ace attorney Best and Worst Ace Attorney Case ever made

[Ace Pelleas]

Ace Attorney is a pretty old franchise and we have seen lots of entries recently.Ace Attorney is a franchise with absurdly good moments that few games achieved it It's games are pretty good in essence,but sometimes it fails do do so. I'm here to ask what is the best and also the worst case in the franchise.You can choose any entry to talk about,even those only released in Japan and this topic is totally spoiler free

I'm starting now

Worst Case: Probably my least favourite in the franchise would be the first spin-off, Miles Edgeworth Investigations. It had some good concepts,but failed in general. My least favourite case would be The Kidnapped Turnabout(Case 3). The case was so freaking long,the villain was really annoying and there wasn't anything good about it. While it introduced Lang and Kay to the franchise and it showed many references to previous cases the case was bad until the bitter end.

Best Case: This one was harder to choose than the worst case.Many cases were really well written,but at the end the thing that's really important is the emotion.Bridge to the Turnabout(Trials and Tribulations last case) is apraised by many fans as the best case,but I have to disagree with then. It was a pretty good ending,but it failed to pass an sense of emotion. That's why I choose Farewell,My Turnabout(Justice for All last case),the name itself is a bit confusing,but it really fits it well. The case starts good(not spetacular),until Maya is kidnapped and the kidnapper asks for a not guilty verdict to release her,but you need to finish it in the first day. You gotta defend your new client and the game proceeds as usual.But at at the last testimony of the first trial day something seems strange.

You cornered the culprit,but for some reson the culprit does not confess as usual. The trial is extended an additional day(you receive news that the kidnapper decided to give you another chance,but when you went to talk with your client you discover that he simply betrayed you and he hired one assassin to kill the victim. Or you will defend an assassin or you will lose Maya. The case went ahead in the last part of the second trial and asked you if would choose a not guilty or a Guilty verdict. That case was tense until the bitter end.The player will be desperate(if emotionally involved with the game) to find a sollution to this case. That's why Farewell,My Turnabout is the best Ace Attorney case in my opinion

END OF SPOILER ALERT

I'm not trying to convince anyone that Farewell,My turnabout is the best case,I'm just saying that it passed emotion to me and that's a hard thing to achieve in video-games, many time they try, many times they fail. Now I want to hear the other FE fans opinion on this question

What is The Best and the Worst Ace Attorney case of all time

Edited September 10, 2016 by Ace Pelleas

[Thane]

My favorite cases are 1-4, 2-4 and 4-1 for very different reasons. 1-4 has the most satisfying conclusion in the series, 2-4 has the most intense writing I've ever seen in a video game, and I don't think any game has made me feel as involved and genuinely feel "threatened" by what's going on, and 4-1 is just so brilliantly written that it makes me wonder just how good Apollo Justice could've been without executive meddling.

The worst case is by far 5-5. It's a carbon copy of 1-5, it involves way too many subplots, some of which get forgotten, like Trucy being kidnapped, and everything is solved by Athena's acquittal, even Apollo's character arc. Couple that with gigantic plot holes, absurd leaps in logic and the most anticlimactic final villain in the series and you've got a case which doesn't offer anything at all.

[saisymbolic]

Best Case

Case 1-5 a.k.a. Rise From the Ashes, in my opinion, was the best. Good lord, just the feeling of satisfaction when I finally cornered Gant made my heart all aflutter. It also helps that he was my favorite villain character in the whole of the series, along with my favorite cornered and break down animations. I thought it was an interesting take on a man abusing his position and trapping every person beneath him in his web, leaving them unable to do anything even if they knew they were trapped.

Also a shout out to Case 2-4 a.k.a. Farewell, My Turnabout. I really loved the character development given to Phoenix and the realizations he comes to in it. Also really loved the ending of it: Matt was S.O.L. either way. Another shout out goes to Case 3-3, Recipe for Turnabout, for introducing my other favorite villain, Furio Tigre.

Worst Case

Turnabout Big Top, or Case 2-3, it was just really boring in my opinion. I didn't really like any of the characters, though I did like Max Galactica. I also didn't like the whole of Apollo Justice, except for Kristoph Gavin, who is an admittedly shallow enemy character; he needed much more development and reasoning than he was given.

