Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice

[WhiteDragon25]

Well, my birthday was just yesterday, so I finally got my hands on the latest Ace Attorney game: Spirit of Justice.

Our old heroic lawyer Phoenix Wright travels to the Kingdom of Khura'in, a small but deeply-religious country located in the Himalayan Mountains region, to visit his old friend and former-assistant Maya Fey as she completes her training as Master of the Kurain Channelling Technique. Of course, trouble immediately finds Nick, as he is quickly dragged into the bizarre court system of Khura'in, where defense attorneys are virtually non-existent and widely despised, and verdicts are handed down on the basis of Divination Seances.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, rookie attorneys Apollo Justice and Athena Cykes have their own share of troubles in having to face off against a visiting foreign prosecutor who also hails from the Kingdom of Khura'in.


Now that the basic synopsis is out of the way, onto my thoughts on the game: it's wonderful to play Ace Attorney again... though FUCK THE KHURA'IN COURT SYSTEM.

Good fucking god, this shit's almost as bad as the Cardassian court system. Khura'in is full of xenophobic lawyer-hating assholes. This 'system' is unbelievably corrupt, with its religiously-fanatical populace having an insane irrational hateboner for defense attorneys, a so-called Defense Culpability Act making it so that attorneys suffer the same fate as their defendents (most commonly the death penalty), and the trials decided by a haughty, pretentious, self-entitled teenage brat with the ability to reveal the deceased victims' last moments via Divination... and said visions are taken as infallible.

The first trial alone, there are glaring institutional flaws: trials are usually decided in just minutes, with the accused having no say whatsoever in confronting the accusations, the seance visions are presided over by a 14-year-old girl indoctrinated to see her word as infallible and indisputable (making her insufferable and conceited), and the visions themselves are highly vague and lacking in context. Oh, and to make matters worse, the prosecutor in the first case here is our usual hated asshat, Gaspen Payne (brother of Winston Payne), who has apparently fled to Khura'in and converted to the local religion simply to bask in the complete lack of lawyers present to debunk and humiliate him... and when Phoenix shows up to defend the unlucky kid charged with treason in this case (for supposedly stealing a priceless national treasure and murdering a security guard), he gleefully attempts to exploit the chance to get Phoenix killed via the Defense Culpability Act. Fuck you, Gaspen Payne.

And then there's the actual culprit of the case, Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin (continuing the long tradition of groan-inducing puns: Peace, Love, and Understanding), who is another recent convert who somehow made head priest in the chief temple of the country, who puts on an act of being an annoying hippy, but is in reality an obnoxious metalhead and the real thief behind the national treasure and the one to frame the poor kid Ahlbi Ur'gaid (I'll Be Your Guide) of the murder of the security guard Paht Rohl (Patrol)... who apparently also tried to steal the national treasure, but failed due to Pees'lubn already stealing it long beforehand.

Seriously, how incompetent can these people be to let a six-month foreign convert become head priest of their most important temple and guardian of their priceless relics!?

Oh, and promoting a continual failure like Gaspen to the post of Chief Prosecutor and revering him as if he were an actual hero. And letting a teenage brat have actual authority in a criminal case and treating her every word as if it were divine providence. Real easy way to royally screw up someone in the head like that (no pun intended... considering she's also the heiress and daughter of the country's queen).

God I hate this country already. And don't even fucking get me started on their goddamn fucking pretentious holier-than-thou shitlord of a prosecutor... I already want to carve his fucking eyes out with a spoon.

Plus there's this yet-to-be-explained hubbub about a bunch of rebels called the Defiant Dragons lurking about, and the big deal behind the King/Minister of Justice who is apparently a barely-restrained crypto-fascist in plain sight who I want to drive that fucking ciger of his through his eyes.

Something's rotten in the Kingdom of Khura'in... something foul enough to spark revolution...

 

[Ford Prefect]

I was interested up until your rant at the nonexistent judicial system of a fictional country that exists in a satirical game full of exaggerated court room antics. Why are you angry about this?

 

[WhiteDragon25]

I was interested up until your rant at the nonexistent judicial system of a fictional country that exists in a satirical game full of exaggerated court room antics. Why are you angry about this?

Click to shrink...

What, you can't feel sympathy for beloved characters having to put up with such bullshit? Emotional investment is intentional in any given work of fiction. Otherwise, why read stories, play games, or watch performances at all?

