Hallo, alle miteinander, and welcome back to Wright Wednesday. These are the articles where we recap, analyze, and review the cases of the Ace Attorney series. My name is Roy and I ain't afraid of no ghosts.
My name is Sam and I just blow up all the zombie goasts with a rocket launcher because that is their weakness.
This week we're starting the second case, Reunion and Turnabout, of the second game in the series, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney-Justice for All. It begins with a cutscene of someone in a car crash, but there is little context yet for what is happening there. From there, we see Phoenix in his office, several months before the last case we played, meeting someone at his office: Dr. Turner Grey.
He has a wonderful animation of pushing his glasses up, which seems to play every couple seconds.
I'm a little sad though: this is my first time playing the game on the 3DS HD version, and you're playing it on the Switch; originally, he pushed his glasses up with his middle finger, his hand in the shape of flipping someone off, but it seems they've changed that now to just using his index finger. I felt that captured his personality so well.
Oh man, I never noticed that in the original. That change does make me sad.
As I've implied, this doctor is not a nice man. He's constantly on the brink of rage, exploding over even talking about the weather. The reason he's come to see Phoenix is that a year ago, fourteen of the patients at his clinic died from malpractice, and the nurse who administered the medicine died in a traffic accident soon afterwards. He maintains that the nurse was to blame for it all, but ever since rumors have hounded Dr. Grey that he was responsible for the deaths and perhaps even murdered the nurse himself. Because of this, business has been getting worse and worse. So why contact Phoenix Wright? Because his plan is to have a medium channel the spirit of the dead nurse for him, but the only way the medium will accept is if Phoenix Wright is present. Why? Because it's Maya.
You're telling me there's not much competition in the spirit medium business? I am shocked.
So, three days later, Phoenix joins the doctor in visiting Maya's hometown, Kurain Village. He immediately runs into a little girl, who runs away from them without saying anything, but then Maya appears! She's really happy to see Phoenix again, though he's a little annoyed that she claimed to be so far away, considering the village is only two hours away from LA by train. Still, she wanted some independence, and now she feels more confident in her abilities. Maya explains that Kurain Village is in many ways built around spirit mediums, with many of the women training to channel spirits themselves, while the men work outside the village. As for the young girl Phoenix saw before, that was Maya's cousin Pearl Fey, and the reason she ran away is that her mother, Maya's aunt, is very protective of her and told her to run away from strangers.
She is super adorable, but we'll be getting to that later.
Heading into Maya's house, Fey Manor, he meets up again with Dr. Grey, who is still mad at the weather. The building is fairly large, by far the largest in the village, and the doctor gives Phoenix a floor map of it. Asking about the channeling has him reveal that his plan is to make the dead nurse write a signed confession that puts all the blame on her, and further conversation has him tell Phoenix that he heard of the Kurain Channeling Technique through an acquaintance.
Got to love how he thinks a written confession from a dead woman would change the public perception of him.
If anything, it's very naive. Heading into the Channeling Chamber, where the actual spirit summoning takes place, Phoenix meets Maya's aunt, Morgan Fey. She's a very traditional, conservative woman, who believes deeply in Kurain's ways and takes offense to how casual Phoenix is with Maya, the future Master of their school of channeling. She also makes it clear that she thinks Phoenix only won his cases because of Maya (true-ish) and that Pearl is her precious angel who shall not be corrupted by Phoenix or anyone else. Both Pearl and Morgan are members of one of many branch families of the Fey clan, and as such cannot inherit the title of Master. Morgan herself doesn't have much spiritual power, but Pearl is a prodigy.
It's a small look into the politics of these families, and really this whole story is fairly localized to a couple major characters.
Heading back to the main area of the house, Phoenix can also go down the Winding Way, a side path/hallway that leads to the Side Room, where it looks like someone is sleeping. I promise all these locations are actually plot-important, and I don't know why. Heading back after checking that room has Phoenix run into an old face on the Winding Way: Lotta Hair.
Or Lotta Hart, if you actually remember her from the first game. Because you know, we all needed more Lotta.
