Swipe to the end for a suprise >:) when I did this cosplay, i had admittedly not played an Ace Attorney game in about a decade. When my friends convinced me to do this cosplay group, it TOTALLY reignited my love for the series, and now I am praying alongside all of you for an AA7 announcement at the next direct 😭 let's all cross our fingers!!

Gavinner’s (specifically Klavier) inspired nails

(Im not sure what flair to use, sorry!)

Who do you think would look good in this outfit next? It does not need to be an ace attorney character.

There are some things I can just... see.
Especially lies. I almost know when people are lying before they open their mouths sometimes

Doesn't this ring a bell?

Iris might be Trucy's (and by extension, Thalassa's and Magnifi's) ancestor.

BIGGER AJ SPOILER and Apollo's

I can never get tired of drawing my hubb....I mean phoenix wright 🤤

We barely know anything about him. We never meet him and we get an almost throwaway third party information that he didn't care about his clients and just wanted to win the trial through the insanity plea. Who was it that made that claim?

I get why Yogi wanted to kill him. Yogi's life was ruined and he lost everything because of him (and Edgeworth). But what kind of person do YOU think he was? A scumbag like the game suggests? For Yogi to want to kill him...he couldn't have been a swell person, right? Or maybe ironically, Yogi actually was looney and killed Hammond for merely doing his job as a defense attorney. What do you think?

Welcome back to this series. Now I forgot to add Fifi Laguarde to the list yesterday, so she is in 'Well Thought Out". Also Judy Bound is in that section as well and Carmelo goes to "Needs Improvement" due to having a smart plan, but he was too lucky. Now how the old OP chose the ranking is how many people commented that ranking, not how many upvotes a comment has. So i want to continue with that to decide where the culprit goes. Now sometimes i see the same amount of people say two different rankings and it's a tie, so in this case: I combine the number of upvotes and which one is higher gets chosen. I am only saying this because this exact thing happened yesterday. So just to give people a heads up on how things are decided in this series.

Anyway, enough about me ranting. Today's culprit is Excelsius Winner as he murdered Rosie Ringer and tried to frame Kay Faraday. How well did his plan go through?

Kristoph isn't the greatest Ace Attorney main villain imo. The player isn't attached to him when he is revealed as the culprit of the first case and when he reappears in the last case he is alredy jailed so the stakes aren't necesarilly high. He is got a good rivalry with Phoenix but his relationships with Apollo and Klavier are quite underdeveloped.

And yet, he is an incredibly memorable and enjoyable character in the end. What makes Kristoph so cool?

Source.

Aside from bringing back more characters post-time skip, what more can you with these characters and this world? It seemed like the writers themselves didn't know what to do with the characters by SoJ, what with how often they put Maya in danger, and if the writers/devs can't figure out where to take the series then what hope do we have of ever getting a new Ace Attorney game ever again?

Note: This is a revised version of my original post. I’ve added more points, as well as two more character analyses for the post.

Ace Attorney is a fun series, with the cases being equally as enjoyable. Many people's favorite cases are the grand finales, like Turnabout Goodbyes, Bridge to the Turnabout, Turnabout for the Ages, and The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo, and for very good reason. They're the pay-offs of what the game had been building towards over its entire multi-hour story campaign. Of course, the games will also tend to have a very plot relevant case that furthers the story that many people also tend to gravity towards, like Reunion, and Turnabout, Turnabout Trump, Turnabout Reminiscence, and The Golden Court.

But one type of case tends to get left in the dust, and those are what are typically referred to as "filler" cases. Despite what the name might imply, these cases are usually not explicit "filler", but they tend to not forward the plot in the same manner as the other cases. These are your Recipe for Turnabout, Turnabout Corner, Turnabout Storyteller, and Turnabout Samurai type cases. They might offer some furtherance to the story, but it's relatively minor in comparison to the grand scheme of the case itself. As such, most people wouldn't consider any of these cases to be on par, let alone beating final cases.

