Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (A Retrospective)

** Post contains heavy spoilers for Apollo Justice **

Let’s say that Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (AJ) worked like a traditional videogame. It only has to have a great gameplay for it to be good, and with features the previous 3 Phoenix Wright games don’t have (sans the DS-exclusive fifth chapter of the first game), AJ could easily be considered a superior game. With AJ, investigations are more involving, since evidences are no longer static objects and you had to view them in 3 dimensions, occasionally requiring that you use cool scientific implements to see traces of fingerprints, footprints or bloods, or to manipulate recording equipments to find telling signs of struggle. It’s also more streamlined, in that if you’ve picked up every evidence and spoke to every witness in a given location, the game will not permit you to stop by here again.

By the standards of a normal videogame, AJ bests Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney 1-3 (PW).

Of course, AJ being a text-heavy adventure game means that it should be judged differently, with its technical aspect playing only a side fiddle to its leading component, the story. Point and click adventure games were first conceptualized at a time when game designers wanted to offer players an interactive role within a complex narrative, but technologies limited the ways videogames can accomplish this. Enter Infocom’s Zorks, the Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker games, with their workarounds being that while you’re reading copious amounts of texts, you’re still “gaming” by typing the correct verbs and nouns to “win”. Then that kind of gaming evolved into what became the colorful Sierra and the LucasArts point-and-click-fests where you’re presented scenarios, then met with obstacles you’re, hopefully, creative enough to make sense of with the items that you’ve picked up along the way (how’s chicken on pulleys work for you?). Any game of the Ace Attorney series is the mix of the amount of reading from the Infocom era, plus the graphical presentation and puzzle-solving from the Sierra/LucasArts offerings. They all require that the gameplay be functional, but only in the sense that it should not get in the way of enjoying their stories and clever writings.

I was not prepared for AJ’s story to be as weak as it turned out to be. A post I wrote in January 2008 reflected the uncontainable hype I had for this game after having played the demo of its first chapter. It’s funny that I should be disappointed, because I knew and accepted right away that I’d play as another rookie lawyer Apollo Justice instead of the much beloved, my personal favorite Phoenix Wright. Phoenix Wright in this game has fallen from grace, with his attorney badge revoked and his whole career changed to that of a gambling lord moonlighting as pianist in a shoddy bar. I was genuinely interested to understand why all these happened, and more to the point, why the writers decided for someone like the eponymous Apollo Justice to replace Phoenix Wright as the leading guy.

Apollo Justice is awful. He and Phoenix Wright are not exactly fan-base dividing new-versus-old leads like Kirk and Picard, who each has his own personalities and quirks; everyone will prefer Phoenix over Apollo, the latter practically the former’s copycat. Both are bumbling lawyers who lack self-confidence, the only differences being that Phoenix is more passionate and more cognizant of events than most of the cast, while I never got the sense that Apollo cares to win his case. He’s so slow that people like his rival prosecutor Klavier Gavin and even his sidekick Trucy Wright have to spell out the logical context of the events for him. Those would’ve make Apollo Justice far less interesting than Phoenix, but to add insult to the injury, it has never been made clear why he became a lawyer in the first place. He has one thing going for him though, which is that he has a special ability to detect suspicious body movements; unfortunately he could only do that when witnesses are testifying in courtroom, making that feature under-utilized. What his motivation is for taking up his profession, no one knows, and after playing as him in one game I’m not sure I care to know anymore. He’s like what happens sometimes when I meet an acquaintance and in our brief interaction, I can’t say I know everything about him/her, but know enough to decide that I’m not interested in learning more about him/her.

Has Capcom learned nothing from Raiden of Metal Gear Solid 2? You don’t replace a popular lead with another guy who’s exactly like him and expect this to go over well with fans. Devil May Cry 4 is another game where Capcom has done this (and released on the same year, to boot!). What’s odd is that Capcom has effectively replaced the lead of one of its franchises before. While no one is ever going to mistake Megaman as a series known for quality storytelling, the way it made us accept Zero should’ve become a model of how to change leads. First let the audiences warm up to the new guy, such that by the time he takes over they’ll embrace him like they did in Megaman Zero.