Oh, for sure. Phoenix isn't exactly thrilled to see her himself, but Lotta claims that she saved the day in the case she was in, which is kinda true but I'd argue Larry helped out more and no one ever thanks him for that. Phoenix, at least, internally admits that she was of help, and there were good times with the bad. She's in Kurain Village to take more paranormal photos, though since no one is allowed in the Channeling Chamber when the channeling happens aside from the client and medium, I do not know what she hopes to photograph.
Weirdly enough, I guess she did show a bit more savvy as a paranormal photographer in Turnabout Goodbyes.
Lotta and Phoenix head to outside the Channeling Chamber, as the channeling is about to begin. After cackling and giving an evil speech, Grey heads into the chamber with Maya, and from inside she locks the door behind her with a one-of-a-kind key. Morgan serves tea and deserts while they wait, while also insulting Lotta's vocabulary and suggesting she should leave for where she came from. Then, they hear a gunshot from inside the room.
Definitely not a thing you want to hear from a locked room with a beloved character inside.
With that lovely moment ruined, a second gunshot fills the air and at Lotta's urging, Phoenix breaks down the locked door. Inside they find what appears to be Maya channeling a spirit, holding a gun, and Turner Grey dead on the floor. Maya(?) says some ominous stuff, Lotta snaps some pics, and Morgan takes charge, telling Lotta and Phoenix to get out and let her handle this, while they call the police. (It was brought up via Examining earlier that there is no cell service in Kurain.)
Phoenix rushes to the payphone and calls the police. Lotta is struggling with all this, shaken since she has now seen an actual, real-life paranormal phenomenon. Back in the meditation room, Morgan says Maya has been brought back to herself, but is still unconscious. She insists that Phoenix not disturb her or the scene of the murder.
None of this is suspicious whatsoever.
Then Gumshoe arrives! He was apparently in the area for a business trip already, so he got here quickly. He and Morgan go to check out the scene of the crime, so Phoenix goes to get other testimony. It is at this point that he finds the girl who was sleeping in the side room, a rather ditzy college student named Ini Miney, whose name is… well even by Phoenix Wright standards, wow.
Haha, just you wait, just you wait...
She's here because she's studying parapsychology, and she's pretty unfazed to hear there was just a murder. She wasn't feeling good, and came into the side room to take a nap. She briefly loses her composure when Phoenix asks if she knew Dr. Grey, then denies it, despite some information suggesting to Phoenix that she may have been the one to tell him about Kurain Village in the first place. She suspiciously excuses that away saying she was a patient of his a long time ago.
She also initially doesn't seem to know what murder actually is.
When Phoenix leaves the room, Pearl shows up again. She says nothing, but she's holding the key to the Channeling Chamber. As soon as he tries to talk to her more, she runs away again. But the chamber is open now, so Phoenix goes in, but Gumshoe tells him to stay out, offering to answer questions instead. He says that it unfortunately looks pretty clear that Maya did it; since they were locked in the room together, alone, there's not really another option. Dr. Grey was shot in the forehead with a gun, but also stabbed in the chest with a knife first.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Lotta is still wrestling with fear over what happened, but she gets excited again when she remembers she got two pictures when they went inside, and rushes back in to try and get more. Back in the Meditation Room, Gumshoe says this will take a while, so everyone stays at the Manor overnight while the police take Maya to the Detention Center.
It is really effecting, seeing Maya so sure she's responsible for this man's death.
Phoenix tells her to make sure to fill out the paperwork to request him as her attorney, which surprises Maya, since she thinks she did it. She insists that she's a murderer and he shouldn't represent her, but Phoenix eventually has enough and tells her to stop. She breaks, asking him to help her. She's scared. She gives Phoenix the little 9-shaped charm she wears, explaining that it's a Magatama, and it's always protected her. She tells Phoenix to give it to Pearl, so she'll use her powers to help him.
I will point out that, even if she'd killed the guy while possessed, it wouldn't be murder, more like manslaughter.
If only possession was admissible in a court of law. Even in the Phoenix Wright universe. But then if DL-6 happened, who knows. Back at Kurain Village, the police are gone, but Morgan is still in the Channeling Chamber. Morgan explains that, while Phoenix called the police, she struck Maya on the head to knock her unconscious, then performed the Spirit Severing Technique to send the nurse's spirit back to the other side.
