Hallo, alle miteinander, and welcome back to Wright Wednesday. In case you weren't aware, this is the weekly series where we recap, analyze, and review the cases of the Ace Attorney series. My name is Roy, and I have never been a security guard.
My name is Sam, and I interviewed to be a security guard once. It sounded like the absolute pits and I did not take the job.
This week we are looking at the third segment of The Stolen Turnabout. Last time, our day in court ended with a bittersweet victory, as our client, the adorable Ron DeLite, was declared Not Guilty of being a thief, only to be arrested for murder before our very eyes. What happens after that, Sam?
Maya is convinced that Ron could not have murdered the CEO of KB Security, and Pearl decides to take the Sacred Urn to Kurain Village to have it looked at. Maya notes that the urn is now put back together, with the letters once again spelling “AMI” instead of “IAM” (though of course she doesn't know that Pearl is the reason it was out of shape in the first place). It also has pink splotches on it, which weren’t there before. There’s a side note about Maya wanting to undergo severe training for her spirit channeling, to avoid tragic events like the events of the previous game. It gives the clear impression that Maya lost control of a violent spirit and killed someone, despite that very much not being what happened, so that’s weird.
Once again, they try to avoid spoiling a case from a previous game in the series.
I guess so, it's just weird to imply that Maya has a guilt complex about a failure as a spirit medium when no such failure actually happened.
At the DeLite’s house, Dessie is distraught that her heroic moment ended up getting Ron accused of murder. We find out that Ron and Dessie met when Ron saved her life from robbers; apparently he handles himself in a tough situation better than it would seem (or at least terrifies enemies with his desperate wails). We also find out that she thinks Ron still works at KB security, despite Godot claiming he’s a former employee. But she tells Phoenix how to get to the office, so they go.
Ron and Desirée make for a cute couple.
Gumshoe is at the scene of the crime, and fills them in. Kane Bullard’s body was found at 9am in the morning, and time of death is estimated at 1am on October 12th (the same date and time as the theft), due to blunt force trauma to the head. His body was then stashed in the large safe in his office, which is why no one found him until so long after the murder. When talking about Atmey, he points out that the case surrounding the Tear of Emanon is unique in that there was a witness, which makes Gumshoe wonder how he pulled off that heist. He also confirms that Godot recently showed up out of nowhere, without a single case under his belt, but is clearly no amateur.
In the words of Phoenix, "Just who is that masked man?"
The safe in Bullard's office has no fingerprints on it, but of course, it had to have been opened somehow. Gumshoe confirms that only a few people know how to open it, and each of them (except former security chief Ron DeLite) has airtight alibis. There’s an emergency button behind the CEO’s desk that sounds an alarm and connects to the guard room in the basement; if pressed, it summons security to the office. But not only does the buzzer have no fingerprints, security reports the alarm didn’t go off on the night of the murder.
What’s more, there’s a giant file with a ton of detailed information on Mask✰DeMasque’s heists; his methods, crime scenes, and the treasures he’s stolen along with their values (though Phoenix feels like the amounts listed are kind of low). He copies the list down for later reference.
That piece of evidence...we will have to talk more about it next week, I think.
Well I hope so, if any of this evidence doesn't get talked about in the court session I feel like the game has failed on some level.
Next, at Lordly Taylor, Adrian Andrews is understandably distraught, but greatly relieved to hear that the urn has been found. But she’s still down on herself for hiring Atmey to guard the treasures, considering he’s supposedly the true thief. She reiterates that she hired him about 20 days ago, and the calling card arrived 10 days ago. But she knows little about his actions on the night of the theft, since he claimed to remain hidden (apparently, we now understand, as an alibi for committing the crime himself).
She is also skittish every time the urn comes up.
When Phoenix brings up how different the urn looks from before, Adrian fearfully denies knowing anything about that, and Psyche-Locks appear around her. It would seem the secret of the urn’s new appearance lies not with Atmey, but with Adrian Andrews.
Before leaving the building, Phoenix and Maya head over to the security room connected to the big red button. Sure enough, that’s where Larry works. He’s happy to chat with Maya about stuff, but seems a bit more reluctant to talk to Phoenix. After how our protagonist has been treating him lately, including in this very scene, I don’t blame him. Anyway, Larry did some digging and it turns out that Ron was actually fired from KB Security a year ago with no warning, but Larry doesn’t know why.
