

if a spinoff, would prefer it still has something of a Narrative to it where everyone's somewhat in character, even if it's silly. think Usami forcing Kamukura to participate in Dangan Kart and he does because he's Bored or some dumb shit like that. give me that Stupid Content

just...another game with Kodaka's involvement specifically. this is filed under "realistically" because Kodaka has recently stated he would like to do it, and that after v3, he was on break from Danganronpa, not Done With It 5ever. considering he still does Birthday Posts and constantly answers questions about DR, he is clearly quite attached still, but ultimately by his own admission it's up to Spikechun

non-realistically:

End of HPA/adjacent timeline. IF, Everyone Is Here UTDP/Summer Camp etc

as a corollary to the above, would prefer that it is not V3's timeline. and V3 is, in fact, a Separate Timeline/"setting reset" according to Kodaka. it is not a retcon/continuation of previous games. BUT: i think that world would be best explored in novels/manga via the Rantaro series Kodaka wanted to do. BUT: i think if it is explored, it will be in a game

further: would prefer an Everyone Is Here game. it would unite the fandom, from old-time fans to folks who came in mostly thru V3 and stick to it

however, of these personal wish fulfillment settings, i think the most realistic of them is an IF-like timeline, esp if released on the 15th or 20th anniversaries. what better way to Celebrate than with everyone from DR1 being alive

Kyoko game that's like Ace Attorney because i don't know it'd just be funny. can you imagine. can we use Komaru to channel Yui

i want a Mukuro game but that's not going to Happen

unless???

???:

female protagonist that lives. for real this time. could be a new one or not but the Universe Needs Balance. Komaru and Kaede need one more for their team!!!

a UDG-type game in that it Expands on an existing character who desperately needed it. this is under ??? because i imagine no one expected Toko to get her own game that transformed her from kind of a Joke Character into a Fully Fledged Baby. even Kodaka admits he didn't know what to do with her in the latter half of DR1, and she became one of the most Beloved Girls in the franchise in her game

Miu:

Miu

please Kodaka

give her the Arc she deserves

pls............

[ot3]

Ok, now after all that Phoenix dad asks, i can't help but share my own unnecessary opinion. I feel like the rapport between Beanix and Trucy is too good for him to be a shitty parent, but the game strongly implies he has alcohol problem. Like no matter how I squint at the source material Beanix is alcoholic. And it's really hard to imagine him being a great dad if he' s spending their meager funds on "grape juice". ( Although with his life at this period I would really wish that at least he did the parenting gig right)

oh man i have been getting a lot of asks on this subject over the past coupe days and mostly avoided answering them because i just sort of more or less said my piece on the matter and didn't want to keep dragging out the same points but this take. is a really insidious one imo. and i feel like you've unwittingly touched on The Elephant In The Room regarding this entire discussion.

I don't think you really meant any harm by this and i hesitate to ascribe any real-world politics to people based on how they interact with fiction, but it's really difficult to see people talk about addiction in fiction this way and imagine they would have more sympathy for real addicts.

Someone being an addict does not de facto make them a bad parent. Someone being poor does not de facto make them a bad parent. I would also argue that someone being too poor to fully provide for their children doesn't de facto make them a bad parent either, because poverty - especially child poverty - is a structural problem and not an individual one.

But I digress, that's not really relevant, because there's absolutely nothing in ace attorney 4 that suggests that the wright's financial problems are caused by phoenix's drinking! Nor is there anything that suggests his drinking has caused him to in any way mistreat Trucy. Anything we see that could be loosely interpreted as neglectful parenting, such as bringing Trucy to poker games or leaving for long stretches to work on the jurist system, can be linked to their financial situation. And you're immediately correlating between the financial stuff and the addiction. Not illogically, but what you have to remember is that alcoholism is often a symptom of poverty, rather than the other way around.

Addiction is obviously very bad even if its not at the point where it's causing your entire life to fall apart! But phoenix is clearly functional and competent during the events of aa4, so i think to act like struggling with addiction is in and of itself enough to negate all of the good parenting he does is just suuuper shitty.

