Alright! What a crazy shut-in weekend this has been! Thanks to the stars aligning and my CS teacher very generously pushing back a project due date, I was able to play this entire game from start to finish over the course of three days. And what a three days it was! I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't the biggest fan of Apollo Justice when it came out, and therefore went into this game cautiously optimistic. But after playing this game, my complete faith in the Ace Attorney series has been restored. Here are some of my thoughts regarding this game:

First and foremost, I'd like to congratulate Capcom for, in my opinion, finally topping the Engarde twist at the end of the second game. This had previously been the high point of the series for me, as it was completely unexpected given the game's mantra of always believing in your clients. However, I thought that the twist with Detective Fulbright being the main villain was really shocking, even more so than Matt Engarde being Phoenix's first guilty client. When Phoenix was putting it all together in court, I was on the edge of my seat, and I thought the super dramatic lead-in to presenting his profile was really well done and suspenseful. I thought it was really cool how such a seemingly emotional bumbling detective could turn out to be such a cold-blooded killer.

This game also fixed the issue Apollo Justice had, which was the lack of compelling characters. In each case (besides the first), there was at least two or three characters I genuinely found funny/charming. New Payne? Gotta love him (and that hair!). Mayor Tenma, L'Belle, and Filch? All good. Robin, Hugh, and especially Aristotle? All really funny. Cosmos? The freaking man! And it was great to see Pearl as well. Overall, I really loved most of this game's cast, even if I didn't particularly care for some characters like Juniper Woods and Jinxie Tenma, who both just annoyed the crap out of me.

Dual Destinies also introduced great new recurring characters. Blackquill, while on paper seems like a ludicrous idea for a character, actually came off as pretty cool. He was kind of a badass in a way that no other prosecutor before him has been. Godot and Edgeworth are both better adversaries overall, and go through better redemption, but Blackquill was still cool in his own way. Athena Cykes turned out to be a pretty good new addition also. While her Mood Matrix was total nonsense (I have a psychology major, and her thing was magic), her character was interesting. She was funny and had a pretty good backstory. I'm excited to see what they do with her from here on.

This game made me feel okay about Apollo too. I feel like the main reason I disliked Apollo in his own game was because he was surrounded by awful characters. Now that they paired him with people I actually liked, his character clicked for me. He's a pretty good successor to Phoenix, in my opinion.

I really liked most of the cases in this game. I thought they were all very well written, and in my mind, there's no one case that stands out as being particularly weak (i.e. case 2.3). Maybe this is just me, but I found some of the cases, while well written, to be a tad confusing at times. All Ace Attorney cases are convoluted in nature, but the solutions to some of these seemed a little more out-there than those in previous games. Overall though, I enjoyed making my way through each one, and felt the main plot thread was well-done.

Those are my main reactions to this game. Sorry for making such a long post, but anyone who's played these games knows there's a lot to them. If I think hard enough, I'm sure I'd be able to come up with much more, but no one would have the patience to read it haha. To summarize, my main points are:

The positives:

1. Strong main plotline
2. Great characters (both case-specific and recurring)
3. Well-written cases
4. Amazing plot twist, my new personal favorite in the series
5. Great graphical style/music (not mentioned above, but it's true)
6. Made me actually like Apollo
7. Just plain does the series justice (no pun intended, i swear)

The negatives:

1. A few really annoying characters (I'm looking at you, sighing space man!)
2. A bit TOO convoluted for me; a tad confusing in spots
3. Mood Matrix is kinda dumb (though I guess Psyche-Locks and magical bracelet aren't much better)
4. EDIT: Totally forgot about this (probably repressed it). That voice acting was HORRID! When Edgeworth and Phoenix were giving that sentimental speech in that animated cutscene, I almost turned my game off, and have never felt so embarrassed to be playing a game in my life.

Well, those are my opinions. I'd love to get other people's reactions when they finish the game too! Really hyped for any future downloadable cases/next game (fingers crossed!)