When Phoenix asks about him being there the night of the crime, some Psyche-Locks appear, but they’re easy to break. Larry tries to insist he was at his post the whole time, but Phoenix can Present the wallet as evidence that Larry clearly left it at some point, since the wallet was not found in his security room. From there, Larry tries to say that it was the guy before his shift that failed, since the murderer could have come to the CEO’s office before 10AM. But once again, we know from the ID Card that it was used at 1AM. This breaks his locks, and Larry must admit he wasn’t in the security office when the murder occurred.
Which is, believe it or not, not even his biggest screwup here.
At the very least, Larry seems very penitent for his failure to protect the CEO. Apparently he wasn’t there because his girlfriend had asked to meet up, wherein her new boyfriend beat him up. Eager to redeem himself, Larry is now able to be Presented evidence, so he can give Phoenix more information. A lot of the stuff you Present to him emphasizes that Larry is ‘trying to turn over a new leaf and be better’ only to ‘revert to his old ways’ of being a horndog, but what’s so weird is that the ‘New Improved Larry’ mostly feels like the Larry in the first game, and the ‘Real Larry’ he keeps coming back to is the new, worse characterization.
This scene honestly made me understand your frustration more than the previous ones had. It really does feel like they're treating all his worst impulses as the "real" Larry, when that hadn't really been the case before.
Who's mad? I'm mad. The important thing to show him is the Emergency Buzzer. He reveals there’s a record of every time it’s pressed, and at Maya’s request he double-checks the record for the night of the crime...only to realize it was pressed. Namely, at the time of the murder. But no one knew because the office was empty at the time.
Leaving the office is negligent, but somehow completely missing that the record does show the buzzer went off? Come on.
We both have/had jobs about staying in an office with no one else there, we would know.
Can confirm.
Heading to the Detention Center, Ron is very aware he needs Phoenix’s help to beat the murder charge. He does insist he’s Mask✰DeMasque, even though Atmey admitted to being the thief in the trial. Ron doesn’t know what to make of that, only able to suggest that maybe the detective is deluded. Regarding the murder, Ron admits to heading to KB Security that night, as the blackmail letter instructed.
When he opened the door, he briefly saw a (familiar) silhouette before being knocked unconscious. Once he woke up, Kane Bullard’s dead body was in front of him, so he used his skills as an ex-security team chief to lock it in the safe to put off the investigation. He was able to get out without being seen on camera, once again because he knows the building from working there before. All of this forces Maya to admit he sounds more than a little suspicious.
In any case he does seem like a more experienced criminal than he previously has, though his story makes enough sense that it's legitimately unclear which of these crimes might have been his.
The picture then gets a little more clear. When asked about being fired from the security company, he asks them to not let his wife know, since even though it happened a year ago, she still isn’t aware. He’s aware that she’ll certainly find out someday, that he has to tell her, but he’s terrified of doing it. He’s scared of letting her know partially because Desirée hates criminals, and he thinks the marriage would be over now that he’s a famous thief. His reason for becoming one? Desirée’s spending habit. His job wasn’t enough to cover the cost, so he took up a life of crime to afford it.
Kind of a stereotype the game is using there, an ungenerous reading could get a lot from a man being forced into a life of crime because his wife shops too much, but the two of them are so cute together I have trouble being mad.
I feel like they're consciously playing with said stereotype, to some extent. Really, the only reason it's a problem is because Ron is too accommodating and scared of conflict to talk to her about it. I bet that if he had just told her about losing his job when it happened, she would have cut spending to help.
Maybe so! Ace Attorney is not above sexism, but this makes sense for the characters, and I don't get the intention this is malicious in any case.
Presenting the newspaper article leads to Ron excitedly telling Maya and Phoenix about his first theft. That guard in the photo, who multiple characters thought looked familiar? That’s Ron. He was almost caught, so he changed out of his Mask✰DeMasque costume and switched into his work attire. Sadly, Atmey found the costume, forcing Ron to make a new one from scratch afterwards. This is also when he reveals that, after his first crime, he got the first of the blackmail letters. As in plural. This is news to Phoenix.