There's really a lot of bizarre distaste for anything resembling Addiction and Poverty amongst ace attorney fans, I've seen really nasty sentiment from people wrt aa4 that, once you cut through what they're actually saying, boils down to 'implying phoenix could ever be an alcoholic made him a fundamentally less good/less likeable character' and man. i just think that really sucks.

especially considering the fact that shu takumi has been pretty open about the fact that 1. he writes phoenix with a lot of Himself in there and 2. he's had, to say the least, a somewhat involved relationship with alcohol. He talks about drinking through work extensively in a pretty cavalier way. I don't expect everyone to know these details but i think anyone who has ever laughed about how shu takumi wrote most of JFA drunk needs to stop and wonder why they think making phoenix an alcoholic crosses some sort of moral line. Along those lines, I also feel similarly uncomfortable when people try to insist non stop that 'its just grape juice, there's no way it was supposed to be implying anything, it's just a joke.' it just feels super disrespectful to try and ignore the narrative implications here coming from a creator who has struggled with alcohol because you think it somehow taints the wholesomeness of a character he based off of himself.

i would urge you and everyone else who has had similar thoughts to please just sort of take a moment and re-asses the opinions you have on this subject and see if you're not just voicing some pretty harmful kneejerk responses to seeing alcoholism depicted or alluded to in ways you're not really used to. Because this just is not the take in any way, shape, or form.

[sunflowers-and-scales]

hey!! i draw stuff (and write too. sometimes) :))

u can call me sunny if you like (and i’ll take requests//suggestions but only sfw pls :0)

also pls talk to me abt:

persona 3 and 4

ace attorney (!!!!)

hunterxhunter

animal crossing

tomodachi life (do ppl still play this)

pokémon

the owl house

spiderverse

disastrous life of saiki k

deltarune (a little)

other stuff probably too idk what all of my interests have been ever

i put oc art under the tag #sunflowers and scales

if you want to draw them (pls i will love you forever) you can do the same :D

v oc info under here v

main oc intro stuff!! (feel free to skip this, but i draw them a lot so in case ur interested)

from left to right:

ryu:

little sheltered rich kid boy & ambulatory wheelchair user. he lives in a big beige mini mansion on a coastal cliff and is perpetually bored until ian breaks into his home and drags him on an adventure. he’s also kind of part fish (though my ocs have an elemental system so i guess it’s “water element” technically lol)

he enjoys: rain, cats, his friends, the color blue, video games, alone time

he does not enjoy: the color beige, yelling, crowded public spaces, heat, sunburns

ian:

lives in an elemental village taken over by some guy named Duke who also married his mom. he doesn’t know it but he is NOT dukes kid lmao. he’s part plant element, part air element (harpy basically) (hence the shiny silly wings) and he gets kicked out for being the product of an affair whereupon he breaks into ryu’s home and is like “hey help me find my mom again pls”. he is the pathetic wet dog to ryu’s pathetic wet cat.

he enjoys: sunny days, light showers, his friends, sewing

he does not enjoy: fire, small enclosed spaces, extremely coarse dirt

kei:

is ian’s older half brother and is the more emo of the two. he’s part plant-element and part fire-element and can manipulate fire though cannot prevent burns like a typical fire element. he gets wrecked by duke on numerous occasions for trying to have an opinion and/or existing (todoroki/zuko dupe). dw they get him eventually. he’s also shorter than ian and mad about it.

he enjoys: green tea, the beach, studying biology, ample relaxation time

he does not enjoy: loud voices, being alone, not being able to swim, fire hazards

alyce:

part of a second elemental village, this one ruled by her father (and ian’s father (gasP)) who’s an air element (so is she). in line to rule until ian shows up and her dad’s cringe so he gets the throne by default. he does not want it. also their dad gets burned to death three minutes later but that’s kinda irrelevant. she’s extremely well organized and tolerant but also has talons and knows how to use them.

she enjoys: archery, recreational diving, nighttime, quiet

she does not enjoy: cats, molting season, people who talk and/or chew too loud

[mousermayhem]

03 Mrs Morrison (and Raph) HCs, in no particular order:

Mrs. Morrison isn’t completely blind. But Glaucoma has left het fully blind in one eye and with severe tunnel vision in the other, so what vision she has extremely limited.

