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frost-felon · 1 year

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Playing Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice for the first time (note: like Dual Destinies, this is labeled as a "Phoenix Wright" game). I didn't like Dual Destinies, but outside of a few issues, Spirit of Justice was shaping up to be a better game than DD. That wasn't a hard bar to pass, but then I get to case 4 (henceforth referred to as "6-4").

Sweet GOD, this case sucks ass! As an Apollo fan (who knows some of the spoilers for the late game¹), I have anger, but I can't imagine the pain Athena fans likely felt, holy SHIT.

The way that this is written to be Athena's first big case on her own, where she proves that she doesn't need to be rescued or babied (as Phoenix was her 'savior' when she had a panic attack in DD). So what happens? Simon Blackquill, a twenty-nine-year-old man, has to rescue her during the trial. Not because she has a panic attack, but because she's CLEARLY too stupid to not need assistance, Your Honor.

This is after Blackquill had been pestering her into trying to get any sort of assistance from her (male, much older) boss, Phoenix, and her (male, older) co-worker, Apollo. She notes that neither could help her even if she wanted to acquiesce to Blackquill's concerns, as Phoenix is in a different country, and Apollo is on a theater stage as the boss' daughter's assistant.

Blackquill FREQUENTLY nags Athena about how he doesn't want to "nursemaid" (babysit) her during the trial, and often insults her intelligence/competency, insisting that she needs the help to successfully defend the accused.

The accused, whom Blackquill benefits from proving the innocence of.

Prosecutor Shithead also frequently insults Athena's intelligence and competence, and mocks her for her inexperience and age. She's 19...Shithead is only 25, the same age as her co-worker (and as we found out in 6-3, his adoptive brother).

Athena literally gets manhandled by Blackquill at one point, when he's frustrated that she's floundering. This is a unique animation using the 3D models, from Athena's perspective. This is a grown-ass man assaulting another member of the court, when he was the one to force himself into the Defense Bench.

The Defendant, who shows up drunk to the trial (and is only sober when he is found Not Guilty), mistakes Athena to be Simon's lover, due to a misunderstanding that Simon caused. Defendant: "Is she, like, yer fellow apprentice or sumfin'...?" Simon: "...Heh, something like that. I've known her longer than I've known you. You could say we're bound to one another." Defendant: "Ohhhh, m'kay... Well den. Guessh I better call 'er MIZ chickadee, den." Simon never corrects this during the case. (Not sure if he ever does afterward.)

In general, I feel like this case was meant to be the developers saying, "Hey, we didn't forget about Athena, guys!" (She was Apollo's assistant for Case 2.) And...seemingly to push Blackquill/Athena. I don't mind the fans of that ship, but that's a pairing I definitely don't want to see become canon. Especially if it's going to be like this.

Things that don't have to do with Blackquill below:

Prosecutor Shithead is particularly unbearable in this case. I believe that in general, he has some of the worst arguments of any prosecutors in the series, save maybe the Paynes and DeBeste. I'm not even sure if he's got better arguments than them, honestly.

Athena went into Law School abroad, but specializes in analytical psychology (particularly as to be used in court cases). One of the witnesses is revealed to have a certain psychological condition. Anybody wanna guess?! ...Yeah, it's a popculture favorite: Multiple Personality Disorder. The correct choice to reveal this is, "[The witness] has multiple personalities." Athena then correctly identifies the real phenomenon of Dissociative Identity Disorder...before using both that and MPD interchangeably. I actually don't think it's ever referred to as DID again, after that. The secret witness (the fourth personality of this witness) is revealed when the other three become unconscious, due to being alcoholic lightweights. This fourth personality, who is portrayed as a child, is not affected by the alcohol (at least insofar as how the case portrays drunk characters, including the other three personalities).

The other witness (besides Blackquill, who is actually a witness as well) is used for boob jokes (if you've seen the clussy memes with the balloon lady, that's her). She's also the killer.

The case is pretty easy...save for one or two issues. My primary one is with the murder weapon. The autopsy report notes that the victim suffocated, but "Nothing was found in his lungs." He is killed by...being smothered to death with uncooked dough. Even beyond what a pain it is to realize what you're actually supposed to point out, this...this is a painful revelation for the case. And by that, I mean it goes against almost everything that was established before, and is suspect, logically. My only defense for this would be that maybe he didn't inhale any of the dough, but ingested some, and the coroner just didn't check. In typical Ace Attorney fashion, the defendant is tried for this murder the day after the body is found...but still. Very frustrating.

But what's HELLA FRUSTRATING is that this is the penultimate case. And it might as well be a Case 2 in terms of structure and difficulty, as well as overall plot importance. 'Cause this has NOTHING to do with the overarching plot, as far as I can tell. Case 3 literally left off with the plot ramping up. Apollo's got a ton of connections to the overarching plot. Athena has...a filler case that puts the brake on any forward momentum in the plot. I already thought that Dual Destinies either should have been an Apollo Justice game² or more appropriately, an Athena Cykes game. She didn't do anything to get shafted like this, good Lord. And it's not like this messy handling would appease the majority of players, either...right? Athena fans, you deserve better--as an Apollo Justice fan (of the game and the character), Godspeed.

I like literally none of the characters in this case, ugh. Connected to the last point, my feelings would probably be different if this was actually Case 2. But the Case that is Case 2...as much as I have mixed feelings on it, there is a lot more to enjoy there. AND IT'S PLOT-RELEVANT. Is...is 6-4 even thematically relevant??? It sure doesn't feel like it.

Alright, so last thing. The only justification this case has for being as late as it is--that would be Prosecutor Shithead's acknowledgement of Athena as a worthy adversary. With some tweaks, that could have happened at the end of 6-2 (if these cases were swapped). It would also have been way more interesting to actually utilize the information of Apollo and Shithead being adoptive brothers, instead of 6-2 having a hook at the end for that reveal in 6-3. In general...6-2 should have been 6-4, given what I understand to be going on with 6-5 (and even what I don't, as there are plenty of things I successfully avoided knowing due to my hiatus).

I'm very peeves about this case. It's a massive low point for Spirit of Justice, and I was already trying to be charitable. Thank you to anyone who read this far--hope you enjoyed my seething. 'Cause my God, the lead up to playing more of this game (watching playthroughs of Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies) and actually playing it have caused me to stew so, so hard.

¹That's got a whole backstory to it, so I won't be talking about it in this initial post. Feel free to ask in reblogs, replies, or my ask box, though. It's why I left the Ace Attorney fandom since around the time the game came out (2016).

²I have many feelings about Dual Destinies, and many of them are negative. Athena deserved better than debuting there, but similar to the above, I won't go into any of it here.

#Ace Attorney #Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice #AA #AA: SoJ #SoJ? More like Soggy Blanket AMIRITE? I kid--the game has mostly been much better than DD.#But damn...this is one hell of a low point.#Athena Cykes #I...don't think I should tag any of the other characters. This is largely negative without any constructive elements.#And I'm obviously not tagging Shithead's actual name. Don't think I need to say why.#I actually like Blackquill. But this is a terrible inclusion of his character.#Vent #Vent Post #Ventpost #Long Post #Longpost #Since I see people get worried about this kind of thing--yes you can reblog this and disagree with it. Just don't be an ass.#As in. Actively inflammatory or arguing in bad faith.#FORGOT #Spoilers #Ace Attorney Spoilers #Spirit of Justice Spoilers

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