#honestly it's a lot of major internalized transmisogyny | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

butchez · 3 years

Text

heres my thoughts on aa5

Introduction

Firstly, this post contains heavy spoilers for AA5 (and AA4 because I can’t help talking about that game JSDGHSDJ). I talk about culprits, I talk about backstories, I talk about major plot twists. If you’re planning on playing this game spoiler-free, don’t read this. If you haven’t decided whether or not you want to play this game, I would advise against it- the gameplay is insanely boring and the story is told in a way that’s about as compelling as a wiki page. In fact, just read the wiki if you’re interested! This game isn’t worth playing, and it’s definitely not worth paying for if you have no way of pirating it.

I also want to add that these are ultimately my own opinions and interpretations. If you liked something that I didn’t or vice versa, that’s like fine. I’m not really trying to call anybody wrong for their own interpretations by typing this. This also isn’t a callout post for AA5! I’m just a hater!

And fair warning, this post isn’t well-organized at all! I’d rather play through AA6 and make a better post about both the 3DS mainline games than put a lot of effort into a post about just one of them. The like Correct Grammar appearance is just to make it easier for me to read because it’s a lot sdjhgfdhksf. In this post I try to organize my complaints by the order of when they come up in the game, which is a little complicated when multiple things I wanna complain about are happening at the same time, so bear with me.

Episode 1

I’ll start with the easiest complaint: it looks bad. Not JUST in the sense that it has an ugly artstyle, but in the sense that it just doesn’t feel like a real Ace Attorney game. Whenever they try to recreate a sprite from the past games, it looks fake if not impossibly ugly, and whenever they try to do their own thing, it just looks generic and empty. Note that this applies to the music and voices just as much as it applies to the sprites! I don’t think it’s just because the sprites went from 2D to 3D, by the way. The Professor Layton crossover came out a couple months before AA5 did, and although the 3D sprites in that game aren’t perfect, they still feel more like Ace Attorney sprites than anything from this game IMO. Honestly, though, AA5’s appearance is super low on my list of problems with this game. It’s an issue that could easily be fixed without changing the content of the game itself- something you can’t say for the deeper problems.

The beginning of the actual game is very jarring. One of the first things you see is Apollo covered in bandages and wearing a weird blue jacket over his shoulders. While you’re still confused about that, he collapses in front of you. While Athena is going through the first trial, she gets stuck and starts having flashbacks of her as a little girl being scared and covered in blood. In the middle of the trial, Apollo gets ATTACKED and sent to the hospital. Most shockingly of all, a woman has a huge crush on Apollo? It’s shock after shock, question after question, and the game doesn’t give you any answers until it’s almost over. I can’t tell if this is the game’s way of trying to capture the player’s attention or if it’s the game trying to make the cases tie into each other, like many notably good games in the series do, while completely misunderstanding how connecting cases works. Either way, it makes for bad storytelling.

Aside from all the weird shock value shit going on, this trial still has a lot of issues. The player starts out as Athena, taking over the trial for Apollo because he’s too busy falling over and being edgy. Because Athena doesn’t have a co-counsel, the Judge and the prosecutor (a Payne) have to play the role of Tutorial for the player. The player’s opponent who they’re supposed to hate (and who hates the protagonist!) is helping them just because that’s what the gameplay requires at that point. It’s stupid and could’ve been easily fixed by having a more experienced lawyer be Athena’s co-counsel, like Phoenix. Just to name an example. Who knows, though, maybe the game just like forgot he exists like mistakes happen it’s- nope Athena gets stuck like 10 minutes into the trial and Phoenix has to come Save This Poor Damsel by taking over the tutorial case entirely.

On top of Athena getting booted from leading her own fucken case (that she did take from Apollo yeah but whatever it was girlboss at the time), she takes the role of Tutorial for the player (who is now Phoenix). This is marginally better than having your actual opponent be the tutorial, but not by much? Athena is literally an 18yo rookie lawyer. Not that she’s incompetent, but why exactly is she teaching Phoenix how to be a lawyer when he’s like twice her age and has years of experience?* Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Phoenix to be the co-counsel instead? The only reason I can possibly think of as to why the writers chose to write this the way they did is that they wanted to establish as quickly as possible that “hey the REAL main character is back in his normal protagonist spot we promise he’s normal now. please buy game.” This effort to appeal to trilogy fans at all costs does come back later, so keep it in mind.