That being said she knows damn well Raph is fucking green. If feeling his hand wasn’t enough to scream ‘this kid isn’t human’

Also despite her vision being very limited, Raph gets her i to the same kind of puzzle-based games he’s into (mainly AA and PL). They’re nice because while being very visual there generally isn’t anything timed so she can go slow working her way through them.

We all know Ace Attorney is the Gay Lawyers video game. Raph for sure knows it’s the Gay Lawyers game. He is completely blindsided by Mrs Morrison asking him if Edgeworth and Phoenix are a couple.

She’s a bisexual elder queer. Her husband was also before he died. They did quite a bit of various activism work in their prime.

Raph ends up picking up a lot of dated language from her in regards to queer identities but also learns a lot of history from her too.

She’s an OG Trekkie and once Raph finds out he’s a lot more comfortable engaging with her about the interests they both share beyond surface level.

Mrs M actually found Lucy fairly recently. She’s still a younger kitty but is very calm. Mrs M crochets her little cat sweaters.

Mrs M technically does have family out there in the country. But she has been estranged from them for a very long time due to the girl kissing in her youth.

Big fan of Queen.

[evelili]

imagine a narrative-centric game more similar to ace attorney / danganronpa than visual novels (eg, one storyline, character sprites, dialogue boxes).

[darklight-owl]

Owl Reviews Stuff She Just Finished: Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright

So yk I didn't know what to expect going into this game, I'd seen really funny dialogue of it and mostly got it because I was extremely hyperfixated on Layton. But I did NOT expect such an emotional rollercoaster of a game with themes that tie into both Professor Layton and Ace Attorney and utilizes the strengths of each series so efficiently. I did not expect this game to make me cry. I did not expect this game to become one of my favorite Professor Layton AND Ace Attorney titles. But it did so I have to talk about it.

With two successful IPs on the cover this game could have easily been halfassed but every corner of it is full of passion for both titles. I mentioned before how they build off and complement each other and I think that's a result of the people working on this game having an in-depth knowledge of what makes PL and AA work and what their shortcomings are.

For example (I mentioned this in the liveblogs but may as well repeat myself here) Ace Attorney games are often limited to just the courtroom and investigation, not to mention you're not going to see 90% of the characters ever again after the case is done. This is serviceable for the kind of game AA is but it makes the world itself feel a bit uninteresting. However Professor Layton games have you confined to one town and make you explore it in depth, with recurring background characters who all have different (yet basic) personalities. Because of this, the Layton segments where you walk around town become crucial parts of the game where you can interact with future or past witnesses as they go about their lives, making these witch trials feel like they're taking part within an actual community, which make the emotional beats in the trials hit REALLY hard.

In turn, AA strengthens PL by adding variety. Layton games can be a bit monotonous if you're not engaged since the gameplay mostly consists of talking to people and solving an occassional puzzle, and there's a lack of interesting smaller mysteries to keep the audience engaged while they work on solving the bigger ones. But Ace Attorney games thrive on side stories, they're what make the trials so interesting! So by adding the smaller mysteries in the form of witch trials and mixing in clues about what the Hell is going on in Laberynthia you make a much more dynamic story that never feels like you're getting nowhere.

Enough about story structure and nerd stuff like that though, let's talk characters!

I love the main four and have always loved the main four so I'm not gonna talk abt them. The original characters for this game were freaking amazing. I see a lot of people really dislike Espella (which is understandable since she's probably the weakest of the cast) but she's pretty alright imo. She's going through a lot of things with the entire town despising her and [SPOILERS] so it makes sense why she would act the way she does, even then I feel like most heartfelt moments with her were a bit forced, which kind of lessens the impact of the last scene. I LOVE the relationship between her and [ANOTHER SPOILER] as well as the dynamic she has with Maya though.

I LOVE BARNHAM. He's one of my favorite prosecutors, he may not have any deep angst or trauma like so many of my favs do, but he's just a well meaning dude who thinks he's doing what he needs to to protect his town, even if it means casting wiitches into the flames. He also goes through a little character arc of his own where he also starts to bend the rules, the only laberynthian to do so. It's fun. Barnham is my best friend.

