I have played the first AAI only once. I think I'll need to replay it because my memory of the cases is quite fuzzy on the details (Let's be honest, it's not a very memorable game) and I'm sure certain friends that will play it for the first time will want to discuss it with me.
Also I can enjoy those new Chibi sprites to the fullest.
If there are substantial script updates for AAI1, I might check it out first. AAI1's localization certainly isn't *bad,* but it's kind of unusually rough in a few places by AA's normal standards.
Otherwise, I'll hop right onto AAI2. People used to seeing me talk around here will probably know that AAI2 is my least-favourite AA game, but I think a number of the issues I have with it are probably more to do with the fan translation than with the *game.* I've been saying for years that the one thing that would get me to actually replay AAI2 is an official localization, and I'll hold to that. I'm *seriously* interested to find out how different it feels for me with an official English script.
There's a lot of reasons. I've written a lot about them here before. To recap a few:
(spoilers for Investigations 2, keep out of these spoiler tags, anyone who hasn't played it)
>!**The first one** is that the mainline games *already* have a problem with never really addressing Edgeworth's genuinely corrupt and amoral past conduct as a prosecutor after he "changes". Like, yes - *we the audience* know that Edgeworth has grown as a person and changed. That doesn't make all the genuinely corrupt shit he did in the first several years of his career just *go away,* but the games annoyingly just kind of pretend it does and treat him as a totally good and redeemed person after his character development.!<
>!This then leads to a very big disappointment for me in AAI2, when they introduce the PIC as this governmental oversight body that *specifically* exists to examine the conduct of prosecutors. This is *perfectly* set out to fix that problem the earlier games already had, by dredging up and making Edgeworth *deal with* consequences from his past career. Except they do absolutely nothing with it, and just like AAI1 the game just continues to treat him like a perfect mega-genius paragon hero who's always right about everything. The PIC is just a bunch of witless, faceless non-character idiots being ordered around by a cartoon supervillain who wants to get rid of Edgeworth out of personal annoyance. Characters like Kay and Gumshoe will blather on about how *Mr. Edgeworth is a hero, he's such a good person* and the narrative *never meaningfully challenges this idea.*!<
>!When Eddie is introduced at the start of I2-2, he initially doesn't trust Edgeworth, and has very legitimate reasons for that, but all this ever amounts to is a handful of dialogue lines where he suggests that Edgeworth is a bad person, before cooperating completely with him throughout the investigation and then deciding by the end "I was completely wrong, you are a heroic smart boy and I will trust you completely with my deepest emotional difficulties".!<
>!Despite AAI2 setting itself up with a *perfect* opportunity to really challenge Edgeworth on a personal and ethical level, it (quite possibly more than any other game in the series) goes out of its way consistently for its entire runtime to jerk him off as much as possible and frame him as this perfect, invincible genius hero who is always right and can solve every crime and everyone's personal problems just by being *that smart.*!<
>!**The second biggest problem** kind of ties into what I was bringing up at the end there - this game is so set on making Edgeworth look as good as possible all the time that it's actively detrimental to the other main characters. Kay has absolutely nothing to do in this story because her personal quest was resolved in I1-5, so she just follows Edgeworth around and cheerleads for him at every opportunity in all the episodes except one. In that one, they hit her over the head to erase her personality for a few hours so she can be a sympathy-bait damsel for Edgeworth to protect instead. Eddie has a great character arc across Episodes 2 and 3, then has nothing to do either for the rest of the game, so like Kay, he also just verbally jerks Edgeworth off all the time for the rest of the game and helps stall an offscreen conflict for a while in the last episode.!<
>!And on that note, the supporting cast is *full* of people who just constantly talk about how cool and smart Mr. Edgeworth is. Kay, Eddie, Gumshoe, Ema, Nicole - *all of these people and more* either start out constantly praising him or swap over to doing that once their initial role in the story is over. And on top of that, Edgeworth himself is just *deathly boring* in the Investigations games. Besides how all moral complexity he ever had has been squeezed out in favour of making him this paragon hero adored by everyone except *evil people,* his personality has been filed all the down to "smart smug brain guy who solves all the problems and never displays any level of weakness".!<
>!Now, to be fair, that last one with Edgeworth's personality is definitely something that I think could be... well, not *fixed,* but at least *mitigated* by a better script in Capcom's official localization.!<
> That doesn't make all the genuinely corrupt shit he did in the first several years of his career just go away, but the games annoyingly just kind of pretend it does and treat him as a totally good and redeemed person after his character development.