I shut myself in and completed the game over three days as well. Unfortunately I got spoiled on the big twist, when someone decided they didn't want to use tags, so the big eureka moment in the final case didn't feel that interesting.

JFA was the first AA game I played, and the only one I played through completely blind. That probably explains why I still think the final case in that game is the best case in the entire series.

Agree with every other positive point you made though. The new graphics looked great and really fit the series. They even brought back all of the old animations from the original games which was a nice touch.

Switching between the 3 main characters was fun and smart. We got differing perspectives and attitudes from each character. I think one of the main problems with Apollo Justice was that Phoenix overshadowed Apollo in what was meant to be his own game. In DD they actually made Apollo likeable, gave him a personality and his own story arc. Everyone got their own case but also their own key moments when they were assisting. The team dynamic was really well done and it made introducing Athena as a main character much smoother than Apollo's original run.

Some great music too. (Fulbright's theme, Athena's theme and each character's Objection themes are some of my favourites)

Too soon to say anything definitive, but overall this is the best game in the whole series. The weakest case was the second one, but still nowhere near the low points of other games.

That last case was amazing. Might be the second best in the whole series (beating the last JFA case, not as good as the last T&T case obviously).

A lot of the witnesses in the game were amazing, and overall the characters were solid. Even the Apollo Justice references were pretty neat, even though that game hasn't held up well at all.

Also, Fullbright, amazing. In Justice we trust!

@petiew: Yeah, I really liked how you got each main character's perspective. I went into the game wanting it to be entirely from Phoenix's point of view, but this definitely worked out much better. Also, I was in the same situation as you: JFA was my first and I played it blind. That twist at the end is undeniably one of the best moments in the entire series. And it sucks that you got spoiled on this one. I learned after I was spoiled on T&T's big twist to not read any comments/forums about the games until I was completely done with it.

My kneejerk reaction is to agree: this might just be the best one in the series. Gonna wait a few days before finalizing my opinion on that, but it's a really strong contender, with T&T being the obvious other. Like I said above, I knew the twist to T&T going in thanks to some YouTube comments, but that didn't stop it from being awesome. Maybe my going into it with that knowledge is why I like the Engarde twist better. Who knows? I agree that most of the witnesses/characters were great, and of course with Fulbright being awesome! Injustice we trust, amirite :)

Just finished the game. It was awesome, of course. I'd rank it behind AA3 and ahead of AA1.

Best case for me was probably case 3 because of the setting and characters, but case 1 probably had the best culprit breakdown for me.

I would have preferred to not know that Pearl and Edgeworth were cameos in the game from official news since the first time they appear in case 5, but I'm glad that the game didn't have an overabundance of returning characters and had some really good new ones instead. Having Maya Fey mentioned by her letter was a good way to handle things instead of not mentioning her name at all or having her appear out of nowhere.

I felt that the game was a bit too easy. There's the handholding of the investigation scenes, which makes things less frustrating and less of a pixel hunt, but I also felt that the game often leads the player on concerning what to present next at a certain statement. I did have to use that assist button once, however, in one of Means' testimonies (to present the tape recorder).

The times when I had to actually think the most were usually during those end-of-case logic chain segments, which I really enjoyed. Those are a neat way to give player agency into the epiphanies of the defense.

There'll probably be an AA6 and I hope this does well enough outside of Japan to warrant a localization. This one was obviously quickly done, resulting in several typos, but that's fine as long as we get subsequent games in the series. At least we've got the DLC case to look forward to.

Also, the dynamic between the different Phoenix, Apollo and Athena as well as frequently changing perspectives between them is one of the best things about the game. The team synergy is too good. Would have been fun to see Apollo as the lead for the defense with Phoenix as his assistant.