I do appreciate he had class. If it's not one thing, I can appreciate a villain with class.

[The Draco Knight]

Worst: either case 1-4 or the last case of miles investigation 1.

It's not because they are bad written or anything(in fact, I would say the opposite), but, for me, they are just way too long and, because of this, are the only cases that made me genuinely bored.

I like them, just less than many other cases

Best: absolutely case 4-4.

I just love how we finally get to investigate and see what happened seven years before the events of the game and how everything went so well together.

Plus

Kristoph's breakdown was pure gold and is by far my favorite moment in the series, even tough I really like Kristoph

Couple that with gigantic plot holes, absurd leaps in logic and the most anticlimactic final villain in the series and you've got a case which doesn't offer anything at all.

May I ask what are these plot-holes, if It doesn't bother you?

I ask this because I'm not that expert regarding writing, so, to me, even the most basic story looks good and I can't notice the plotholes present in a story, unless they are really, REALLY obvious.

Edited September 9, 2016 by The Wyvern Rider

[MCProductions]

Best: 2-4, while I dislike the rest of Justice for All to be perfectly honest, this case is just too damn good for me to consider Justice for All a bad game overall. It's so fucking prefect.

Worst: I dislike all of the other cases in 2, but Turnabout Big Top is just HORRENDOUS. If you don't use a guide, you WILL get lost in this case, that when combined with a cast that was so annoying it took AAI2 to make one of them likable, makes a case I NEVER look forward to replaying.

[Serpent of Sheol]

Best case: All of the last case of Investigations 2. I don't want to explain anything for the sake of not spoiling it.

Worst: Turnabout Big Top by far. It's boring, it has no relevance to the plot of the game, and overall I found it totally unsatisfying to finish.

[Irony]

Best Case: I like a lot of the cases, so picking a "best" case might be difficult. Though...

Worst Case: This is the easiest decision I've ever had to make. The final case in Phoenix Wright vs Professor Layton. IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD OF THEY DIDNT COME UP WITH SUCH A DUMB EXCUSE FOR WHY MAGIC EXISTED.

[Original Alear]

Best: Bridge to a Turnabout, the first case in apollo justice.

I think people will generally understand bridge. I thought the first apollo justice case showcased amazing music (that stayed on for the rest of the game), a great atmosphere, a cool setting for the murder, a great villain, and was really tightly focused (like sai said, I wish they had done more with him and developed him a bit more, but I think he was established well in this case). I generally have a lukewarm opinion of first cases but I think this case was excellent. It would've been cool if the rest of AJ had matched it.

Worst: The circus.

It was a pretty good ending,but it failed to pass an sense of emotion.

Man, I can't help but disagree.

not knowing if Maya was even alive, realizing that the evidence was under godot's mask, mia saying farewell, finding out misty fey was there, and died - I think it's totally legit you like PW2's finale case better, but I'm surprised you can say that you find that case "failed to pass an sense of emotion" because I think it did that the best. I think terry dying in the 4th case was probably the roughest single thing to happen in a PW game, though. He wasn't one of the characters I was most attached to, but his end was just awful. Most PW games try and give you a positive spin when someone sympathetic dies, but they don't do anything like that for him.

[Thane]

May I ask what are these plot-holes, if It doesn't bother you?

I ask this because I'm not that expert regarding writing, so, to me, even the most basic story looks good and I can't notice the plotholes present in a story, unless they are really, REALLY obvious.

I haven't played it for years, but I do remember the most obvious one clearly: The Phantom left so little evidence of his involvement in the case that they couldn't prove he was there. He was just a big unknown they think might've influenced things...and he's caught on tape with several pieces of incriminating evidence. There's no way Edgeworth, who has been trying to free Blackquill for several years, didn't watch the security footage - not even the Ace Attorney police is that dumb.