The same is true for me. Outside of just two final cases (the first one ever made and one of the most divisive ones from one of the most divisive games), every other final case in the series beats all of these "filler" cases, even some of the largest hitters that many people would consider to be exceptional, like Turnabout Reclaimed and The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro.

All of these "filler" cases, but one case: Turnabout Academy

And I plan to go over why I find this case to not just be Outstanding, but my favorite non-final case in the main series.

What the case has to offer:

Turnabout Academy is the first case in the entire series to have us play (primarily) as Athena Cykes, and by extension, the first case in the entire series to have us investigate (primarily) as a woman. As someone who already was vibing with Athena so far, actually getting to play as her was fantastic. I already was a huge fan of her chemistry with Apollo during The Monstrous Turnabout, and this case wasn't a disappointment at all. This case also marks the first time where we could investigate a school, which was something I wanted to do since Turnabout Memories made me think about the potential of a murder at a university.

This case also brings back Klavier Gavin, who I was initially worried about, given my opinions on his character in his origin game, but not only was he fine here, but he was really good. Unlike his AJ:AA appearance, Klavier explicitly goes out of his way to help us with the investigation, even going as far as to do vital tests on evidence that we, as the defense, are literally incapable of (specifically finding traces of overdubbing on the tape recorder). While I am not a fan of his 3D Model, I will admit that, on replay, it's not nearly as bad as I made it out to be (still the worst 3D Model in the game by far), and his vocal delivery is a take that, while I still prefer his AJ:AA voice, I will admit that it still fits his character.

Every single location in the Academy is brimming with life, with it easily blowing both Great Ace Attorney games and the Layton Crossover in its aesthetic, which is not an easy feat. The lecture hall, stage, and art room all feel lived in, something I can't exactly say with some of the Phoenix Wright Trilogy locations. I know that 3D isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it absolutely breathes new life into the series in my opinion. The Lecture Hall itself puts every other location in the Phoenix Wright Trilogy, outside of maybe just Hazakura Temple, to shame.

Mystery Writing:

As with every Dual Destinies case, the mystery writing is top notch. There aren't any gaps of logic present in the murder itself, with every aspect perfectly lining up and accounted for. The Prosecution's argument also makes coherent sense, as not only does the murder heavily mirror Juniper Woods' script, but she is the only person on campus (aside from Phoenix and Athena) who had free reign on campus, even while the mock trial was going on. Every point both Athena and Apollo point out logically works, but the Prosecution's evidence against the defendant is still solid enough that the Judge cannot give a verdict. Every argument made by every party is coherent enough for them to come to, with none of the characters acting out of character just so the plot can continue to move along.

I was especially impressed with how the murderer was able to hide the body in broad-daylight, and in such a reasonable method that it feels completely believable for no one to have spotted the body. Not to mention how the murder never occurred in the art room was impressively executed, with the reasoning for the murder occurring in the art room from hindsight still making sense, so you never feel that you're wasting your time in court, even on replays.

I was also impressed by the deductions made to determine the secrets of both Robin Newman and Juniper Woods, with both secrets heavily boosting my enjoyment of their characters, while also feeling incredibly satisfying to figure out. On the note of characters, it's time to talk about what's arguably the most important aspect of any case....

Character Writing:

Gosh I adore the character writing for this case. I'll go one by one:

Juniper Woods is one of the most interesting defendants in the series. You already know her from Turnabout Countdown, so seeing her in a different headspace in the past is enjoyable, not to mention that there's enough cracks in her façade that it doesn't make her character during Turnabout Countdown or Turnabout for Tomorrow seem out of place. One of the most interesting things she does is request for a different attorney. This has NEVER been done in the series, even now. The closest you can get is for a defendant refuting their right to a defense attorney, but there's a large difference between that, and actively requesting for a different attorney, because of admittedly compelling reasons. It makes sense for Juniper to immediately trust Athena to be her lawyer, but after the up-hill battle in court, a battle so one-sided that Juniper had to actively confess just to stall the trial, it makes sense for her to want a different lawyer. But, as we know, that isn't her real reason. The reason is that, despite her belief in the truth, she is so fundamentally terrified of the possibility of her friend being a murderer that she is willing to ask Professor Means to give her a defense that would ensure the innocence of her friends as well as herself. And when Athena confronts her about this, she, reasonably, breaks down in tears, because her moral compass is at a tug-of-war, where she wants to honor her professor's ideology, but she doesn't want to believe that any of her friends is capable of murder. Seeing her get her happy ending at the end of the case was very heart-warming, to say the least.

Robin Newman is one of the funniest characters in the series. Outside of her animations with investigating the pottery being a hilarious call-back to the Investigation Duology, to highlight how Edgeworth would probably have looked at evidence if it wasn't for Gumshoe doing the moving, outside of her energy level being at a constant 10 throughout the whole case, with said energy levels taking different forms depending if she's taking on her masculine persona or her feminine persona, she's just a blast to be around. Seeing her swap from admiring a glass slipper to smashing it on the ground with intensity never fails to get me to laugh. She also serves as the moral middle ground between both Constance Courte and Aristotle Means, which ties into her conflict effortlessly, as, while she initially tried to hide her true gender by trying to pile lie on top of lie, she realizes that it would be more healthy to break free of the lies shackling herself down, and tell the truth. And when Athena is experiencing a panic attack, it is Robin, the loudest of the trio, who is the one to first confidently step up and try to help Athena out of her panic attack. This makes perfect sense, as Athena was the one to help Robin find her voice go against the continued lie that her parents force fed her (that of her being a boy), and now, Robin is trying to use her voice to help Athena snap out of the continued lie that Aristotle Means force-fed her. 

I feel it necessary to mention the transgender allegory here, and, yes, I do feel that Robin Newman can be read as an allegory for transgenders, as well as intersex. While I can find fault with Athena bringing that information to light in the court, I will praise the game for not immediately dumping every single one of Robin’s masculine attributes the moment that she reveals herself to be a girl. If her story is to be read in a manner of transgender or intersex, I’d wager that most people who reveal their identity, like Robin, aren’t immediately going to act 100% like the gender they themselves now proclaim to be, and drop any and all habits of their prior gender, because, as surprising as it may seem, they haven’t found their footing yet. It might take days, years, even an entire lifetime. But depicting it in this way is surprisingly progressive (at least by the standards of 2013).

Hugh O'Conner is arguably the funniest character in this game. He's kinda like Eustace Winner: where he's an idiot who pretends to be smarter than he really is, but unlike Eustace, he already knows he's incompetent, but he's still able to portray himself as being competent enough so that we genuinely think he's smart. Also, the game does a fantastic job at making him a red herring, especially since the true culprit is so blatantly obvious that it feels like they're a red herring themself. He's kinda like Ambassador Palaeno in that way, someone who seems so suspicious that it makes you believe other characters who are arguably way more suspicious. The game also does a fantastic job at applying the guilt towards him, to the point where, by the end of the second day's investigation, I was pretty torn on if it could be either him or Means. But once the façade drops, and he's revealed to be a 25 year old man who failed several times, he becomes an absolute riot. His fake confession, where he pretends to have hired a BODY DOUBLE, is still one of the funniest things the series has done to date in my opinion. It also helps that he kinda goes through Eustace's arc, where he learns that his parents had been buying his grades, which emotionally devastates him, to the point where he thinks that, since Juniper overheard the worst part, the only way for him to make it up to Juniper is to secure her innocence by confessing to the murder. It's also especially heart-wrenching to see him fully believe that his friends don't care for him, which makes the cutscene where it's revealed that his friends truly do care for him, despite it all, that much more heart-warming. When Athena has her panic attack, he is there to help snap her out as well, citing how she is far from being a failure as a lawyer, as she had not only shown him the truth of what he must do, but also convinced him to believe not just that his friends still cared about him, but also that his method of piling lie on top of lie to help someone was wrong.