Athena's "Objection" theme is lovely:

@fluxwavez: Yeah, I really enjoyed the epiphany moments too. I thought those were really cool, and they made me feel super smart, even though those choices were, in retrospect, pretty simple. With respect to the difficulty: you're right; the game definitely held your hand too much in certain sections. There were definitely times when I said out loud "Yeah, I get it already; just let me move forward..." Also, this is the first game when I ever was totally ahead of the defense attorney on the bizarre twists in a few of the cases, and that was a bit frustrating. I really hope AA6 comes over and contains less typos than this game. Usually there's only one or two, but this time, I was noticing them in every case. I'm no grammar nazi, but it definitely breaks immersion when you spot one. And Athena's objection theme was my favorite new song in the game.

Mine as well, but really AA5 has one of the best soundtracks in the series.

- Announce the Truth

-Synaptic Resonance

- Running Wild · Mood Matrix ~ Get A Grip On Yourself

- Cross Examination ~ Allegro

So many good songs.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I literally dropped my 3DS at young Athena mentioning taking apart her mother. There's a lot of dark stuff in the Ace Attorney series, but man, that scene was on a completely different level.

On a lighter note, I felt so stupid not getting the Scuttlebutt as Snake reference until near the end of the case (the "tactical espionage") line. So obvious and I never put it together. She even makes hissing sounds for god's sake. Other than that I didn't really catch too many references, but some of the ones I saw were gold (Ted Tonate's "Game over, yeahhhh" and the reference to blast processing).

Heh, and that's why it's rated M.

On the topic of Athena, I was a bit disappointed that Widget stopped blurting out Athena's thoughts as the game progressed. Was a neat character quirk that could have stayed if not used abusively.

@fluxwavez said:

@recspec said:

I forgot to mention yesterday that I literally dropped my 3DS at young Athena mentioning taking apart her mother. There's a lot of dark stuff in the Ace Attorney series, but man, that scene was on a completely different level.

Heh, and that's why it's rated M.

On the topic of Athena, I was a bit disappointed that Widget stopped blurting out Athena's thoughts as the game progressed. Was a neat character quirk that could have stayed if not used abusively.

I had the exact opposite reaction, actually. I was really happy they kinda just let that go. Athena had enough quirks as is, and the few times Widget said anything, it annoyed me for some reason. Different strokes, I guess. Also, that picture freaked me out when I saw it the first time. Earning that M.

Take a drink every time the phrase "Dark Age of the Law" is uttered.

It's one of the better games of the series for sure. Kind of glad they swept a lot of AA4 under the rug, really they should've gone the whole way and not even given Klavier Gavin the meager role he had, though I guess he justifies his presence by making a joke about that awful segment of AA4 where you had to listen to that music track over and over again. Speaking of that, it's funny that Apollo is a better character in this game than he was in the one named after him, though I'd actually have to play it again to say much more. Athena is a pretty great character as well, since she's not as much of a quirky goofball as I expected, given the trend of quirky goofball sidekicks in AA games. (Speaking of THAT, does Trucy do anything in this game?)

I'll probably write something more detailed up later, probably alongside the Pokemon blog I've been writing in my head for the past week.

I mean, I liked it but not like I liked 1 and 3. Case 2's whole convoluted scenario in regards to how the killing went down was kind of insane in the bad way and felt like a slog. Case 3 at least had me kind of going on the idea that maybe Hugh was involved even though I pegged Means as the killer early on (I mean...just LOOK at the guy) so there's props for that. I thought the whole Robin reveal was done real poorly but at least the game didn't harp on it.

Case 4 and 5 were the real meat of the game and it was there where I was pretty much back on board. I kinda wish Aura was more involved because I thought she was kinda interesting. Also I'm glad they didn't harp on her being a lesbian outside of the crew getting in the judge's shit for bringing it up. Pearl was there just because but whatever, that's fine. Blackquill had a cool theme song and a cool bird but otherwise I didn't really like him as an adversary or as a character really. Edgeworth showing up was the silliest thing.