The anger I have here is at the abstract concepts being presented: religious fanaticism inhibiting rational thought, encouraging zealous bloodlust for the deaths of potential innocents, the accused being denied fair representation, the hypocrisy of the hatred of lawyers (as lawyers, i.e.: practictioners of the study of law, include both defense attorneys and prosecutors... yet the latter are revered while the former are despised... despite the latter in this series having a notorious track record of being far more corrupt), the fallacy of papal infallibility (in simple terms: even accepting the idea their Holy Mother exists: she may be infallible, but humans aren't; a 14-year-old girl especially so, even with mystic powers), the willful ignorance of the need for context (the sensations displayed in the Pool of Souls are real, yes... but they are entirely vague and ill-defined without proper context), and the insufferable 'holier-than-thou' attitudes of some of the characters (Royal Priestess Rayfa Padma Khura'in and Prosecutor Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, for starters... god, their insults and contempt for Wright & co. are disgusting...).

It's basically a demonstration of everything wrong with a system that does not know what the concept of "Separation of Church and State" is.

Here's an idea: try replacing the Khura'inist religious courts here with a Christian or Muslim equivalent... see the problem with it now? That is exactly the issue here. It's far too terrifyingly true to real life.

 

[Ford Prefect]

I get why the place is bad, and I'm always sympathetic to Ryuuichi et al, but at some point you have to dial back a little.

 

[WhiteDragon25]

I get why the place is bad, and I'm always sympathetic to Ryuuichi et al, but at some point you have to dial back a little.

Click to shrink...

Hey, do remember that this is SV: a community of obsessed nerds who can get very enthusiastic at times.

Besides, I'm only on the First Trial Day of Case 3 so far right now, I've yet to see more of the unfolding plot.

 

[Gears]

Spirit of justice is amazing in the way it stacks the deck even more for poor phoenix.

 

[WhiteDragon25]

Spirit of justice is amazing in the way it stacks the deck even more for poor phoenix.

Click to shrink...

Oh, definitely. Though it also comes with plenty of other surprises as well:

- The whole shebang surrounding the High Priest's death at the Inner Sanctum. Apparently, both he and his wife were rebels, and the High Priest committed suicide to protect his wife from the government and keep the Inner Sanctum's rebel hideout secret. And his adopted-son-for-all-intents-and-purposes was the notorious "rebel hunter Lady Khee'ra" that was making the headlines... and that was a secret assignment from the Minister of Justice as part of a conspiracy to hunt down and destroy the Defiant Dragons. The entire damn case was a convoluted mess of conspiratorial intrigue, and its revelation is apparently the spark that ignites the fires of revolution.

- And for something completely different: the fourth episode being a complete diversion from the main plot, being a standalone case for Athena. Good to see Prosecutor Blackquill again, here having dragged Athena in so she can defend his friend, and therefore also save his favorite bar. I also love how he and Prosecutor Nahyuta haaatte each other. Those two are like polar opposites - one's a sarcastic ex-convict, the other is a ultra-religious tightwad. Put them in the same room, and they start verbally tearing into each other's throats!

Additionally, this episode comes with the surprise appearance of a character with multiple-personality disorder - the first of its kind that I've ever encountered anywhere! Not only that, he/they are healthy and functional adult(s), doing perfectly fine in normal everyday life (well, as normal as you could get with multiple different personalities in the same body... and living in the AA universe). This is refreshingly novel and creative, and is a concept that deserves a lot more attention to be explored - something that this episode sadly underutilized. Despite the feeling of wasted potential, it was nonetheless a simple and low-key episode that worked as a short lighter-hearted break from the extremely serious primary plot.

- We finally get to see Apollo's backstory! And holy shit, is it one hell of a colorful past: his foster father was, apparently, the Defiant Dragons rebel leader Dhurke, former-attorney-turned-revolutionary, and grew up alongside Dhurke's biological son, Prosecutor Nahyuta, who also was a former rebel himself before turning turning government lapdog. We even get to see a glimpse of who Apollo's biological father was: Jove Justice, a travelling musician who eventually made his way to Khurai'in... where he died. Dhurke eventually left Apollo in America so he wouldn't come to harm as a result of Dhurke's revolutionary activity, but Dhurke promised to return one day to get him... which turned out to be 10 years later, by which point Apollo had moved on and grew into the attorney we know today. So basically: Apollo is the son of Thalassa Gramarye and Jove Justice, half-brother of Trucy Wright, grew up in the foreign country of Khura'in as the the adopted son-and-brother of revolutionary Dhurke and future-monk/prosecutor Nehyuta, later returning to the USA as an orphan, made friends with Clay Terran (future astronaut), went to law school and came under the apprenticeship of Kristoph Gavin, before sending his mentor to jail for murder and since then falling under the charge of Phoenix Wright.

