Turnabout Samurai, Day Three Investigation

Hallo, alle miteinander, and welcome back to Wright Wednesday. Every week we join together to recap, analyze, and review the different cases of the Ace Attorney series, and today's we're talking about the third day of investigation for Turnabout Samurai. I'm Roy, and I just ate steak for dinner.

I'm Sam, and I wish I had taken some sleeping pills.

Wunderbar. Last time, Phoenix entirely turned the case around thanks to Mia's guidance, revealing the victim was the one witnesses saw and thought was the murderer, and the scene of the crime was entirely different from what they thought.

Again, good twist on the case. Turnabout Samurai made up for a lot there in my book.

Back at Wright and Co Law Offices, Mia's spirit has gone back to the afterlife that the sixth game will one day expand upon, leaving Maya flabbergasted as Phoenix explains the day's earlier revelations from court. Presenting various pieces of evidence related to said twists leads to more funny.

Hey, I actually did that this time! It was indeed quite funny.

Heading to the Detention Center, Will Powers is also quite confused that his co-star drugged him and stole his costume. He does reveal some new information, though: Dee Vasquez, the producer, started working for Global Studios five years previously, saving the company when it was on the brink of collapse. She's apparently a genius producer, and plucked Sal Manella from obscurity as a straight-to-video director when she gave him the Steel Samurai pitch to work with. Oh, and the victim, Jack Hammer, used to be a huge movie star, but around the same time Vasquez showed up, he started taking small roles.

Back at Global Studios, Oldbag is at her usual guard station, but she's keeping tight-lipped, at least at first. This leads to a hilarious exchange with perhaps the best Oldbag quote of all time, "You eat, you die."

It's nice to know that Sal didn't actually create the Steel Samurai, in any case. That'd be setting female fans up for a rude awakening later. And Lord knows I wouldn't want him making the princess show he was talking about.

The reason she's so incensed? Why, obviously because Phoenix revealed to the court what Jack Hammer was doing pre-mortum. As his biggest fan, she sees this as trying to drag the late star's name through the mud, and she actually seems betrayed that Phoenix would do this to him.

Admittedly, I think we all know how it feels to find out a person we love and respect is maybe not as great as we thought, but I think Oldbag is more concerned about what this does to Hammer's legacy than how she personally feels about him.

Heading to the Employee Area leads Phoenix and Maya to run into Detective Gumshoe. He's testing the plate Will Powers ate off of, and even a cursory forensics test reveals traces of sleeping pills. Phoenix takes notes of that and the sleeping pill bottle covered in Hammer's fingerprints in the Court Record. Talking to Gumshoe leads to him stating how unsure he is now of Powers's guilt, and that Edgeworth is very much troubled by how the case has gone so far. If you Present the evidence he gave you back to him, he actually apologizes for missing the evidence and tells Phoenix that he was impressed by how he handled himself in court, that any other defense attorney he knows would have lost already.

Gumshoe is adorable and I love him. The way he is slowly revealed to be a very understanding, just, and caring person is the best. He's the best. ♥

I'm not going to argue with you there. Penny Nichols is in Powers's dressing room, and she reveals that Jack Hammer was in some sort of accident at the studio five years previously, one that may be connected to his fall from stardom, but she is too afraid of losing her job to say more. However, Penny does say that Global Studios is planning to cancel the Steel Samurai after just thirteen episodes. They want to shift away from family entertainment and forget this entire murder thing ever happened. When Maya starts freaking out, Phoenix presents the Path to Glory scrapbook to Penny, showing her how much kids love the series and would be heartbroken with it gone.

Powers had a similar reaction to the scrapbook if you show it to him in the detention center, and it's a nice little running theme about how much this stuff means to the kids who watch it.

Penny is really moved by this, and pledges to do anything to help stop the show from being cancelled, which means making sure that Will Powers isn't found guilty. With this incentive, she says what she knows about the event five years ago: it was a fatal accident caused by Jack Hammer, and that Dee Vasquez, who may have some sort of mafia connections, hushed it up, thus why he would do whatever she wanted. If Phoenix wants more info, though, Penny thinks the only one who could help is Oldbag.