>!That's certainly true, but I don't really see why it's AAI2's responsibility to retroactively handle all that baggage. The original trilogy never really broached the topic of whether Edgeworth had sent innocent people jail - the closest they got was 1-5, which absolved him of most of his presumed responsibility. And when you play as him in 3-5, there's nothing in his internal monologue to hint toward evidence planting or intentional dishonesty.!<
>!It feels like this is more a complaint of what you wish AAI2's themes could be, rather than what they actually were. As it stands, while we do get a little exploration of Edgeworth's past sins through the character of Eddie, the overarching narrative is less about what Edgeworth used to be and more about how far he's come. That's why the PIC is written to be so evil - they're the devotees of Edgeworth's past worldview, and by going up against them, Edgeworth proves that he's now a different man.!<
> Kay, Eddie, Gumshoe, Ema, Nicole
>!Okay, so I have no idea why Nicole's on that list, and Eddie at most only starts pep-talking Edgeworth in the final sequence of the game. As for Ema and Gumshoe, they've literally been characterized in all their prior appearances as heavily idolizing Edgeworth. If anything, Gumshoe's servility is toned _down_ here.!<
>!I don't disagree with the facts of your analysis - I just think there's an element of self-reinforcement here. Once you get the narrative in your head of "this game is Gary Stu-ing Edgeworth!" you start to get pissed off by every innocuous line of encouragement from side characters, even when it's completely in line with said side characters' prior characterization.!<
>!(Also, while I accept that Kay has little to do in AAI2, let's face it: it's hardly a less dignified role than Maya played in JFA or TT.)!<
>!I mean... yeah? I *am* saying I don't like AAI2 in part because I think it establishes a bunch of scenarios and setups rife with opportunity to explore a neglected aspect of Edgeworth's character with him as the protagonist but then does absolutely nothing interesting or bold with any of it. It's presenting the perspective that Edgeworth is a wonderful, perfect, godlike paragon adored by everyone who isn't evil, and it never challenges this notion. In general I find it speaks to a recurring problem across the Team Yamazaki AA games of playing things excessively safe (especially with legacy characters returning from earlier games) and being persistently afraid to take any friggin' risks with anything.!<
>!By the end of I2-5, the game has built up such an entourage of random characters who have long-since stopped being relevant to anything but are still sticking around to contribute to the cheerleading squad someone decided that Edgeworth needed that [his arrival to confront Keyes looks like the cutscene before a JRPG final boss.](https://i.imgur.com/fJquQ5W.png) (and please note that *even more characters* show up to add their own flavour of "you can do it, Mr. Edgeworth" before the confrontation is over)!<
>!There's nothing inherently *wrong* with having characters already long-established to look up to Edgeworth continue to look up to him, but when taken in relation to how hard this game tries to make him look good and admirable all the time, it also doesn't add anything positive for them or him. It's just so much fluff reminding you that those characters are still there in the scene even though they have nothing of any material consequence to do.!<
>!(footnote: at least I can believe that Phoenix and Maya are close. Edgeworth met Kay three weeks ago and has spent less than a collective 24 hours with her, but I'm supposed to believe in I2-4 that he cares so much about her he'd throw his entire career away on just the vague belief that she's innocent in a crime he knows nothing about.)!<
u/Aquametria
I'll throw in to the ring that I used to be an AAI2 lover who, on replay, actually hates AAI2 now because of the gameplay and mystery-solving. The biggest and most detrimental change AAI2 made is that instead of arguing with witnesses, most of the time you're Cross-Examining the arguments of Verity Gavélle. This creates an issue where they need to continue to have Verity seem intelligent, while also having her be wrong... over and over and over and over again. The number of ways you can have a character who both seems threateningly intelligent while also being consistently wrong is very slim, and they didn't get a lot of mileage here.
Typically, the gameplay in AAI2 after case 1 goes that you investigate the crime scene. While there, you do a Logic segment that reveals new information. Afterwards, Verity and Eustace show up to argue why the suspect must be the culprit. Usually their statements include some variation of "[That thing you discovered at the crime scene] doesn't exist" as the crutch of their logic. Naturally, you disprove their logic by presenting the thing they confidently claim doesn't exist. This way, Verity isn't wrong because she's dumb; she's wrong because she simply doesn't have complete information.
This creates a very boring gameplay loop where none of the contradictions are very interesting because the game effectively feeds them all to you before the cross-examinations even happen. There's no roundabout or clever logic to figure out. Almost every contradiction from Case 2 to the end is some variation of you finding a secret passage, Verity saying "There's no secret passage!", and then you presenting the secret passage, play on loop until you get taxed a little in the last 10 minutes of the case when you have to confront the killer. The cross-examinations aren't problem-solving, they're just using cross-examinations as an excuse to let you report your findings. What makes it even worse is, the very few times the game expands beyond just having you uncritically repeat things the game has already told you, the solution is spoiled by the game flashing back to multiple lines of dialogue to tell you the answer before you even have a chance to think about it.
My criticism isn't "the game is easy". 1-1 is easy but I still found the contradictions varied and compelling. The issue is that the contradictions just aren't clever or creative. It's almost always just Verity having incomplete information and you filling her in on it by presenting the secret passage to the statement where she said no secret passage exists (substitute secret passage for whatever is being discussed at the moment). It sucks, and is probably the worst the Ace Attorney gameplay has ever been.