As for the absurd leaps in logic, when Phoenix says The Phantom jumped from the moving platform onto the main structure, neither Apollo or Edgeworth ask for proof of this - Edgeworth, instead, states that "he wouldn't have been able to because normal human beings feel fear". That's not even standard "I can't follow this logic", it's just "the writers needed Edgeworth to say this to move the plot forward". Furthermore, when Apollo blindly accepts that as truth, his supposed character development comes to an abrupt halt. It's just a poorly structured case with writing that seems to indicate they were running out of time, or had written themselves into a corner.

[blah the Prussian]

Yeah, Dual Destinies was the only game in the series where the last case was the worst. I liked the rest of the game fine, but the last was bad. I think the worst part was that Phoenix doesn't react much at all to his daughter being kidnapped. So yeah, that's the worst for me as well.

As for the best? It would be a tie between Rise From the Ashes and Farewell My Turnabout. RFTA, I think, is a much more satisfying conclusion to the first game than Goodbyes, because it concludes Edgeworth's character development (essentially what the first game was about) magnificently. We actually get to see him working together with Phoenix to nail Gant. I also think Gant is the best villain in the series, much better than Von Karma. And I like FMT for the reasons Thane already stated.

[Sylphid]

Best: I'll go with 2-4 (Farewell my Turnabout) for the reasons stated by others already.

Honorable mentions go to 1-3, 1-4, 1-5 and 4-1.

I also liked Mia's cases in AA3 and the Aquarium dlc in Dual Destinies, but for reasons I can't use to call them "best cases" in the series.

Worst: the circus I guess. It's the only case I can remember to have simply annoyed me.

Worst Case: This is the easiest decision I've ever had to make. The final case in Phoenix Wright vs Professor Layton. IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD OF THEY DIDNT COME UP WITH SUCH A DUMB EXCUSE FOR WHY MAGIC EXISTED.

To be fair, the excuse (and most other explanations in the game) was very typical to Professor Layton series.

I think that game as a whole would probably have worked better as either an Ace Attorney or a Layton game. What we got felt like a watered down version of both series, where elements from one series hurt the other one... (It wasn't all bad, but the two series just don't match as well as I had hoped)

[Irony]

Best: I'll go with 2-4 (Farewell my Turnabout) for the reasons stated by others already.

Honorable mentions go to 1-3, 1-4, 1-5 and 4-1.

I also liked Mia's cases in AA3 and the Aquarium dlc in Dual Destinies, but for reasons I can't use to call them "best cases" in the series.

Worst: the circus I guess. It's the only case I can remember to have simply annoyed me.

To be fair, the excuse (and most other explanations in the game) was very typical to Professor Layton series.

I think that game as a whole would probably have worked better as either an Ace Attorney or a Layton game. What we got felt like a watered down version of both series, where elements from one series hurt the other one... (It wasn't all bad, but the two series just don't match as well as I had hoped)

I do know that it's a typical explanation of the Layton series. I have played all of them bar the Azran Legacy. (Even the spin off starring Layton's son.)

... The explanation still sucks though.

[TheEnd]

Best: Either 2-4 or 3-5. No need to say anything about 2-4 at this point, but 3-5 does a magnificent job wrapping up not only a great game, but the entire trilogy.

Worst: 2-1. I know people tend to hate the circus case more, but I simply couldn't stomach the silly amnesia plot. While it was thankfully short, no other case in the series felt so downright insulting to me.

[Jedi]

Best: Bridge to The Turnabout, I absolutely love all the connections in the lore and character relations coming to a head in this grand case, and what I felt would have been the grand cap off of the series, but well it continued. (I haven't played anything beyond T&T though, Apollo Justice and beyond don't look very interesting to me personally.)

Worst: 2-1 or Turnabout Big Top

Edited September 10, 2016 by Jedi

[Thane]

Best: Bridge to The Turnabout, I absolutely love all the connections in the lore and character relations coming to a head in this grand case, and what I felt would have been the grand cap off of the series, but well it continued. (I haven't played anything beyond T&T though, Apollo Justice and beyond don't look very interesting to me personally.)

Worst: 2-1 or Turnabout Big Top

May I recommend at least watching the first case on YouTube? Seriously, that case is absolutely amazing.

[secondworld]

Best: This is very difficult, basically being between several final cases, but I think I've narrowed it down to Rise from the Ashes and 3-5. There isn't really anything new I can say about these two that hasn't already in the thread. This next one however...