And also, with the upcoming revelation, makes his successful career way more believable. The kid who did that costume trash trick could not have pulled all this off as he was.
Hmm...I will want to talk more about that later, in the analysis of this or the next segment. Anyway, the letter found in his apartment wasn’t the first one, just the first one that asked him to meet up a certain place at a certain time. The letter claimed they had proof Ron was the thief, and made him give them the treasure he stole. In return, he was sent $10,000. After that, Ron started getting heist plans sent to the mail, detailing what treasures to steal and how to do it. Each time, he’d deposit the stolen treasure in a safe deposit box and get sent cash in return for his work.
In effect, he really is Mask✰DeMasque, but the only heist he planned was his first, and he never tried to steal the Urn and knows nothing about that particular crime. Before leaving, Phoenix asks Ron to confirm he didn’t kill Bullard, and Ron enthusiastically swears that is the case. That’s why he turned himself in, to get an alibi for the murder.
Once again we have to ask ourselves about the culpability of the person who did not commit the crime, but (in effect) hired the criminal. Though really it's never much of a question, of course the person blackmailing him and planning his heists is just as Guilty as he is.
This is when Pearl finally shows up again with the Sacred Urn. The folks at Kurain confirmed it is the real urn, but that the pink stuff all over it is paint, which ended up on it recently somehow. I mean, I say ‘somehow’ but it’s been obvious since day one what happened. We need to prove it though, which means going back to see Adrian and break her Psyche-Locks.
These clues have been bugging me from the get-go honestly.
Heading back to the Basement Warehouse, we first are prompted to Examine the scene again to get the evidence we need, which I don’t see why we couldn’t have added to the Court Record before but whatever. Specifically, we need to Examine the box and the paint marks. From there, Presenting the Magatama, Adrian’s first tactic is to try claiming the urn is a fake, but we know that now to definitely not be the case.
Phoenix brings up how it was broken a year ago, and must have been broken and put back together again more recently. After all, the urn looks completely different on the poster. Next she tries to say that maybe someone else broke it, but Phoenix can tie the urn directly to Lordly Tailor with the pink paint marks on the way. Her last attempt to dodge all of this is claiming there’s no proof the paint from both are necessarily connected, so the last thing to Present is the box, which matches the paint marks and contained the urn.
Easiest Psyche-Locks to break since Oldbag caved for an autograph, really.
With the locks broken, Adrian finally admits she broke the Sacred Urn. It happened two weeks ago, when she tripped on some paint while holding the box. She did her best to fix everything, but is incredibly embarrassed she messed up like that, something Pearl can relate to. When Maya brings up they didn’t see the paint stains when they visited the night before the crimes, Adrian reveals she moved the Ami Fey statue over the paint to hide what had happened.
It got there earlier that day, so it seemed like the perfect solution. Pearl brings up the only remaining issue: the day after the murder, the statue has been moved out of the way, revealing the paint, but Adrian didn’t do that. After all, she was trying to hide the paint. That minor mystery in mind, the day of investigation ends. So, what did you want to start with for analysis, Sam?
Well, as far as the case's themes go, this segment is mostly reinforcement of existing themes. We found out there's secretly another person behind the person with the mask (reinforcing the idea of secret identities and hiding who you truly are), as well as finding out that Ron DeLite is hiding his true actions from his wife for fear she won't like who he's become.
But mostly, this segment is a fact-finding mission. Its primary purpose seems to be dispensing the information we need to continue through the mystery.
You are definitely right that this segment continues to ongoing theme, even though we still need one more segment to get all the pieces it's playing with. That said, this segment did pretty much fully elucidate the relationship between our client and his wife.
That is true. They're an odd couple, but this segment does clarify why they work together better than we might expect. And exactly what's going on with Ron's new career.
I actually have a bit more to say about that, but full stop it is not really my analysis. There's a tumblr user who goes by Lady Love and Justice who wrote a wonderful post that I have to crib from just a little, and you can find it here.
Basically, you can map Ron and Dessie's relationship onto the one from the last case, between Phoenix and Dahlia. What makes it neat is how it's not a one-to-one for each character, but that each person has a bit of the two people in the other relationship.