The whole end of the game was silly. Sillier than normal.

But really now, the game has a character who says 'YOLO' so it is the worst thing.

That was really good! Definitely better than Apollo Justice at the very least. Some of my thoughts:

I was skeptical about what they could pull of with polygonal graphics, but they blew me away. The character animations are even crazier and more dynamic, and the backgrounds look fantastic.

I kind of wish they hadn't revealed Pearls and Edgeworth were in the game beforehand, because they show up so, so late in the story, but at the same time, I thought their returns were pretty underwhelming. Why was Pearls there? I knew psyche-locks were in the game, so I thought maybe she would be the one to reintroduce that mechanic, but no. Couldn't she channel Mia or something?? Come on, give me something. And why not bring back Maya instead? Does my sidekick always have to be a teenage girl? Has she outgrown her usefulness?! Aw, Maya. I miss you, Maya. Anyway, I thought it was cool they gave Pearls all her old animations, even though it seems to imply she hasn't matured at all. Poor, dumb kid. As for Edgeworth, I was distracted by his weird, small head.

I liked Athena a lot. She had a great pointing animation, and her "Hold it!" was the best out of anyone's, if you ask me. Her stuff got real dark, like M-rated dark. That shivering animation kinda freaked me out, and that part where she tried to take her mom apart... that's fucked up, Ace Attorney. Was anyone else worried she would turn out to be a robot?

That last episode was pretty amazing... or, the last two episodes. Come on, Ace Attorney, that was one episode. I actually figured it was probably Fulbright pretty early on in that case just by process of elimination, and then I just started seeing more and more clues that pointed to him. Plus, I realized he wasn't a funny or interesting enough character that the player would feel betrayed. I was still pretty excited to see it all play out because I thought it was a cool twist. I think that the mask stuff was... maybe a bit too over-the-top for me. They kind of lost me at that point; I guess there's a tricky balance with that stuff. Anyway, now that we're out one detective, Gumshoe for AA6? Ema Skye? I'm cool with either.

I thought most of the animated cutscenes were pretty cheesy and felt out-of-place, but I did like the opening scene and Athena's creepy flashbacks.

I have to admit I missed the old voice samples. I would pay for that DLC. You hear me, Capcom? I will pay for dumb shit.

So many typos! It wouldn't be an Ace Attorney game without them, I suppose. I'm a good thunker.

I really liked the Mood Matrix, and I really REALLY liked the parts where you whooshed into your character's head. That huge text and boom at the end is very satisfying.

Yeah, what was that about? Why was she forced to live as a boy? Shouldn't we put her parents on trial?

Is that what was going on there? I guess I'm impressed it was so subtle. I thought Metis was going to turn out to be Simon and Aura's mom.

It was never outright confirmed but it might as well have been with how heavily it was implied. Aura said that she wanted to be more than just friends/co-workers or something similar and some other character, I think it was Simon, mentioned that Metis 'almost loved Aura as much as her daughter'. Aura was definitely in love with Metis. She got upset when the robots called her Mother Aura after Metis was killed (they were both known as Mother to the robots) and wanted them to call her Miss Aura instead.

But yeah, heavy implication that Aura was into Metis. It's a lot more believable than the whole Adrian Andrews and Franziska von Karma thing that was popular with certain fans.

@spunkyhepanda said:

I'll give the game Edgeworth, because he actually does something, but man is Pearl's appearance in that last case the most trite, underwhelming thing. She shows up, follows you around for all of two scenes and then Phoenix tells her to go hang out with Athena. I'm betting that some of these underused characters are going to get theirs in whatever DLC ends up getting released, but as it is now they fall under the umbrella of "unnecessary cameos"

I'm guessing Ema Skye, though an older Gumshoe would probably be interesting to see.

Gumshoe: Chief of Police.

@arbitrarywater: Pearl apparently features more in the DLC case. It's set earlier in the story than case 5 which probably explains why her return seems so weak in that case.