Worst: About a year and half ago I would've said Big Top, but in that time I played Apollo Justice again, which seems to get worse with each time I talk about it. For many reasons, this goes to Turnabout Succession. Everything wrong with Apollo Justice Ace Attorney all comes together in this one case.

The only case that manages to rise above decent is the first one, every case after has blatant, gigantic holes that I never would have thought any writer could miss. What sinks this ship though is the main story throughout. First off the story is all about Phoenix, in fact he's basically the actual main character. That dude whose name is in the title has no relevance to what's going on and barely even needs to be there. Most of the main story is in the final, 4th case, and good god I don't even.

In this single case alone we have:

-Phoenix acting annoyingly out of character

-introduced plot threads that never go anywhere

-revelations that are pointless to the story

-A Terrible Person that the game tries to pass as a likable character(or at least a not-unlikable character)

-SO MANY THINGS THAT MAKE NO SENSE

And yeah that last point mostly has to do with that one investigation segment.

The time-travel simulation thing. I don't even have a full grasp of what it is the game explains it so poorly.

What exactly is it? How was it made? How does it work? How is any evidence and information from it admissible in court? At the end all the confusion and annoyance is topped with an anticlimactic final trial and a villain who started strong, but ended up being the most disappointing in the series.

That is all stuff I've said before in another thread, but to go into a bit more detail on something,

Kristoph. What a great twist in case 1 and what a good villain yeah? Case 4 reveals that his motivation was just petty jealousy and spite. What's annoying about this is that the game makes it a point that we didn't know what his motive was, and builds it up as one of the big mysteries still left to solve. The entire black psyche locks thing was about this. Then it's finally revealed to be "this one guy got a different lawyer", and just like that a good villain is completely ruined.

Oh yeah, something I didn't mention before is that this case just becomes boring. And that might be one of the worst failings a finale could ever have.

Edited September 10, 2016 by SecondWorld

[Ace Pelleas]

not knowing if Maya was even alive, realizing that the evidence was under godot's mask, mia saying farewell, finding out misty fey was there, and died - I think it's totally legit you like PW2's finale case better, but I'm surprised you can say that you find that case "failed to pass an sense of emotion" because I think it did that the best. I think terry dying in the 4th case was probably the roughest single thing to happen in a PW game, though. He wasn't one of the characters I was most attached to, but his end was just awful. Most PW games try and give you a positive spin when someone sympathetic dies, but they don't do anything like that for him.

Funny,Terry Fawles death was a really high point in the franchise,also why I think Bridge to the Turnabout failed to nvolve me emotionally was because the way the body used to cross the bridge was really strange and I became lost until the case ending. But that last Objection was epic. It involved10 the sense of hype,but we have seen it more times.That's why I prefer 2-4,3-4 and AAI2-3 over it,because they expressed another meaning to the word emotional moment. But it was a pretty good case.Definitely in my top 10

[Samias]

Best case: This is really hard but I'm gonna have to agree with most people and say 2-4, 3-5 and 4-1 are amazing cases with huge emotional impact and fairly tight plots (ok, 3-5 goes a little fast and loose but it is tying up an entire trilogy).

Worst case: Easily AAI case 5.

FUCK DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY. Running around in fucking circles for hours just to get around that bullshit was anti-fun.

Say what you will about 4-4 plotholes or most of 5 being a confusing non-linear mess full of characters you couldn't be arsed to remember, but AAI's ending was insultingly bad.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Samias

[RoMena]

Best case: Every last case. I love them all. I admit 5-5 was the weakest for me (AA5 is my least favorite tbh) but I love Simon Blackquill so it gets cookie points. AAI1's last one gets annoying but I liked it overall. Plus, I love the AAI because Edgeworth.

Honorable mentions: 1-2, 1-4, 2-2, every T&T case except 3-3, every AJ case (yes I liked AJ), AAI2 as a whole

Worst: 2-3 & 5-2. But more so 5-2, ugh, that case was overall stupid for me. At least I liked more than one character in 2-3

Man I really like most cases...