Ron is a lot like younger Phoenix. They're both naive, eager for attention and validation, prone to screaming and crying, and willing to do illegal things for the ones they love. But Ron is also like Dahlia, in how he hides important parts of who he is from his partner, thinking he can control their relationship.
Desirée is clearly a lot like Dahlia, except without the evil. She clearly wears the pants, so to speak, in the relationship, she's well aware of how her beauty affects others, and she has a fairly loose relationship with rules/the law. But like Phoenix, she doesn't really see her partner for who he really is. Just as Dahlia asked for the necklace back time and time again, Ron has tried to tell Dessie that he's a thief. Just as Phoenix thought Dahlia was just embarrassed, ignoring the fact she clearly really did want the gift back, Desiree interprets her husband's behavior as delusion, rather than seeing the obvious fact that he really is Mask✰DeMasque. Both are willing to overlook reality to fit the narrative they would rather be true.
Clearly, Ron and Desirée are a more functioning couple than Phoenix and Dahlia, since, y'know, one isn't trying to murder the other, but it's still a really neat observation I'm glad I could find and pass on.
Oh, that's a cool way to look at it! I wonder if the tendency to see what we want to in the face of troublesome or inconvenient truths might be another running theme of this game, then. It's certainly an element of both these cases, and works very well with the other theme of masks and secrets; people who hide some or all of their true selves are well-positioned to take advantage of people who are substituting reality with their own expectations.
...I think you actually might be onto something, because I'm pretty sure the same thing is true of at the very least the next two cases in this game. Look at us, working together and digging out those minor themes in this mostly themeless game!
Go us! I'll make sure to keep an eye out as we go!
Something interesting that happens early on in this segment is Maya talking a little about how she doesn't go back to Kurain anymore. Aside from a reference to Maya recently getting her own place to live in Turnabout Sisters, I feel like this is the first time it's been referenced that Maya has an apartment and lives in LA, and doesn't really go to Kurain Village, in a long time. She also mentions riding a bicycle, which means neither she or Phoenix has a car. I've never lived in LA, so I have no clue if living there without a car and just using a bike/public transport is really feasible.
It's pretty common from what I understand. When I've been there everyone used taxis and rideshares. I am curious how Maya is affording to live anywhere? But I guess it would be kinda unethical for Phoenix not to pay her, even if she's not really...doing anything a legal assistant would do?
I'm sure she earns some kind of wage, and she presumably has inherited money from the family to pay for other expenses. Especially considering she's their heir.
Makes sense. However much money a commune of spirit mediums living hours away from civilization make I guess?
Well, this case has accentuated something brought up in Reunion and Turnabout, if you examine a lot of the Fry family heirlooms: they are extremely frugal.
Frugal, or poor?
They have a holy relic that counts over a hundred ways to save money. Imma go with frugal.
Okay, that's fair.
Speaking of Kurain Village, you mentioned in the recap how, in their attempt to once again briefly go over the events of Reunion and Turnabout, they made it sound like Maya was taken over by a spirit when...that did not happen at all.
I'm a little confused about that. Honestly I'm starting to think I just shouldn't expect the series' character development to be consistent across games, which is kind of disappointing.
I actually don't necessarily see it that way. Once again, they don't want to spoil the details of that case, and mentioning that Maya didn't actually get possessed by a dangerous spirit would qualify as a spoiler for that mystery. It's phrased vaguely enough that they could be instead talking about the fact that the case was just plain traumatic for Maya, especially in how she feels about her channeling ability.
I get not spoiling things, but the difference between "was framed for a murder during a failed spirit channeling" and "murdered someone because she lost control of her spirit channeling" are two drastically different things that mean significantly different things for the character. I'm just honestly kind of put off by the game pretending Maya is suffering from guilt over something that, canonically, she straight-up didn't do.
I am assuredly of the opinion that this little bit of trying to keep the mystery to an old case is detrimental, absolutely. That said, I feel like if it was worded a little better, it could still work. Putting aside the fact that she didn't channel anyone during that murder, Maya could still be feeling guilty, in fact it's pretty clear she does and why.
That murder was partially committed to take a title from Maya that she doesn't even want, and in the process she lost a close member of her family. (Even if we never see her and Morgan interact on-screen.) It's always seemed to me that, part of Maya's tragedy is that she's stuck being connected to this tradition she isn't entirely comfortable with, while also being burdened with the knowledge that she has what so many other people want, but cannot give to them to relieve herself of the burden without losing her family entirely.
