case by case: 3-2: raising kane
We are, as the kids say, so back--back, that is, to Case by Case, my universally beloved series analyzing every case (ish) in the Ace Attorney series! (I currently have no plans to touch Layton v. Wright and I don't at present have the means to do the Ace Attorney Investigations stories1, but we got a long time to go before I run out of the material I do have.) Last week we saved Phoenix Wright from being executed for a murderer; this week we help a criminal escape justice! As ever, spoilers below.
This one's a lot of fun. And for the first part of the case there isn't even a murder to worry about! It's just a heist, some artifacts from Maya's hometown on display, our old pal Adrian Andrews. This one hits the ground running; you get a lot of clues early on and are asked to make some fairly significant deductions with it before you really even know what's going on. And then you win a not-guilty verdict very early on, and you're either left wondering why this one feels so incomplete, or you get that sinking feeling as you realize something bad is about to happen . . . surprise! There's a murder, and by proving that your client was not doing a heist last night you proved that he was at the scene of a murder, at the exact time the murder happened. Oops!
Here we get to meet Godot (the game makes several jokes about waiting for him, if you were worried), our main prosecutor for this game. It was pointed out to me that his prosecutorial style is to just say "oh yeah? prove it" and . . . I can't say this observation feels inaccurate. Edgeworth and the von Karmae usually attempt to refute Phoenix's line of reasoning, either with evidence of their own or simply by showing flaws in his arguments; Godot just asks for proof. This makes him feel a little . . . disinterested in the case. He's here because he doesn't like Phoenix, for currently mysterious reasons, not because he has an interest in doing his job.
Regrettably in this case also get to see Larry again; he still sucks! Fortunately he isn't around for very long, and everyone who talks about him dunks on him pretty mercilessly, which is satisfying.
I love the cast of characters in this one, and all of the big revelations are fairly well telegraphed. My primary complaint is that the climax features one of those "if you press on the wrong statement you lose instantly" segments, and it happens to be set up in such a way that if you saved beforehand, and get it right on the second try, you will end up loading the save because the text following the correct statement starts out identical as the text following the incorrect statement, but, because only the correct statement lets you load a save while it is playing out, you will end up thinking that the correct statement was incorrect, and will end up trying every statement because of that. While this particular comedy of errors is mostly my fault I don't think I've ever enjoyed these attempts at raising the stakes of the final moments of the trial. But these small moments of frustration are, in the grand scheme of things, fairly minor.
This case does some good work in setting up our metaplot--this game we finally find out what happened to Misty Fey, as well as, of course, finding out what Godot's whole deal is. This particular one doesn't feel like it's trying to set up a metaplot. It feels like it's just doing some callbacks to previous cases, and the conversations that do set up the metaplot feel like organic responses to that. It's a nice touch. (And I think I didn't mention it but the first case is also setting up for the final showdown. The end result, if memory serves, is that the metaplot feels a lot more organic to the whole game. We'll see if my memory has betrayed me soon, I suppose!)
Anyway, our client gets off the hook, everything is great, and it's time for us to delve into the seedy world of French restaurants! I mostly remember being, uh, not a huge fan of the chef as a character, so . . . hopefully there's more things to like in there? We'll find out next week!
Editor's note from the distant future: Turns out AAI was released on modern consoles while this series was ongoing, and I did, indeed, write about them!↩