Ah. Figures. Oh well, that's yet another excuse to get the DLC, if the idea of more cases wasn't enough already.

Man, I stay up way later than I should have to power through that final case, which is par for the course when it comes to AA games. I really liked the way they brought back each character's "super power" rather than letting the whole game hinge on the new hotness of the Mood Matrix. It made the whole team dynamic much more palpable. Also I have no idea why but for some reason I have a huge crush on Aura.

EDIT: I'd place this game in the #2 slot right behind Trials and Tribulations, and the use of 3D models was sublime. Although I thought Blackquill's model looked a bit off on the witness stand. It was clearly designed to be viewed from a 3/4 profile.

I have to admit, there were a few minutes where I thought that was going to be the twist.

Join the club, man. Join the club.

I thought the twist in the final case was going to be Metis killing herself so her heart could go into the mainframe to give Ponco and Clonco their emotions.

I just finished it. I thought it was starting to drag a little, but goddamn that was one hell of an ending! This might be my 2nd favorite, right behind T&T.

I'm kind of surprised by all the AA4 hate. That was a fine game too.

Wait, shouldn't Pearl be in high school by now? She's been 7 years old for like 10 years

She was 16. They just made her look/gesture in pretty much exactly the same way.

The game was awesome!

Fulbright has shot up to my favourite character in Ace Attorney ever...I was actually really....hesitant in the end because I didn't want it to be him as he was such an excellent character. Shame the way it was handled means he's unlikely to show up in the same form in future games.

All in all I really think they made the transition to 3D pretty excellently and aside from getting really preachy at the very end I thought the writing all around was pretty fine. Apollo got his moments to shine himself which everyone was hoping for.

Though I felt Athena made a point of overshadowing the other two too often and it detracted from the experience a little bit.

Same, didn't really like the reveal with Hugh, either. The way they were handled didn't really do either of them any favors as far as making them interesting or any more sympathetic than they already were. It's a shame, particularly since so much of that case revolves around their friendship with Juniper.

Anyway, just finished the game and liked it overall despite some bumpiness. It probably tends a bit too much toward the convoluted, though each game has really been more convoluted than the last. Probably a bit too hand-holdy, too, but I figured most things out for myself before that became an issue. Really loved Athena; she's pretty great the whole game, and her backstory has some great moments. Mood Matrix isn't all that great, but whatever. I didn't really like Apollo's perception either. Using the evidence to figure out that case has always been the fun part.

Blackquill I'm more meh on. Didn't particularly like him or hate him. It's tough for the prosecutors since they're basically existing in the shadow of Edgeworth and Franziska. (Kind of wish we'd been able to see her, even though she probably would have been shoehorned in extremely awkwardly.) Loved all the breakdowns, particularly Means in Case 3. It had me laughing my ass off, especially since I wanted to take him down really badly.

I was loving the say the end seemed to be going, then "fool bright" starts ripping off the masks and I was like what the fuck? Really dimmed the impact for me. Also voice actig for Athena and Apollo were great but Phoenix, oh Christ that was bad, edgeworth also doesn't look like edgeworth to me, he used to look bad ass, cravat and all but he just looks weak here. The red whooshy things and the music were fantastique.

Pearl's 17 in AA5, a year older than Trucy. And I wouldn't agree that she looks the same way:

I'd love to know which is said more; 'The Dark Age of Law' in this game, or 'The DL-6 Incident' in the first game. They sure do love talking about things that happened a bunch of years ago. Was the DL-6 Incident 7 years ago, as well as the HAT-1 stuff?

Halfway through the game I was really hoping for a case that had you either having your client be guilty, or innocent due to forged evidence. I got about as close to that as you can get, really.

Bringing back Edgeworth was some great fanservice, as was the little pits of dialogue when you present your attorney's badge to people (I love that stuff). But if there was a stepladder / ladder joke in there, I missed it. Boo. Also, no Gumshoe! Edgeworth with no Gumshoe? Bullshit.

