Spoilers. Obviously.
 |
| Source |
In light of the recent news that Apollo
Justice is finally getting a mobile release, now seems a good time to
talk about this one game, and hoo boy. This one's a beast to tackle.
If you know anything about this game, you know how divisive and
controversial this game is. On one hand, you've got the corner of
fans who hate this game with a passion, and everything it represents.
In the other corner are the fans who like it quite fine, and think
the outrage over it is totally unjustified.
If you wish to know where I'm coming
from when writing this, I'm moreso in the first camp. Apollo Justice
is my least favourite Ace Attorney game, though not because of any
drastic shifts in the world. My issues come from the story and actual
logic it uses and how confusing it gets. So, sit back and let's figure out where this game went wrong, and more importantly, why.
So how did this all start? After the
3rd game wrapped the story of the series up quite nicely,
Capcom was at a bit of a crossroads. Ace Attorney was undoubtedly a
money making series that they would do well to continue, but how does
one continue after a clean end? Well, usually a reboot is what
a lot of writers go for, but in this case, they decided to bring in a
totally new character and story, keeping the game mechanics. However,
it was eventually decided that they should keep some continuity, so
they brought in some old characters as well to appease old fans.
Yeah, that didn't go over well at all.
Most notably, Phoenix Wright was brought back, and let's just say a
lot of people weren't' very happy with how they did this. It's
interesting to look at, because it's a prime example of how not to
implement changes in a character.
The important thing to remember here is
that at first, most changes are neutral in concept. I believe that
the idea of making Phoenix lose his lawyer's badge wasn't what got
most people upset. I personally think it's not a bad idea, and it's
even a fantastic story hook to start off with. The problem is that
this idea was clearly thought of in a vacuum, and they didn't
properly take steps to make this make sense in the game.
This is made abundantly clear in 2
areas, both relating to the smoking gun of this idea: forged
evidence. First of all, the manner in which Phoenix loses his badge
is contrived as hell and totally clashes with the story and
characters set at the end of the 3rd game. At the end of
T&T, it was clearly established that going forward, Phoenix had
truly outgrown his weak, unconfident roots, and had truly risen to
the level of a great lawyer. Nice ending, all wrapped up with a bow.
But they ignored this, having him make the truly dumb choice of
trusting evidence he had no time to vet. They also make him go
against clearly established core values in previous games, him hating
the idea of crooked tactics in court.
I rag on these tired points because it
would not have been hard to fix these issues. Why not put Phoenix
into a scenario where he has no choice but to present the suspect
evidence? Say he had a personal connection to the defendant or
something along those lines. It would have given a reason for him to
act so recklessly. And on the other point, why not use the MASON
system's capabilities to show past events to show hints of Phoenix
becoming more jaded and disillusioned?
It's very clear that the writers were
trying to recapture the essence of the first Ace Attorney game.
Rookie lawyer, new world to establish, new gameplay mechanics. But in
doing so, they fell into the trap of mostly looking to the first game
for inspiration, and that led to Phoenix acting how
he did in the first game. When you're not looking to how characters were at the end, you're not going to see any need to explain changes. So of course it seems obvious Phoenix would make a dumb move in that mindset.
Alright, alright, I
slag the game off a lot, but credit where it's due, besides how
Phoenix acts, the game pretty much nails the first 2 cases. While a
lot of people do just write the entire game off, it's important to
recognize that the old AA magic is still very much present in a lot
of the game. The setting may not be your cup of tea, but the first
case has an excellent and engaging opening unlike any of the other
games, and the 2nd case is more of the same old AA
excellence in a lot of areas.
Alright, I'm not
here to give every detail on this game, as much as I would enjoy
that. Just remember that I'm not saying as much about the good
aspects of the game because of this fact. What I'm about to say is an
analysis of what went wrong in the 2nd half of the game,
not what I personally think about it. Just remember that most of
the stuff I don't mention I like quite a bit (Especially the music oh
my god).
So, case 3. This is
widely considered a bad case by many, and it's an excellent example
and word of warning to all story writers wanting to follow in the
footsteps of crime stories. It's clear to me here that the separate
elements of this case were almost certainly thought of separately,
with no cross checking between them to see if they would work well
together. It's easy to imagine such a scenario, too.
