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swaglesloser · 3 days

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Alright sit down I'm ranking Dual Destinies culprits. Spoilers abound!

Just going to list my thoughts on all 5 culprits in order of beloved to beloathed. Expect me to be mean.

Marlon Rimes

Easily the most nuanced and sympathetic of them all, and a well-written one to boot! His grudge against the orca is understandable, yet flawed in a very human way. He had no intentions of harming anyone - in fact he wanted to save his co-workers from what he saw as a dangerous animal. When Sasha was arrested he went out of his way to lie in order to get her off the hook. When push came to shove, he accepted his sentence to save her and punish himself for unintentionally setting up the Captain's death. It's all the more heartbreaking that Azura wasn't even killed by the previous orca, rendering all of his hatred and actions resulting from it irrational and unfounded. He sort of reminds me of both Simon and Aura in a few ways; taking the fall to save a friend, trying to enact revenge on someone he saw as a crazed, emotionless animal... his plight has plenty in common with both. 5-DLC gets a lot of praise in my books for its parallels to the main conflict (not that the other cases lack them) and Marlon is no exception.

The thing that makes Marlon so compelling is that he isn't a monster. He doesn't even have much of an ego, calling himself too weak to save anyone. He's a man who acted on his rage and made a dreadful mistake in doing so, trying to right his wrongs and eventually being forced to give up and admit that he had no right to do what he had done. Even agreeing that he had no right pruely on the basis of it causing someone to die inderectly. Him being rehabilitated at the end is the feather-on-the-cap to show that he's someone the characters genuinely care about and wish to do better in spite of his flaws. It took a while and plenty of evidence, but the Captain's words finally got through to him and he's a lot better for it. His animations are wonderfully creative, by the way! Turning the spyglass into a faux microphone, re-using the bucket of fish for a Popeye-esque transformation, the name-tag turning into a rapper's gold chain, his breakdown turning the witness stand into both a helm and a set of prison bars - so much visual creativity with this guy! It's such a treat.

The worst I can say about him is that the rapping is a bit of a stereotype. Yes, this is the same game that body-shames the one fat character, has no idea what a trans person is, and... well we'll save that part for later. No one enjoys that. That said, I'm willing to say the good far outways the bad here. It lead to one of the funniest witness testimonies in the series so I can't be too mad!

2. Ted Tonate

What a peculiar character... semi-verbal, anti-social, obsessed with explosives, and overall a strange specimen to behold. It doesn't feel like he has a specific quirk more than it feels like everything about him is off-beat, ranging from uncomfortably still to absolutely feral. I like it!

More importantly - while he did commit murder and assault - he does serve an important role in the plot and is not completely incompetent or heartless. That courtroom would have become a graveyard without his warning, after all! He's a bit like Frank Sawhit where he'll resort to physical violence under pressure but doesn't seem to have intended to kill necessarily. Difference is Frank was a common thief, while Ted's a bona-fide member of the police's bomb disposal unit who - black market deals aside - actually carries his duties out and does a good job. Nice little misdirection there too. That opening monologue fits the phantom better than Ted but we don't figure that until near the end. It doesn't erase the fact he's done some terrible things but at he's not a monster. Just a woefully anti-social guy who doesn't respond well to being called out.

Dual Destinies gets a surprising amount of mileage out of its Case 1 antagonist and it's a treat to watch. There's plenty that case does to give the game a bad first impression, but Ted's not one of them. He can stay!

3. Aristotle Means Aaaaaaaand we've nose-dived. Prepare for snark.

Means is emblematic of a much larger issue with Dual Destinies; it doesn't seem interested in treating the main conflicts of its cases as much more than generic good vs evil despite having an abundance of material to make things more interesting. Yes, I know Ace Attorney culprits aren't the most 3-dimensional bunch - usually the character conflicts they cause are the most interesting parts. Though they usually make things fun by being smarmy bastards. Means is just repeatitive. It's one thing to be a shallow bad guy, it's another thing entirely to beat you over the head with a single catchphrase without putting any spins on it. Manfred has the same one-track mind in his philosophy but he never felt this aggressively tedious about it. There's also the fact that, well... the ends DID justify the means in the end. Dual Destinies' main conflict would not have been solved without Aura taking extreme measures to save Simon. Having that while saying "doing bad things is bad no matter what!" with this guy makes him feel all the more flimsy and misguided. Him wanting to save Juniper and honour her wishes by any means necessary is a nice way to add flavour to the conflict but it's grossly overshadowed by him being a flat cartoon for the most part.