*Note: I imagine some people excuse this because Phoenix had been disbarred for seven years, so it’s not crazy to imagine that he’s just rusty and needs refreshers. However. Those who played AA4 should remember that although Phoenix hasn’t been an official defense attorney for seven years, he’s perfectly able to lead several discussions during the trial in the first episode (he even takes the role of co-counsel in the second half of this trial, because AA4 is a good game). Additionally, he literally organizes a murder trial to test out an experimental trial system that HE helped design. Badge or not, he’s obviously still involved with the legal world before the events of AA5- no need for basic refreshers.

There’s one small part of this case that I believe acts as a sign of a much clearer and bigger problem with AA5. A piece of evidence for this trial is a bomb disguised as a mascot for a group of people critical of the court system. While discussing the defendant’s motive, the game asserts that because the defendant has had bad experiences with the legal system, she must be critical of it (she really isn’t, fyi) which must mean that she’s a literal bomber and murderer. The second half of that assumption is never really questioned, by the way! Literally all six of the games that came before this one were openly critical of the court system. Why is this game suddenly changing it up so quickly? I will admit that at this point I am maybe looking a little too deeply into one thing, but this does become a major theme in the game, so I think it’s worth bringing up.

Another bigger issue with this game that we can see early on- a basic piece of advice for writing stories is “show, don’t tell.” This game crumples that advice up and throws it out the window right off the bat. I could point out every single time that this game just tells you something and prays that you take it at face value instead of actually thinking about the content of the story. That would take ages though and I have other things I wanna write 6k words about, so I’ll only be mentioning the most notable examples. Onto the actual point: the game flat out tells you that Athena represses her feelings from the start. Several characters make clear remarks about it that go nowhere. These lines seem to solely exist to convince you that Athena is a super interesting character without the game having to actually write Athena as a super interesting character (I say “seem to” because these lines end up having a much more stupid purpose, but we’ll get to that in the next episode). Let’s compare and contrast this with AA4 my beloved AA4- with Trucy, in particular. Trucy, like Athena, is a female character with a troubled childhood who puts on a cheery facade so that others don’t worry about her. This character trait of Trucy’s is made clear in AA4- not by having Apollo or Phoenix nonchalantly observe and remark on it, but by dropping hints every now and then of it and ultimately only Really revealing it during the finale case. The player feels for Trucy and wants her to open up and grow for her own sake. Athena’s internal struggles, on the other hand, aren’t designed for the audience to really think about. They’re just a passing observation that later becomes an excuse for plot holes and eventually becomes a part of the game’s shitty ending. Let’s put that aside for now, though, because we still need to wrap this case up.

The case ends with a cutscene where Apollo suddenly takes a leave of absence, and Athena later internally literally asks “Why is Apollo shutting us out? :(“ This exemplifies TWO points that I already brought up. Firstly, this game is presenting something shocking out of nowhere and without explanation. Secondly, this game is TELLING the player what they should be wondering, instead of just writing a story that makes them wonder that question on their own. Also, Trucy literally doesn’t say anything as Apollo leaves in front of her but it’s not like she has any attachment to Apollo or any already established abandonment issues or like any personality at all /s /s /s /attack /kill

Episode 2

The culprit isn’t actually introduced until a lot later in the episode, but he’s in the opening cutscene and comes with a glaring issue so I’m bringing it up first: this character is written with a lot of offensive undertones? To summarize, the killer is a big man obsessed with wearing makeup and perfume, and he constantly gets called a freak for this by the main characters. I don’t remember him ever being referred to as a woman by himself or others, so I’m reluctant to call it transmisogyny (I’m TME, so it’s not my place to say anyways). I’m not really sure what else to call it, though, other than like disgustingly bigoted. Unlike the other stuff I talk about in this post, this issue does come up in previous games, specifically AA3 with Jean Armstrong. So this isn’t really an issue that AA5 created so much as it revived. It’s still shitty!- I’m just not trying to argue that the other games are better on this front. Lastly, transphobic undertones do come into play again in Episode 3, and I think the writing in this case should definitely be considered while analyzing the next one.