This game was great, though. I really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed the hell out of the game. There were bits and pieces that bothered me, though. The robot hostage situation/emotional robots situation required me to suspend my disbelief as much as the spirit medium stuff did in the previous games. I had to pretend that she was just holding them hostage in a more normal manner to let myself move on. That was pretty hard to swallow. I also found the game significantly easier than previous installments, though some of those spots in the old games were difficult enough that this seems somewhat welcome.

I liked the Fullbright twist, but his meltdown peeling off the masks was another moment that was difficult to swallow, and his monologue there was cringeworthy. I also gotta say that the voice acting in the anime scenes was terrible, and the objections don't sound quite as satisfying as they did before, but that might just be because the worse speakers in the original DS made for a rougher, harder sound.

I actually enjoyed the sighing astronaut when he wasn't sighing. His enthusiasm for space was a lot of fun to be a part of, and rubbed off on me a bit, too.

My favorite addition to the series, though, has gotta be the twist breakdown that happens in every case, the part where it zooms in on your character's head and you work through how the murder actually occurred. It's just presented so well, and helps make it feel more like you're the one doing the revealing, rather than simply watching the reveal happen. Every single one of these resulted in some fist pumping and/or jaw dropping. These moments were just so goddamned incredible.

Oh, I also totally forgot, that "Oh shit! We have to cop out of the first case a little here!" part where Ted Tonate says he didn't set the bomb off bothered me a bit, too. I understand that Fullbright had a motive to do so as well, but it did take some of the wind out of the first case for me.

Still loved the game. I play these games for the high points, and all the high points of this game are incredibly high. The low points aren't as pronounced as before, either. I mean, not having to save your way through the harder spots was great. I'm really just nitpicking because I'm such a huge fan of the series. I hope this does well enough to justify them localizing Miles Edgeworth 2 for the e-shop. I'm still bummed that that never made it out over here.

The guy with the Godot avatar loved this game to pieces. Go figure.

I had a few gripes here and there, but really, they're just quibbles. (Except the thankfully-rare voice-acting. God.) The lows of this game weren't as major as the lows of the old games -- the most annoying characters weren't as bad as the likes of, say... Oldbag, and it didn't suffer from the typical 'overly-tedious case 3'. They didn't have you retreading the investigation scenes too much. That phase has been simplified, for sure, but I think that's a good thing. The story just a-kept going without pause, yet it still feels as long (if not longer) than the average iteration.

They made another solid Ace Attorney, while getting rid of the most annoying parts. And that's awesome.

That said, the ultimate resolution wasn't as satisfying as it has been previously, and I think it has a lot to do with how the villain was -- literally -- a nobody. I was looking forward to a wacky showdown with Bobby Fulbright (by process of elimination, I knew it was going to be him), but they completely pulled the rug out from that one by making him a 'fake' Fulbright. By making him a faceless man with no emotion... there just wasn't any emotional pay-off, I guess, nor was it particularly satisfying to 'fight' him. Although, that probably has more to do with the goofy way that battle played out, too. By the time he's brought in, you've basically already convinced the entire court that he's guilty... so instead of the whole thing being this uphill-battle to prove your crazy theory, it's just a given that he's the culprit (and he's barely trying to hide it), but the trial keeps going because he keeps wriggling around under flimsy technicalities. HE was the one with the uphill-battle. And then he loses. Hurrah~!

That case was still amazing though. It's just that the best parts happened to be everything leading up to the final battle, instead of the final battle itself, haha.

Those negatives aside, this was a very well put-together game. The presentation is great, the writing is good and entertaining, the music's fantastic, and I can't get enough of those damn animations. I left completely excited for more games to be made like this.

Recently finished this game and I'm pretty much agreeing with everyone here.