I feel like there's a sorely missed opportunity here for him to point out that Phoenix Wright also exercised that philosophy at times. Yes I'm talking about forging evidence in 4-1, it would have been a nice way to make his conflict with Athena more interesting. Pointing out that her boss is an exemplar of "the ends justifies the means" - especially with Apollo in the same room - is an idea that fills my brain with thinks. Might have even been the reason why he invited Nick to the academy too... oh well. It takes a lot to bouy a one-track villain like him up as it is without actively adding more baggage through redundancy and lack of presence. He doesn't even do much of anything or have a chance to BE evil before his hair stands up like other villains. He's just. Annoying. I know I keep comparing him to Manfred, but imagine a version of him that didn't do anything until the tail-end of the last trial and with none of the backstory and gravitas. That's the level Means is at.

A crappier Manfred. Joy to the world!

4. ???

YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SOMEBODY! YOU HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL! Hell, he arguably does have dramatic weight as-written. He's the embodiment of the distrust and denial of ones true feelings/identity that has caused this racket in the first place. Dual Destinies as a whole is a game about people who put on masks to do what they feel is right or necessary, then being forced to take the mask off, confront themselves and their actions for what they truly are. Having a villain who's hidden his identity this entire time is such a fitting choice! It's just a shame that he, oh you know, it's small thing it doesn't really matter... DIDN'T HAVE AN IDENTITY WORTH HIDING TO BEGIN WITH!!! Dual Destinies beats you over the head about how scary this guy is for having no personality. And that's exactly the problem. When you spend that much time telling people the villain isn't worth caring about then that's what people are going to take away. Nevermind that his personality for most of the game was a goofy detective man who valued JUSTICE! above all else, a man who is willing to question his own definitions of it despite what others may think but still allows it to justify doing awful things like zapping Simon. Maybe that could have been the answer! That he allowed his perception of JUSTICE! to warp so much that he became this ghoulish ghost who kills and commits acts of terrorism without remorse. His life being threatened when his literal mask falls acting as a metaphor for how he is unable to confront himself for who he is and what he's done; he, in his own eyes, would be the least justified of them all, and so he has forsaken his identity to avoid that truth. A truth that would spell the end both within and without.

But no. The game does everything in its power to tell you he's a hollow, empty husk of a human being. More importantly, even if the above was the case it doesn't do anything at all with the concept. It just comes across that his main conflict is "who tf am I?" Which is... oddly sad and worrying? Yes, I do think the idea of letting your true self go leading to awful, terrible things and the horror of realising that that's exactly what you did - even denying it or using it as a point of strength - is an interesting and befitting idea. They just don't do anything with it before he's already carted off to the pile of characters we'll never hear from again. There's nothing there by design to the point where it doesn't feel like there was anything he COULD have discarded in the first place. His lack of identity feels less like a concept the writers wanted to explore and more of an excuse to get a twist villain who could pretend to be anybody.

It's a diservice to both the story and to the false identity he had before this. "Bobby Fulbright" somehow ended up a more interesting character and he's the one who's chastised by other characters for being a simple idiot! And he was discarded for this guy! "Bobby" should have mattered more, both to the characters and to the phantom's identity. Not get an unceremonial "he was dead the whole time" reveal and be completely divorced from the phantom's character in every way the story can think to do. Erasure in more ways than one... no wonder people felt betrayed. In a bad way. You shouldn't feel betrayed by the writing if it's any good and that's how plenty - myself included - felt. Oh, and having the only character who's low/no emotion be the shallow bad guy is not a great look... I'll say it again; the problem isn't that he's the antagonist. It's that he's not a well-written one. A psychopath would be fascinating as a character in ANY role in this psychology-focused mystery game if Dual Destinies had the gall to make one that's actually interesting. Remember what I said about Means crushing the conflict into something too simple for the concept behind it? The phantom does that on a wider scale and it deals a massive blow to Dual Destinies to have its overarching villain so infuriatingly empty and disposable. It makes themes of trust and masks I mentioned fall flat.

I'd rather Athena kill Metis over this. It'd be a similar concept with more justification behind it without completely dismissing the players emotional investment or cheapening the themes of the game. Or at least execute those things in a better way than this. In justice we trusted...

Sidenote: I was torn between ranking Means or the phantom here. While Phanty is definitely more interesting to talk about than the living staute, him sucking hurts more than Means due to his status as the main villain. It's easier to get away with being a shallow puddle when you weren't meant to swim much in it to begin with.

5. Florent L'belle

You'll notice I didn't put an emotional marker on this guy. That should tell you everything you need to know. At least the phantom makes me feel something, even if it is abject despair at how much of a gaping hole he leaves in the story. Florent just... I mean he's... His breakdown's creepy, that's kinda fun... I got nothing, he's just sort of there.

Lick a toad, you inferior Redd White. I'm going need to borrow Bobby's Jolt of Justice next time you show up.

At least I'd feel something that way.

#mmmmm incredibly based take #especially about the phantom #slightly disagree about Ted Donate I find him very unsympathetic #ace attorney

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