I want to introduce this next complaint by bringing up something I actually enjoyed! Jinxie Tenma is one of 2.1 characters from this game that I found myself liking despite everything. Although she does fall into the dead parent(s) trope that the series is addicted to, the trope actually serves a purpose for her character beyond just making the player feel sad- it’s used to further develop Jinxie’s relationship with her surviving parent. Jinxie definitely isn’t one of the more well-written characters in the series, but for a one-off character in a game as bad as this? Jinxie is surprisingly decent! Congrats 👏👏👏👏👏 I still have my complaints to get to, though. Jinxie is introduced in Apollo’s one (1) actual conversation with Trucy throughout the entire game. Trucy introduces Jinxie as a close friend of hers, but they hardly interact at all. This character’s introduction itself exposes multiple major flaws of AA5 (that have already come up!): Trucy’s character is ignored in favor of using her as a plot device, and this game only tells the player about the characters instead of actually writing them. This game tells the player that Trucy and Jinxie are best friends, and the player is left with a choice: take the game’s word and have a fun time imagining how good these things (that aren’t actually in the game) are, or refuse the game’s word until you see actual content supporting it and have an awful time thinking about how good these things that aren’t actually in the game could’ve been.

Let’s talk about another character introduced in this episode: Simon Blackquill! Athena and Simon have a dynamic that’s clearly meant to parallel the dynamic between Phoenix and Edgeworth. Athena’s entire motivation to become a defense attorney is to ~save Simon~ from a false conviction for murder. This motivation isn’t fully revealed until the last episode of the game, much like Phoenix’s motivations. Unlike Phoenix’s motivations, though, it makes no sense for the game to keep this motivation from the player’s knowledge for such a long time. In AA1, Phoenix is largely motivated by Edgeworth, but he doesn’t actually know what’s wrong with Edgeworth or why he changed so drastically. All Phoenix knows is that Edgeworth has changed, and that’s enough for him to want to seek Edgeworth out- if not to save him, at least to find some answers. Phoenix is left just about as in the dark as the player; the only information he withholds is about the class trial from ages ago. Athena, on the other hand, literally knows exactly what happened to Simon. Athena’s motivations couldn’t be clearer to herself- but the game doesn’t want them to be clear to the player yet! So the game takes Athena’s “repression” (you know, the thing the game conveniently told you about in the last episode) and uses it as a way to cover the story’s plot holes. Athena doesn’t mention or even think about her strongest motivations even when she’s in front of the person she wants to save because “she’s just THAT repressed!” This game constantly withholds important information from the player for no reason other than that it’s just what their narrative happens to need at the time. It’s just lazy writing.

My last remark about this case is something that’s been an issue for the entire game so far: it’s hardly a game at all. The gameplay of Ace Attorney largely revolves around having the player use logic and their own thoughts to point out contradictions, uncover new testimony, and investigate crime scenes. When players would rather focus on the story and avoid the gameplay, they usually use a walkthrough that gives them directions in a straightforward way- no racking your brain trying to find any faults in some testimony, no wandering around crime scenes praying that new dialogue appears, just a good story. This way of playing the game is perfectly fine! The story is honestly the stronger part of most of the games, and people not bothering with the gameplay is their own choice. They’re still able to enjoy the game through the story, and isn’t that the purpose of games? To be enjoyed?