I was more pleased with the Mood Matrix than I thought I would be. I didn't like the crime scene recreation techno-magic from Investigations, but at least this one could pretend it had some basis by calling it therapy. Not really sure how I can suspend my disbelief over spirit mediums, but the moment they try to make a powerful scientific device I lose it.

Mostly I was just really glad to be playing an Ace Attorney game again. I thought Apollo Justice relied too much on perception or just straight up having Klavier solve the case for you, and it was cool to actually see his character get some room to grow.

Some of the streamlining was a little disappointing though. I understand why it's there and I really think it's a good thing that they changed it, but I miss examining everything to get the side conversations...

Also, does anyone know what the title is actually referring to? Because I have no idea.

Totally agree with all of this. I was looking forward to Fulbright turning scary/intimidating and was pretty disappointed and weirded out when the mask stuff started. It's extra-frustrating because the final case was damn near perfect up to that point.

I shut myself away from any information about the game outside of the demo before it came out, and was totally freaked out thinking Apollo was dead in that first case. They copped out of it for obvious reasons (and honestly, I'm really glad they did, I would have been pissed if they had killed him off) but man, they had me for a few seconds there.

There's a fan translation in the works. So far, there's a patch that translates the first two cases. They did a fantastic job on it too. According to my research, they expect to have the entire game translated/localized by Q1 or Q2 of this coming year.

Just finished it last night. Like a lot of people, I stayed up way too late once the final case started rolling.

I just have to say, the 3D models were goddamn impressive, and I was shocked they got the environments in full 3D as well. The models looked so perfect that I thought the background were just high quality 2D art, and I was so convinced that was the case that I was actually blown away by the crime scene rotations.

Having said that, though, there seemed to be far less of the crime scene investigations than before. Was it just me, or was every case Investigate>trial>investigate>trial? I seem to remember the cases breaking down more than that before. The cases seemed to get rolling much better than they used to, though, and I found myself white-knuckling my 3DS on more than one occasion, frantically presenting evidence and yelling when I did the right thing. I don't mind that it was less difficult than previous installments, because it was so satisfying to piece together the logic at the same time that the crew was doing it. Before, when Phoenix/Apollo would get all sweaty and then bolt up and say, "I've got just the piece of evidence I need!", that would lead to me thumbing through all of my evidence and scratching my head.

And my final note here, I didn't know Edgeworth was in this game, so I was pretty excited when he made his return. However, it was kind of ruined by his "Objection!" sounding like a 70 year-old man with a cough.

PPS: Why does everyone hate Apollo? I really enjoyed Apollo Justice, and he was easily my favourite character in this game. He's got the beefiest Objections and Hold Its, hands down. It was weird that they went through all of the trouble of establishing a jury system in Apollo Justice only to ignore it this time around, though.

I'm kind of bummed by it. Started off really strong with the bombing case...and then just never maintained that momentum. I really liked Blackquill, and the music was mostly great. I just didn't like the cases all that much and the grand finale was just "meh" to me. Also Juniper Woods is one of the worst characters in franchise history.

Also "Dark age of the law" times a thousand. That shit was so damn forced.

Was it just me, or did any of you guys kind of want Clay to be the phantom (maybe have his death be a fake or an assassination)? It'd certainly write the characters into a corner, but that's the kind of situation where I feel the series shines the most.

@bbalpert: For a bit there I thought that's where they were going. Clay was going to be the phantom, and Athena would have killed him out of revenge or something. Not sure how that case would have played out, but it would have been way more dramatic for me. Clay Terran is also a perfect name for the phantom. I thought the reveal of Fulbright was awesome(though I figured it out a bit beforehand), but the second reveal of him being a faceless, nameless guy was kind of lame. I would have liked it so much more if it was actually just Fulbright.

@the_nubster: I don't think people hate Apollo, it's just that he kind of took a back seat in his own game and felt like he was just there for more character development for Phoenix rather than being his own character. He really came into his own in Dual Destinies.