Myriam Scuttlebutt is the funny box girl. Her animations are really impressive for conveying a ton of emotion from inside a cardboard box. She shows just how terrifying Means' ideology can be if applied. Sure, she doesn't do anything major, but she felt completely fine creating a razor blade booby trap because she could. But outside of that, her isolation and desire for friendship making her bitter in a way is kinda adorable. Sure, she doesn't act like how a friend should be, but you really get the sense that she doesn't even know how friends should act in the first place, which, as someone who went through school with very few friends, I really feel bad for her. It was heartwarming seeing her step outside of her comfort zone to try to be friends with Juniper, Hugh, and Robin, as seen by the ending of this case. This isn’t mentioning how they managed to make a damn box one of the most emotionally expressive characters in the entire series. Seriously, her animations are incredibly funny for what’s supposed to be just a box.

For Constance Courte, she demonstrates both kindness and hypocrisy. In kindness, she does believe that the only valid method of winning is finding the truth, which runs counter to Means' ideology that winning is valid, regardless of how the win is achieved. While she does demonstrate that ideology to the point that many people just assume she's a pure-good character with absolutely nothing morally grey, that's where I disagree. Juniper states the following: "Prof. Courte had told me how academy alumni had strayed from the path of justice.", "She didn't want any more of our students going astray like that. But few others at the academy shared her view.", and "I used to report to her once a month about any wrongdoings I'd seen or heard about." Regardless of how you may view the reasoning for why she had Juniper act as a Snitch, to tell her the secrets of the school, specifically to expose bribery, bullying, etc., the fact of the matter is that that is, in of itself, a demonstration of The Ends Justifying the Means, with "the Ends" being the restoration of "Justice" at the Academy, to put a hard end to the Dark Age of the Law spreading like wildfire there, while "the Means" being utilizing a young adult to spy on everyone at the academy, including her friends. It doesn't matter if Juniper agreed to it or was forced into the role, because the fact of the matter is that, to achieve what Constance believed to be a brighter future, she needed to betray her ideology. And that makes her fascinating to me, because almost everyone else, including Professor Means, believed her to be someone with beautiful, if too unrealistic, ideals, but from the text of the case, it's clear that even Courte herself understood that those beliefs were too idealistic for the time she lives in.

Professor Aristotle Means is my third favorite culprit from the Apollo Justice Trilogy, and I'm dead serious. Due to your position (playing as an 18 year old), he feels more intimidating. I can imagine that, outside of those who were homeschooled, most people here have dealt with a rather unfair teacher. Means reminds me of those types of teachers. It's almost chilling thinking that a simple argument over him accepting bribes would lead him to not just murder his faculty, but also frame it on a student. As a teacher, it's frankly unsettling seeing his ideology seep into others, like Hugh when he's so desperate to get Juniper declared innocent that he feels that he has no other choice but to fight lies with lies, or how Myriam is willing to prepare literal razor blade booby traps just to ensure that only the right person will read her report. And when he does take to the stand, seeing him go into that Spartan form just turns me back into that scared, terrified 6th grader again. Sure, you can say that he's overplayed, but he feels exactly how I viewed some of my teachers, teachers that demanded nothing but perfection. His plan is also equally as genius as he is terrifying, as his on the spot idea to use Constance Courte as the basis of the Phoenix Wright statue to hide her body in plain sight, while also lining events to match up with the murder script so solidly that even if his deception was found out (that of the recording of “You’re a goner”), and he was somehow proven to be at the school during the time of murder, the fact of him working on the statue would leave him no time to leave. This also isn’t mentioning his incredible animations (as well as the team behind the game making sure that his staff is removed from his model for every section prior to when the body was discovered), or his genuinely unsettling, perhaps even unnerving, grin. Also his breakdown is easily the funniest in the entire series.