Unfortunately I can't talk about Darklaw or The Storyteller without getting into spoilers but basically: I love Darklaw and think she deserves the world, I'm on the fence about The Storyteller and feel like parts of his character were extremely rushed.

The secondary characters are also great, you have your classic goofy witnesses but also some really heartfelt characters and relationships in the trials, this is nothing new for Ace Attorney but when you include the conscious knowledge that these characters are going to be cast into the fire then these mini stories are enough to move me to tears (Looking at you, Golden Court).

Anyway, overall a fantastic experience that caught me completely off guard. No notes. I give it 10 burning witches out of 10.

Oh. And also:

[magicwhiskers29]

For the latest ask game...Great Ace Attorney, specifically

Favourite Character:

Gina, my girl Gina!! I love her development!! She adds to the atmosphere so well in Unspeakable Story, and I love her and Gregson's dynamic in DGS2!

Least Favourite Character:

Roly Beate. I think his gag is a little obnoxious, but I'm less endeared to him than Pat, so... I don't really actively dislike him that much, but he annoys me, so if I have to pick a least favourite...

5 Favourite ships (canon or non-canon):

-Ginasusa

-Haosusa (/Susarei)

-Ginasusaohao

-Asoryuu

-Nikosusa

Character I find most attractive:

Uhm. I don't know if I feel qualified to answer this. Maybe I'll just say whose design I like best... In which case, Gina again, maybe? I think she's very well-designed! :)

Character I would marry:

Also not that qualified to answer this one, uh... I could marry Courtney Sithe to make her history of marriages/relationships even more confusing? lol

Character I would be best friends with:

Iris!! We both like writing and science so I think we'd be cool buddies

A random thought:

Killing off Jezaille Brett at the start of DGS2 is an excellent way of setting the tone for the rest of the game, as well as setting up that, yeah, important characters can just die, so that Gregson's death works better later. I think it's a very shocking reveal that she's the victim, and I like it a lot.

An unpopular opinion:

Idk if this is that unpopular, but I asked my friend, and they told me this is at least a weird opinion, but Return of the Great Departed Soul is my favourite case in the doulogy, and my favourite case in Ace Attorney overall.

My canon OTP:

There aren't that many canon ships, to my memory, but the Vigils (Evie and Daley Vigil), I guess? Better than the Beates or the Garridebs...

My non-canon OTP:

I guess since this says OTP I can't say Ginasusahao, so uhm... Ginasusa, maybe? That's probably my favourite DGS ship, but I'm not like, that attached to it specifically, so...

Most badass character:

SUSATO MIKOTOBA!!! She saves you in court so many times, and she will take down anyone she needs to with a Susato takedown <3

Pairing I am not a fan of:

Hm... The most I think I get towards DGS ships I don't care is ambivilent, tbh. I can usualy see why people like them, though. I guess the ones I stear most clear from would be Baroryuu or Asobaro? Nothing against then, and I can get why people ship them, but they're not really my thing.

Character I feel the writer's screwed up:

Right, this isn't so clear-cut as it would be as if I was writing this about PL, but if you'll allow me to be petty for a moment, I do have a few minor grievances with Susato. I love her writing for the most part, but I think there was a major missed opportunity in the specifics of her ending.

I don't think her thematic beats about choosing her own path work quite as well if her sole motivation to return to Japan at the end of DGS2 os for Ryuunosuke. Like, yes, she chooses to follow him over Kazuma, that's something, but she's still just choosing to follow another character, when she was previously set up in Blossoming Attorney to be capable of standing on her own if the law only allowed it! I think i would have liked it more if it was at least implied that she returned to Japan to help Ryuunosuke AND start to try to begin her own legal career.

Otherwise, I think her ending's uncomfortably similar to the midpoint in her arc for the ending of Unspeakable Story. Albeit indirectly, she's once again returning to Japan upon her father's request, and I think that could have been avoided a little if her motivations for wanting to return were established as being outside of what other characters want, because that is her arc!

Favourite friendship:

Kazuma and Susato. Everything they do with those two is so interesting to me, and I love writing about it. It's so interesting how core Kazuma is to Susato, but how also she can't mean as much to him, because he only met her properly after he's already decided his mission. But she still means a lot to him, and I just, augh. I love the tragedy.