I’ll get to my point: this game is extremely hard to actually play. It’s easy to read, it’s easy to press the right buttons, but to actually use your own logic and thoughts? Borderline impossible. When the game doesn’t give away the answer right after asking, it’s because it gave the answer away before asking. The “hints” the game gives you are so obvious and numerous that the only way you could have a chance of figuring anything out for yourself is if you never pay attention to the dialogue. I will say- this was nearly an improvement. You can tell the people who made this game wanted it to be more accessible to people who didn’t care as much about the gameplay. A mechanic of sorts is introduced in this game that acts as a to-do list for investigations, so that the player doesn’t end up wandering around for an hour because they forgot to present a piece of evidence or talk to a certain witness or whatever. Additionally, if a player is struggling to find holes in a testimony, the game offers a helpful nudge to the player that drastically narrows down their possible moves without giving away any answers. Both of these mechanics are entirely optional, too! While the game does let you know that these mechanics exist in fairly natural ways, it never actually makes the player look at them more than once. These mechanics allow for players to focus more on the story if they want, while theoretically still providing them with a challenging mystery to solve. As we already know, though, these mechanics are completely useless because the game forcibly gives you the answers anyways. The protagonist you play as almost always announces where to go next in the investigations and what evidence to use in the trials. While I was still at this point in the game, I kind of just passed it off as the earlier cases going easier on the player to warm them up. The game never stops giving you the answers, though. This is a problem that persists throughout the whole game. When I started this game, I already knew I wasn’t going to enjoy the story, but I figured that at the very least I would be able to enjoy playing new cases and solving new mysteries! So, in a way, this boring gameplay was almost more disappointing than the dogshit story itself.

Episode 3

This episode contains a lot of firsts for the game. For one, this is the first full case that Athena leads! It’s also the last episode where the player even plays as Athena! This is also the first case that doesn’t show you the culprit in the opening cutscene. What the game does instead is immediately introduce a Big Scary Man with an unreasonably creepy smile and Corrupt Ways. Side note: literally every culprit in this game is a big/rude/otherwise intimidating man. This is the first game in the series to not have a single female culprit! I don’t think it’s actually that big of an issue, but it’s still overly predictable and underwhelming.

I might as well talk about the culprit’s ~corrupt ways~ now, even though it only gets worse. The culprit is a professor at a legal academy whose main philosophy is “the ends justify the means.” The player knows that this is his main philosophy because he repeats this exact phrase fucking 50 times in every scene he appears in, and the player knows that this is a Corrupt philosophy because every single time he mentions it a main character says something like “wow... this is truly the Dark Age of the Law...” (which, by the way, is another phrase that gets grossly overused in the game despite meaning virtually nothing). The closest the game gets to forming any actual political commentary is when this professor says he encourages his students to use false evidence to “win” trials (as opposed to the other professor in the case who discourages this), and the game tells you that this (among exactly two other things) is the source of the “dark age of the law.” The source isn’t corruption or a broken system, it’s one teacher’s bad grade policy. The game never really challenges the player’s beliefs or teaches them anything- it just flat out tells you the moral it’s trying to get across and expects you to already agree. And this problem with the writing only gets way worse in the next case!

I mentioned early in the Episode 2 section that this episode contains some transphobic undertones. To Summarize: Robin Newman is a character introduced as a guy obsessed with masculinity who later gets proven in court to be a girl because she likes wearing “girly clothes.” While everybody is still under the impression that Robin is a guy that just “screams testosterone” (actual fucking line in the game btw), they treat the fact that he wore feminine clothes as embarrassing and weird. Robin ultimately proves that she’s a girl by taking off a bracer that was flattening her chest (yes, this game does the thing where a character’s “true gender” is revealed by awkwardly emphasizing specific body parts, it’s uncomfortable as hell) and revealing that she was raised as a boy by her parents despite really being a girl.

I’ve seen some people try to argue that the writers intended for Robin to be trans, but as much as I want to believe it I just don’t think it’s the case. Robin doesn’t identify as a man at all- she expresses nothing but relief upon being proven to be a woman and says that she hated having to act like a man- so she’s definitely not a trans man. Although there isn’t exactly textual evidence against Robin being a trans woman, the game (and series) has already established what it thinks of trans women and AMAB people who don’t perform masculinity correctly, and it’s not good! Robin is treated with nothing but respect after her reveal, and (unfortunately!) I just don’t believe that this game would afford her that respect if they intended for her to be a trans woman. I want to add that it’s really not unheard of for cis authors to write stories where a cis character is forcibly raised as the opposite gender (YTTD does this, for example) so it’s not hard to believe that this is what the authors were doing for Robin. Lastly, I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to argue against trans headcanons for Robin. If I cared about Robin, I’d headcanon her as trans myself- it’s hard not to. All I’m trying to argue is that we shouldn’t give the writers any credit for writing a trans character because they don’t deserve that credit after writing such a cisnormative gender-role-addicted shit game.