Apollo Justice, though, isn’t the only guy holding the whole game back from achieving the wacked-out greatness of the previous titles. All the main characters pale in comparison to their PW’s counterparts. The sidekick, Trucy Wright, is exactly like Maya or young Ema Skye (from PW1’s case 5) except that she is a magician-in-training (as in, a prestidigitator) instead of spirit-medium or forensics scientist. The grown-up Ema Skye is not the lovable oaf that Dick Gumshoe was but rather a detective with so much attitude you’d think she was perpetually PMS-ing, making most of your interactions with her thoroughly unpleasant (she keeps throwing snack bits at you).

But, by far, the biggest wastes of great storytelling opportunity are the Gavin brothers - defense attorney Kristoph and prosecutor Klavier. Kristoph is Apollo’s mentor, who turned out to be the true culprit of the first case (and tried to frame Phoenix for it). Later it is shown that his heart is full of darkness, hiding secrets so wicked that not even Phoenix’s truth-seeking gem (Magatama) could unlock them. I don’t know why he turned this evil, and if you presumed that his outlook has any relation to his younger brother Klavier you’ll be dead wrong. Nothing about Gavin’s brotherhood mattered – I wouldn’t know they’re brothers if they didn’t share the same surname and hairdo. Consequently, Kristoph is an interesting character who ultimately lacks depth because of writer’s neglect.

Klavier infuriated me the most. Here is a new prosecutor designed with every pop star appeal that women squee over – he’s good looking, he’s part of a rock band, he has swagger. He’s clinically made to rock, and yet he failed big time at that. Unlike most prosecutors Phoenix encounters, who stake their reputation to defeat Phoenix, Klavier couldn’t care less that he loses cases as long as he’s on the right. The whole “white knight fighting for justice routine” that made Superman and Captain America iconic yet boring, except that Klavier is not iconic because he looks like a rejected design of Devil May Cry’s Dante – who’d definitely be a better prosecutor than Klavier. Am I against a story having a goody-two-shoesy guy? No, but that guy needs to resemble a flesh and blood human being rather than a cardboard cut-out placeholder of justice. His non-reaction from seeing his brother (in cases 1 and 4) and his band-mate, who also happens to be his best friend (case 3), getting convicted of murder is so inhumanly and emotionless, Rick Deckard from Blade Runner should’ve suspected him of being a Replicant.

By the time I finish the game (which didn’t take long) my indifference to the game’s story bothered me enough that I started a minor discussion over at some forum saying I wasn’t feeling any of the game’s characters. One guy told me that AJ’s brilliance is that if one would sit back and think about it one would observe that all its key characters deliberately reversed the roles of their counterparts in PW. The mentor is evil unlike PW’s Mia. The sidekick can take care of herself unlike PW’s Maya. The prosecutor is nice and isn’t antagonistic like Miles Edgeworth. The detective, unlike Dick Gumshoe, is smart yet hates her job. Cool if you’ve noticed all that, and I would agree, but I’m not exactly asking for role reversal. All I wanted was fresh story, and genuinely engaging characters. Besides, in the process of reversing everything about what made PW’s characters likable, you get aloofness as opposed to passionate, and you get boring instead of engaging. No one in AJ is developed well, and they don’t seem to care that you don’t know them either. So why should I bother?

