Turnabout Samurai, Day Four Trial

Hallo, alle miteinander, and welcome back to Wright Wednesday. Here, we recap, analyze, and review the different cases of the Ace Attorney series. Today we're wrapping up the final part of Turnabout Samurai, the third case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I'm Roy, avid fan of colorful lawyers.

And I'm Sam, moderate fan of colorless defendants. Let's dig into the final segment of Turnabout Samurai! As the trial begins, Edgeworth states the facts of the case and calls Vasquez to the stand. She’s as rude as ever, and poor Edgeworth seems to be on a roll for having a tough time with witnesses.

Dee Vasquez don't take no one's guff.

Vasquez testifies that she entered the trailer before noon, and the meeting went from noon to 4pm. They went to Studio 1 afterward for a rehearsal; she notes that she was fatigued, so she had Sal take her there in the van parked outside the trailer. They took a 15 minute break at 2:30pm, she and Sal ate t-bone steaks in front of the trailer, and found Hammer’s body when they went to Studio 1 after the meeting.

It's a fairly long testimony, and pressing everything leads to a lot of new information...and some really funny interactions between Phoenix, Vasquez, and Edgeworth

It feels a little disjointed, almost like she’s not trying to recount the story so much as just state a number of facts about what happened that day. And when you press her on things, she responds rather monosyllabically, which of course isn’t very helpful. But you can present the plate of steak with sleeping medicine on it as proof against the fact that they ate steak by the trailer, which… the logic ends up checking out, but it’s based on the fact that the plates in Studio 2 had no bones on them, which is not noted in the court record, so it’s a questionable solution at best on a mechanical level.

This is one of several times in the series where the player can't use the Court Record to find the contradiction, but instead has to remember it themselves. Many players do not like these contradictions. Then there's the fact that, in story, no one except Phoenix knows about the trailer plates, he has no actual evidence to back up what he's saying.

I’m also confused as to the plates were even still there three days since the murder, or how mentioning them this late in the game proves anything but whatever. It does prove to be an inconsistency, so Wright accuses Vaszuez of using that 15 minute break not to eat steak, but to murder Jack Hammer. She takes this as a challenge of wits, and begins questioning Wright to draw out his theory.

I would like the bring up Phoenix's other options: she ate a boneless steak or she ate the bone too.

I love this game.

She asks how someone of her small stature could wield the spear that was used as the murder weapon. The correct answer, of course, is that she could not; something else was used as the murder weapon. Phoenix explains that, since the spear had been broken earlier, it was likely not able to effectively be used against someone in a thick costume, and posits instead that the murder weapon was the same as five years before; the fence post outside the trailer in Studio 2.

The whole duck tape spear thing is either common sense brought up too late in the trial or unprovable silliness, depending on the player.

Phoenix’s theory states that, at 2:30pm, Vasquez met Hammer outside of the trailer and pushed him, whether intentionally or accidentally, onto the fence post. But of course, this does not explain how the body ended up in Studio 1, in the costume of the Evil Magistrate, over the course of a 15 minute break. Though since she already mentioned the van in front of Studio 2, this explanation is fairly obvious.

Yep: she used her TARDIS.

...yes, Roy. She used her TARDIS. The working theory is now that Sal helped by driving the van (which in your theory makes Sal the Doctor, and I hate you for putting that image in my brain), and Vasquez dumped the Steel Samurai costume in the incinerator since it was stained with Hammer’s blood. At which point Vasquez…gives up? Or seems to, claiming that she lost the battle of wits, but that all Wright has proven is that it’s possible for her to have been the murderer. He lacks decisive proof.

Which would be very bad for Wright...if he was a prosecutor trying to convict her. Considering this gives a far more valid suspect than Powers, the trial should be over. But nope!

But hey, if a prosecutor is what we need, Edgeworth has us covered! He actually objects, taking issue with the clear problems with this account and asking Vasquez to testify about what happened after they found the body.

Well, before that he gives the immortal line "OBJECTION! ... I was hoping to think of something while I objected. I did not."

Which was indeed a great moment. Edgeworth's objections without defined reason are some of my favorite comedic moments in this game. It also makes it clear that Edgeworth actually wants to do this? Like he has enough of a problem with this situation that the first thing he knew was that he couldn't let this slide, before he had even formulated exactly how he was going to do it.

It's a fantastic character moment we can get to later. Anyway, Vasquez testifies that once the meeting was over, Sal drove her to the rehearsal, they were there first, and soon everyone but Penny and Powers was there. They found Hammer's dead body, and the police were called. While they waited, Vasquez went back to the trail to get her script and notes. It seems at first like the testimony is useless for Wright.