[TheEnd]

Case 6-4 might be even more insulting than 2-1, Jesus Christ.

[Thane]

Case 6-4 might be even more insulting than 2-1, Jesus Christ.

I haven't gotten Spirit of Justice yet because the current head writer, director or whatever he is can't write to save his life. What's your opinion of the game so far?

[Samias]

I haven't gotten Spirit of Justice yet because the current head writer, director or whatever he is can't write to save his life. What's your opinion of the game so far?

I might not be TheEnd but...

[spoiler=For people who don't want to know anything AA6 related]I am currently liking the cases with Apollo but not so much any of the stuff to do with Khura'in... 6-2 stands among the better of all AA cases IMO but I'm currently on 6-3 and sometimes it just drags its feet by being repetitive. It is a major improvement thus far on AA5 with more open exploration during the investigation phase though. I think the general consensus will be that AA6>5 but that it maybe gets a little too wordy for its own good, trying to push the anti-lawyer theme of the people. I preferred it when the court gallery didn't get as much dialogue devoted to them, I'll miss the generic hubbub sounds over specific chanting. The presentation is at least a sight to behold. They've done a lot of work with the 3D sets so some of the cinematic cuts are really spectacular.

[Thane]

I might not be TheEnd but...

[spoiler=For people who don't want to know anything AA6 related]I am currently liking the cases with Apollo but not so much any of the stuff to do with Khura'in... 6-2 stands among the better of all AA cases IMO but I'm currently on 6-3 and sometimes it just drags its feet by being repetitive. It is a major improvement thus far on AA5 with more open exploration during the investigation phase though. I think the general consensus will be that AA6>5 but that it maybe gets a little too wordy for its own good, trying to push the anti-lawyer theme of the people. I preferred it when the court gallery didn't get as much dialogue devoted to them, I'll miss the generic hubbub sounds over specific chanting. The presentation is at least a sight to behold. They've done a lot of work with the 3D sets so some of the cinematic cuts are really spectacular.

I see. That's interesting. The problem with Yamazaki is that he's got no idea how to limit himself to fewer characters, and his dialogue is, as you put it, needlessly wordy and preachy. He lacks subtlety, and that's why I'm wondering if I should even get the game.

[Samias]

I see. That's interesting. The problem with Yamazaki is that he's got no idea how to limit himself to fewer characters, and his dialogue is, as you put it, needlessly wordy and preachy. He lacks subtlety, and that's why I'm wondering if I should even get the game.

Yeah, a lot of the annoying writing problems from AAI and AA5 return. Your poor lawyer butt gets tossed around by the opposition by some fairly flimsy justification compared to ye olden days, where the prosecution tended to pull out much more solid counterarguments and evidence and not just "oh you have to prove yourself better!" in a lot of words.

I think the stories are interesting enough but for example, the first case setup which is still an extremely easy tutorial still takes about 3 hours to complete from the sheer amount of dialogue. They do have the set up the scenario for the rest of the game but the pacing's a bit off for something I thought I would finish in one session, but I had to split it into several. However the next case had much closer pacing to what I would expect from a second case.

[blah the Prussian]

I might not be TheEnd but...

[spoiler=For people who don't want to know anything AA6 related]I am currently liking the cases with Apollo but not so much any of the stuff to do with Khura'in... 6-2 stands among the better of all AA cases IMO but I'm currently on 6-3 and sometimes it just drags its feet by being repetitive. It is a major improvement thus far on AA5 with more open exploration during the investigation phase though. I think the general consensus will be that AA6>5 but that it maybe gets a little too wordy for its own good, trying to push the anti-lawyer theme of the people. I preferred it when the court gallery didn't get as much dialogue devoted to them, I'll miss the generic hubbub sounds over specific chanting. The presentation is at least a sight to behold. They've done a lot of work with the 3D sets so some of the cinematic cuts are really spectacular.

I actually do think that after playing the first case the Gillian of that case, with the exception of Kristoph Gavin and Dahlia Hawthorne, is the best first case villain in the series. He's funny, he's unique, and overall quite enjoyable. So far this game is superior to Dual Destinies, I'll say that much.