See, yes, that is extremely interesting and I would much prefer the game went with that, rather than imply a far simpler guilt complex based on inaccurate events.
Another thing we briefly mentioned in the recap was Larry's continued Flanderization and...it was very hard for me to play through that scene with him.
Honestly when you first complained about this to me, I wasn't sure I saw it, but this scene really convinces me of what you're talking about. He comes across not just as a shallow comic relief character, but as a genuinely not-very-good person, which just isn't the vibe I got from him originally.
What sucks is that there's some fun Maya and Larry interactions here, which kind of contribute to the incredibly under-appreciated ship between them, but that is kind of ruined by how horribly Larry is written on the whole in this scene.
It's hard to ship Maya with the Larry we're seeing here, for sure.
In...I was going to say "less shippy topics", but actually for some people it might still be pretty shippy, but if you show Larry's profile to Desirée, she makes it clear she was well aware he was hitting on her, and badly.
She may not know her husband is a thief but she doesn't seem unfamiliar with being hit on.
Speaking of Desirée, I'm not sure if you've noticed Oldbag's weird space outfit is just chilling in Ron's home, but if you examine it during this segment, Desirée actually explains why it's there. Apparently, around a year ago, Ron came home from work with it, and it was a gift from one of his coworkers at KB Security. With that in mind, Phoenix wonders if that company was who provided the security at the Gatewater Imperial Hotel for a certain event. Does that mean Oldbag's been working at KB Security for quite a while, then?
That does track! I mean she worked security for the studio long enough, I'm sure she was able to get another stable security job afterward. I wouldn't be surprised if she's been there ever since the aftermath of Turnabout Samurai.
I also don't know if you noticed this, but it felt like, throughout this investigation segment, Phoenix and Maya kept flip-flopping on whether they thought Ron was actually Mask✰DeMasque? Like, when they talk to Desirée, it seems like they think he is, but when they talk to Ron himself, they don't. It almost felt like they took the opposite position of whoever they were talking to.
I suppose I interpreted it as them being unsure, but even that hits kind of weird at this point. Maybe Phoenix is just taking the opposite position in hopes of getting more information, but that wouldn't explain his own thoughts. So...yeah, it is kinda weird.
Are you up for talking about some Wright and Co Examinables?
Always!
There's not as much as usual, because Examining the window or the poster gives the same exact description as the day before, a rarity in the series so far. Looking at Charley mostly gives the same stuff as the day before, but with the new addition that Phoenix never forgets to water him, because Mia loved the plant so much.
Aw, that's nice. Three games in its nice to still see Mia's influence in small ways.
Speaking of Mia, Examining the bookshelf has a lot of the usual stuff, only to end with Phoenix realizing that, y'know, he didn't buy any of those books, they're Mia's. She left them to him. And they're just sitting there, getting dusty.
Well that's...kinda sad, actually.
It is, and there's also kind of an implication from how Phoenix phrases it that Mia helped him cram for the bar exam using those books.
Aw. I'd enjoy seeing that flashback, actually.
I would too! We know very little about Phoenix's life between his college years and the first case. Hell, for that matter, we don't know a lot about his life outside being a lawyer period.
I guess that's true. Doesn't help that he reacts to pretty much every outside interest as though he's confused about it. No idea what the guy likes.
I mean, there is that, but like...what are his parents like? Are they okay with his career choice? Does he have friends outside of work? Considering most of those questions have answers for later series protagonists, it feels odd that Phoenix is such a nothing character in some ways.
I was just thinking about this compared to Apollo and it's weird that Phoenix gets so little...not character development, necessarily, but expansion, I guess.
You brought up Apollo, not me, but since mah boi's name has been spoken, I must say that they did such a great job setting up Apollo's character in just his first game that I felt like I had a great understanding of who he was outside of work and what his personal life was like. Apollo is best Ace Attorney, don't @ me.
Honestly, how people are so down on that game is entirely beyond me.
Maybe we'll talk about that more in the not-too-distant future when we cover that game, but next week we'll have to settle for finishing The Stolen Turnabout. Auf wiedersehen!
See you all then!
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