[handsome-kakigori]

Welp, seeing that i got around 3.6k follows now, ig it’s time for an overdue introduction 👏

Heyoo, I’m Sei, a game programmer, but i hate using my brain >:0. I mainly use sai to draw ✨

You probably know me mainly as an IR artist but I think I’m more of an Ichigo artist, i draw whichever ichigo ship that makes my brain dance at that moment. So it’s best you curate your own timeline by muting the tags you don’t like.

Anything ichigo, i cONSUME— OMNOMNOMNOMN

Also, you might see me gatekeep and fight over my wife (Ichigo) on twt, but pls be not afraid.

I’m a menace but in a lighthearted way 💪👁👁👁🫦👁👁👁💪✨

i post stuffs from other fandoms too sometimes, like Kingdom Hearts, Ace Attorney, Final Fantasy, Genshin, etc. I’d post them more often if only Ichigo doesn’t have a death grip on my heart o)—(

[favcharacterpoll]

ROUND 4 MATCH 27: KERMIT VS. MIA

Kermit the Frog from the Muppets faces Mia Fey from Ace Attorney. Who do you like more?

Kermit Propaganda:

"Kermit is the best ever and I love him ❤️"

"Kermit is sag aftra"

Mia Propaganda:

"she is a lawyer she is a ghost she has tits she is an older sister"

"i was definitly in denial about being gay for her when i was youbger"

"Also literally the power move this woman pulls from beyond the grave in the first fucking game. Imagine if Reddit’s CEO had blackmailed dozens of politicians, celebrities, and businesspeople to the point of suicide and gotten away with it every. Single. Time. A man who pays off the police and prosecutors and can swing trials however he wants. And he kills a woman who knows it’s him and has the evidence to put it together. He gets rid of that evidence! He frames the woman’s younger sister and also her protégée! He’s going to destroy what’s left of her family the same way he destroyed her mother.

And then this woman comes into the courtroom via spirit medium at the eleventh hour of this doomed trial. No one but her protégée and the younger sister even know she’s there. She stares her killer dead in the eyes as he gloats on the witness stand and she says the names of the people he’s killed. Every single one. She remembers every fucking name and she uses them to grind this evil man down to a shell of his former self until he b e g s her to stop. She dies at this man’s hands but she REFUSES to let him win.

All this in the second case of the first game.

Vote Mia."

"CANNOT BELIEVE THE MIA PROPAGANDA DOES NOT INCLUDE THE BISEXUALITY

SHE IS LITERALLY SAID TO BE ATTRACTED TO ANOTHER WOMAN AND SHE HAS A HOT BF IN OTHER FLASHBACKS SHES MESSY SHES TRYING SHE LEFT BEHIND HER LITTLE SISTER AND CARES SO SO MUCH ABOUT PEOPLE HER MOTHER VANISHED AND IT TRAUMATIZED HER AND SHES BUCKWILD IN COURT AND IT WORKS"

"mia fey was the one that violently pulled me out of the hmmmm i likey women;;?? phase and into the woag;;;;; yeah i think im gay phase vote for my girl pls"

"she got fridged and her response was 'hm. no' she is the only reason phoenix wright survived most of his early trials"

"Please vote Mia she is extremely badass! She was phoenix's mentor. he was like her weird little teenage girl assistant. She died and she didn't let that stop her. She's a girlboss and she loves her family from beyond the grave."

[sprinklecipher]

How Much Dialogue Each Character has in PLvsPW

I made some graphs about the amount of dialogue each character has in Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright, because I'm a graphs kind of lady :)

(Minor/oblique spoiler warning)

The color coding will make more sense when you see the 2nd graph, but it’s basically unique colors for major characters, and category-based colors for minor characters (witnesses and Flynch = blue, characters who give puzzles = orange)

I was curious what it’d look like if you grouped the word counts according to characters’ series of origin, so here’s that:

More details below the cut ~

Some notes about the 2nd graph:

“Puzzle characters” are characters who give you a puzzle (or only show up in the puzzle gameplay segments) and are not part of the trials

“Trial characters” are the witnesses and Flynch (although all of the dialogue they have outside of the trials still counts towards their total, fwiw)

