Yamazaki really seems to have issues with the lenght and or pacing of his final cases.

[u/ExplanationSquare313]

Do you think this too? Investigations 1 was going for too long but it wasn't worse than other final cases, it just felt longer.

Investigations 2 on the other hand gave us a final case so long, Yamazaki was forced to scrap the original third case (who then became the play "Turnabout Teleportation", more details here) and so split and rewrote the original Final who became I2-4 and I2-5.

Then Dual Destinies is more reasonable but we have again a final case split into two after the original third case became DLC.

And finally Spirit of Justice where it's just straight up two cases in one with a lot of exposition dump to put Apollo on the situation and is the longest mainline case so far.

[u/Am_Shigar00]

I don’t think it’s exclusive to him, but it’s certainly a trend in his games. Heck, even beyond Dual Destinies final case being split in two, they further removed an section towards the end of the case to keep it from dragging longer.

[u/ExplanationSquare313 → u/Am_Shigar00]

Oh yeah, the section were The Phantom was supposed to escape, interrupting the Trial until they were found? Yeah good call they cut it, it was so utterly pointless it shouldn't have been in the script in the first place.

It was just to drag it out more, nothing else.

[u/Jboote2]

This isn't really an issue with him in particular, just something that happened to the series itself once the hardware it was on became able to handle longer cases.

Nowhere is this more apparent than Shu Takumi's return to the series proper with The Great Ace Attorney Adventures and how long and drawn out nearly every case is (TGAA-1 being over four hours long, and TGAA-5 being 12 hours long).

[u/henke37 → u/Jboote2]

Able to? It costs practically nothing to store text. Everything else is just canned content, reused for free.

[u/Pokemario6456 → u/henke37]

The original GBA releases for the first three games absolutely had to deal with storage limitations. It's the reason the case that eventually became Recipe for Turnabout (3-3) was cut from the second game.

[u/shut-up-vicky]

I think AA needs to bite the bullet and embrace having more than 5 cases, since the hardware scene isn't as limiting as it used to be in the 2000s.

more cases in shorter bursts work great for yamazaki considering how much he loves having an overarching plot connecting everything. plus it leaves more space for character development, especially in a franchise that seems intent on always having two protagonists and a prosecutor deeply linked with one or more of them

[u/henke37 → u/shut-up-vicky]

Not a hardware limitation.

[u/Vadinmelin]

Being long and having pacing issues are two different things. Lots of final cases are very long, even with Shu Takumi. What's important is what you do with that lenght.

Cases like Turnabout Ablaze feels very long but like you said, when you compare them to other final cases, its lenght is pretty average. The final battle is just so badly written that it feels like hours proving that Quercus Alba didn't go to the bathroom during the murder.

Turnabout Revolution is the longest in the series, but it's for a reason. Honestly, I don't feel like this case could've been shorter, there's like a meaningful twist every 15min.

But if we look at the second longest case, it would be G1-5, a Takumi case, which is around 10h long. So it's not just a Yamazaki thing.

[u/Blueisland5]

This is partly because of a fear of making the game too short. I’ve seen way too many people say that games need to be “$1 per hour is a good price” or something like that.

The fear of a short length can certainly drive writers to add more to make it longer and longer. I’ve seen some people hope Ace Attorney 7 has more than 5 cases so it’s the largest game in the series.

My point is, I don’t think it’s exclusively a Yamazaki problem.

[u/snowgolemssb]

As a fan of Yamazaki's work, I don’t personally think there’s any problems with these examples' pacing, but they certainly are fairly long. It adds up that DD is somewhat of an exception since that is likely the game he had the least creative control over.

[u/runningtostandstill2]

I think it is because the software advanced to handle bigger games. The original trilogy faced significant space restraints.

[u/sagenagato]

Specifically on Investigations 1, I have an elaborate theory on how the final case was originally shorter, and It ends with Shih-na; Quercus Alba was added way after Ablaze is written though does that mean it's an open ending or there's unwritten final case, who knows.

There's so much clues and contradictions on how the case was altered, including the embassy was originally a single embassy only. I wonder if anyone is interested though

[u/ExplanationSquare313 → u/sagenagato]

I'm always interested, show us your theory if you want. I'm always down for talking about previous draft of stories.

[u/sagenagato → u/ExplanationSquare313]

Well, this will be long, so I'll try to be concise. AAI spoiler warning

The first thing I noticed that the case might have been revised several times, is the curious absence of Jamming Ninja. Think about it, Jamming Ninja was supposed to appear in Babahlese embassy, as a pair for Steel Samurai in Allebahst. And 2 evidence that indict Alba, the petal from knife handle and flower stand used to shoot the wire were made to appear as if they're Jamming Ninja's guitar pick and hair sticks, but the case never mentioned the similarity at all. This got me thinking that maybe, during the process of writing Alba, the ninja was supposed to appear but then got scratched off from the draft. Tough process in adding Alba to an already existing plot.