Anyways, this case ends with Athena getting stuck at the end and needing somebody to come Save This Poor Damsel AGAIN. It’s definitely less shoehorned in than the first time it happened, but it’s still just annoying that it keeps happening.

Episode 4 & 5

You might be wondering why I put Episode 4 and 5 together. I did this because they’re the same fucking story split into two parts because ????? I don’t KNOW. There’s so many baffling writing decisions in this game like . this might as well be happening. who care. By the way, if my frustration seems to show more in this part of the post, it’s because this part of the game is just. such a mess.

The case opens right before the trial (that’s right, no investigation) with Apollo and the most forgettable defendant in the game being sad about Clay’s death. Do we know who Clay is? Do we know anything about the defendant? Or the case at all? Nope! The entire set-up for this episode is in one conversation where Apollo and some guy tell the player that Clay was a good guy and that it’s sad that he was killed. Once again, this game is telling you things instead of showing you, and it’s even doing that incredibly poorly! This game makes it borderline impossible to care about Clay, while also making it borderline impossible to care about the episode if the player doesn’t care about Clay. Scenes that are meant to be depressing are boring, scenes that are meant to be uplifting are confusing, and scenes that are meant to be deep are just frustrating. The fact that this episode opens right into the trial without any preceding investigation is fucking insane to me. Not only is it completely unprecedented for a multi-day trial, but a pre-murder investigation could’ve done wonders for developing Clay and the defendant! I can’t wrap my head around this shit! It’s not even lazy writing at this point- there’s no writing at all!!

Remember earlier when I said that I liked 2.1 characters in this game? Clay is .1 of those characters- no thanks to anything in the game! Despite being such a focal point in these episodes, Clay is hardly a character at all. He has like three lines total in a short flashback, and his only “character” traits are 1) Good Guy and 2) Dead Mom. Remember how the dead mom trope actually managed to serve a reasonable purpose in Jinxie’s character? All the dead mom trope does for Clay is give a reason for him and Apollo to be friends, because apparently there’s just nothing else that could’ve connected them together. It’s just sad backstory for sad backstory’s sake. I really can’t even point out anything well-written with Clay, embarrassingly enough! The only reasons I like him are because he has a nice design and a connection to a character I liked in a previous game. This game SUCKS

Speaking of sad backstory, by the way, they literally give Apollo’s CATCHPHRASE a sad backstory. Apollo apparently says his “I’m fine” thing because he and his now dead bestie used to say it together to cope with like not having parents. It’s stupid and unnecessary and I hate it basically.

Anyways Episode 4 ends with Athena being accused of killing Clay and becoming the defendant. Because this game was in need of more Damsel in Distress Athena. This accusation comes about because the detective in this game, Bobby Fulbright (who I haven’t mentioned up until now because he’s so fucken unremarkable), finds a piece of evidence with Athena’s fingerprints in the victim’s blood. For the majority of the rest of the game, this is the only piece of evidence that the player is given against Athena. However, multiple convincing pieces of evidence against Athena already exist in the story at this point. Athena and Apollo are even fully aware of this evidence before Episode 4 even starts, but the game withholds these from the player until much later. The game does this because it doesn’t want you to actually suspect Athena- not for even a moment! They want it to seem like it would be completely insane to even think about doubting Athena, and they do this by depicting Apollo as ~blinded by grief~ and irrational for daring to suspect his co-worker. Apollo, of all characters! Apollo, the character that had to prove his literal boss guilty of murder. TWICE. This game wants you to think it would be crazy for Apollo to do something that he literally justifiably did in the game that came directly before this one!

This brings us to the final character in this game that I liked: Aura Blackquill. Basically, her thing is that she’s mean and evil but she does it out of love for her brother. If there was any nuance in this game, Aura could’ve been like, a really good character. Sadly, though, she’s just not given much depth, and this game stumbles over its own themes too much for Aura to really challenge any of it. Also, fun fact! Aura was initially conceptualized as a character that would “seduce” Apollo to the Dark Side. This didn’t quite make it into the game, but it’s official information that exists and it makes me want to eat glass.