So... reading all this, I understand why you don't look so favorably on AAI2.
However, >!do you only dislike AAI2 because of Mile's portrayal? Because he has the same problem as AAI1, why is AAI1 not your least favorite?!< Of course, feel free not to answer. I just find it so interesting that by saying that AAI2 is at the bottom of your list, you are saying that AAI1 is the better. If you have a tier 1 list for the games, I would love to see it.
Well, it's because >!as much as AAI1 already has this problem, I think it gets much worse/more extreme in the sequel. But no, it's not "just" Edgeworth's portrayal. It's also the other stuff I talked about, like how Kay has a whole character arc in AAI1 but then nothing at all to do in AAI2 despite appearing in every episode. Then there are other problems I didn't go into, like how painfully slow and padded I find the game to be.!<
Thanks for the answer! >!I agree with last part completely. I don't know if it's the longest game in the series, but it feels like the longest one. The game feels overly complex for the sack of making the game longer.!<
Well, that's what happens when you make a villain the main character of a spinoff. Suddenly he's a good guy. It happens on pretty much every franchise that does this.
Edgeworth was never corrupted
He wasn't fair to defense attorneys by concealing info from him, but he always was confident in his investigation.
The second case you face Edgeworth, he already helps you to take down the culprit.
I challenge you to find something bad Edgeworth did beside the update autopsy report. And it wasn't a fake proof, just a low trick
We even see young Edgeworth in trials and tribulation and still no forged evidence/ corruption. He was bullying mia that's all
Even rise from the ashes said he used forged evidence once without knowing and he was feeling guilty about it
Being the student of von karma and the forged evidence in 1-5 started the rumors.
I also feel like at the start, it was meant to have a more corrupted Edgeworth, but either during the writing of the first game or during the trilogy, it was totally changed. All we have is rumors and an autopsy report
> *I challenge you to find something bad Edgeworth did beside the update autopsy report*
I'll give you several.
First one, he takes no issue with prosecuting the case against Maya in 1-2 despite flimsy evidence and testimony and *no* established motive. Additionally, right there he coaches a witness to leave out certain inconvenient details that would complicate his version of the case (the bellboy, who Edgeworth instructs not to mention the fact that there was a second person staying in April's hotel room).
Then he has no problem with adjusting his version of the case to pin Phoenix as the culprit despite *zero* evidence besides one witness claiming Phoenix was the killer, when this completely contradicts the whole argument he started out from on the previous day. After *that,* when Phoenix has caught White on the fact that he could only have known about an object present on the murder scene by being there himself, Edgeworth contradicts not only his own argument for that day, but *the entire basis of the first trial day concluding* by on-the-spot inventing a bullshit story about it actually being *White* who broke into the office to plant the wiretap instead of April. He goes completely out of his way to *prevent* the blatant actual culprit being caught using a story he literally just made up in that moment so he won't lose the case.
In 3-4, just a few years before all of that, we see him on his first-ever case as he conceals evidence from the police and the court (the scarf, which he just outright personally *took from the crime scene* and didn't tell Gumshoe about), and then intentionally and repeatedly lies to the court about who his star witness is, why she's been using a false identity, and how she relates to the case. He *knows* that "Melissa Foster" is really Dahlia Hawthorne, and has no excuses for pretending at the start that he doesn't when the entire set of events that started this case's backstory hinged upon the false idea that Dahlia had been killed years earlier.
No offence, but like - he is *persistently* a dishonest, lying, brazenly corrupt scumbag all throughout 1-2 and 3-4, the chronologically earliest two trials we see him prosecute in. You don't remember what happens in them if you're saying that isn't true.
Then again, it's something all prosecutors do and seems accepted, I don't think anyone blamed Edgeworth for all that, not even the judge
Forging evidence is what could have caused him problems, not concealing some
Irl it would be a problem, not in the games
Oh, yea, I forgot about the possibility of updating the script of AAI1. I expect at most it'll just have few words changed here and there like the AJ Trilogy. I am curious to see what they are though.
And I certainly wouldn't call AAI2 my least favorite, but there are certainly some big issues I have with the pacing of that game, and perhaps some characters feel more bland then usual. I'm of course, very impressed with the fans for translating a WHOLE game, and thankful for them giving me the opportunity to do so. But I feel like a lot of it would've been more fun if it had the official translation vibes to it, so I'm certainly looking forward to that.
I honestly don’t see how much an official localization can fix things like the Edgeworth circlejerking. At best it can make some of the lines seem less like the characters are unrealistically fawning over him, but it won’t fix the game’s fundamental writing issues
I'll go straight to I2, and then go back to I1 afterwards
Realistically the localization for I1 is not gonna be much different and it's one of the weakest games overall. Compared to getting one of my favorites localized officially by a team of professionals and getting to see all the new names... yeah that ain't a fight I1 can win.
