Our first client seemed to think that she was a magnet for trouble. But clearly, she’s never met Maya Fey. If she had, she’d know that Maya gets into trouble far more frequently.

I explained it in the episode, but the original Ace Attorney was deliberately designed to avoid being overtly set in Japan, so that localization teams could do whatever they needed to to the script in the even it was released in other countries. They didn’t know how successful this franchise would be, so they wanted to be prepared for the best case scenario.

After the first game was complete, the design team began to incorporate more overtly Japanese elements into the story, as you can see with Kurain Village. Now, this poses a problem because the original localization team set the first game in California, and California doesn’t have ancient Japanese villages. Fortunately, a solution was ultimately achieved and it truly doesn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. It’s just one of those weird localization quirks that’s funny to think about it retrospect.

It speaks to the localization team’s talents that despite the awkward situation, they managed to thread the needle well enough that this franchise became such a popular franchise internationally.

I’m sure that witness has a lot of incredible, insightful things to say, but I need to real with you. I’m not reading all of that. I am happy for him though, or sad that it happened.

And with that, we have our first “Not Guilty” verdict of the new game. Now we’re onto new and more distinctly Japanese-Californian pastures.

Don’t question it. Just go with the flow.

Oh no. The victim wrote our defendant’s name in the sand with his finger before he died. I’m sure that unlike the last two times that was the case, this time it means that she’s the true culprit. That has to be the only reasonable explanation.

Out of curiosity, I tried to look up real world examples where a suspect was convicted on the basis that the victim wrote their name down somewhere in the crime scene, and I couldn’t find anything. That can either speak to my growing inability to use a search engine, or the lack of real life cases where it happened. Either way, if you can find something then by all means let me know.

Having said that, I’ve completely talked myself out of the idea that this is bad. In retrospect, it’s a good thing because evidence so easy to refute that it gives new players an on-boarding ramp so that they can grow comfortable with the game’s flow and mechanics before they’re called in later cases to do a bit more thinking. The game never truly gets difficult, but all the same the design team probably wanted to ease players in.

And this accomplishes exact that. So as terrible as it is as far as evidence is concerned, that’s exactly the point.

Ladies and gentlemen of the court, we may have solved one of the most complex mysteries in the Ace Attorney franchise, but our career is far from over. Phoenix Wright returns for more courtroom drama in Justice for All!

Honestly, as a setup, this is a great way to engineer a situation where it makes sense for those of us who didn’t play the original game, or need a refresher, can go through another tutorial. The intelligent, cunning and compassionate lawyer from the last game already did all of the legwork he needed to before the trial. But after that bump in the head, we need to scramble to use what that other guy without amnesia collected to solve the case.

As for gameplay, it’s the same as you remember, except now we can present profiles as evidence during cross-examinations. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The first game established a winning formula, and this game merely needed to refine it.

And as we continue, you’ll see they aren’t done applying new tricks.

At last, our client has been proven innocent, and the true killer of Detective Bruce Goodman has been exposed. The case is over, but we still have just a few loose threads left to tie up.

As a reminder, Rise From the Ashes was written after both Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations had been released in Japan. At the time, the first game had only just come to America via the 3DS, and this was an extra case added to what was already a complete game.

While this case does stand on it’s own, nearly the full length of an entire Ace Attorney game, taken in the context of franchise as a whole it’s fairly awkwardly placed. That’ll be more clear as we start to discuss Justice for All, but for now I’ll simply stop to say that I believe the transition from Turnabout Goodbyes to Justice for All more plausible than the jump from Rise from the Ashes to it.

That said, this expansion had the additional purpose of serving as a testing ground for 3DS touchscreen-based gameplay in the Ace Attorney games. As far as that was concerned, this was a successful proof of concept. The only problem mechanic was arranging the pot to look like the Blue Badger. Aside from that, everything else fit just fine into our investigation segments, adding just a tinge of variety into the proceedings.

And though we won’t see much more of them for some time, they will return if we ever get to the Apollo Justice games.

Well, now we’ve stepped in it… or have we? Perhaps now it’s time for a Turnabout!

And that’s that. At last, we’ve proven without a shadow of a doubt that Damon Gant was the killer. More important, we did so without making any mistakes whatsoever.

*eye twitch*

Yup. No mistakes at all. Ignore your lying eyes and ears.

This murder trial is drawing ever close to its fateful conclusion. We can only trust that the testimony and evidence will lead us where it needs to.

In an American court of law, it is generally ill-advised for the defendant to take the stand. It is highly likely, under the stress of standing and testifying in court, for them to make a self-incriminating mistake, even if they are completely innocent of all charges.

But as we all know, this isn’t either the American or Japanese system. It’s some strange blend of the two, so maybe it will go well here.

Now we’ve gone and done it. Ema just admitted to murdering poor Prosecutor Marshall, albeit unintentionally. But this trial isn’t over yet, and there are still mysteries we have left to uncover.

It’s easy to see why Edgeworth is one of the most popular prosecutors in the franchise. Not only is he the first, but he has perhaps the best character arc of anyone in the series, going from a man who will do whatever it takes to win, to someone whose primary purpose is to expose falsehoods using whatever power he has access to. Though both him and Phoenix sit on opposite ends of the aisle during this trial, they’re both on the same side.

There’s probably a legal issue with that, but for a character-focused crime drama, it works.

As the sole living witness to the death of Neil Marshall, we’re asking a lot from Ema to testify about it. But we must, for the case of the murder of Bruce Goodman rests upon the events of that day.

That little gimmicky minigame where we need to rearrange the pot to match the picture of the Blue Badger is one of the most infamous from this case. As you can see, it’s very finicky, even when we know what the correct orientation is supposed to be. I’m just grateful it didn’t take as many tries as I feared it would.

Next time, this case will be closed. If we have time, we’ll even start the next game I have planned.

I think we’ve finally obtained enough evidence to close the case. Now, we just need to ask a few more questions. Then, the final trial begins!

What I love most about this case is how it demonstrates the profound impact that Turnabout Goodbye had on Edgeworth. It would be easy for him to accept the guilty plea and wash his hands of the case, but he’s not that person anymore. Because he’s not fully convinced that he’s proven the defendant is guilty, he chooses instead to prolong the trial and use it as a vehicle to expose deeper corruption.

Even better is the way that he bounces off of Phoenix, and the cast of witnesses and suspects that all wish to see him fail. It gets to him, but at the end of the day he still recognizes that he has an important job to do.

It’s strong character growth that continues into future titles.