I didn’t want nor expect AJ to leave aside Phoenix from the story, but boy does it feel like everyone else is a bit player to his personal drama. Apollo, Trucy, Ema and Klavier pretty much are fencesitters throughout the game, observing their clients and Phoenix’s lives with nary a care. What’s most damning is AJ’s very own Phoenix Wright, an unrecognizably aloof, lazy-eyed, indifferent, overbearing hobo figure, a ghost of the awkward excitable guy everyone loved in PW1-3. The game goes at great length to explain why he’s changed. In case 4, he is revealed to have inadvertently submitted fake evidence on court, where he got penalized by a ban from practicing law. I don’t buy this, and here’s why:

1.) In PW1-3, Phoenix wouldn’t take this sitting down; here there’s no desperate plea to set his record straight.

2.) AJ betrays its world’s logic because there has never been an issue with Edgeworth and both of von Karmas when they submitted fake evidences.

3.) The many lives Phoenix saved and the reputations of the court of justice he helped preserved, and he gets severely punished for the one folly he did not intentionally do?

By case 4, we’re presented a supercomputer by which all the remaining events of the game – the courtroom and the investigation – will be viewed, while Phoenix Wright travel back and forth from 7 years ago to present, unraveling the mystery that led to his loss of lawyer stint. The game screws up logic square in the face, requiring that you present evidences you acquire in the future to people of the past. Then once the game is near completion, the game flat out asks you if you would like to see the good or the bad ending (and since the credits don’t roll in the bad one, everyone can be secure in the knowledge that this won’t be the canonical end). Sci fi and AA blend about as clumsily as a plumber critiquing the art exhibit of Salvador Dali, but if anyone has to do the time traveling, the writers have to do it. Please go back to the drawing board and may I have your attention: will the real Ace Attorney please stand up?

Sick Man

I don’t know if there’s a good time to be sick. Mildly sick, maybe, like when you can get your body temp somewhat high that you’d convince your boss that you need to stay home and rest, when all you wanted to do was to read or play books or videogames you just got your hands on.

On the opposite, I haven’t thought up a list of worst times to be sick, but if I were to do that, “while traveling” would rank high up. In my past 6 days I was spending every waking hour loathing that fact, suffering through my fever as I traveled Taiwan’s locales.

I usually deal with my sickness by resting and fasting. This fever I contracted on Taiwan, though, came when it’s not convenient for me to be lying on a bed all day, covered in blanket and taking drowse-inducing pills. I spent my days there busy, and even as my condition wore me out I had to stay awake, doing my job. I needed a fast cure, even one that might not be the best cure. I did not know how to do this, so I consulted from an assortment of people – relatives, people who handed out those brown Chinese medicines with weird bitter tastes, acupuncture therapists, and doctors who prescribe western medicines.

When it comes health advices, I find myself surprised that there’s rarely a consensus. In my six days recovering from a fever, I’ve heard one guy tell me that I should not eat because fasting is a way for the human body to clean up, but then another guy would say that, in spite of the lack of appetite, I should eat lest I don’t take in any nutrients that would cure the disease. One would tell me to not take a bath, another would say it’s ok to take a bath – and with the weather reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s hard to not resist a shower now and then. The only thing that people agreed on was that I needed to get some sleep, but then even the condition of sleeping was subjected to debate, like if it’s ok that I sleep on an air-conditioned room or should I sweat it out in the absence fans and air-cons.

In six days, my back was all red because of Gua Sha (a Chinese back scraping treatment), I’ve spent 30 minutes with needles punctured on both my hands, I’ve gone to “nasal treatment center” (that rose in popularity because of SARS and H1N1) where my throat and nose were dabbed with weird concoction sticking on a cotton swab, and I got some neck twisting massage that was so rough that I’m surprised my breath still hasn’t left me. And then, finally, I went with eating pills, which let drowsiness hit me as fast as a train traveling at bullet speed would kill me. I don’t know which of them were most effective, but although my fever has gone away, I still have persistent cough bugging me.

My days in Taiwan, all spent in illness. I don’t think I have much travel insights for this time around. There was something I wanted to say in this post, but some time in the writing, I forgot what it is.