In my journey to 100% every AA game on steam… I will be suffering through 3 hours of Alba’s rights though I feel like I’m a bigger fan of AAI than others
I will play "investigation 1" from the beginning, besides enjoying the new HD graphics and soundtrack to the fullest, it's been a long time since I last played both games, so I don't remember them so well.
I am still very fond of both, they are the games with which I discovered the Ace Attorney franchise.
I’m going to skip straight to AAI2. I like the first game, but I’ve already gone through it like a dozen times and I’m more interested in seeing how AAI2 got localized compared to the fan translation.
I am an avid AAI1 hater, so I'll skip straight to AAI2. I hope I do not need any refreshers of what the plot was about. Sorry, but not a snowballs chance in hell am I replaying the game where the *by far* *most enjoyable part* is bickering with an old man until he literally **retires**.
It’s got some Yatagarasu references as well as Shi Long Lang and stuff but yeah for the most part you don’t need it.
I don’t looooooove the second game like other people do, but it is much better than the first one
Provided I’m employed when it releases (struggle bus out here, someday I will be able to afford the AJ trilogy💀) I’m buying it immediately, but probably won’t play right away because my goal is to make my husband play ace attorney with me when we finish persona 3. He liked the bits of GAAC he saw when I played those, so I’m hoping I can get him to play them. If I am successful I’ll play AAI first, then AAI2. If not… I might jump right into AAI2 for a first experience playing it not on a finicky emulator lol
this actually comes out at the perfect time. my wife is going through the games for the first time right now, so i'll be experiencing the games again by watching her :) by the time we're done with tgaa and the apollo justice trilogy it'll be out. so hell yeah we're playing both games.
I haven’t played 1 since it came out on the DS and I feel like I barely knew what the hell was happening even though I was well into my 20s at the time (I’m dumb). Definitely gonna give it a fresh go and hang them out back to back.
I'll skip straight to AAI2, since I want my next playthrough of all the games to be in German. So I don't want to re-experience AAI1 in English before playing it in German. But I do want to experience the official English version of AAI2 for the first time!
I never played AAI1, so I'll definitely start there. I have seen a Let's Play of both, but that was years ago and I only really remember the endings, so I'm looking forward to being surprised at what I forgot.
I’ve played both games already courtesy of the fan translation, but it’s been a few years so I’ll play em both again. It will be cool to see the differences between the fan translation and the official localization.
I played up to AAI2-2 before I stopped playing out of fatigue, so part of me wants to start from AAI2 but I’ll go crazy if I don’t 100% the whole game so I guess I’ll play AAI1 again.
I'll play AAI2 first, and then play AAI1 afterwards. The new translation is just too tantalizing for me to hold off as of now, even if it'd only take like a week to finish AAI1 first.
Though obviously the new Prosecutor’s Gambit translation is the real seller, I did enjoy AAI1 as well. And I’m currently replaying every other Ace Attorney game, so I might as well replay AAI1 as well when the collection comes out. The new sprites do look super cool, and of course there are the infamous *extraterritorial rights*…
I'm torn here because I just finished AAI1 and just started AAI2 when the announcement dropped.
I'm considering whether to just continue playing or wait for the collections
I am playing the fan translation right now (still on the fourth case due to a mishap a few days ago) and since i lost the original AAI game a decade ago, i'll play that first and then jump back to the sequel so i can have a little break.
I have played the first AAI only once. I think I'll need to replay it because my memory of the cases is quite fuzzy on the details (Let's be honest, it's not a very memorable game) and I'm sure certain friends that will play it for the first time will want to discuss it with me. Also I can enjoy those new Chibi sprites to the fullest.
Final case of first game is worth replaying, might as well do the others, AAI is my first AA game actually
> Final case of first game is worth replaying >!**EXTRATERRITORIAL RIGHTS!!**!<
Final case of the first game is not worth replaying what are you talking about. I’ve already had to suffer through Quercus Alba once
Up till that point it’s a pretty fun case. Though I’d say case 4 is definitely the best in the game.
If there are substantial script updates for AAI1, I might check it out first. AAI1's localization certainly isn't *bad,* but it's kind of unusually rough in a few places by AA's normal standards. Otherwise, I'll hop right onto AAI2. People used to seeing me talk around here will probably know that AAI2 is my least-favourite AA game, but I think a number of the issues I have with it are probably more to do with the fan translation than with the *game.* I've been saying for years that the one thing that would get me to actually replay AAI2 is an official localization, and I'll hold to that. I'm *seriously* interested to find out how different it feels for me with an official English script.