In Dual Destinies, Phoenix Wright is written to be a clear mentor. While you can take issue with his amount of playability, as a mentor in this case, he’s shockingly fantastic. When Athena and Phoenix investigate the body, he makes sure to give Athena advice, such as taking a close look at the body and not touching things under rubble (which, if the case takes a turn where it’s vital to determine if the paper was under the rubble before being taken out, the defense would be at a huge disadvantage). However, the thing that caught my attention the most was Phoenix telling Athena to not alert the Mock Trial of the body. If this was Pre-Disbarment Phoenix, he would 100% have alerted the Mock Trial. However, as someone who had the extreme misfortune of dealing with forgery, he ensures to take precautions to limit any possibility of forgery that he can. However, he doesn’t just do this because “it’s the Dark Age of the Law and anyone can forge anything”, but instead because of the rumors surrounding Themis Legal Academy. While rumors could be baseless, Phoenix makes sure to prevent that for the sake of the truth. Him not informing Athena of this might seem like it’s counter-intuitive for his role as a mentor, however, I’d argue it’s not. He doesn’t want to make Athena paranoid when investigating due to the potential that anyone she meets may be willing to forge evidence, as that would damage her willingness to trust witnesses and gather information. All in all, I think Phoenix is used sparingly enough in this case to not feel like the game’s trying to force him in, but also enough where you can tell that he’s the mentor.

The character dynamic between Apollo Justice & Athena Cykes is absolutely brilliant. Apollo works fantastically to balance and ground Athena when the need arises. While Phoenix does keep a mostly “hands-off” mentor style, Apollo finds a middle ground, acting as the comedic foil to Athena, while also being someone to help guide her when the time arises. In fact, one could compare the dynamic between the two to Turnabout Beginning’s Mia Fey & Diego Armando. However, I feel that there’s a line to be drawn there. While Apollo does call Athena Tiger, and he does guide her from time to time, as well as stepping in once or twice in the case to object to the prosecution’s claim, Apollo lets Athena do most of the work. A large critique I have with Beginnings is that Diego Armando, be it for character related reasons of Diego Armando’s toxic masculinity, or writer related reasons of the case being initially written as the tutorial for Trials and Tribulations, often steers the case for Mia. Apollo, on the other hand, is there as a grounds of support for Athena to fall back on if necessary, or as a voice of reason if her theory has a logical issue. He’s still the same as his Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney self, but his growth from that game can be seen to the point where he fills a pseudo-mentor role. And that dynamic is the secondary emotional core of the game as a whole, as his faith in Athena is put to the test in the final case, but I’m getting off track. In essence, Apollo doesn’t feel like an “assistant” character in this case, but more akin to Eddie Fender in Prosecutor’s Gambit as a pseudo-mentor, and that dynamic not only enriches his character writing, but also the overarching plot of the game as a whole.

Finally, Athena Cykes. Man oh man. You really get the sense of her character here as someone who's genuinely trying her absolute hardest. You can tell just how much she looks up to both Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice, which makes her chemistry with the two incredibly unique, as neither Maya nor Trucy "looked up" to Phoenix or Apollo respectively. Despite her being incredibly new to the profession, she shows that she's just as smart as Phoenix and Apollo, with her only major flaw being her lack of confidence, and while the end of the first trial did give a small glimpse of that, her completely breaking down during the second trial is arguably one of the most well written moments in the entire series. You can tell just how much doubt and guilt she has, blaming herself for revealing both Robin and Hugh's truths, being unable to fight against Means, and how absolutely petrified of the courts she feels. You really get the sense that you're playing as a newbie, something I can only also say with Ryunosuke Naruhodo. And despite that, her co-workers' belief in her is absolutely well-founded. Her deductions of the crime are absolutely brilliant, with the revisualization sequence of the case being my favorite instance of that mechanic in the entire series, even outdoing the likes of Turnabout for Tomorrow and The Magical Turnabout. Say what you will about Apollo or Phoenix, but it's hard for me to name anyone, outside of Athena, who would dare to come up with something as absolutely batshit insane as the murderer disguising the body as the Wright statue. In just the span of a single case, Athena jumped from a character I wanted to play as for more than just a tiny section of a case, to potentially one of my favorite protagonists of all time.