Kung Fu Dunk Live Tweet Experience

I’m tempted to watch Jay Chou’s Kung Fu Dunk just to see if it’s as ridiculous (in a good way) as the title suggests

Also, Jay Chou and I have the same surname. You’ve just read a fact that you could not give a rat’s ass about. Thanks for reading.

I’m gonna live tweet Jay Chou’s Kung Fu Dunk. At the first 5 mins now and it already has 3 jokes that fell

Ooh slow mo already? It took Shaolin Soccer half an hour into the movie to use that gimmick. MORE IS MORE!

Stephen Chow’s character in Shaolin Soccer didn’t have to rely on some wish fulfillment scenarios, but Jay Chou has to?

I mean what the hell, every girl in Taiwan thinks Jay Chou is a stud, yet I’m supposed to be convinced that he’s a dweeb in this movie?

[the_nutbox responds: My name is J too but nobody thinks Im a stud. The world is so unfair! ]

I’m pretty sure no master in history has ever died from practicing kung fu stances in the snow.

Jay Chou’s acting is horrible. Like, there’s no heft in his enunciation, in a language that often sounds animated.

Oh so we’re supposed to think that a guy who can shoot coins straight into the mouth of a man is a basketball genius?

Btw just a disclaimer, my tweets for the next few minutes will contain major spoilers for Kung Fu Dunk

So look away if you’re someone who gets bothered by somebody spoiling a sports movie.

This is the kind of annoying strawberry generation pandering movie where the young people always have greater abilities than the elders.

Look, shooting bullseyes on dartboards doesn’t make one a better baller! Why not just call the movie “kung fu shooter”?

maybe nba teams should take cues from this movie and draft players by going to those shoddy bars with dart games in it

first fight scene kinda decent even if it looks like a gentrified suburban kid trying to flail his foot around

btw Stephen Chow’s surname is also the same as mine! Yet another fact no one cares about.

you know a movie is not doing it for you when its protagonist get beaten up, dramatic music plays, and your reaction is tweet about surnames

So Jay Chou guy gets to learn to play basketball by watching a powerpoint slideshow about its rules? THAT’S HOW JORDAN LEARNED TO PLAY TOO!

why do these movies make it so obvious who’s going to be the love interest by playing some romantic piano music when the girl first show?

Jay Chou is so stone faced, like Richard Gutierrez but Chinese. In Taiwanese I would call him “Jiu Tao Bin”. In Tagalog “Batong mukha”.

“Whoever gets the rebounds wins the game” yeah good job stealing lines from Slam Dunk, which is infinitely better than this trainwreck

Jay Chou can consistently shoot 3s from half court despite having never played before and having only practiced by shooting cans on bins.

Another plot stolen from Slam Dunk: the love interest being the younger sister of the team captain. Wow.

The dribblings from the obvious pop stars are so bad they would be called traveling, except when Lebron does it.

Why the hell does a jumpshot need a slowmo?

I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to drink wine while on bench. Hmm lemme ask ron artest to confirm this!

What the hell, the gym this team practices on look like those halls from taiwan’s famed computer expo. Maybe even its world trade center!

(looks at wikipedia and learns that it’s actually Shanghai’s Science Museum. Scrimmage in a science museum?!)

THIS IS SUBURBAN BASKETBALL, NOT THE REAL BASKETBALL WHERE PEOPLE FROM THE POOR HAVE TO TOUGH IT OUT

No joke, people in this movie can jump higher than those players from NBA Jam

A ball arching downward getting blocked was not called for goal tending and then it magically catapulted to the other hoop and went in.

The only comedic moment that managed to illicit a response from me came from a player making fun of Jay Chou’s gentrified upbringing.