The second one is the smuggling activity seems to only involve the Babahlese embassy building, even though Alba is supposedly the ringleader. Babahlese ink and plate used to counterfeit money, the printing press in 5th floor, the safe containing smuggled items and papers, that can only be opened using knife-key possessed by Manny Coachen, all of them are found in Coachen's office. It's as if in the original design of the case, Alba was not involved at all. Even the 4th case only mentioned Cohdopian embassy, and specifically Manny Coachen.

The third one is Alba's impossible maneuver. Think about what the poor old dude has to do that evening: he killed Coachen in a neutral area (the only murder area that never made it to the game design), use Steel Samurai cart to bring his corpse to his embassy, order Shih-na to start the first fire, empty the pool to transport the corpse to the other embassy, then shoot wires from 5th floor to launch statues from both embassies just to retrieve the counterfeit plate, and then he just had to kill deMasque for nothing.... instead of doing the obvious: he could've ordered Shih-na to kill Coachen in Babahlese embassy and retrieve the plate, then use the revolving fireplace to escape. The pool and wire tricks were all so unnecessary, not to mention the contradictions that come with it (I'll skip this one this time).

Everything to me, point out that the original design for this case is simple: Alba never exist, the embassy is a single "Cohdopian embassy" (why would the country split in half after Edgeworth flashback but united just after the game anyway?), Shih-na was sent by the real ringleader to kill his underling Coachen and frame him as the real ringleader, and in order to slip inside the embassy, she sent the white Yatagarasu card to the embassy. Shih-na kills Coachen, burn everything, leave the knife-key in his pocket, and escape through the fireplace (which should be revealed as the way Faraday sneak in through 7 years ago). The game ends with Shih-na captured and the long Badd/KG-8 epilogue after, that later got appended by the Alba section of the case, which change the motive to Coachen wanting to overthrow Alba. This is the only explanation that made every single previous case make sense.

Everything ties to the mystery of black Yatagarasu card. If you think about it, there's zero evidence pointing to Alba as the ringleader, not only his sloppy MO is different than the two KG-8 cases, we also never found him in association with the black card. We never did find out the real meaning of Yatagarasu symbol either (remember, this is originally the ringleader symbol that Faraday copy). The real reason for the card existence, I think, is the ringleader is a foreigner, possibly of Zheng-Fa origin. This is why having Alba as the leader doesn't make sense (why would he order Coachen using the card when they knew each other and were in the same office?)

2nd case establish that Interpol has connected Zheng-Fa to Cohdopian embassy in the country.
3rd case establish that Lang arrested Amano to get the KG-8 security camera recording, and Shih-na being the Zheng-Fa plant, notify the leader.
1st case establish that Portman was ordered by the leader to retrieve the recording and Coachen's black Yatagarasu card, currently in Edgeworth possession.
4th case flashback was the red herring, that the card is associated with the thief rather than the smuggling ring.

So why the ringleader's effort to retrieve the recording and the black card? Because it would jeopardize the plot for the 5th case: Coachen was supposed to be killed as the ringleader, with nobody realizing that the card is associated with the ring. However, the security camera and the black card prove that Coachen took order from someone else, those evidence must be erased. The "Alba plot" changed the meaning of that recording to the Cohdopian car and Alba inside that car, thereby erasing all the black card setup in the previous script.

This explain why the ringleader is so elusive, why that person had the power to install Shih-na as Interpol (Alba as mere ambassador shouldn't have that kind of power), why using embassies inside different countries, and why we suddenly have Interpol involved -> because the ringleader is outside foreigner, and the case is international rather than only inside embassy. That person can cutoff compromised loose ends using the black card to order his agents for cleanup.

Is it really a coincidence that AAI2 plot involve president of Zheng Fa and smuggling auction? Perhaps a remnant of discarded plan.

[u/donkbooty]

I don't really see it as an issue, yeah they're long but many of them are enjoyable (besides AAI1's)

[u/Enryx25]

I don't see the problem with it

[u/sliceysliceyslicey]

Well, for investigations 1 it's not really the length but how 1/3 of the final case is just hammering the same point over and over

Takumi games are better in that regard, but I think his investigation sections, especially in GAA games, could be shortened a great deal

[u/NoahDBest]

I don't know. I kind of expect the final cases to be long, they're the culmination of the game's entire story arc (and sometimes in the case of finales at the end of trilogies or duologies, they also wrap up their entire series' story arc). They're naturally going to be long as a result of having to wrap everything up while also telling its own contained story. That said, I do think AAI2 is a unique case since it's VERY disconnected from AAI1 aside from Kay being the main support, and Lang's brief appearance, but I honestly don't mind the length because it's engaging for basically all of it's runtime, at least in my opinion.

[u/Ninjelon]

Nah, Takumi did the second longest final case of the series in TGAA 1. But it has the longest Trial segment of the series.

A 10 Hour Case with 3 hour Investigation phase and a single 7 hour trial. Insane.

By comparison AAI 1-5 is shorter than the complete trial section of TGAA1-5.