With our foundation, we have all we need to build our case and send Acro tumbling down to Earth.

As improbable as it seems, we have now established a viable opportunity and means by which Acro could have killed the Ringmaster. Only one thing needs to be established before we can close our case: Motive.

Next time, motive is exactly what we intend to explore before we put an end to Turnabout Big Top and move on to the finale of Justice For All.

The last day of trial for Turnabout Big Top is almost upon us. The tent pole witness is about to take the stand, but we’ll make sure it’s not an escape act.

Even if we know Acro is the true culprit, we still need to prove both how and why he would do so. But before we can get into that, we need to establish a bit of ground work, and that’s exactly what was done just now.

With that foundation set, we can finally start to build our case next time!

Our investigation continues, but first we should take a moment to speak with Prosecutor von Karma to hear when she has to say about her “revenge”.

It is astounding just how badly Rise From the Ashes messes with the canon and timeline of this series, but specifically Justice For All. We’ve already discussed it at length, but the idea that Edgeworth *could* commit suicide after working to uncover severe corruption at the very heart of the police department and setting up his future career as a prosecutor is absurd, to the highest degree.

Having said that, I like the dimensionality this conversation adds to Franziska’s character. Rather than horrifically paraphrase someone else’s work, I will refer you to Wendy Rocket’s video on the prodigal prosecutor and its segment on this very conversation. She does a great job discussing how Franziska must feel having Miles Edgeworth, a man she treats like a brother, disappear without a trace after leaving a suicide note. Honestly, though it veers a bit too much into fan-fiction territory for my liking, her entire video essay and the one regarding Manfred von Karma is well worth a watch.

As for us, we have a trial we’re almost ready for. We just need a few more details.

With a dummy and a clown for witnesses, it’s no wonder that the trial was a joke, but we still managed to heckle our way out of it for another day of investigations. We just need to explain the… everything with Turnabout Big Top.

When looking for criticisms regarding Turnabout Big Top, one of the major issues that was brought up time and again was that Acro isn’t introduced until this act (and we won’t even see him until our next episode in 6-2). In a traditional whodunnit structure, one of the cardinal rules is that all of the suspects for the crime need to be introduced within roughly the first third of the mystery. This gives the audience a framework they can use when thinking about the clues being gathered over the course of the mystery.

Now that we’re in the last stages of Turnabout Big Top, and we’re only just being introduced to Acro now (even if he’s been mentioned in passing before), it would be unfair to expect the audience to reasonably peg him as the murder during the initial investigation.

Even in a story like this, where the Why and How are just as important as the Who, I would still say this is a problem because without knowing about Acro, we can’t even guess how or why he would commit a crime like this. The game needs to spend most of this second Investigation segment feeding us all of these relevant details because it couldn’t in the first. It doesn’t invalidate the initial setup, because the information established in the first half of the case comes into play with the resolution. But in a series that’s otherwise so careful about seeding details ahead of time so that they can have impactful payoffs, it’s a noticeable oversight.

The clown has Moe-sied over to the witness stand, and he’s clearly up to some funny business. Unfortunately for us, the judge is not amused, and neither is the prosecutor.

Let’s just hope we can get through this without feeling the whip.

Someone in the dev team clearly caught onto the fact that the dominant strategy is to aggressively press every statement until the objection is obvious, because I can’t think of any other reason to impose a penalty for pressing in a way that compels the clown to tell a tasteless joke. I can’t say I’m fond of it, but I understand why they made the attempt. Still, this is probably not the right context to apply that mechanic.

Oh well. At least the cross-examination is over. Now, we’re off to the next stage of our investigation.

Turns out the witness is a dummy, and he’s talking through a puppet too, but can he puppet his way out of these contradictions?

Probably not, because we’re on the case.

The objection with the engagement ring stands out to be a potential pain point for the case, because if even on a first playthrough it’s not too difficult to put the pieces together in our mind before the game is ready to “accept” it as a valid objection. It’s not a major concern since pressing the puppet on all of his statements will yield the information we need to thread the needle, but one of the worst feelings in a game like this is knowing the answer without knowing what the game counts as submitted the “correct” answer. Normally, there’s enough redundancy built into the case to avoid that problem. This is just one unfortunate exception.

At least there won’t be any other annoyingly vexing mechanics in this trial segment. Right?

Right!?

We’ve got some monkey business left to attend to, but then it’s time for our favorite part of any case: The trial!

Somehow it completely slipped my mind when preparing to do this case for stream that it contained a love triangle between 21 and 31-year old men and a 16-year old girl with a clear developmental disorder of some kind. If this is the reason, or one of the reasons, why people dislike Turnabout Big Top, then I’m firmly on their side. The way so many people fawn over Regina in this scenario makes me uncomfortable the more I think about it.

At least we have a murder to distract us from that.

It’s been some time since we’ve last streamed Ace Attorney on account of my illness and vacation plans, but now I’ve recovered and we are back. When we last left off, we were still investigating… Turnabout Big Top!?

Oh boy…

In any other murder mystery series, if a murder ever happened at a carnival or circus, the odds are high that each of the performers, as suspects in the case, would be wacky or eclectic in some way. And while that does hold true here in Ace Attorney as well, the odd part is that they don’t feel any more or less strange than the suspects in any other case in the series.

I suspect that has much to do with the fact that almost every case in the game is dominated by bizarre and unusual personalities that chew the scenery at every opportunity. In that context, a band of circus performers is tame by comparison.

Remember that time Edgeworth said “You are not a clown. You are the entire circus.”? Do you think that was all just a setup for Turnabout Big Top?

Apologies for calling it quits early, but at the time of recording (and writing), I was still on the mend from a cold (although it’s getting better). We’ll pick this up as soon as we can, though that might be some time since I’m still a little ill and I have a trip coming up.

Until then, I wish the best for you all. <3

Due to the sheer quality of the writing in most Ace Attorney games, the discussion of which case is the “best” case in the series is usually a contentious one. There are many strong standouts from across the history of the franchise.

And yet, when it comes to which case is the worse Ace Attorney case of all time, that debate is far less contentious. Most will say that their answer is Turnabout Big Top.

We’re here. So let’s find out why.

For what it’s worth, I don’t have the same dislike of Turnabout Big Top that so many other people in the fandom seem to. It has flaws, certainly. Some of its characters aren’t as entertaining as the writing team appear to have believed they were, but nothing stands out enough to make it the clear obvious contender for worst case in the franchise.

But we’re still in the early goings of the case, so perhaps we’ll remember something later that helps us understand why it’s so maligned.