First dunk Jay Chou does in game is a 3 point line dunk WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS!

the acting in this movie is so bad there are more awkward silences in it than there are dialogues

What the, there’s a team who wears american gladiators-like costume as basketbball jersey!

wow the opposing team flying kicked a baller and did not get called foul

i’m pretty sure you’re not permitted to wear metallic shoulder blades in a ball game

between the leg reverse layup ???

so the match is cancelled because the power was cut off, and will be resumed in 3 days. The score? 50 against 4. riiight.

how come everybody who’s into “illegal business” in this movie speaks cantonese? hk stereotype much?

another chinese movie trope: camera panning around the female actress when she’s crying

KFD’s idea for a pickup line: “i’ve always wanted to eat ice cream since i was a kid, but never had the chance. you’re like that ice cream”

ok i’ve stopped being entertained by how bad this movie is. it needs to end post haste.

what in the world, now some Qi bao wearing group shows up in a basketball game and plays?!

i’ve witness like 10 whole court pass alley oops already

some kung fu guy blocks a shot by sticking his body on the board!

why is no one in the movie indignant over how poorly officiated the game is?!

it makes home court games in Cleveland Cavaliers look like professional, balanced officiating!

an all out kung fu brawl in the court but no one in the audience was terrified for what happened. Malice in the Palace taught nothing

KFD is trying so hard to be Shaolin Soccer and even Kung Fu Hustle, and fails tremendously at either.

i give up. not watching this any longer.

(hours later)

So I’m gonna finish this crappy piece of crap movie “Kung Fu Dunk”. Live tweeting the remaining 10 minutes.

What an awful looking dunk. Toss the ball up while you’re at the peak of the jump, then catch it while you’re stationary airborne

WHY IS IT THAT THE MUSIC THAT PLAYS ON THAT BASKETBALL GAME HAS A GUY SINGING “TOFU TOFU TOFU”. HOW IS TOFU RELATED TO BASKETBALL?!

OH I GET IT I GUESS THAT MEANS VEGETARIANS WILL LEARN TO BALL LIKE PRO. I GUESS I STAND A CHANCE AFTER ALL!

3 pt line between the leg posterizing dunk my God this is so ridiculous

And why isn’t any one of these ballers sweating at all?!

OK so in final possession is the only time any players started working a sweat? In the last 2 sec?

Block the ball by punching it up below the hoop, and no one protests. Wow.

Step aside Christopher Reeves’ Superman, Jay Chou can reverse time by using kung fu moves, so that he can do the last possession again.

I mean sure, what Shaolin Soccer was missing was some sci fi time travel plot, right? THAT MAKES KUNG FU DUNK SO MUCH BETTER.

(Batrock responds: I didn’t much like Shaolin Soccer, myself. )

@Batrock I don’t either, but it’s “Hoop Dreams” in comparison to Kung Fu Dunk.

Time travel meant background became full of clouds & assorted objects like airplanes and evil faces. You got nothing on this 2001 Space Odd!

Next in Kung Fu Dunk 2: Jay Chou learns to use the fifth dimension and can tesser from hoops to hoops at will.

Not an ounce of this movie is genuine. It’s so crass and calculated and pandering.

Whole crowd cheered for the “villain team” when they won in d alt timeline, & did d same when d hero team won. Whose home is this anyway!

What the hell is with this abandoned son reunites with his guilt ridden rich dad scene? It’s so sappy and pointlessly sentimental

His mentor gets cast aside coz “real dad who abandoned you in bball court” loves you more than “wine expert involved in shady dealings”.

But then of course they get some teary reunion because Jay Chou eventually realizes who has been there for him all along.

You know people can’t tell if a scene is supposed to be sad or not unless you play violin in the background, of course.

Why is the theme song of this movie “please wear some qibao or else I’ll eat your tofu”? Isn’t “eat tofu” chinese slang for “eating skin”?

Charlene Choi in KFD looks uncomfortably close to one girl I dated and parted with much bitterness.

What is the point of stealing Slam Dunk’s “whoever gets the rebound wins the game” when the people in KFD don’t rebound, like, ever?

KFD is terrible and those who want to see it because it’s a Jay Chou’s product are better off diving into his mansion’s sewage.