case by case: 6-⌛: killing time
Todayborday is Labor Day (in the US, because we were afraid of having it on May 1st), but more importantly it's also Monday, which means it's time for more Ace Attorney! Last week we wrapped up the story in Spirit of Justice; this week we're going to discover a case that's bigger on the inside? Spoilers below.
When I realized this was an excuse to bring Phoenix, Maya, and Edgeworth back together for a case, I was a little worried this one would just be a lot of references to the good old days, but I'm happy to report they just decided to do a normal case, reminiscent of the original trilogy in terms of structure, without any big global stakes, with the old gang back together again. It's nice!
For one thing, it gives me a nice segue to talk about my overall thoughts on this trilogy in compared with the original. Every game in the Apollo Justice trilogy has some big, high stakes metaplot going on, but in the original series, the stakes are smaller, and more personal, and I think that is a big part of why it overall feels like the original series is stronger. It excels at these personal stories, and less so at making the big, sweeping epics work. And I hope that if the main series (a term which I'm sure is fairly loaded but I'm just including these two trilogies in it) ever continues, it does so with more stories like this.
Which is to say: I liked this case. It's fun to see Maya and Edgeworth again, and even Larry, who still sucks, is at least awful in a fun way. It was a fairly simple case all told--even the big "zoom in on our brain and change our thinking around" segment at the end was the revelation that "the real murderer used the murder weapon to do the crime (so there should be evidence on the murder weapon we haven't noticed)". But it did have some solid moments, a few good "oh, that's what's going on" revelations . . . solid all around.
So, this is it! The end of the main series. I had originally planned to go into the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles from here, which I have played most of (I think I had two cases left in GAA2 when I burned out from blitzing it way too hard), but I plan instead to delve into Ace Attorney Investigations, which is launching this weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to maintain my usual one-case-per-week pace, but I'm going into this completely blind (except for the knowledge that a few characters we know will appear again, I guess) so I have no idea how feasible that is. We'll find out together, if somewhat asynchronously.
This is a great series and I look forward to exploring this new collection together with all of you. I will see you next week, friends.