The newest game in the series actually defines said "other side" as the Twilight Realm, though considering spirits also explicitly don't remember anything from after their moment of death, that could just be Khura'inese religion and not a confirmed fact.
She also explains that the Channeling Chamber is designed specifically to prevent this kind of thing; since the spirit takes over the channeler's body, it's possible for them to revolt like the nurse did. Maya was too inexperienced, so she used the chamber and locked the door. Morgan never expected the client himself could be in danger. When Phoenix asks how Pearl is doing, Morgan says simply that Pearl is her most treasured possession (her words), and powerful enough to become Master, despite being part of one of the Fey side families. She's quite passionate about this.
Whether a medium can actually control the spirit in them is shaky canonically, but that's something we can talk about in the analysis section.
If you Present the Magatama, she demands you return it to Maya immediately. More importantly, when Phoenix investigates the room, he finds a bullet hole in the screen behind the altar, near the floor. Morgan leaves to visit Maya.
Ini is still in the side room. She still comes across as ditzy and remarkably absent-minded, but Phoenix sometimes wonders if it's an act. When he leaves, Pearl is in the Winding Way, and Phoenix shows her the Magatama. Pearl immediately breaks her stony silence and begins sobbing, saying it's Mystic Maya's Magatama, and opens up to Phoenix, recognizing him as "Nick." And as Maya's "special someone." Phoenix freaks out at this, and we get Pearl's adorable version of Maya's theme.
More specifically, she calls him "Mr. Nick", which sums up her personality really well.
Pearl goes on for a bit about how pure and beautiful Phoenix and Maya's love is, because she knows a good ship when she sees it, and resolves to help Phoenix any way she can.
"good ship" is a funny way to spell "het trash".
Pearl asks what channeling school Phoenix is from, and when he explains he's a lawyer, she asks if that's related to bring a spirit medium in any way. Seems she's been very sheltered. She also gives Phoenix the key, which neither of them recognize but is clearly the same key Morgan showed Phoenix the day before, the supposedly one-of-a-kind key to the Channeling Chamber.
Phoenix is clearly from the Spiky Hair Channeling School.
Pearl gives Phoenix the Magatama back, explaining that it has powers that she'll explain to him when they come across someone who's keeping a secret. And indeed, when Phoenix talks to Ini again, she denies knowing Dr. Grey and chains with a lock show up. Only Phoenix and Pearl can see it. It's a lock on her heart, a Psyche-Lock, and the Magatama allows him to see it. If he uses the Magatama, he can unlock it by using the proof in his possession to draw the truth out of her.
The number of locks indicate how tightly hidden the secret is, and everything except the person hiding the secret fades away, leaving just the person and their metaphysical barriers.
Well, technically he just calls the new prosecutor "von Karma's kid", her gender isn't revealed until the next segment. Bad Sam! Giving our readers spoilers!
Oops. Oh well. Phoenix travels back to the office, finds the newspaper article, and travels back to Kurain Village because time is just a construct and multiple two-hour bus trips throughout the day is no big deal. Gumshoe recognizes the article and points out a detail; the nurse who died was named Mimi Miney. Which I guess means we're going to be seeing a lot of Ini. Joy.
More specifically, he gives Phoenix a second article with that new info, this one being about the car accident specifically. Also, this is the morning after the murder, so there's totally time for four hours of Phoenix bus action.
Well he started at Kurain Village, then to see Maya at the Detention Center, then back for more investigation at Kurain, then back to get the newspaper article, and now back to Kurain to talk to Ini. After the final trip back to the detention center, that'll total at least 10 hours of travel, not accounting for bus schedules and the fact that Phoenix says the bus only goes there three times a day, so it's pushing it at best. But that's not important; it would be stupid to over-focus on it. If I turned this into CinemaSins Roy would shoot me, and I would thank him for putting me down.
cocks pistol
The article naming Mimi Miney is, of course, the info we need to break down Ini's Psyche-Lock. Mimi was Ini's older sister, so of course with the accident and malpractice suit and everything, Ini has a connection to Dr. Grey. The Psyche-Lock breaks, and Ini explains that Dr. Grey drove her sister so hard at work all the time that she fell asleep at the wheel. She blames him for the accident.