Aura is still used to show how ~warped~ Apollo is becoming when they’re both shown bonding (platonically, thank god) over their dead besties and investigating Clay’s murder without the Wright gang. It’s been made obvious to the player at this point in the game that Aura has an irrational hatred of Athena, too. By associating Apollo with this character, the game is further depicting Apollo’s doubts as comparable to irrational hatred. It’s frustrating to me because it could’ve been really interesting for the game to set up legitimate tension between two protagonists and take both sides seriously, forcing the player to question their own beliefs and the characters that they themselves played as! Instead, the game refuses to let the player take Apollo seriously and just assumes the player couldn’t possibly want an actual reason to believe in Athena’s innocence beyond “only Scary Rude Men are murderers and Athena’s just a sensitive innocent damsel <3” Not only is this writing throwing away a lot of potential, it’s shooting itself in the foot by not letting the game make any fucking sense!

The rest of this episode is honestly so bad that there’s really no way to neatly summarize its issues in a few paragraphs, so I’m going to walk you through the story beat by beat for a bit. In Episode 5 (which starts after Athena becomes the defendant), Phoenix is the protagonist. Athena is too busy being accused of murder, and Apollo is too busy being edgy, so who’s left for co-counsel? Trucy is the only character left at the Wright Anything Agency, so the game is forced to include her in the story. Finally. She joins Phoenix right before the scene with Apollo and Aura, and then . she leaves . right after that scene. So Phoenix is once again left without a co-counsel, and it doesn’t seem like there’s any characters left to fill that role... But Wait! Who Is That At The Door! Why, It’s Pearl! From The Ace Attorney Trilogy! Thank the fucken stars /s

Pearl is my favorite trilogy character. I really could go on and on about how badly AA5 fucked up with this (they didn’t change a thing about Pearl’s appearance or character despite her being twice as old as before) but at the end of the day it’s just more of this game doing a bad job at sucking the trilogy’s dick.

So, Phoenix and Pearl head back to where Trucy disappeared only to find out that she’s been kidnapped. Remember in AA4 when the game pretended that Trucy got kidnapped, only to reveal about a minute later that it was just a trick Trucy pulled to buy Apollo some time. Because the AA4 writers knew it would be fucking ridiculous for the series to pull that plot twist again out of nowhere. Look at how far we’ve come since then. Anyways. The kidnapper’s one demand is that Phoenix reinvestigates and holds a trial for a past case that Just So Happens to be connected to the current case. Pretty much every finale case in the series involves taking a look at an unsolved past case, but they usually give the player an actual reason to be interested in or care about said case. The only reason that this game can think of to get you to focus on this past case is Trucy’s life being in danger. The motivations and plot twists are so shoehorned in that it’s hard to give a shit about it.

So the kidnapper wants a trial, but who’s prosecuting? The main prosecutor, Simon, is the one that the past case declared guilty, and nobody gives a shit about Klavier, so it doesn’t seem like there’s any characters left that could fill that role... But Wait! Who Is That At The Door! Why, It’s Edgeworth! From The Ace Attorney Trilogy! I’m So Mad! Unlike Pearl, the game does change Edgeworth up quite a bit. He’s even wearing glasses now, to show that time has passed :~) His character changed too! Remember how, after the events of Turnabout Goodbyes, Edgeworth was all about investigating the truth and protecting innocent people from false accusations and struggling against his role as a prosecutor, literally getting his badge taken away at one point because he couldn’t bring himself to let an amnesiac teenager get taken advantage of and be accused of a murder she clearly didn’t do? Well. He’s changed . :~)

On top of removing any struggle Edgeworth had with his job, AA5 actually makes Edgeworth the chief prosecutor. I would be more upset with this writing decision if it wasn’t obviously just there to cover up plot holes. For example, why is Simon, a convicted murderer, being allowed to prosecute so many cases? Don’t worry about it, Edgeworth gave him Special Permission 👍 Also, why did Phoenix get his badge back so quickly? Don’t worry about it, Edgeworth used his Influences to get it back easily 👍

So, once the trial starts, Edgeworth takes advantage of a teenager’s amnesia to accuse her of a murder she clearly didn’t do. :~)

(Brief aside, this trial takes place in a courtroom that was bombed and is crumbling to pieces. The game literally has a character tell you “This courtroom is symbolic of The Dark Age Of The Law” like fucking VERBATIM. I couldn’t make this shit up if I wanted to.)

