case by case: 5-5: clay-se closed?
It's Monday night and that means we are back with more Ace Attorney! It's time to finish what we started last week: to wit, a murder trial. Last week we successfully got Athena accused of murder; this week we will, hopefully, undo that. Spoilers below.
What's interesting about this one is the bulk of the case and investigation is actually investigating the incident seven years ago that, so far, the game has only really been talking about in oblique references. Athena's mom got murdered, Blackquill was convicted of the aforementioned murder, and it turns out all of this happened because of some international espionage that really didn't want a space rocket to launch seven years ago. Also it turns out Blackquill is being executed tomorrow, and also also it turns out he definitely didn't do it.
There are a lot of great moments in this one that I can't help but feel would be even stronger if the game weren't so cagey about, say, Athena's relationship with Blackquill (she wants to clear him of his conviction, which is why she became a lawyer), or anything about the so-called phantom who is the culprit of the technically-current case and also the one seven years ago. But that is a fairly minor nitpick--I like feeling like I'm being rewarded for paying attention to the metaplot early on, but I can imagine many people would prefer to keep relevant information primarily isolated to a single case.
This ties into the other main complain I have about this one: the reveal that Fulbright is secretly an international man of mystery and fearless superspy doesn't feel like a rewarding payoff. It's a twist that doesn't really change the way you interact with him as a character; I went into this game remembering the twist and there's just nothing until this last case that even hints at this on a replay. I recognize, of course, that an authentic international man of mystery and fearless superspy would probably not leave a lot of hints as to his identity, but it deprives the twist of heft, especially for a twist in a mystery game.
And while I'm fairly unconvinced by Apollo's whole "oh, I think Athena did the murder actually so I quit the agency to do my own investigation" sideplot, it doesn't really bother me either. I get what they're going for, it doesn't feel out of character, and it does, in its own roundabout way, lead us to the evidence that gets us to drag Fulbright onto the stand and accuse him of the aforementioned espionage-related crimes. (Thinking of it, I think this is another thing that would have felt stronger if we had more information on it earlier.)
There is something very funny about the final villain breakdown being master-of-disguise Bobby Fulbright going full Scooby Doo villain on us, and while I think some people find the conclusion here to be fairly unsatisfying, I do overall like the way this one wraps up. How else would you have a pulp fiction superspy be the murder man?
This one is overall quite strong, in my estimation. As befits a finale we have a lot of characters all having their own little arcs, and I think the narrative deftly handles and intertwines them in such a way that they all feel fairly satisfying without distracting from the plot at hand. It helps that they are all intertwined; one of the recurring themes of these games is the way community can help the healing process after a tragedy, and the way all of these characters are trying to embark on their own personal quests on their own are only able to achieve their goals with the help of a community of others makes this a very strong thematic wrap-up to this game's arc.
Always glad to see our boyfriend Edgeworth again (and yes, now that the collection is coming to Switch I am planning to play Ace Attorney Investigations after I'm done with these; by my math I will need to take two or three weeks worth of breaks or find some other way to stall, but I think it makes more sense to do AAI before GAA); he has glasses now! I think Pearl and Maya's brief and briefer cameos feel a little bit perfunctory here but it's still nice to see them; it has been a while, after all.
A very special shoutout to Athena's post-credit cutscene line to comfort nervous astronaut Solomon Starbuck, "The moon's closer than you think!" I actually burst out laughing at that one. How far could it be, after all? Like five or six miles?
Anyway, that concludes this case, and the main story for this game! Next week we'll be tackling a real whale of a DLC case. So call me Ishmael and I will see you then.