These are my notes playing the enhanced PC compilation of the first Ace Attorney trilogy. I had never played the game series before. Expect spoilers below, but if you were not planning on playing it why not read anyway?

Ace Attorney

Bought and started playing Phoenix Wright. I waited long enough. Seems good so far, but maybe a bit tedious.

Ace Attorney - Justice for All

Started the second game. I’m surprised they seem to have reused everything from the first game. So often I’ve wished that for a given game there was just more of the same, but no, the sequels always try to change so much and often end up being worse.

Continuing the Ace Attorney games that I somehow dropped a year ago despite them being great so far.

Great stuff, although occasionally too tricky. I don’t mind peeking a guide though, usually I’m happy if I had the right idea, or shrug it off if it seems like something impossible to get right.

Trials and Tribulations

Playing Trials and Tribulations. It uses a common pattern in fiction where “chapters” are not presented in time order: The events are shown in order 2-1-3, where part 2 starts out very mysterious because it refers events and outcomes of part 1 which are only presented partially and vaguely. Then we get to part 1 which reveals even more than 2 suggested and sets up new questions. It also becomes clear that things were not in fact resolved satisfactorily in part 2. So then we finally get part 3 “the third act” where things do get properly resolved. For the reader this kind of pacing can feel very satisfying when done properly.

In this game, the pattern happens with Dahlia Hawthrone who is a charming villain girl. I’m only still at the middle of “part 1”. There is also the mysterious prosecutor Godot who gets revealed in this chapter. I’m quite sure his character will go along with this same 2-1-3 pattern, the question being what kind of beef he has with Phoenix who has apparently never met him (or does not recognize him with the disguise).

Of course if you have any flashbacks at all, then you will always have events in time order 2-1-3, but my point here is this ordering being used to create mystery in particular:

• 2 is more interesting than usual because less things are known.
• 1 is more interesting because we know the stakes better (eg inciting event can be less interesting when it comes first and we have no idea where the story is going to go).
• Finally, 3 is more exciting because it comes soon after 1 is still fresh in memory. It makes the past and the present feel more connected, with the middle parts 2 changed into a kind of intro.

I also love this “reverse reveal” of Godot: For the first chapters I was wondering if this masked guy is some existing character, and the only one I could think was the police chief, but that was also impossible because that special chapter actually got made for special Nintendo DS release. But then comes this “part 1” chapter that shows him exactly like he is, just without the mask. Has the same coffee addiction and the exact same demeanour. And at the very end of the chapter it starts to play his jazz theme too, just perfect direction.

This last chapter is pretty good.

Hey! I don’t have anything to do with spirit power. The only thing I can channel is a TV.

He’s an artist but all he draws is trouble.

Playing more Trials and Tribulations. I noticed that in this universe spiritual power seems to be inversely proportional to goodness of the person. The bad guys, or rather the bad girls, are all powerless or nearly so, while Maya and Pearls are the most powerful. Another theme I noticed is that it’s always the right move to dig out the truth, even if it looks like you are hurting your own case. This game is about honesty rather than winning.

Wow, that final chapter of the third game was epic. I’m at loss thinking how someone goes about writing these stories where the “truth” constantly evolves as new evidence comes to light and lies get discarded. Probably you need to go back and forth, and then at the end when you have the complete truth in mind, go backwards step at a time to obscure everything about in until you reach the very beginning. Then play from the beginning and fix all the inevitable mistakes you made, tweaking and tweaking.

Godot is damn amazing. Makes me inspired and laugh so many times. He was poisoned with coffee and then woke from the coma 5 years later to the smell of a doctor’s cup of coffee.

Dahlia best girl.

81 hours spent on this trilogy, time well spent. Now there’s only two more trilogies and a two-parter to play! I already bought the trilogies too since there was a sale… Truth be told I’m more interested in The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles because of its setting, but I plan to play the games in the more in the original publishing order (though maybe not exactly), so Apollo is coming up next.