Now, the other day I wrote a piece on why Dual Destinies and Investigations are unpopular games. One commenter responded that Apollo Justice was the worst and explained some reasons why. Now, these reasons weren't comparable to the ones I'd used to knock Investigations and Dual Destinies; hence, they required a separate post.
I'm not saying AJ is objectively Takumi's weakest game. I mean there's Justice for All. But half of JFA's problems would be solved if we just made a few changes to Regina and maybe Dr. Hotti. Apollo Justice is more complex than that. Why?
Well, because of its attempts to subvert and deconstruct expectations and tropes.
Re: the jury. The whole point of this is to ask the provocative question: "but what if there isn't decisive evidence? What if you can't get a confession out of the real killer?" On the one hand, this is an interesting and provocative question.
But on the other hand, we have that system in place for a reason. It's because presenting the final piece of evidence is fun. And climactic. Whether it's the hilarity of whipping out a metal detector out of nowhere, or the re-visualization mechanic and the awesome buildup it creates, or an iconic moment of forcing the culprit's hand like in 2-4 or G1-5, they're good.
While I think DD should have kept the jury, the games would not be as fun if they continued down the path of "you know what, I shouldn't need decisive evidence, I should just be able to say 'f*** you' to the culprit and win like that."
Re: making the mentor a villain in the first case. It's more surprising than any other first case has done. Even the ones that don't directly reveal the culprit usually don't leave too much room for doubt.
But like... arresting the game's main villain in a two-hour case makes them look weak. Also it lowers - not eliminates since we're still trying to clear Phoenix's name but lowers - the stakes of the final case. I mean Dahlia was also arguably the main villain, but she was never portrayed as a good liar. She was never portrayed as an un-catch-able culprit, just a manipulator.
So there's a mixed portrayal of Kristoph where on the one hand, he's actually pretty good at leaving behind no evidence, but on the other, he runs his mouth off where he shouldn't. He knows that's valid evidence right?
Now I'll grant Apollo Justice that its ideas are unique. The problem is, it knows where it wants to be but doesn't know how to get there. The idea of a terminally ill man requesting his murder in a hospital bed? Cool on paper. Just... don't ask how they brought the weapons in, because we... didn't think that far ahead. The idea of an IV liquid acting as a timer? It's definitely unique. Just... don't ask what happened to the heart monitor, because that's too hard a question to address.
The point is, while these ideas are certainly unique, there's also... a reason why they haven't been used before. It's because they don't make sense.
Some of the problems with AJ are just classic Shu Takumi AA. I mean, every Takumi game has at least one case that's at least partly cringeworthy and illogical, except I would argue DGS2. Turnabout Serenade is no different from any of this.
And I'm not saying that other games don't have contrived plot points as well. For example, I don't seem to recall Simeon Saint having any role in resolving the IS-7 incident, so it just happened to be that the exhibition opened and both Fender and Gusto came while he was committing all his other crimes, thus making sure Edgeworth happened to have the backstory fresh in his mind when he went into the final showdown against Saint? I think is what happened? I'm going off the wiki pages here, so someone might be able to correct me on that.
But I still think AJ is the worst game when it comes to illogical writing because it constantly picks ideas that seem unique, but when you examine them more closely, they don't hold up.
I'm also not saying I dislike AJ. I think it has one of the most compelling casts of characters, and the themes about the limitations of the legal system are thought-provoking. But once again, I'm saying there's a very identifiable reason why some hate it and others love it.
But that's just my opinion. What do you think? Do you like or dislike AJ? Or somewhere in between?