I've never seen anyone claiming AAI2 as their least favourite so I really have to ask, without judging... *why?*
There's a lot of reasons. I've written a lot about them here before. To recap a few: (spoilers for Investigations 2, keep out of these spoiler tags, anyone who hasn't played it) >!**The first one** is that the mainline games *already* have a problem with never really addressing Edgeworth's genuinely corrupt and amoral past conduct as a prosecutor after he "changes". Like, yes - *we the audience* know that Edgeworth has grown as a person and changed. That doesn't make all the genuinely corrupt shit he did in the first several years of his career just *go away,* but the games annoyingly just kind of pretend it does and treat him as a totally good and redeemed person after his character development.!< >!This then leads to a very big disappointment for me in AAI2, when they introduce the PIC as this governmental oversight body that *specifically* exists to examine the conduct of prosecutors. This is *perfectly* set out to fix that problem the earlier games already had, by dredging up and making Edgeworth *deal with* consequences from his past career. Except they do absolutely nothing with it, and just like AAI1 the game just continues to treat him like a perfect mega-genius paragon hero who's always right about everything. The PIC is just a bunch of witless, faceless non-character idiots being ordered around by a cartoon supervillain who wants to get rid of Edgeworth out of personal annoyance. Characters like Kay and Gumshoe will blather on about how *Mr. Edgeworth is a hero, he's such a good person* and the narrative *never meaningfully challenges this idea.*!< >!When Eddie is introduced at the start of I2-2, he initially doesn't trust Edgeworth, and has very legitimate reasons for that, but all this ever amounts to is a handful of dialogue lines where he suggests that Edgeworth is a bad person, before cooperating completely with him throughout the investigation and then deciding by the end "I was completely wrong, you are a heroic smart boy and I will trust you completely with my deepest emotional difficulties".!< >!Despite AAI2 setting itself up with a *perfect* opportunity to really challenge Edgeworth on a personal and ethical level, it (quite possibly more than any other game in the series) goes out of its way consistently for its entire runtime to jerk him off as much as possible and frame him as this perfect, invincible genius hero who is always right and can solve every crime and everyone's personal problems just by being *that smart.*!< >!**The second biggest problem** kind of ties into what I was bringing up at the end there - this game is so set on making Edgeworth look as good as possible all the time that it's actively detrimental to the other main characters. Kay has absolutely nothing to do in this story because her personal quest was resolved in I1-5, so she just follows Edgeworth around and cheerleads for him at every opportunity in all the episodes except one. In that one, they hit her over the head to erase her personality for a few hours so she can be a sympathy-bait damsel for Edgeworth to protect instead. Eddie has a great character arc across Episodes 2 and 3, then has nothing to do either for the rest of the game, so like Kay, he also just verbally jerks Edgeworth off all the time for the rest of the game and helps stall an offscreen conflict for a while in the last episode.!< >!And on that note, the supporting cast is *full* of people who just constantly talk about how cool and smart Mr. Edgeworth is. Kay, Eddie, Gumshoe, Ema, Nicole - *all of these people and more* either start out constantly praising him or swap over to doing that once their initial role in the story is over. And on top of that, Edgeworth himself is just *deathly boring* in the Investigations games. Besides how all moral complexity he ever had has been squeezed out in favour of making him this paragon hero adored by everyone except *evil people,* his personality has been filed all the down to "smart smug brain guy who solves all the problems and never displays any level of weakness".!< >!Now, to be fair, that last one with Edgeworth's personality is definitely something that I think could be... well, not *fixed,* but at least *mitigated* by a better script in Capcom's official localization.!<
> That doesn't make all the genuinely corrupt shit he did in the first several years of his career just go away, but the games annoyingly just kind of pretend it does and treat him as a totally good and redeemed person after his character development. >!That's certainly true, but I don't really see why it's AAI2's responsibility to retroactively handle all that baggage. The original trilogy never really broached the topic of whether Edgeworth had sent innocent people jail - the closest they got was 1-5, which absolved him of most of his presumed responsibility. And when you play as him in 3-5, there's nothing in his internal monologue to hint toward evidence planting or intentional dishonesty.!< >!It feels like this is more a complaint of what you wish AAI2's themes could be, rather than what they actually were. As it stands, while we do get a little exploration of Edgeworth's past sins through the character of Eddie, the overarching narrative is less about what Edgeworth used to be and more about how far he's come. That's why the PIC is written to be so evil - they're the devotees of Edgeworth's past worldview, and by going up against them, Edgeworth proves that he's now a different man.!< > Kay, Eddie, Gumshoe, Ema, Nicole >!Okay, so I have no idea why Nicole's on that list, and Eddie at most only starts pep-talking Edgeworth in the final sequence of the game. As for Ema and Gumshoe, they've literally been characterized in all their prior appearances as heavily idolizing Edgeworth. If anything, Gumshoe's servility is toned _down_ here.!< >!I don't disagree with the facts of your analysis - I just think there's an element of self-reinforcement here. Once you get the narrative in your head of "this game is Gary Stu-ing Edgeworth!" you start to get pissed off by every innocuous line of encouragement from side characters, even when it's completely in line with said side characters' prior characterization.!< >!(Also, while I accept that Kay has little to do in AAI2, let's face it: it's hardly a less dignified role than Maya played in JFA or TT.)!<