But as usual, a minor slip of the tongue messes things up for the killer.

Pressing her on everything seems to go nowhere at first, until Phoenix presses hard on why she didn't bring her notes with her. She says that, since there had been a murder, they weren't going to do the rehearsal. Phoenix completely missed this slip of the tongue, but Edgeworth objects, pointing out that means she knew Hammer was dead before leaving the trailer: something only the killer would know. The Judge and Vasquez are both shocked the prosecutor would point out this contradiction, but Edgeworth just says that it stands, regardless of his position in court or how anyone sees him.

That quote is my favorite in terms of Edgey's character development. “I will stand by my statement, regardless of how the court sees my role here.” Love it.

To fix the contradiction, Vasquez just says that Sal told her earlier that Hammer had been injured, so she knew they wouldn't do the rehearsal and therefore didn't need her script and notes. Phoenix objects on the grounds that Powers was the one who had been injured, not Jack Hammer. So why did she think the wrong actor had been hurt? Because she'd seen Hammer limping when he was in the Steel Samurai suit, just before he was killed!

It's always nice when a witness enters one of those "tangled web of lies" situations, and everything they say to excuse away the situation just makes things progressively worse for them.

Vasquez isn't done quite yet: she points out that she has no motive to kill Hammer. After all, the blackmail situation worked quite well for her, why would she end it with his death? It's a great point...if Powers hadn't been on trial three days now without a single mention of any kind of motive for him.

Yeah, this really was never the tightest case to begin with, really.

When asked for evidence to prove a motive, Phoenix presents the Five Year Old Photo, describing how that event led Vasquez to blackmail Hammer with the intent to ruin his career. When the Judge points out that sounds like a motive for Hammer to kill Vasquez, Phoenix agrees: that's exactly what happened. Jack Hammer drugged Will Powers, Jack Hammer stole the costume to frame Powers, and Jack Hammer approached Dee Vasquez with the intent to murder her. His death was an accident, caused by her self-defense.

This is another point where presenting that piece of evidence is a good few steps of logic away from the reason you need to present it, but that's kind of the established norm for this case at this point.

We get a flashback, one told with unlabeled voices, of the "accident" from five years ago. When it goes back to the courtroom, Dee Vasquez looks...at peace. She admits her guilt, and the trial ends.

Before the verdict is handed down, the Judge calls it a miracle that Powers will be found not guilty, but Edgeworth disagrees. After all, he is innocent of the crime, so such a verdict is no miracle, only natural.

Far and away my favorite things about this case are crammed into the last ten minutes of it, and Edgeworth is most of those things.

With that wonderful sight of the verdict, confetti rains down and we see the defense team celebrating with their defendant in the lobby. Still, Powers is sad. Why would Jack Hammer, a co-worker that he thought he got along great with, try to frame him for murder? Phoenix shows him Cody's scrapbook: Will was the Steel Samurai, beloved hero to kids everywhere, while Hammer was stuck being the villain. He was jealous, even though Will admits he would have been willing to switch places in a heartbeat.

Will Powers is a tenderhearted cinnamon bun of a man, and he never deserved any of this.

Suddenly, a Wild Edgeworth appears! They fumble around at small talk at first, including Edgeworth telling Power's that he's a big fan, which Phoenix (incorrectly) thinks is a lie. Then, the prosecutor cuts to chase: he didn't think he'd see Phoenix again after so many years, and now he wishes they hadn't reunited. Facing Phoenix in court has saddled him with unease and uncertainty, unnecessary feelings that make it difficult to do his job. In the end, he tells Phoenix that he never wants to see his face again.

Phoenix will see to that! But seriously, again. Edgey. ♥

The case ends with some narration from Phoenix, on how Global Studios ended up changing their minds on their programming change, and they greenlit The Pink Princess after all. Maya makes Phoenix watch it with her, and once again Will Powers plays the titular character...completely covered in a suit, so no one will see it's him.

And that's it for Turnabout Samurai! Let's start with our analysis, okay Sam? Now, Phoenix and Maya didn't have much for us to talk about with this segment, but Edgeworth...why don't you just dive in?

Well it's pretty straightforward, but very significant; this is the buildup to the completion of Edgeworth's character arc. That completion is, in itself, incredibly long and complex (as we'll see soon), but these seeds of doubt are crucial to starting it all. Edgeworth's ideology wasn't really challenged by Turnabout Sisters, at least not enough that it affected the way he thought. But it did show that his rigid system of justice isn't always good enough, and when presented with a similar situation in this case, he straight-up turned against his witness and helped bring them to justice.