Once again, based on what we saw of the guy, it isn't exactly a leap to say Ini has the right of it there.
When Phoenix travels back to the Detention Center, instead of Maya, he's greeted by Mia channeling through Maya's body. After a sentimental moment, she explains that Maya is Not Guilty, and in explanation she says that mediums cannot have dreams while channeling. So there must be some other explanation. She also says the key Phoenix has is the key (ha) to understanding everything that's happened. It contradicts the facts of the case and will no doubt come up tomorrow in trial. With that, she says he knows everything he needs to. But when he asks her about who the real killer is, a Psyche-Lock forms over Mia herself, prompting Phoenix to wonder what his old mentor could be keeping from him the day before he defends her sister in court.
Well, that was our recap, let's do the analysis. Where did you want to start, Sam?
Well to start, this is the first case to really emphasize the role of family on a wider platform; we've had two sister relationships before this point, and one of them was technically made after this game. This case, on the other hand, pretty much revolves around the familial politics of the Fey family, so while this first segment is mostly setup (as the first exploration segments usually are), it's setting up something that could dive further into the series' ideas about family than previous cases.
That's definitely true. Seeing Pearl and Morgan, as well as the environment of Kurain itself, gives us a better appreciation for Maya as a character. Before she was just a wacky girl with a weird profession, but now it's clear that she's spent her life torn between a love of her family and village and how traditional and unmodern both of those things are. Her cousin has no pop culture knowledge, a far cry from Maya's media savvyness, and her aunt is a complete isolationist with no positive feelings towards the world outside Kurain.
It's really not unlike a child who grows up in isolation under a strict religious family, in many ways. Maya working with Phoenix is a whim driven by a desire to break out; there's more rebellion there than her demeanor generally suggests.
Exactly. Considering official Ace Attorney canon is that the Fey family originally immigrated from Japan, and what we see of them and their places of residents and other Fey sites later on in the series, it's likely that they're some form of Buddhist, which is interesting when mixed with the phenomenon you mentioned, which I think we both associate with Christianity due to our own backgrounds and experiences.
Exactly; it's a fairly common experience, but which religion it's associated with no doubt changes based on region and dominant beliefs. In any case, we'll see where this case takes its themes of family over the coming segments.
Another big theme introduced here, in fact the theme in which the entire game rests, comes with the victim, Doctor Turner Grey. In the first game, the only victim we met pre-death was Mia, our mentor we spent a full case with previous to her demise. Turner Grey does not leave nearly as good of an impression. He's a jerk at best and possibly dangerous at worst, and we've already seen post-death the grief he's inflicted onto others. In the first game, with one exception, the formula was "Defendant=good, Victim=good, Killer=bad". But from this case onward, Justice for All does everything it can to pointedly twist those expectations, for a payoff we'll see in the final case.
It certainly does foreshadow a major mix-up of the simple, black-and-white morality the first game mostly relied on (aside from Turnabout Samurai, and Rise from the Ashes doesn't count since it was made after this sequel). I too found it interesting that we met the victim ahead of time on this one.
It makes me think of those mystery stories that always crop up in detective franchises where they just happen to be visiting somewhere when murder.
In any case, while the last game dipped its toes into the grey areas of corruption in the system, this one seems to be promising more grey areas regarding the character of various people involved in the case. So that's promising.
True true. Backing a little away from the thematic side, what do you think about the new Magatama mechanic?
I really like it. Between the Psyche-Locks and the ability to Present profiles, this game really improves upon the complete formula of the first one without actually changing it all that much, just by giving the player more options.
The investigation segments are, mechanically speaking, significantly less interesting than the courtroom segments. The Ace Attorney series, particularly the first one, is kind of like a point-and-click adventure game where the clicking is completely separated from the puzzles; investigation segments for the point-and-click, courtroom segments for the puzzles. So the investigation sequences get by mostly on their interesting character interactions, because they're generally not all that interesting to play.
The Psyche-Locks go a long way toward fixing that but infusing investigation segments with a bit of the courtroom gameplay's DNA. It's a simple and effective way to drastically improve the experience of investigation days.