The unlabeled part at the bottom of the PLvPW column is the Storyteller, with 5,200 words, and the one at the bottom of the PL column is Chelmey with 986 words (couldn’t get the labels to fit lol). Edgeworth has 50 words fwiw, which isn’t really enough to be visible (although he technically is represented on the graph, as a tiny line at the top of the AA column)

Also, in case it’s not obvious, the judges are grouped into the PLvsPW column because they’re not the same character as the AA judge. The English and Labyrinthian judges are also lumped together due to them being labelled the same in the data and there not really being a good way to separate them out with how the data is structured         

Part of my inspiration for making the second graph was that PLvPW seemed like more of an Ace Attorney game than a Professor Layton game to me based on vibes, and I was curious whether the balance of dialogue would reflect that (with the caveat that the dialogue would naturally skew towards the AA characters since the trial gameplay is more dialogue heavy than the puzzle gameplay is). To be clear, I don’t mean that as a criticism of the game or anything—I enjoyed it a lot!—I just thought it leaned more heavily on the AA side compared to the PL side, and I was curious what that leaning might look like, numbers-wise

With that said, the overall dialogue word count totals end up being 99,256 for PLvsPW characters, 63,633 for AA characters, and 48,070 for the PL characters, a 47%/30%/23% split, respectively, although notably that's counting expy characters (like Flynch) towards PLvsPW

Some observations:

Layton and Luke have way more dialogue in PLvsPW than they do across the first couple PL games (Layton has ~19k and Luke has ~10k total words of dialogue across both Curious Village and Diabolical Box combined, vs ~29k and ~18k here). I don't have data readily available for any of the later games, so IDK how those would compare, though

The overall total character-based dialogue word count is 210,959 words, which is about the same as AA1 or AA2 (which have roughly ~210k words of dialogue) but less than AA3 or AAI1 (~260k words)

The vigilantes collectively have more dialogue than the Storyteller, which is just wild to me

Data source: I used the scripts that Jozerick posted to the Court Records forums, which pulled the text from the PLvPW ROM. I wrote a python script to process those scripts further to use like this, so there’s a chance I introduced some error with that, but the numbers should be pretty accurate.

Word counts: The data set DOES include dialogue from the animated cutscenes, but it does NOT include puzzle instructions/hints, any descriptions from the Court Record, or interjections that have a gif rather than normal text dialogue (“Objection!” etc.). It also doesn’t include the dialogue from the special episodes, since those weren't included in the data source I used.

[ot3]

Could you pls elaborate on why you think 5 and 6 is bad? 🥺 I've been waiting a long time to get to them and was really excited to play them when they drop on the Switch 😭

im in like a constant loop of talking about how much i hate aa5 and 6 but then not tagging those posts because i don't want to be hater in the tags and then people ask me why they're bad so i just have to talk about why they're bad again because i dont know how to find any of my old posts about it

anyway the long in short of it is just. the writing is bad. in all of the ways that writing in an ace attorney game can be bad it's bad. for dual destinies the game has an M rating but despite the fact that a high rating might give them the chance to do a little bit more deeper or complex writing they hard pivot the other way and you get a very surface level conflict with characters and a villain it is almost impossible to get invested in. aa6 suffers from similar stuff. they don't seem to understand what to do with their characters besides inflict more potent drama on them because they believe higher stakes means more interesting situations, which is not true.

phoenix in particular gets absolutely shafted in terms of character writing. the game inability to pick who their actual protagonist is means nobody gets enough screentime and most of the screentime anyone does get in any of these games feels wasted having to trudge through a cast of forgettable gimmicky side characters.

but the worst part of all of it is that the games are terribly, terribly unfunny. i could pretty much forgive anything else if the games had manage to be entertaining but these games just feel so fucking sterile despite how hard theyre trying to be both off the wall and dramatic.

the only way to make these games even somewhat compelling is to imagine what they could have been like if they had actually been good. it really seems like even people who enjoy these games can't enjoy them on their own merit and each person has their own pet interpretation of the canon that makes the games bearable. but i really don't think there are any characters or plot points introduced in 5 or 6 that add literally anything beneficial to the franchise