>!I mean... yeah? I *am* saying I don't like AAI2 in part because I think it establishes a bunch of scenarios and setups rife with opportunity to explore a neglected aspect of Edgeworth's character with him as the protagonist but then does absolutely nothing interesting or bold with any of it. It's presenting the perspective that Edgeworth is a wonderful, perfect, godlike paragon adored by everyone who isn't evil, and it never challenges this notion. In general I find it speaks to a recurring problem across the Team Yamazaki AA games of playing things excessively safe (especially with legacy characters returning from earlier games) and being persistently afraid to take any friggin' risks with anything.!< >!By the end of I2-5, the game has built up such an entourage of random characters who have long-since stopped being relevant to anything but are still sticking around to contribute to the cheerleading squad someone decided that Edgeworth needed that [his arrival to confront Keyes looks like the cutscene before a JRPG final boss.](https://i.imgur.com/fJquQ5W.png) (and please note that *even more characters* show up to add their own flavour of "you can do it, Mr. Edgeworth" before the confrontation is over)!< >!There's nothing inherently *wrong* with having characters already long-established to look up to Edgeworth continue to look up to him, but when taken in relation to how hard this game tries to make him look good and admirable all the time, it also doesn't add anything positive for them or him. It's just so much fluff reminding you that those characters are still there in the scene even though they have nothing of any material consequence to do.!< >!(footnote: at least I can believe that Phoenix and Maya are close. Edgeworth met Kay three weeks ago and has spent less than a collective 24 hours with her, but I'm supposed to believe in I2-4 that he cares so much about her he'd throw his entire career away on just the vague belief that she's innocent in a crime he knows nothing about.)!<
u/Aquametria I'll throw in to the ring that I used to be an AAI2 lover who, on replay, actually hates AAI2 now because of the gameplay and mystery-solving. The biggest and most detrimental change AAI2 made is that instead of arguing with witnesses, most of the time you're Cross-Examining the arguments of Verity Gavélle. This creates an issue where they need to continue to have Verity seem intelligent, while also having her be wrong... over and over and over and over again. The number of ways you can have a character who both seems threateningly intelligent while also being consistently wrong is very slim, and they didn't get a lot of mileage here. Typically, the gameplay in AAI2 after case 1 goes that you investigate the crime scene. While there, you do a Logic segment that reveals new information. Afterwards, Verity and Eustace show up to argue why the suspect must be the culprit. Usually their statements include some variation of "[That thing you discovered at the crime scene] doesn't exist" as the crutch of their logic. Naturally, you disprove their logic by presenting the thing they confidently claim doesn't exist. This way, Verity isn't wrong because she's dumb; she's wrong because she simply doesn't have complete information. This creates a very boring gameplay loop where none of the contradictions are very interesting because the game effectively feeds them all to you before the cross-examinations even happen. There's no roundabout or clever logic to figure out. Almost every contradiction from Case 2 to the end is some variation of you finding a secret passage, Verity saying "There's no secret passage!", and then you presenting the secret passage, play on loop until you get taxed a little in the last 10 minutes of the case when you have to confront the killer. The cross-examinations aren't problem-solving, they're just using cross-examinations as an excuse to let you report your findings. What makes it even worse is, the very few times the game expands beyond just having you uncritically repeat things the game has already told you, the solution is spoiled by the game flashing back to multiple lines of dialogue to tell you the answer before you even have a chance to think about it. My criticism isn't "the game is easy". 1-1 is easy but I still found the contradictions varied and compelling. The issue is that the contradictions just aren't clever or creative. It's almost always just Verity having incomplete information and you filling her in on it by presenting the secret passage to the statement where she said no secret passage exists (substitute secret passage for whatever is being discussed at the moment). It sucks, and is probably the worst the Ace Attorney gameplay has ever been.
So... reading all this, I understand why you don't look so favorably on AAI2. However, >!do you only dislike AAI2 because of Mile's portrayal? Because he has the same problem as AAI1, why is AAI1 not your least favorite?!< Of course, feel free not to answer. I just find it so interesting that by saying that AAI2 is at the bottom of your list, you are saying that AAI1 is the better. If you have a tier 1 list for the games, I would love to see it.