It also improves the goals of investigation segments, providing the player clear things they need to accomplish before moving forward. This doesn't mean hunting around for the right flag to trigger is something we're never going to see again, it honestly never disappears, but it does help quite a bit, and the simple structure of the Kurain Village also helps in visualizing where we are and making sure we don't get lost. All of that said, I would argue that the Magatama also ties the more Phoenix oriented parts of the franchise more to the Kurain lore in a way I'm not 100% sure works for the best, but that's more a personal preference thing. Speaking of Kurain, what are your thoughts on Pearl Fey?
She's an angel and I will protecc her. It's unclear at this point in the case how much real importance she'll have and how well her character will be executed in the long run, but at this point she is very cute and pure and has good ships.
I will agree with you on the last point for sure: Trucy/Pearl is a fantastic ship. But on all your other points, I'm not sure I really agree. Pearl Fey, the new assistant character introduced in this game, is a cute little girl who loves her cousin, ships Nick/Maya, and is very naive when it comes to the outside world. But I would argue that the picture we start to see is this segment is the complete Pearl Fey package. She does not develop, she does not grow, she's just...Pearl. To be sure, interesting plot stuff will start to happen around her, but none of it really has anything to do with who she is, for reasons we'll likely get into when we get to those cases. On the whole, Pearl has the least amount of character development of any assistant in the series, and partially because of that, she's one of my least favorite. I still like her fine, but I wish she was ever allowed to develop in any meaningful way.
I knew your opinion on her, which is why I left it open to future development. As of now, we just met her. So I'll keep an eye on her going forward.
Huh, I don't remember sharing this opinion before with you, but okay. Again, it's not that I don't like Pearl, I just feel she's underdeveloped. Now, when it comes to the examinables at the Wright and Co Law Offices, they too are a little underdeveloped, as this time around two of the four have nothing of interest, namely Charley the plant and the Gatewater Hotel across the street. The poster is still a Steel Samurai one, Maya having changed it before leaving last game, and Phoenix mentions that while he feels it clashes heavily with the law office aesthetic, Maya threatened to put a magic curse on him if he takes it down. It just makes me think about going to see a lawyer and seeing a framed Power Rangers poster on their wall.
Does seem kind of strange that the first major case of the sequel wouldn't have anything new in the office.
The other interesting thing is that Phoenix has left Mia's bookshelf completely untouched for so long that her law books are now covered in a thick layer of dust. While Phoenix is aware he should probably read some of them at some point, he talks about it like a kid needing to eat his vegetables.
Here I thought it would be because he couldn't bear to change anything. But the actual reason is pretty on-brand.
Did you have anything else you wanted to talk about for this segment, or should we call it a day?
Oh, I do want to amend my statement from last time about the soundtrack. It's really just the basic courtroom music I don't like as much; most everything else is excellent. Though I am torn between appreciating the Kurain Village theme for its atmosphere, and hating it because it's not particularly listenable and we're going to be listening to it a lot during this case.
I agree that the Kurain theme, while nice, isn't the most fun to listen to, but I still cannot help but disagree about the court music. All the music from the games is on Spotify, I recently discovered, but all with Japanese titles, so I listened to all the OST's while I separated them into playlists. While the first game's court music is iconic, I feel like Justice For All's has more smooth edges, more polish, like they were really starting to understand the GBA sound system they were working with. Their mastery of it comes in the next game, but I do really adore Justice For All's Trial suites.
Oh right, one more thing: I didn't hate Lotta in this segment? She seemed to actually be wrestling with the kinda of things she sees being a paranormal photographer, which shows more judgment and maturity than when she just wanted to get famous at an innocent man's expense. Time will tell if that relatively positive impression holds up, but I was surprised to feel alright about her so far.
Okay, you know what? I will, for this very moment, agree that she isn't used poorly. In fact, I will commend the writers for the fact we only interact with her for like five minutes, she doesn't overstay her welcome like she did in Turnabout Goodbyes.
Yeah, I'm not confident I'll feel as warmly toward her as the case progresses, but we'll see how the game handles her character.
Well, those nice words said, anything else?
I think that's it for now!
Well then, next time we'll be meeting our new prosecutor and getting another dose of Lotta Hart. Auf wiedersehen.
Until next time!
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