Hello everyone. I recently just played through AA6, as well as Daigyakuten a little while ago. My thoughts on both: AA6 Overall, thoroughly impressed by the neat cases and likeable characters.
! Case 1: The culprit's quirks and animations were hilarious, though his breakdown felt, disappointingly, a little uninspired, maybe even derivative.
! The fact that Payne's "hair" was attached to his crown was also comic genius. Another thing I liked was how the defendant ended up being an active character throughout the whole story, though it does make it a little contrived when things he does end up being crucial to events in later cases. Lastly, the art design of Khura'in is great stuff. You can tell they put a lot of thought into the aesthetics of the place and the court. Case 2: The case where Trucy gets to shine, which is important, because she hadn't really necessarily done all that much before that point that could count as character growth. The twist of the case is also interesting:
! The supposed murder victim was actually secretly an impostor double of the culprit! The culprit had assumed a different identity and killed his own double to frame Trucy for murder, just because he was THAT butthurt about being kicked out of the magic troupe. Really, dude? You were willing to kill an innocent man AND absolutely ruin another person's whole life just because of a grudge against your former magicians' troupe? Fuck off, dude. This also Nayuta's introduction as prosecutor; he's an "international-level prosecutor" who flies around the world to do cases and is so studious that he learned the ins and outs of the television industry of a foreign country (in Case 4, he'll spend a day researching so much about rakugo that he can recite a rakugo story by heart). In keeping with the current regime of Khura'in's insistence that their trials don't need defense attorneys, Nayuta claims to see trials as "sessions to mourn the fallen" and bids the defense attorney give up lest he or she add to that soul's suffering. Last note about Case 2, I really like how, since Phoenix was in Khura'in, they made a big moment of Phoenix entrusting his daughter's life to Odoroki's attorney skill, and assuring Odoroki he had what it takes to do it. "I'm counting on you." It really makes the player more invested in Odoroki. Case 3: Probably one of my favorite cases in the entire series. I love how they decided to use the little details of spirit-medium channeling to build the case (same as with Case 5). Super creative! I also loved how
! you get to cross-examine the victim!! The spirit-channeled victim had some of the funniest/most inspired animations and breakdowns, too! Another thing: No wonder everybody seems to get over people getting murdered left and right all around them so damn quickly. Anybody in the world of AA who's had a brush with spirit mediums, or really, the whole damn country of Khura'in, knows for certain that not only is there an afterlife, but that they can even speak to the dearly departed, if only with effort. Another another thing: Obviously, Maya is once again the defendant, as she is at least once in every game she appears in. Girl can't catch a break at all. However, her mastery of spirit channeling–the fruit of so many years of training--is laid out for the player to see. That was very satisfying. Case 4: Athena's case. Includes Simon on your side of the bench; his interactions with Nayuta are quite amusing. Great witness quirks and breakdowns, too. My main issue with this case was the really cartoony, unrealistic use of a psychological abnormality for one of the witnesses made me scoff a little ("They went with that? Really?"). Also, I have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER how the hell they're going to localize this one. It really strikes me as scarcely possible. I just cannot think of puns that could work in English for any of the stuff in this case Case 5: Fantastic case except for one thing that incredibly irked me (a "what were they thinking?" kind of huge letdown). Reminiscent of AA5, where Cases 4 and 5 were really just one gigantic case, Case 5 in this game is really two separate cases that are linked. Odoroki gets a whole ton of character development/elaboration, which you'd think would feel rushed and perfunctory since it's all basically in this one case, but it's executed well in my eyes. We didn't really know much of anything about Odoroki or have much of a reason to connect with him over Phoenix before then. The crushing revelation during the big, final trial was also really effective. The thing that incredibly irked me had to do with
! the whole Odoroki vs. Phoenix bit, which was extremely undercooked. It essentially goes like this: The first case in the case (strange to say) has to deal with some contested ownership of some artifacts following what was then believed to be the "accidental" death of a professor living in Kurain Village. That way, they can have two defense attorneys face off in court. Odoroki came to the village at the behest of his past mentor figure/current head revolutionary of Khura'in, Dhurk, who's in overall awesome dude and can basically do no wrong, in order to retrieve an artifact for the revolutionaries. (At first Odoroki resents Dhurk but Dhurk gets back into his good graces by saving his life and a bunch of other bonding). However, Phoenix says he's the family lawyer of a corrupt wannabe big shot politician in Kurain, who says the artifact is his. Therefore, they must battle it out in court; Phoenix won't go easy on Odoroki, Odoroki and Athena go "Can we really fight him? yadda yadda, we have to, bring it on!!" etc. The extremely disappointing slap in the face was how all that build up led to a conclusion that betrayed the premise of the fight–that it was a fair, earnest faceoff, when in fact Maya has simply been taken hostage AGAIN and Phoenix had to defend a man he knew to be guilty AGAIN. Much like the core of the final case of AA5 was just a retread of AA1, this was a retread of the final case of AA2, only not done nearly as well. The final big twist:
! Dhurk (the defendant of the case) had actually been dead the entire time, since before the murder in question even happened. When you were interacting with him, it was actually Maya channeling Dhurk. This meant that Odoroki had to accept that there was no saving the father figure he had rekindled a connection with. DLC case: I don't understand why, if Edgeworth means what he says about not caring about merely "winning" and only caring about finding the truth, he then deliberately withholds information from the defense before trial and calls Phoenix his "natural enemy." Just doesn't really seem to add up; obviously, I know there needs to be some conflict and they wanted to throw Edgeworth another case as prosecutor, but why the whole "Oh, I won't hold back on you, for you are my enemy" song and dance? Just be normal and argue your case without laying it on so thick, dude. Apart from that, the newlyweds were cute, and the culprit's breakdown was awesome. Though once again we have the issue of a psychological condition that strains credulity.