Clearly, his interactions with Wright and the realization that he has twice defended the real killer (and framed an innocent person) have made him question his approach. But the interesting thing is that he's still not ready for that; he pushes away the source of these feelings rather than allowing himself to second-guess himself. So he still has a ways to go.

When Edgeworth tells Phoenix that he's been feeling unnecessary feelings and uncertainty, Phoenix's response is, “Aren’t those kind of necessary?” And indeed, the Ace Attorney series would certainly argue that. But Edgeworth isn't there yet. Almost, but not yet.

Those feelings are very necessary, for prosecutors and defense attorneys alike, but the latter is more a story for the next game in the series. Edgeworth's turn to helping Phoenix here is just wonderful, and the player can feel his internal conflict on how to proceed, both in the courtroom and in the conversation afterwards. We'll get into the details next case, but Edgeworth has been trained in a rigid worldview, one that is beginning to strain under the complexity of these cases. He's being forced to question everything he knows about his profession...and he's afraid to do it, because the second he starts wondering that, Edgeworth will be forced to truly ask himself, "Have I put an innocent person in jail? Have I sent an innocent person to the gallows?"

I love the line we mentioned before, where he told the judge he will stand by his statement "regardless of how the court sees my role here.” It's such a dramatic shift for him to act in opposition to his role as a prosecutor, but it's another step beyond that for him to credit that role to the court rather than identify himself by it.

Earlier I glossed over that flashback to the "accident" five years ago, but we should focus on that for a second. Ace Attorney, for as much as I love it, has often struggled with subtlety. This is one of the rare moments the game gets across its ideas without spelling it out of the player.

Despite the dialogue being unlabeled, it's written in such a way that it's fairly easy to grasp who is who. The actor who died was a man named Manuel, and when Dee Vasquez sees what has happened, she loses it, saying his name over and over and pleading with him not to die. It isn't made clear exactly what Manuel was to her, but his death clearly traumatized Vasquez.

It's true this is one of the few times in the series we don't actually know everything about the scenarios presented to us. We can surmise from this that Vasquez's motivation for blackmailing Hammer was in revenge for the accident that killed Manuel, but she had previously brought up the possibility that Manuel's death was no accident, but an intentional murder on Hammer's part. How much of this is true and how much of it is just a heartbroken woman assuming the worst about the man who took someone important from her, we never really know.

Ace Attorney usually dives into every nook and cranny of a given case until we know all the relevant details, but this one just kind of lets the backstory sit unfinished. It's an interesting touch.

It completely recasts how you see Vasquez, especially once we get a glimpse of her post-admission self. Her cold demeanor hides a broken woman, and personally I think she might be the most sympathetic "killer" in the series.

Last time I mentioned that I didn't like the mafia connection, and that's because it feels unnecessary and counterproductive. It has little, if any, relevance to the actual case, and isn't mentioned in trial at all. It feels like it was only used to make her more threatening. It also works against the sympathy the end of the case works to build. It really feels like it hurts the case.

Oh for sure. The baffling thing to me is that it doesn't even come up again; like having a rumor about it is fine, this case seems to operate largely on the idea of rumors and unconfirmed suspicions both mechanically and thematically, but for the mafia guys to randomly show up, then never come up again or factor into the case in any way is just weird and lazy. Definitely the weakest point in the case on a narrative level, early pacing issues aside.

I should mention that fans are very split with these characters: on the whole, most either feel bad for Dee Vasquez or Jack Hammer, and really dislike the other. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but in my estimation Jack Hammer seems to have been just as vile a person as many of the killers in this series. He was not only planning to commit murder, he was doing so while trying to frame a perfect cinnamon roll of a man for really stupid reasons. If anyone reading disagrees with me, that's fine, but that's my take on the character.

It's definitely one of the more morally ambiguous stories in the Ace Attorney universe, and this is due largely to what I said earlier about all the stuff we don't know about the backstory. Both Hammer and Vasquez did terrible things, but since we don't know the details of the event that started it all, it's hard to know which is more sympathetic, and different people will interpret that differently. Personally, I hesitate to pick a side simply because I don't know if Manuel's death was intentional; if so, absolutely Hammer is the worst. Otherwise, I can understand (not condone, obviously, but understand) why he was driven to do what he did after having a promising career sabotaged by a woman who blamed him for something he never meant to do. Everyone is the bad guy here, to one degree or another. Except Powers. In a series that almost always finishes out a story with a clear hero, a clear villain, and a clear concept of good and evil within the whole mess, this case is a very different take for sure.