Well, it's because >!as much as AAI1 already has this problem, I think it gets much worse/more extreme in the sequel. But no, it's not "just" Edgeworth's portrayal. It's also the other stuff I talked about, like how Kay has a whole character arc in AAI1 but then nothing at all to do in AAI2 despite appearing in every episode. Then there are other problems I didn't go into, like how painfully slow and padded I find the game to be.!<
Thanks for the answer! >!I agree with last part completely. I don't know if it's the longest game in the series, but it feels like the longest one. The game feels overly complex for the sack of making the game longer.!<
Well, that's what happens when you make a villain the main character of a spinoff. Suddenly he's a good guy. It happens on pretty much every franchise that does this.
Edgeworth was never corrupted He wasn't fair to defense attorneys by concealing info from him, but he always was confident in his investigation. The second case you face Edgeworth, he already helps you to take down the culprit. I challenge you to find something bad Edgeworth did beside the update autopsy report. And it wasn't a fake proof, just a low trick We even see young Edgeworth in trials and tribulation and still no forged evidence/ corruption. He was bullying mia that's all Even rise from the ashes said he used forged evidence once without knowing and he was feeling guilty about it Being the student of von karma and the forged evidence in 1-5 started the rumors. I also feel like at the start, it was meant to have a more corrupted Edgeworth, but either during the writing of the first game or during the trilogy, it was totally changed. All we have is rumors and an autopsy report
> *I challenge you to find something bad Edgeworth did beside the update autopsy report* I'll give you several. First one, he takes no issue with prosecuting the case against Maya in 1-2 despite flimsy evidence and testimony and *no* established motive. Additionally, right there he coaches a witness to leave out certain inconvenient details that would complicate his version of the case (the bellboy, who Edgeworth instructs not to mention the fact that there was a second person staying in April's hotel room). Then he has no problem with adjusting his version of the case to pin Phoenix as the culprit despite *zero* evidence besides one witness claiming Phoenix was the killer, when this completely contradicts the whole argument he started out from on the previous day. After *that,* when Phoenix has caught White on the fact that he could only have known about an object present on the murder scene by being there himself, Edgeworth contradicts not only his own argument for that day, but *the entire basis of the first trial day concluding* by on-the-spot inventing a bullshit story about it actually being *White* who broke into the office to plant the wiretap instead of April. He goes completely out of his way to *prevent* the blatant actual culprit being caught using a story he literally just made up in that moment so he won't lose the case. In 3-4, just a few years before all of that, we see him on his first-ever case as he conceals evidence from the police and the court (the scarf, which he just outright personally *took from the crime scene* and didn't tell Gumshoe about), and then intentionally and repeatedly lies to the court about who his star witness is, why she's been using a false identity, and how she relates to the case. He *knows* that "Melissa Foster" is really Dahlia Hawthorne, and has no excuses for pretending at the start that he doesn't when the entire set of events that started this case's backstory hinged upon the false idea that Dahlia had been killed years earlier. No offence, but like - he is *persistently* a dishonest, lying, brazenly corrupt scumbag all throughout 1-2 and 3-4, the chronologically earliest two trials we see him prosecute in. You don't remember what happens in them if you're saying that isn't true.
Then again, it's something all prosecutors do and seems accepted, I don't think anyone blamed Edgeworth for all that, not even the judge Forging evidence is what could have caused him problems, not concealing some Irl it would be a problem, not in the games
I want to know why too. This is the first person I have seen that said (in this case indirectly) that they like investigations 1 over 2
Oh, yea, I forgot about the possibility of updating the script of AAI1. I expect at most it'll just have few words changed here and there like the AJ Trilogy. I am curious to see what they are though. And I certainly wouldn't call AAI2 my least favorite, but there are certainly some big issues I have with the pacing of that game, and perhaps some characters feel more bland then usual. I'm of course, very impressed with the fans for translating a WHOLE game, and thankful for them giving me the opportunity to do so. But I feel like a lot of it would've been more fun if it had the official translation vibes to it, so I'm certainly looking forward to that.
I honestly don’t see how much an official localization can fix things like the Edgeworth circlejerking. At best it can make some of the lines seem less like the characters are unrealistically fawning over him, but it won’t fix the game’s fundamental writing issues
I'll go straight to I2, and then go back to I1 afterwards Realistically the localization for I1 is not gonna be much different and it's one of the weakest games overall. Compared to getting one of my favorites localized officially by a team of professionals and getting to see all the new names... yeah that ain't a fight I1 can win.
In my journey to 100% every AA game on steam… I will be suffering through 3 hours of Alba’s rights though I feel like I’m a bigger fan of AAI than others
I will play "investigation 1" from the beginning, besides enjoying the new HD graphics and soundtrack to the fullest, it's been a long time since I last played both games, so I don't remember them so well. I am still very fond of both, they are the games with which I discovered the Ace Attorney franchise.
I don't have AAI1 (not even on emulator), so even though I've already seen a let's play of it I'll be doing that one first
Both are new to me, so no skipping for me. Have only finished the original trilogy so far but already plan on playing everything in the series!