! Really? His memory is wiped of everything after a certain day in the past every time he wakes up? Finally, the whole time travel hook was, perhaps predictably, only ever briefly entertained in court and then summarily dispensed with. Overall: The game ends with a sequel hook regarding
! the truth about Odoroki's background which may finally tie back into the really juicy themes and dangling plot threads of AA4. (Noticeably, the "coming Dark Age of the Law" plot thread that AA5 ran with was totally absent here. And what of the jury system? Not even mentioned. I understand they were focusing on Maya's return, but still. Some background plot recognition would have been nice. Really, I just want to revisit Kristoph's black psyche-lockes.) Another thing that continues to bother me from AA5 on is the personality disconnect between the Phoenix of AA4 and his regression to his original-trilogy goofy face-faulting persona in AA5 and 6. With AA6, I saw them trying to strike a bit of a balance for Phoenix between a serious, stoic-faced sempai and mentor to the other attorneys, and the old face-faulting goofball in court. Still missing, though, is any hint of the more world-weary, slightly sarcastic, smirking, cunning/calculating Phoenix we saw in AA4. Constantly recurring themes the writers of the series seem obsessed with: Sisters, women who pretend to be airheads/damsels but then snap, the entertainment industry in all its forms, and, from AAI1 and AAI2, revolutions in foreign countries. Also, can we please STOP having prosecutors who constantly get their asses kicked and all of their assumptions constantly proven wrong, and yet they still call the attorneys idiots etc. etc. At least with Nayuta he said amusing Buddhism-related stuff like "You'll be reborn as a fungus" as opposed to just using a whip and calling it "funny." Speaking of which, why do prosecutors like Franziska and Nayuta get to literally injure/torture the attorneys!? I know it's supposed to be cartoony, but still, why the need to make the prosecutors so heinous? Gavin was literally the only one of the now 6 prosecutors in the mainline series who weren't dickbags to you, and the kicker is that given Nayuta's underlying motivations, he didn't even necessarily have a reason to be such a dick. One final note is, as with every single game in the series before it, the whole overarching plot is drenched in contrivance after contrivance. Those characters just happened to be connected through that character, and those characters just happened to meet at that time under those circumstances, etc. etc. The analytical side of me just can't help but roll its eyes at it. Daigyakuten Definitely going for something a little different narrative-wise. The main thing is that the game ends with a cliffhanger and the final-twist mystery isn't resolved within the game. Also, the gameplay borrows the mob-cross-examination from PW vs. PL–as well as the whole "being an attorney in an English court" thing. Case 1: The only real "breakdown" breakdown in the game. It's a shame, too, because the character designs and quirks are just as good as the mainline games. One thing to note is how this case is far more involved than most first-trials are. Another cliffhangery thing is how the culprit's motive is never explained. Case 2: No trial, just an investigation. Introduces Holmes, who is depicted here as a sort of brilliant-but-absent-minded sort of dandyish figure; his base instincts are good but his conclusions are way off, so you have to give him that nudge to the correct conclusion. Also, the game directly takes the piss out of the classic Holmes tales ("No, Holmes, snakes don't drink milk, can't climb up bands, and can't hear bells.") The main striking story thing here is how
! the badass manly does-everything-in-the-name-of-justice friend you had by your side in Case 1 is the victim… and of an accidental murder at that. Btw, his true impetus for imploring you to "seek the truth" in Britain also remains a mystery by the end of the game. Case 3: This game has balls.
! The defendant ends up being not only actually guilty once you've acquitted him (laughing maniacally and all that), but then is immediately murdered himself. Leaving you questioning what the hell you're even doing or what even just happened. Case 4: The defendant is (apparently slightly anachronistically) Natsume Soseki, whose animation quirks are hilarious. This case is a very rare instance where the victim isn't dead, but just in coma. This is so that the wacky, zany circumstances that led to the accidental stabbing don't clash with the graveness of the offense–though they could very well have ended up killing the victim. Case 5: I actually don't have a lot to say about this case, apart from how snazzy the culprit is. Final note: The music of both this game and PW vs. PL is bar none the best in the series. I think my favorite game in the whole series is still AAI2 because I love Shelly, but AA6 is no slouch in my ranking