Feel like I did my general writing on the Ace Attorney series a disservice by coming forward to it with a more utilitarian analysis that didn't really work beyond the surface level. It's something I want to rectify as I'm making my way through the recently released Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, it's just been hard to find the right words especially since it's not like my general feelings have really changed over time.
I guess to reiterate, it's still the charming first step that is certainly and rightly timeless to where it spawned a host of memes to become a cultural hallmark but I think the general critique and understanding of the game is more thread-bare than it deserves. And ultimately will be my point, is certainly because what is being dealt with here is just as thread-bare and only barely punching above its weight.
AA1 is largely based around prestige, with its characters introduced primarily with their reputation on their sleeves before slowly or quickly breaking that down in front of you. Edgeworth is the only character here who really goes through an arc, and his entire conflict is about what that prestige really means for him in his pursuit of the truth. He's afraid to even consider the history and his past and is more willing to throw himself as the guilty party as his reputation is already under shame, while an extremely comical caricature of "Most Esteemed Prosecutor" villainously runs with it.
This is at its best in 1-3, which I still feel is the best case of the story, where throughout the story it dissects iconography of celebrity culture and prestige. It plays up characters longing for a more heartwarming past now stuck in contracts that ultimately motivate their lives against each other, playing a darker game of blackmail behind the curtain of an otherwise childish and classic samurai cartoon. And then that story leads to a twist that doesn't vindicate either side, leaving the hateful nature of celebrity life bare and offering nothing to fix it in a perfect manner.
But that's the most profuse praise about AA1 you're going to hear from me. Because ultimately the story leads these themes on disgusting threads I call the characters and mystery. The first two cases play up the prestige on the deaths of 'defenseless' women, playing right into the 'beauty but with an evil side' in case 2 that is just utterly rancid. The general mystery is just so hamfisted in its presentation, to where it's best not to follow it because it happens three times where in a final trial you'll turn around a shred of evidence to reveal something totally unestablished that makes them breakdown instantly. The act of playing AA1 is worse, with investigations being tiring and disgusting tirades due to how the triggers work as well as Phoenix's general approach to questions. The pacing is awful as well as some of the general prose, to where 1-5's inclusion, while offering a genuinely good character story at last, is rendered just as obnoxious. If there's one thing I wish was ended here was having to see the same footage 5 times for very little new details.
Were it not for the wonderful coding between Phoenix and Edgeworth I would scorched earth the whole cast. Von Karma takes the prestige point to too much of an extreme for me with the constant gutteral GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY, and almost all the witnesses are really deeply poisonous people that I think are worthy of much more scorn than they get. I've read a couple things that play with this, arguing the point of AA1 lies in its toxic portrayals of stereotypes but I find that just outright ridiculous. There is so little to grasp on in terms of likeable people to ride the themes with, to where when that prestige is written home in the best manner in my favorite case here, I still had an npc face.
Overall it's not exactly a foundational step as much as it is a faceplant that people found as a charming joke before the series picked itself off the floor and ran much further. Awful to just replay for those reasons, but I won't deny what it DOES get right.
I guess to reiterate, it's still the charming first step that is certainly and rightly timeless to where it spawned a host of memes to become a cultural hallmark but I think the general critique and understanding of the game is more thread-bare than it deserves. And ultimately will be my point, is certainly because what is being dealt with here is just as thread-bare and only barely punching above its weight.
AA1 is largely based around prestige, with its characters introduced primarily with their reputation on their sleeves before slowly or quickly breaking that down in front of you. Edgeworth is the only character here who really goes through an arc, and his entire conflict is about what that prestige really means for him in his pursuit of the truth. He's afraid to even consider the history and his past and is more willing to throw himself as the guilty party as his reputation is already under shame, while an extremely comical caricature of "Most Esteemed Prosecutor" villainously runs with it.
This is at its best in 1-3, which I still feel is the best case of the story, where throughout the story it dissects iconography of celebrity culture and prestige. It plays up characters longing for a more heartwarming past now stuck in contracts that ultimately motivate their lives against each other, playing a darker game of blackmail behind the curtain of an otherwise childish and classic samurai cartoon. And then that story leads to a twist that doesn't vindicate either side, leaving the hateful nature of celebrity life bare and offering nothing to fix it in a perfect manner.
But that's the most profuse praise about AA1 you're going to hear from me. Because ultimately the story leads these themes on disgusting threads I call the characters and mystery. The first two cases play up the prestige on the deaths of 'defenseless' women, playing right into the 'beauty but with an evil side' in case 2 that is just utterly rancid. The general mystery is just so hamfisted in its presentation, to where it's best not to follow it because it happens three times where in a final trial you'll turn around a shred of evidence to reveal something totally unestablished that makes them breakdown instantly. The act of playing AA1 is worse, with investigations being tiring and disgusting tirades due to how the triggers work as well as Phoenix's general approach to questions. The pacing is awful as well as some of the general prose, to where 1-5's inclusion, while offering a genuinely good character story at last, is rendered just as obnoxious. If there's one thing I wish was ended here was having to see the same footage 5 times for very little new details.
Were it not for the wonderful coding between Phoenix and Edgeworth I would scorched earth the whole cast. Von Karma takes the prestige point to too much of an extreme for me with the constant gutteral GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY, and almost all the witnesses are really deeply poisonous people that I think are worthy of much more scorn than they get. I've read a couple things that play with this, arguing the point of AA1 lies in its toxic portrayals of stereotypes but I find that just outright ridiculous. There is so little to grasp on in terms of likeable people to ride the themes with, to where when that prestige is written home in the best manner in my favorite case here, I still had an npc face.
Overall it's not exactly a foundational step as much as it is a faceplant that people found as a charming joke before the series picked itself off the floor and ran much further. Awful to just replay for those reasons, but I won't deny what it DOES get right.