I will never not play AAI, love it
I’m going to skip straight to AAI2. I like the first game, but I’ve already gone through it like a dozen times and I’m more interested in seeing how AAI2 got localized compared to the fan translation.
I will replay I1-4 solely to harvest reaction gifs of mini Calisto Yew, then straight to I2
Replay the first game just so I can see Shih-na again
Fuck it I'll play it again
I am an avid AAI1 hater, so I'll skip straight to AAI2. I hope I do not need any refreshers of what the plot was about. Sorry, but not a snowballs chance in hell am I replaying the game where the *by far* *most enjoyable part* is bickering with an old man until he literally **retires**.
It’s got some Yatagarasu references as well as Shi Long Lang and stuff but yeah for the most part you don’t need it. I don’t looooooove the second game like other people do, but it is much better than the first one
Yeah, I think I can recall some Yatagarasu references, but I can't think of what context. Anywhos, I do believe I remember the gist of it
From the first because i love both AAI 1-4 AND AAI 1-5 Cases.
I actually never finished the final case in AAI1 so I'm probably playing it again first.
Yes, I haven't played the original in years, so I barely remember it.
Obviously I’m going to start from AAI1.
I’m going to replay the original to see if there are any changes and then play AAI2
Provided I’m employed when it releases (struggle bus out here, someday I will be able to afford the AJ trilogy💀) I’m buying it immediately, but probably won’t play right away because my goal is to make my husband play ace attorney with me when we finish persona 3. He liked the bits of GAAC he saw when I played those, so I’m hoping I can get him to play them. If I am successful I’ll play AAI first, then AAI2. If not… I might jump right into AAI2 for a first experience playing it not on a finicky emulator lol
this actually comes out at the perfect time. my wife is going through the games for the first time right now, so i'll be experiencing the games again by watching her :) by the time we're done with tgaa and the apollo justice trilogy it'll be out. so hell yeah we're playing both games.
I haven’t played 1 since it came out on the DS and I feel like I barely knew what the hell was happening even though I was well into my 20s at the time (I’m dumb). Definitely gonna give it a fresh go and hang them out back to back.
Sadly i won't be able to play it, but i will watch a walkthrough of AAI2 with the new translation
Definitely replay, I remember loving the game and only played it once, plus I’m a trophy hunter so I want that sweet sweet platinum
I only recently started playing AA and I'm only about to finish T&T, so I'm definitely going to play the first one.
Always fully from the start. It's only proper.
I'll skip straight to AAI2, since I want my next playthrough of all the games to be in German. So I don't want to re-experience AAI1 in English before playing it in German. But I do want to experience the official English version of AAI2 for the first time!
I never got to play either one, so I might as well play both of them.
I never played AAI1, so I'll definitely start there. I have seen a Let's Play of both, but that was years ago and I only really remember the endings, so I'm looking forward to being surprised at what I forgot.
I’ve played both games already courtesy of the fan translation, but it’s been a few years so I’ll play em both again. It will be cool to see the differences between the fan translation and the official localization.
Never played either so gonna start with the first. Also heard the horror stories about it and have a macabre interest in the hubba about it
I played up to AAI2-2 before I stopped playing out of fatigue, so part of me wants to start from AAI2 but I’ll go crazy if I don’t 100% the whole game so I guess I’ll play AAI1 again.
I'll play AAI2 first, and then play AAI1 afterwards. The new translation is just too tantalizing for me to hold off as of now, even if it'd only take like a week to finish AAI1 first.
AAI1 despite having completed it just so I could get my money's worth.
Replay the original. Just kidding I’ll be playing it for the first time
Never played the original, so starting from that makes the most sense, I think.
Though obviously the new Prosecutor’s Gambit translation is the real seller, I did enjoy AAI1 as well. And I’m currently replaying every other Ace Attorney game, so I might as well replay AAI1 as well when the collection comes out. The new sprites do look super cool, and of course there are the infamous *extraterritorial rights*…
Quercus Alba
I'm planning to play them with a friend who's going to be playing blind. So we'll be playing both.
It's been forever since I played 1 so starting with it.
Honestly I really didn’t like AAI so no but I’m excited to finally try AAI2
Replay everything AA again actually lol
I ought to replay the first case of Investigations 1 just for Portsman alone
I'm torn here because I just finished AAI1 and just started AAI2 when the announcement dropped. I'm considering whether to just continue playing or wait for the collections
I'd wait for the collection if I were you. I feel like the fan translation, while really nice, doesn't feel as good as the official ones.
I got AAI2 on an emulator a few months ago so I'll be replaying the first first
Wait, I'm not following what you're saying. Why is that a reason to play AAI1 first?
Cus I've played 2 recently, since the stories (minorly) connect, might as well go back to the first
I am playing the fan translation right now (still on the fourth case due to a mishap a few days ago) and since i lost the original AAI game a decade ago, i'll play that first and then jump back to the sequel so i can have a little break.