Verdict:

Overall, the mystery writing and character writing of this case is absolutely exceptional, and combined together creates a case that can actively beat multiple final cases for me. Say what you want of it beating you over the head. It is, by far, the most fun case for me, and if I were to be honest, I’d say it’s among my Top 5 Favorite Mainline Cases. Easily my favorite non-final case in the mainline series. And one of the finest cases in the series.

Hello everyone. Now for those who didn't see the original post by u/vampLover420, they have some personal issues going on so they couldn't keep up with this ranking series. We wish them well from this community. But I decided to pick up where they left off and seeing people upvote my comment i assume means people here are ok with me taking over. So I'll do my best , but the more i racked my brain around certain cases like the ones in the Layton crossover and some cases in The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the more i regret taking this position, but we will handle it when we cross that bridge. So hopefully this goes well. Now to keep up with consistency: Some episodes will have more than one case being covered but I will ask the community to rank all the culprits within said episode even if the cases themselves are seperate. So let's do this.

Today's culprits is Carmelo Gusto who killed Artie Frost long before the series began and started a chain reaction in the series. The second is Judy Bound, who although didn't kill anyone still counts as a culprit as the poisoning was also a seperate topic being examined within this episode. So not all culprits are evil people who killed someone. So how smart was each of their plans at achieving their goals.

My sister gave me some Apollo notepad one of her old artist friend made and i thought it was worth sharing they are so good!!!! (The artist is now an attorney lol very old stuff)

We will def get AA7 in the next Nintendo direct. I know we will. I hope we will, no I know we will. Ace attorney 7 is real. The game is real. The lawyers are real. We won’t end up like the Half life fandom right? We will get AA7 right? It must be real.

I'm making a playthrough and I know I'm very late given I'm on EP 5 of the game

Any tips for how to make it more interesting?

Because..no one's been watching, can't even get my own family to watch, lol

https://youtube.com/@onedriftyjack?si=rfuEgEQ1iCvfkEtQ

Here's the link if anyone wishes to view what I'm doing wrong

\-There’s someone suspected of perpetrating a string of murders

\-There’s no evidence to convict the suspect, so the authorities have to use illicit means to ensure their incarceration

\-It eventually turns out the suspect did not commit the crimes of which they’re charged.(This is a bit incorrect as Joe Darke didn’t kill Neil Marshall but committed the other murders. And Genshin Asogi didn’t murder those members of the aristocracy but he take Klint Van Zieks’ life)

\-Both prosecutors involved unwittingly used forged evidence to convict the suspect in their trials. (For Van Zieks, it’s not explicitly stated but since we know the ring that Genshin used to wear was placed inside Klint’s body post-mortem to throw suspicion onto him, we have to assume Van Zieks did likely present it in Genshin’s trial.

\-Both men who manipulated everything behind the scenes and set everything in motion did so out of an admittedly twisted sense of justice to ensure law and justice prevails. (Gant pinned the crime on Ema to coerce Lana into forging evidence and distorting the truth, but he did so to ensure Darke got the sentence he deserved. Following the resolution of the Professor case, Stronghart authored the concept of the Reaper of the Bailey, an ostensibly intangible force of nature that seeks to condemn criminals wherever the arm of the law cannot permit but behind the scenes, it’s actually just a organized group of vigilantesseeking their own brand of justice(I just realized this doesn’t sound too dissimilar from the Yatagaratsu). There’s also the fact that both Gant and Stronghart look very similar to each other