Wow, Apollo has been places! On a side note, though: apparently Phoenix and Thalassa still haven't revealed the truth to Apollo and Trucy yet! WTF, Nick!?

- Oh, but the most astonishing thing yet is: we also finally get a courtroom face-off between Apollo and Phoenix! But that's not the most unbelievable part here - it's how they did it: through a civil court case, over a property ownership dispute! That still manages to involve a murder and drags ol' Kurain Village back into the limelight again after so many years! Holy shit, the plot here is amazing!:lol

God, the complexity of the storyline here ties together so many nostalgic elements.

 

[Gears]

I haven't managed to get the dlc episode yet.

 

[WhiteDragon25]

I haven't managed to get the dlc episode yet.

Click to shrink...

Me neither, but I'm hoping to get it tomorrow at some point.

 

[clockworkchaos]

Spirit of justice is amazing in the way it stacks the deck even more for poor phoenix.

Click to shrink...

Honestly I had kinda kinda the opposite reactions. Which is it's amazing how much they tried to make it look like the deck was stacked it really wasn't. Like, phoneix still gets away with the entire "Your client has the murder weapon and the only one with the opportunity and there is only one tiny thing which isn't even that big a deal but we'll continue the trial anyways" deal that has been a staple of the genre since the first game. Like I honestly started tuning out the whole "we had defense lawyers" after the second rank, since it never meaningfully impacted game-play. It was like a wrestler talking about how dangerous they were and how they would rip out their opponents spine and the doing the exact same moves everyone else does.

About the only thing that I actually found entertaining coming from the hatred was using the princess for an assistant in case 3, having a hostile assitant was entertaining, and deals with a problem that pretty much every assitant has been a Maya clone. (The death seances also also the best new mechanic the series has introduced, but their introduction isn't dependent on the anti-lawyer sentiment).

 

[WhiteDragon25]

Finally finished the game (aside from the DLC, which I have not gotten yet), and hot damn was the final case fantastic.

Absolutely everything was mind-blowing. There was just so much incredible stuff going on, I don't know where to start!

Dhurke actually being dead the whole time since the moment he shows up at the Wright Anything Agency? And Apollo having to figure that out at the trial itself!? Holy shit, is that a dramatic reveal or what!

And character development, character development everywhere! Princess Rayfa in particular: she actually managed to outgrow being a haughty, self-righteous brat... after having to suffer through the traumatic death of her father, and absolutely everything about her entire worldview being completely shattered into a million pieces, and having quite possibly the worst (step-)mother anyone's ever seen in a long time. Oh, and Prosecutor Nehyuta... was actually faking being a pretentious holier-than-thou bastard. He was a revolutionary all along! Godddamn, did he do a good job of acting, because I genuinely wanted to strangle the life out of him, he was so convincing. Oh, but that just leads us to the reason why he was faking...

The previous Queen wasn't actually assassinated: Queen Amara was still alive, and is the mother of Rayfa as well.

Queen Ga'ran was the one who started the fire 23 years before, using it to ascend to the throne. She kept Amara essentially prisoner via framing Dhurke for the assassination attempt, and hid her in plain sight as Rayfa's elderly caretaker Nayfa. With her husband Inga as Minister of Justice, she passed the Defense Culpability Act in a bid to crush any and all opposition to her reign, and blackmailed Nehyuta into doing her bidding by threatening Amara's life and Rayfa's reputation.

Basically, what we have here is a Reichstag Fire. Queen Ga'ran's rise to power quite literally mirrors that of the Nazis.

Oh, and she is directly responsible for the death of Apollo's father Jove Justice. Whose Divination Seance was instrumental in exposing Ga'ran's crime and bringing about her downfall. Now that was a novel plot twist to tie in Apollo's missing father, who was long a subject of speculation and debate among AA fans.

Fucking awesome, this game was. A near-bloodless revolution deposing a corrupt fascist queen, all from a courtroom and a couple of defense attorneys.

And Apollo has now grown into his own as an attorney... and decided to stay in Khura'in to help rebuild the kingdom's legal system. I think we're all going to miss him... but I think this won't be the last we see of him in the series. Who knows, maybe we'll see Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney 2 someday? He'll be back.

I feel energized with revolutionary vigor now. VIVA LA REVOLUTION! VIVA DHURKE!