This trial segment had some of the best comedy in the series. I won't get into all of them, but nearly every wrong choice or evidence leads to amazing dialogue, my personal favorite being when you need to present evidence for why the spear isn't the murder weapon. Before Phoenix can even say anything, the Judge says it's wrong and that he's already learned to tell when Phoenix is just guessing. It's wonderful. The interactions between Vasquez, Phoenix, and Edgeworth are also absolutely gold.

Now then, it's time to review this case. Many fans disparage the third cases in games, and there's a reason for that. Filler Cases, usually taking the third spot in a game, have fewer emotional beats and are less dynamic cases, but they serve vital aspects of the overall pacing of the game. A Filler Case's main duty is to establish a status quo. While the second case introduces assistants, detectives, and prosecutors, Filler Cases solidify their personalities and relationships. They give the player a good sense of what Wright and Co is like between their epic cases, what their normal life is like. Somewhat less important, they try to continue thematic and plot elements central to the game as a whole, and squeeze in a light, fun story as well. How does Turnabout Samurai accomplish these tasks?

...fine?

This case is a real mixed bag for me. On a narrative level, it works to establish more of Gumshoe's character and, more importantly, Edgeworth's, in important ways. Phoenix and Maya, on the other hand, get a bit more of a stable dynamic (since neither of them are on trial this time), and that's kind of important, but the game does little else with either of them as characters. Especially since Maya basically gets booted for a good third of the case in favor of pretending Phoenix's mentor never died. So on that front... it's fine?

Personally I don't really see the need for the third case to be the filler case; I feel like all this stuff could be accomplished while still bearing more relevance to the overall plot, so my instinct is to say I'd much rather those few character beats be covered in a more interesting, more overall important story.

I think the word Filler is hurting the third case a little. Filler isn't bad. Last time I checked, no one complained about Goku and Piccolo learning how to drive a car, and many consider the filler episodes of X-Files to be the ones worth watching. More than that, filler is required for overall pacing: you can't fill a season with episodes with as much gravity and importance as a season finale. When done well, filler works to better give the audience an idea of the world and the characters in it, and Turnabout Samurai does this quite well, on the whole. Say what you will about Maya's channeling stint, but this case really sold her as the lovable trickster to the audience, and that's something that can only be done when the stakes are low. Again, right now we're talking about how good this case is at fulfilling it's required roles, and for the most part it pulls its weight well. It also introduces the Steel Samurai, Will Powers, Oldbag, and Penny Nichols, all of whom return later. It also carries the theme of corruption, with the studio execs bribing their way out of the police's attention and Dee Vasquez blackmailing a star. Now, if you want to start talking about it as a story, then yeah, it has issues. This case is great at doing what it needs to do, but like a lot of Ace Attorney Filler Cases, it struggles to tell a well-paced, interesting story, but that isn't because it's filler, it's because it was poorly done.

Yeah, the main thing that hurt this case for me was the first half. It really didn't feel like anything important or interesting happened until the second day in court, and the investigation days (particularly the second one) suffer from being poorly paced and structured, with a lot of backtracking and purposeless wandering and very little payoff.

I just never really felt invested in this case, with the notable exception of the second and third trial days. It has some good elements, and Edgey's development at the end is great, but it spent so long falling so flat for me that some important introductions and a few great character moments at the end struggle to make up for its shortcomings for me.

We rate these cases on a scale of 1 to 10. 1's are the worst cases in the series, the ones that are just a complete slog to get through, 10's are the shining examples of why we love it, and 5/6's are the average. This case is a mixed bag, suffering from several narrative and gameplay issues. However, it also has some of my favorite moments of subtlety, humor, and character drama in the entire series, and there are quite a few worse cases later on. I said earlier that this isn't my least favorite case of the first game, and I stand by that. The First Turnabout, which I gave a 4/10, has so little truly interesting or great it in that it falls a bit below the average. In contrast, I give Turnabout Samurai a 5/10. It's definitely below average for me, but not by much.

For me, Turnabout Samurai earns a solid 4/10. It's got some good stuff in it, but quite frankly it's too little too late, and some of the early issues make the case both an uninteresting narrative experience and a protracted slog to get through. Some good moments and fun characters help, but ultimately this is still my least favorite case of this game by a decent margin.

Haha, for some reason I thought our scores would be farther apart than that. Well, that's it for Turnabout Samurai, but join us next week as we start the game's finale Turnabout Goodbye. Auf wiedersehen.

Goodbye for now, and see you all then!