When Phoenix asks Oldbag about it, she immediately gets upset that we’re dredging up old dirt on Hammer. We have to use the t-bone steak and sleeping pill bottle to prove that Hammer did indeed put Powers to sleep and steal the Steel Samurai costume. Surprisingly, this immediately calms her down, and she has…an unexpectedly heartfelt moment.

This moment is honestly one of my favorites in both this case and the game, and I'll get into later why this case caused several later games to fall flat in my eyes in comparison.

She becomes somber, laments that Hammer had messed up, and says she’s tired of holding it all in. She explains that a fatal accident did indeed take place five years ago, and worse, a paparazzi got a photo and a controversy broke out. But Vasquez made it all disappear, Oldbag says, with her alleged ties to the Mafia. She gives Phoenix and Maya the picture that caused the problem; a photo of Hammer and Vasquez looking, shocked, at a man impaled on a fence post outside of the trailer in Studio Two.

If you try to talk to Vasquez, she’s being her unresponsive, dismissive self. Until you present the photo Oldbag gave you. Phoenix accuses her of covering up the event and using it to control Hammer, and she says she wants to talk about it more inside the trailer. Once you meet her inside, she’s significantly more talkative.

Once again, Phoenix Presents the decisive evidence to the prime suspect. Let's see how it turns out this time!

Phoenix and Maya accuse her again, but she switches up the story by claiming that the death five years ago wasn’t an accident at all, but an intentional murder on Hammer’s part. The severity of his crime is what allowed her to use it as blackmail against him. She also says that the photo they have is the only copy in existence, and calls some freakin’ mafia goons in to take it from them. At least he didn't get punched in the face this time, I guess.

This is more a topic for next week, but I'll just state it now that I really hate the mafia connection.

Phoenix asks why she wants the photo so badly; if Hammer is the one it implicates, and he’s dead and thus cannot be threatened anymore, why does Vasquez care so much about it? But she brushes the question off and orders her goons to kill Phoenix and Maya.

Eh, it's a little ambiguous if it's a "kill" order or a "kidnap" order.

Fair enough; either way, it doesn't look good. But then, Surprise Gumshoe! He bursts in, having heard everything, and tells Vasquez she’s coming to the precinct with him. She relents, saying this contest will be decided in court. Gumshoe continues to be adorable, telling Maya he was just doing his job and musing that he always wanted to say that line. And thus ends the final day of investigation in Turnabout Samurai: with canonical confirmation that Gumshoe is best character.

All that's left for this case is the last day of trial, but before that we should tackle this segment with some analysis. Sadly, most of what I want to talk about is stuff for next time. Sam, what do you got?

It's certainly true that a lot of what we're seeing in this investigation segment is basically setup for the end of the case, so a lot of the stuff worth talking about makes more sense to discuss after the ending.

That said, this is also the first investigation day of the case that, in my opinion, actually has much to offer in the first place. We start seeing this thematic thread of secrets kept not out of self-preservation but for the sake of some kind of larger ideal or legacy, and we even see a spark of humanity from Oldbag, who thus far had basically been relegated to comic relief and gameplay obstacle.

It's a good section of the case, for sure, but all this stuff plays into more later on, so there's not too much to say yet.

Actually, let's talk about Oldbag, since she doesn't show up again in this case. The reason I love that spark of humanity is how it recasts what we've seen so far. Beneath her spite and anger, she's able to admit when she was wrong and expose the pain she had long since buried. Oldbag is the rare side character of a case who has a character arc, namely that of showing weakness to whippersnappers and seemingly ending things with Phoenix and Maya on a good note.

The fact that every single future appearance of this character not only completely ignores all of that, but also does absolutely nothing to humanize or develop Oldbag, really annoys the crap out of me. But I guess that's a rant for another day.

And one that will be repeated for multiple background characters when they show up again at later points in the series.

Seriously, what is with Ace Attorney not only failing to develop re-occurring side characters, but actively undoing any development they previously had? I can count the number of times they don't do this on like one hand!

Yeah, meaningful development of background characters is unfortunately not one of the series' strong points.

Except Ema Skye. But that's a story for another day. I know today's blog was a little short, but we'll make up for that next week, when we finish Turnabout Samurai. Auf wiedersehen.

Oh, will we make up for it then. See you next time!