What I will give to this game that I couldn’t give to Dual Destinies is that it’s compelling. I didn’t have much fun playing this game, and I never thought it was good, but I felt like I should keep playing it. There was absolutely nothing engaging and barely anything memorable about Dual Destinies, so at least it improved there — and in the actually good 3D models and animations! — even if nowhere else.

I’ll go through my replay thoughts case by case.

CASE 1: Whoever thought Ace Attorney needed its stakes raised this high really missed the point of the series. The specter hanging over this entry, the Defense Culpability Act, is absurdly intense for AA and not even in the series-celebrated fun way. It’s really, really hard to have a fun banter with the prosecution, judge and other court employees when they’re out to kill you and constantly remind you of it. From my experience with this game, it was even impossible. In the first four games, high stakes cases worked for good drama, but were surrounded by cases where they were relatively low. So this person you’ve never met before will get a guilty verdict if you lose; so what, honestly? It enabled cases to be silly and fun. Under the DC Act, there is No Fun Allowed, and that really sucks for an Ace Attorney game.

Other people have spoken about Khura’in in more detail, but I definitely agree with them that it has racist and orientalist vibes that are really hard to ignore and accept as a “fun fantasy country”. It borrows too heavily from existing aesthetics to be its own thing, and has weird implications by not being its own thing. Not a fun case.

CASE 2: Stakes are still really high because the defendant is Trucy, and although we aren’t subject to the DC Act if we lose, the prosecutor is still really cruel about it. Trucy and the Gramaryes both have been subject to both minor and major rewrites and sanitization from AA4 that are really unfortunate to watch, as a big AA4 fan. Not a fun case.

CASE 3: While compelling, this case is so long and we retread tired old AA setups by making Maya the defendant, again. The DC Act also applies, making the stakes even higher than the first case. It’s nice to see the first case ever that features the channeling of a victim as a witness, but at the same time is also kind of a retread of Misty Fey’s mistake in DL6 with the way that victim intentionally tries to sabotage the case. It does add a little depth as to how the DC Act affects the average non-lawyer citizen, but that still does not make it a fun case.

CASE 4: I’ll be real with you, I couldn’t care less about DD, so I couldn’t care less about Athena, but I recognize why people who did like her dislike this case. She’s a fully fledged lawyer but Blackquill constantly has to come to her rescue, and this is the only time in the game she gets any spotlight. It’s also weirdly placed in the case lineup, making it feel like poorly paced filler. They’re valid complaints.

This is the only case in this game that is mildly fun in traditional Ace Attorney style, though. We don’t know this defendant. We aren’t subject to the death penalty if we lose. The two prosecutors in the courtroom actually have good banter. There is a somewhat strange depiction of a character with DID, but that character is not the murderer. It’s allowed to be stupid and silly without slamming its head against the high stakes in literally every other case. For once in the game: a slightly fun case!

CASE 5: Also compelling, also so long, also retreading old AA setups by having Maya kidnapped (case 2-4) and used as a channeling plot device (case 3-5), opening with a surprise civil case and switching to the usual murder case (3-2), Phoenix only defending a garbage client under duress (case 2-4), and having the ultimate plot twist of the case be “they’re basically Misty and Morgan Fey, on a grander scale!!” Almost all of the plot twists are just using something from previous games, so nothing ever felt cool and new to figure out.

With the defendants being Apollo’s foster father and foster brother, the DC Act applicable, and the main prosecutor being the despot queen, the stakes are more suffocating than ever. Yikes.

And Ace Attorney likes its cleavage; that’s nothing new. It’s either forgivable or it isn’t depending on the player. It’s ignorable for me, but Ga’ran’s switch from completely covered to a very tight and revealing outfit that shows off her chest, which is literally used as evidence against her later to prove a photo is not her after we zoom in on her breasts, is sooooo stupid, oh my god.

Phoenix sucks as a support character on the bench; the circumstances don’t allow him to be silly at all, and he lost all the weird charisma he had as support in case 4-1. Nahyuta finally gets character development here, but it’s too late. He’s such a miserable figure to challenge throughout the game unless he’s trading ridiculous insults with Blackquill. He deserved better, like the gradual changes in Rayfa that have made her understandably well liked. This case and resolution to this game sucks.

As for the potential Ace Attorney 7, I’m in the same boat as others that think there’s nowhere good to go from here. Either there needs to be another cast switch under better writers, or the people that enjoyed DD and Spirit of Justice can have fun. More of this is a No Thanks from me.