They come up with
the basic idea of the scene being a concert, and they've already got
a performer in the cast, so it already fits. They then think of the
elements of this case, a defendant who can't speak English, a gun as
the weapon, a “locked room” scenario, and the defendant can even
be a kid. Maybe we can incorporate international smuggling, and
undercover agents too!
Now, all this stuff
sounds fine, but the details muddy it up, details that were clearly
not , let's say, cross-examined. How is a kid supposed to fire a
powerful gun? What motive would a kid have? How would an
international smuggling operation fit into the overall story? How do
we get the kid to show any personality, since all we really have is
text?
All these elements,
when you lay them out, look ridiculous if you try to combine them
(Seriously, just throwing in international smuggling isn't a good
idea). We can see how ridiculous this seems now, so why not back at
the conceptual level? I can't say definitively, but the most likely
scenario in my eyes is that they created the story in a modular
fashion. By the time the separate parts started to grind up against
each other badly, it was likely too late to change the fundamental
parts of the case. It's a lesson in being sure to check and double
check all the important beats in your ideas before expanding on them.
And, finally we
arrive at case 4. No, that's not what I'm really wanting to talk about here. Case 4 is fine.
Let's discuss MASON.
MASON is the most
ambitious thing Ace Attorney has ever really tried. I'll be blunt; it
didn't work. I'm not talking about the story, I'm talking about how
it was conveyed. MASON, for those of you who don't remember well, is
supposed to be a database of sorts where the jury is supposed to
trawl through it and come to their own conclusion on the proceedings.
Sigh
I could literally
write a whole article about this system, and why in the game universe
it makes no goddamn sense. From conflicts of interest to half the
stuff in it being seemingly irrelevant to the case, there is no way
this would be greenlit. But let's assume for a second that it could
get by (With the crazy legal systems in place it wouldn't be too
surprising), and examine why it fails the player specifically.
For all the heat I
give it, MASON could have worked in theory. A system where we jump
between recorded events to try to piece together a story? Sign me up!
But the issues are too glaring here to ignore.
It's linear to a
disappointing degree. Yes, Ace Attorney isn't known for story paths
or anything, but it doesn't let you discover clues and evidence on
your own. Rather than using your own logic to figure out what you
need look for next, it is in every way like a tightly written
investigation sequence, just hopping between time periods. Yes, it
still works, but why would we even need to go about figuring out this
in such a convoluted manner? In such a story driven game, every piece
needs to have a purpose, otherwise it's just fluff and not valuable
to the story.
Of course,
everyone's biggest complaint with MASON is how it seemingly allows
you to transport evidence from the future into the past. Again, if
you don't remember, often you would gain evidence from some recorded
event in the future, but then go back to a recorded event in the past
and still being able to use it. This is handwaved as not being a 100%
accurate representation, but that's just not good enough. In a game
built around logic and reasoning, such blatant lazy storytelling
should not be allowed. It makes no sense, and even if there is a good
reason it's confusing to the player, the death knell for any story.
MASON is the sign
of the biggest problem with Apollo Justice: things just weren't
fitting together well. You can see all the signs of good ideas
underlying the problems at every step. Apollo is an interesting idea
for a character. The music is SO GOOD (It's my favourite OST in the
series guys it's that good).
The problem they
hit looks very much to be scheduled related. Many of the ideas and
characters were never given enough time to be expanded upon, and a
lot of the plot beats simply needed more thought put into them.
Apollo Justice is the victim of running out of time.
But it's not all
bad, and I want to end this little look back on a positive note,
because Apollo Justice is not a train wreck. Not by a long shot.
Apollo Justice has excellent side characters, on par with the other
games easily. I know everyone hates some of them, but they stick out
and are very clear, and you're not supposed to be comfortable with
Spark Brushel anyway guys. Seriously.
The game also has
engaging cases, something I think a lot of people ignore. Yeah,
looking back there are plot holes, but in the moment they've got a
great pace to them, and ensure you're always engaged. The game has
very clear signposting and good indicators for what you need to do
next, something the older games did often fail at.
Regardless of what
it does right and wrong, this game is likely going to remain
contentious for a very long time to come. And that's fine by me.
Every game series is gonna have one of these, right? I still recommend this game to any Ace Attorney fan despite all this, and I encourage you to try the upcoming mobile port if you haven't gotten a chance to play it yet.
And the music guys
oh my god can we just talk about this again it's so amazing holy cow
No comments:
Post a Comment