Obviously, Phoenix is eventually able to prove Athena’s innocence of the past murder. At this point in the case, Edgeworth tells the player about the meaning of a trial. The defense attorney is meant to do whatever they can to defend their client, while the prosecution is meant to do whatever they can to prove the defendant guilty. It’s through this adversarial system that the truth is most efficiently uncovered. I cannot stress this enough: the game is trying to argue that this is the way trials should work. It’s completely antithetical to all the games that came before it! Edgeworth and Klavier were both considered to be two of the few good people that were prosecutors because they were both bad at being prosecutors. They’re good people because they don’t let the goal of their job (to get the defendant declared guilty) get in the way of their personal goals (to uncover the truth even if it involves directly helping the defense). AA5 completely stumbles over the series’ past themes and characterizations to reach the conclusion that “Bad Trial Systems Don’t Result In False Convictions, Bad People Do!” AA5 tries to convince the player that the status quo is just fine. They don’t even keep what little reforms they made to the court system in AA4- that jurist system isn’t even mentioned in this game.

You might be wondering, though. If the game never really questions its own court system, then what was all the fuss about the “Dark Age of the Law”? Well. The game outright tells you that the “dark age of the law” started with Phoenix’s disbarment and Simon’s conviction. Before that the law was Just Fine 👍 and now that Phoenix has his badge back and Simon’s been proven innocent, the law is Just Fine once again 👍 . I don’t feel the need to explain why the court system was clearly not fine in the trilogy, or why corruption and imbalance of power didn’t explode in the courtrooms over two (2) fucking cases. This game’s attempts at political themes are a fucking joke at best.

Back to the trial- we’ve been able to prove that Athena and Simon are innocent of the past murder, but who WAS the culprit? And what about the current case with Clay? It’s only at this point in the story that the player FINALLY learns about all the evidence against Athena in the trial for Clay’s murder- far too late for the player to be able to take it seriously. It’s also at this point where Apollo reveals that he doesn’t really suspect Athena, he was just doubting her because he trusts her so much :) isn’t that so sweet. Seriously, Apollo is the character with the BIGGEST justification to doubt someone he works with and the game not only treats it like a completely irrational idea but tells you that it was fake the entire time! What the fuck!

After a really long battle in court, it’s revealed that Bobby Fulbright (remember him?) was behind the current case AND the past case, AND that he’s an international shapeshifting superspy with literally (like literally literally) no actual character. This is never foreshadowed or hinted at through the entire game! It’s pulled out of fucking nowhere because this game just needed one more Shocking plot twist. It’s stupid and meaningless and he gets caught because he sucks at blowing up rocks and Athena has a cool earring.

One remark about the ending: when Trucy gets released from being kidnapped, about two characters go “wow Trucy I’m glad you’re safe :)” and Trucy goes “I’m just fine ^_^ I even did magic tricks for the other hostages” because magic tricks are the only character trait that Trucy is allowed to have in this game. The kidnapping is completely brushed off like it wasn’t important in the first place because guess what? It WASN’T important. It was just a stupid plot device to get the story going where it needed to in a shocking way, like everything else in this stupid game.

Final Thoughts

My review of the game is that it suck left nut. Like I said earlier, just read the wiki if you’re interested in it, because the game won’t offer you a better experience. Its gameplay is boring, the characters are disappointingly flat, the story is empty, the plot twists are just there to shock the player and cover up plot holes, and it completely tramples on what makes the past games so good. A lot of people say to play this game for Athena and Simon, but IMO all they really do for the majority of the game is serve as an example of just how bad this game is. AA5 isn’t worth playing!

I rate this game 7.2/7.5 Imagine Party Babyz.

#jude talks #aa lb #long post #<- jic the readmore doesnt work #lmk if theres any weird formatting btw i had to like redo everything from google docs #ALSO tw for transphobia bc this game has that

11 notes · View notes